Transportation and Community Development News
Monday, June 10th, 2013
Flickr photo by alforque
There is a growing consensus that public spending cuts don’t just threaten the provision of crucial services but risk damaging our fragile economic recovery. Cuts to transportation funding are particularly harmful and are, as a recent survey conducted by the American Public Transit Association shows, especially unpopular. Seventy-four percent of respondents supported using public money to “create, expand and improve public transportation.” Nearly 90 percent agreed that public transportation improves access to jobs and close to 80 percent agreed that it “can help pave the way to a stronger economy.” Voters in metro areas across the country have voted to create dedicated revenue streams for transit funding (see Los Angeles and Denver examples).
As former Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell suggested, although political leaders have been reluctant to support increased taxes to pay for transit improvement, there is a growing realization that public transportation is as popular as it is essential. Expanding transit doesn’t just benefit train and bus passengers; it benefits motorists by helping to mitigate traffic congestion. It improves air quality and reduces dependence on foreign oil. Public money invested in transit ultimately comes back to the government in the form of higher tax revenues due to greater economic growth and lower unemployment. Advocates for public transportation still have a fight on their hands to convince opponents of the merits of investing in rail and bus services instead of highway expansion and to translate increasing public support into political action. Thankfully, as Governor Rendell says, “the tide is turning.”
Posted in Going Places, Staff Blog, Transit Funding, Transportation and Community Development | No Comments »
Tuesday, June 4th, 2013
The promise of cargo-oriented development (COD) in Chicago’s South Suburbs got a boost from the Illinois General Assembly last week. Lawmakers passed a bill that would fund incentives to remediate and reuse brownfields to create intermodal, warehousing and light manufacturing jobs on over 1,500 industrial acres in a designated zone of freight-rich southern Cook County.
The South Suburban Brownfield Redevelopment Zone leverages unique south-suburban assets, such as the existing intermodal freight terminals owned by the Canadian National and Union Pacific railroads and their excellent access to rail and interstate highway networks.
Read more »
Posted in Featured Portfolio News, Transportation and Community Development | No Comments »
Monday, June 3rd, 2013
When communities grow compactly, close to jobs and along transit routes, households have greater choice between affordable communities in which to live, increased employment opportunities close to home, and multiple transportation options connecting the two. However, several decades of fragmented regional planning in the Chicago region de-emphasized this connection between housing, transportation choice, and economic development in favor of increased highway capacity and continued suburban expansion. Cheap oil reinforced the illusion of growth for decades, but surging energy prices raised transportation costs and exposed household pocketbooks and municipal budgets to the true cost of sprawl.
To address this challenge, CNT proposed, in Prospering in Place, that the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning (CMAP) establish Priority Development Areas (PDAs) that align investments in transportation, housing, and economic development across public agencies in regional activity centers.
Read more »
Posted in Featured, Featured Portfolio News, Sustainable Prosperity, Transit-Oriented Development, Transportation and Community Development | 2 Comments »
Tuesday, May 28th, 2013
A little over ten years ago, CNT set out to change the way Chicagoans made decisions about personal transportation and car ownership. We initiated a pilot project that introduced carsharing to Chicago, and Chicagoans to carsharing. It worked, and IGO CarSharing was born.
As one of the first carsharing operations in the United States, IGO created a market in Chicago where none existed, expanding year-by-year from a few neighborhoods to a diverse mix of 40 (and four suburbs), and into the only carsharing service with 100-percent low-emission vehicles. As a nonprofit, we’re especially proud of what IGO accomplished and the leading role we played in the development of this new industry.
Today, we are announcing that the car-sharing business of our affiliate, IGO CarSharing, is being acquired by Enterprise Holdings.
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Posted in I-GO, Management, News, Staff Blog | No Comments »
Tuesday, April 30th, 2013
Laying the foundations for long-term, sustainable economic development will require adopting innovative policy solutions to overcome obstacles to growth. Unfortunately, implementing new policy is often politically unpopular, especially when the change involves levying a new charge or increasing taxes to fund investment or influence behavior.
A case in point was illustrated in a presentation given by Dr. Jonas Eliasson of Stockholm’s Royal Institute of Technology at a recent Earth Day event in Chicago. Like most major metropolitan areas, the Swedish capital had long suffered from acute traffic congestion and all of the economic and environmental problems associated with it. Beginning in the early 1990’s, academics and policy experts had discussed the potential solution offered by “congestion pricing,” whereby drivers pay a fee for use of the city’s roads, the level of which depends upon the time of day and the “zone” of the city in which the driver is traveling.
Advocates of the system argued that putting a price on road use would discourage discretionary motorists from driving into the center of the city, leaving the roads less congested at peak times for drivers who had no choice but to drive. Congestion pricing could also encourage people to explore different commuting options like public transit or cycling, as well as provide a potential revenue stream to pay for road maintenance and investment in transit services.
Supporters of congestion pricing soon learned that developing effective solutions is not enough. Transforming ideas into actual implemented policies required a concerted effort to educate the voting public. As Dr. Eliasson described, early public opinion was predictably hostile to any plan to charge drivers for something that was thought of as “free.” However, with a combination of effective public education campaign and some bold political decision making during the early implementation phase in 2006, residents of Stockholm and the surrounding metro area came to see the benefits of the congestion price.
The public education campaign focused on the idea that the charge wasn’t a tax on driving. Instead, it was a fee that reduced traffic congestion. It reminded commuters that traffic-clogged streets are not “free” to use, and that congestion has costs: wasted time, wasted fuel and damage to the environment.
Residents realized that the congestion charge allowed for better traffic management without the need for expensive and disruptive new road building. Public support for the system, which hovered around 30 percent before the 2006 trial is now at close to 70 percent.
The Stockholm example teaches a number of crucial lessons for those interested in public policy. First, well-designed policy solutions can be practically effective in improving peoples’ lives if implemented and managed in a transparent and competent way. Second, the initial unpopularity of controversial ideas shouldn’t dissuade politicians from embracing bold solutions if they truly believe in them. People will notice the improvement and the system’s popularity will increase. Third, the public will support paying for real investment in improving infrastructure if the benefits are explained clearly and the results are visible.
Residents in cities like Stockholm and Singapore, which also has an effective road-pricing system, saw the positive effects of congestion pricing with their own eyes and were won around to the idea. Voters in Los Angeles and Denver supported the creation of dedicated revenue streams to fund transit expansion and improvement and are already beginning to enjoy the benefit of increased choice and reduced road traffic. There’s no reason to believe that the same wouldn’t be true for the voters of Chicago and Cook County.
What do you think? What type of fee or tax to support an expansion of transit and/or reduction in congestion could you support in your community?
Posted in Going Places, Staff Blog, Transportation and Community Development | 3 Comments »
Wednesday, April 24th, 2013
King County Metro Transit, the public transportation administration agency for King County, Washington (which includes Seattle), recently released the Right Size Parking Calculator website, an innovative new tool that allows users to view estimated parking use in the context of a specific site for multi-family developments. The calculator was developed in collaboration with CNT, with grant support from the Federal Highway Administration’s Value Pricing Program.
The announcement came at a ULI Northwest luncheon headlined by Donald Shoup, who discussed the art and science of parking.
King County was interested in developing a tool that could be used to achieve a more balanced approach to parking for the region. Outdated parking requirements have led to parking supply that is not reflective of actual demand, which can have a direct impact on a jurisdiction’s ability to create compact, healthy communities.
Read more »
Posted in Featured, Featured Portfolio News, Transit-Oriented Development, Transportation and Community Development | No Comments »
Friday, March 22nd, 2013
Residential real estate sales prices for properties located near transit are healthier and more resilient than in the broader metropolitan region. That’s the conclusion of The New Real Estate Mantra: Location Near Public Transportation, written by CNT and commissioned by the American Public Transportation Association (APTA) and the National Association of Realtors® (NAR). Although residential real estate prices dropped during the recession in the five regions studied (2006 to 2011 in Boston, Chicago, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Phoenix, and San Francisco), average sales prices for residential properties within walking distance of a heavy rail, light rail, commuter rail, and Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) station outperformed the region by an average of 42 percent.
In Boston, transit-served areas (transit sheds) outperformed the region by a staggering 129 percent. In Chicago, home values in transit served areas performed 30 percent better than the region; in San Francisco, 37 percent; Minneapolis-St Paul, 48 percent; and in Phoenix 37 percent.
Read more »
Posted in Featured Portfolio News, H+T, Location efficiency, Transit-Oriented Development, Transportation and Community Development | 1 Comment »
Friday, February 15th, 2013
Photo credit: Patrick Putze
For nearly a century the Bloomingdale freight line has rolled across and above the City’s Northwest side. Today the tracks are aligned to transform the Bloomingdale into an elevated, mixed-use, linear park and trail running through the heart of Chicago, connecting neighborhoods, the river, and Chicago’s great park system. Since 2003, Friends of the Bloomingdale Trail have been advocating for this conversion of the rail line into Chicago’s next great park. Many community groups and public agencies have participated in a community charrette that led to the development a framework plan for this major endeavor.
CNT is pleased to be hosting, Reframing Ruin: A Prelude to the Bloomingdale Trail, a photography exhibition presented by Friends of the Bloomingdale Trail and The Trust for Public Land. The exhibit showcases the community’s documentation of the future trail, its relationship to the diverse neighborhoods it cuts through, and how we currently interact with this stretch of land through photography. Read more »
Posted in Featured Portfolio News, Transportation and Community Development | No Comments »
Friday, February 8th, 2013
The Center for Transit-Oriented Development (CTOD) today released results of a year-long study into the potential for transit-oriented development to unlock economic, environmental and fiscal benefits for Pittsburgh and Allegheny County. The report, “Transit-Oriented Development Typology Strategy for Allegheny County,” was commissioned by the Pittsburgh Community Reinvestment Group under the auspices of its GoBurgh initiative and funded by the Heinz Endowments. Read more »
Posted in Featured Portfolio News, Location efficiency, Transit-Oriented Development, Transportation and Community Development | No Comments »
Thursday, January 31st, 2013
CNT will be participating in an upcoming summit on Building a 21st Century Transit System. Riders for Better Transit, a group dedicated to organizing Chicagoland transit riders to push for improved and expanded services in the city, will be hosting a summit at the UBS Tower Conference Center on February 25th. Bringing together a group of transportation policy leaders, the summit will discuss the challenges of creating a 21st century transit system. Focusing on issues like reform of the transit authorities’ governance structure and funding sources and investment strategies of the Chicagoland transit system, expert panels will discuss potential solutions to the problems facing the region. Read more »
Posted in Featured Portfolio News, Location efficiency, Transit Funding, Transit Policy, TransitFuture, Transportation and Community Development | No Comments »
