sionals from the fields of planning, architecture, landscape architecture, research, law and the transportation industries. Concerned Federal agencies were represented by high-level staff members. The directors of the planning studies thought to be the most successful were invited and contributed heavily. Among the highway officials were six who served at one time or another as presidents of AASHO and three others who were heads of their departments. Similar high-level participation came from the other sponsors. The Federal Highway Administration and the Urban Renewal Administrator filled places on the program.
At Williamsburg there were still some parochial views expressed, and fairly sharp differences came out between participants as to the intent and effect of policies or practices of one or another of the agencies represented. But in general the atmosphere from the beginning was one of seeking means to cooperate in developing urban transportation facilities to benefit the whole community, users and nonusers alike.
A full day’s discussion was devoted to the progress of urban transportation planning, emphasizing its technical gains and its financing problems. Another day was devoted to the broad problem of establishing community goals and objectives and determining social values, with successful examples in a few instances described. And another day was devoted to administration, not only of planning and development of plans, but of implementation, both of the transportation programs and of land use controls.
From this review of the state-of-the-art, it could be fairly concluded that tremendous gains in planning techniques had been accomplished and that the importance of close coordination between land use and transportation had been universally accepted. Examples of successful processes embracing both transportation and land use planning over the widest range of population and area boundaries showed that the needed technical processes and administrative machinery could be organized. In these areas it was clearly evident that they generally followed along the lines foreseen as needed at Sagamore. But more than that, the gains in the need for and ability to cooperate among States and their local subdivisions had become equally apparent.
The one area in which little progress had been made, it would seem, was in land use controls. While universally recognized that no transportation system geared to a land use plan could effectively serve land uses unless they developed in adherence to the plan, the assurance of implementation of a land use plan seemed no nearer that at Sagamore. In this area the following measures were proposed to the Conference:
We must define the governmental level at which land-use issues are to be decided.
We must devise positive, rather than negative, controls by which definitive allocations, or even prohibitions, of land use can be made.
We need powers by which public agencies can buy and hold land for future use in accordance with short and long-range development plans legally established and in the public interest.[1]
The Conference concluded that:
Local governments in urban regions should develop workable administrative mechanisms, such as associations of local governments, through which (a) the continuing, coordinated planning process can be carried out in cooperation with Federal and State agencies on a regional basis; and (b) regional plans can be effectively implemented.[2]
In the deliberations and conclusions of the Conference no doubt was left that transportation plans must take into account social and community values, recognizing that as of that time there was no accepted basis for integrating them into the economic analyses customarily made of various alternatives. Again, research was indicated to be needed. But one important point emerged without question—transportation itself is a community value.
And in the conclusions, it was fully accepted that means to bring the decisionmakers into the planning process and to keep the public informed as the planning and programing progressed must be achieved. Words of the recommendation in this area were these:
Urban planning agencies should work actively to achieve (a) public understanding of the planning efforts, and (b) participation of decision-making agencies at appropriate points in the planning process.[3]
While it was accepted that citizens should be kept advised of the planning as it progressed, the conferees evidently saw no reason to bring the citizens into the decisionmaking process, accepting that it was to make decisions that the local officials were elected.
The Williamsburg Report, like its predecessors, was an excellent statement of sound accomplishment and mutual understanding and was likewise given wide distribution. But it carried a stronger official endorsement than any that went before. It was an officially sponsored Conference, and that alone gave it more than usual stature. Beyond that the sponsoring associations made a point of urging their members to be guided by it. The executive director of AASHO noted in his letter transmitting copies of the report to the chief administrative officers of the member departments that “We hope that you will take advantage of reviewing this Report to indoctrinate your Department on the importance of our urban responsibilities and the magnitude of our urban challenges . . .” The Federal Highway Administrator in transmitting copies of the report to the Bureau’s field organization stated that:
The Williamsburg Resolves, buttressed by the accom-panying text of the report, display an impressive area of agreement among the representatives of the several levels of government and the professionals of the different disciplines . . . By this memorandum I am placing the Bureau unequivocally in support of the principles enunciated in this report, and I shall expect all our offices to be guided by them.
Problems of Implementing the Conference Recommendations
It has been said that the Williamsburg Conference marked the high-water mark of urban transportation planning. Without judging the merits of this view, it did mark the high point in efforts of the professionals and associations of officials to join together in a common approach to the problems they had by then fully agreed were mutual. It highlighted a “decade of cooperation.” Following that there seems to have been a decline in real cooperation, and competitive forces both within and without the transportation
