Center for Local and State Solutions
Other Resources--Neal Peirce Column

Category: Article (Journal or Newspaper)
Jurisdiction: City/County Government, International
Management Issues: Catalytic Government, Community Based Strategies, Community/Economic Development
Policy Area: Cities/Counties

For Release Sunday, December 3, 2006


© 2006 Washington Post Writers Group

TRANSIT: POPULAR AND EXPANDING
BUT A HALF LOAF WITHOUT COMPACT GROWTH

By Neal Peirce



Where’s our mobility scenario?  As the country adds its next 100 million people by 2042, what’s to save us from massive roadway congestion, incredibly long commutes, and a degraded environment?

Increasingly, we resist new gas taxes and vote down referendums for more roads; instead, many people insist, “fix it first.”  New privately-financed toll roads?   Highway proponents are moving toward the option, but the public reacts skeptically.

So how about public transit -- new streetcar lines, regional heavy and light rail, commuter lines?  Polls show people strongly in favor, to get to work, to reach entertainment and stadiums, at least to ease other drivers off the roads.  More than two-thirds of transit-related measures were approved by voters in last month’s elections.  Kansas City suggested the shifting public sentiment -- after earlier rejections, voters approved a ballot measure authorizing a 3/8 cent sales tax for a 27-mile light-rail system.

Just since June, St. Louis has opened a $678 million, eight-mile expansion of its existing, previously one-route MetroLink light rail transit line.  Inaugural commuter rail lines have opened to serve Nashville and Albuquerque. Two weeks ago, Denver’s 14 miles of light rail suddenly expanded to 33 as a $879 million southeastern extension opened to much fanfare and boasts about the project’s on-time, under-budget completion.

New highways have fueled the American economy by staggering sums since World War II. But the new Denver line suggests transit can be economically potent too: even before the extension opened, a stunning $4.25 billion in new residential or commercial development was either underway or planned near the new line’s 13 station locations.  And those breakthroughs don’t even count the immense impact likely from the 119-mile FasTracks system that Denverites voted for in 2004, expanding to all corners of their big region in the years ahead.

Add in the highly successful regional rail lines being built in such regions as Charlotte, Salt Lake City, Phoenix, Dallas and Minneapolis, and a new American transit future emerges.  Since 1995, public transit ridership has expanded 25 percent (to 9.7 billion trips in 2005).  From 25 in 2000, the country’s fixed-guideway (rail or bus) transit systems are likely to grow to 42 by 2030, adding 720 stations to today’s total of 3,349.

Yet as expensive as new and expanded transit may be, the ultimate question isn’t money (indeed the federal government’s “New Starts” fund is swamped with 200 applications and shrinking dollars).  Rather, it’s whether we have the will to reshape urban America in more compact, livable, energy- and climate-change conscious ways.  That means organizing regionally -- across our citistate regions -- on multiple fronts:

        + Champion transit-oriented development -- new or expanded town centers and housing near transit stops, aggressively planned and zoned for high densities.  No more stations sitting alone in the midst of vast commuter parking lots.  The Chicago-based Center for Neighborhood Technology (CNT) even recommends recycling existing station parking lots -- 23 million square feet in the Chicago area alone -- for more intense business/residential development, shifting parking to smaller scattered lots or multi-story garages.
       + Make transit stops beacons of living for America’s new millions. Already, the CNT reports, areas around stations support more race and income diversity, city and suburban, than the average neighborhood.  But for new suburban stops, it’s critical to assure moderate-income housing opportunities (employing devices like inclusionary zoning).
        + Inventory our millions of acres of “fallow” sites -- brownfields, abandoned railyards, failed shopping center sites, low grade commercial strips.   Then create strong incentives for owners to combine, recycle, redevelop them.  And work up the political courage to say “no” to NIMBY groups trying to block reasonably denser housing and development in their communities.
        + Do away with mandatory parking slots for new buildings-- let the market decide.  Discover transit opportunities in all sorts of settings.  Along with rail or bus rapid transit at development nodes, encourage linear development along streetcar lines -- an historic formula several cities are now reinventing.  And work to convert auto-only, low-grade retail strips into tree-lined, transit-served boulevards. 
        + Focus on reducing auto trips for errands -- they’re much more numerous than commute trips, studies show.  To keep the cars parked, make “erranding” by foot or cycling much easier.  Even older “spread” suburbs without any transit, suggests Stewart Schwartz of the Washington area’s Coalition for Smarter Growth, could develop rezoned pockets of land for stores or service accessible by foot or bike.  Plus, we can return to siting schools where kids can walk or bike, skipping the mommy chauffeurs and big yellow buses.
        + Encourage employers to broaden telecommuting and flexible hours -- a huge, but only lightly tapped, Internet-age appropriate resource. 

Finally, and critically, we need fresh vision to associate compactness with lively and resilient towns, combatting climate change, and making us less dependent on foreign oil.  We owe it to ourselves and our children -- a new, highly relevant 21st century patriotism. 

Comments may be addressed to npeirce@citistates.com