Sarasota - Project may escape traffic rules

Urban design plays a very important role in transportation issues. To support transit options you need a certain level of density to make it work.

Old school ideas like "concurrency" just don't really help -- they are one dimensional just like single use zoning and one way streets..

Sarasota Herald Tribune reporter KEVIN L. MCQUAID wrote this story ...

After months of negotiations, city staff members intend to recommend that Proscenium developer Lion's Gate Development Group Inc. and other builders tap a little-used state and city law that would significantly alter downtown transportation rules for years to come.

That law, which allows developers to pay a "proportional fair share" of holistic traffic improvements, would supersede the concurrency review that now determines how well traffic will be absorbed by roadways.

"If we want this project to happen, there's going to have to be a paradigm shift," said Susan Montgomery, a city transportation planner. "I don't think concurrency has served us all that well."

I agree with Susan