MERGE LANES AHEAD Conserving Energy Through Land-Use and Transportation Planning. A series of nine fact sheets dealing with the relationships between transportation, land use, energy and our future. Each fact sheet develops a different topic with useful ideas about transportation and energy. We've called the series Merge Lanes Ahead because we believe that merging the way we plan transportation, land use and energy conservation is ultimately how we will create the kinds of communities Floridians want. That's our goal for this series - to help consumers, policy-makers, and institutions learn how to create more sustainable communities.   MERGE LANES AHEAD in *.pdf format Introduction This first fact sheet describes how topics were selected for the series and provides brief descriptions of the information covered in the other eight fact sheets. Transportation and Energy Consumption: Defining the Problem Fact Sheet 2 examines the connection between transportation and energy consumption and explains why the transportation sector in the United States requires so much of our energy supply. Traffic Congestion: Is highway construction really the answer? Fact Sheet 3 looks at traffic congestion and suggests some questions to consider before assuming that highway construction is the answer to reducing congestion or improving mobility. Street Design Fact Sheet 4 examines road design and provides some suggestions for improving highway aesthetics and making our streets more pedestrian and bicycle friendly. Land Use and Transportation Fact Sheet 5 examines one of these strategies, neotraditional design, in some detail. Neotraditional design, also known as New Urbanism, attempts to develop communities that are less dependent on automobiles, and that enable people to walk from their homes to businesses and stores. The Economics of Driving Your Car: Direct Costs, Hidden Costs and Subsidies Fact Sheet 6 looks at the economics of driving, focusing on direct costs, indirect costs and subsidies. Reducing Automobile Travel Fact Sheet 7 examines alternatives to driving, including telecommuting. Managing Congestion: Community Case Studies Fact Sheet 8 provides case descriptions of several innovative, non-construction alternatives to traffic congestion including transportation management associations; a trip reduction ordinance used by Pleasanton, California; a rideshare-parking management program used by Montgomery County, Maryland; and two transit management strategies used by Phoenix, Arizona and Norfolk, Virginia. Road Blocks to Change Fact sheet 9 concludes the series with a discussion of "road blocks to change". What are the impediments to implementing these ideas and how can they be overcome? Download the free Acrobat viewer to view and print these files.