Posts Tagged ‘Reconnecting America’

Repair Priorities: Transportation spending strategies to save taxpayer dollars and improve roads

Thursday, June 2nd, 2011

SMART GROWTH AMERICA & TAXPAYERS FOR COMMON SENSE
By underfunding repair and allowing roads to fall out of good condition, state leaders are choosing the most expensive type of repair possible, as rehabilitating a road that has completely deteriorated is substantially more expensive than keeping that road in good condition in the first place…Adding further urgency to these budget concerns is that with every dollar spent on new construction, states add to a road system they are already failing to adequately maintain. As a result, states face a large and growing financial burden.

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Transit and Regional Economic Development

Friday, May 20th, 2011

CENTER FOR TRANSIT-ORIENTED DEVELOPMENT
In many regions throughout the country, the fastest growing employment centers are now located in auto-oriented suburban communities at the edge of metropolitan regions. From a public transportation perspective, dispersed and low-density employment centers are very difficult to serve through fixed-guideway transit. The location of new jobs at the edge also has important equity implications, as low-income residents have difficulty accessing jobs in auto-oriented suburbs from their inner city, urban, or rural neighborhoods.

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Transit-Oriented Development Strategic Plan

Monday, April 18th, 2011

THE CENTER FOR TRANSIT-ORIENTED DEVELOPMENT I. Introduction The Portland region has a successful history at achieving transit-oriented development and compact growth. It continues to outperform many of its peer regions when it comes to connecting jobs to transit, promoting alternative modes of transportation beyond the car, and promoting successful new compact development. But, there is [...]

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Jumpstarting the Transportation Space Race: 2011

Thursday, April 14th, 2011

RECONNECTING AMERICA
Since 2004, regions including Denver, Portland, Salt Lake City, Houston, Seattle, Los Angeles, Charlotte and the Twin Cities have been planning large transit network expansions that would move forward faster than the one-line-at-a-time production schedule that in the past had been economically and politically feasible. At the same time, smaller regions have been inspired by the benefits that transit can bring to their communities and have proposed their first streetcars, light rail starter lines and Bus Rapid Transit (BRT). However these places have to compete with each other for the approximately $1.6 billion annually available in the federal New Starts funding program to build out their multibillion-dollar networks.

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Rails to Real Estate: Development Patterns along Three New Transit Lines

Wednesday, March 23rd, 2011

RECONNECTING AMERICA
This report documents real estate development patterns along three recently constructed light rail transit lines in the United States. This topic is important for local planning practitioners, transit agencies, community members and other stakeholders in their efforts to plan for new transit investments and foster transit-oriented development (TOD). Setting realistic expectations about the scale, timing and location of private investment along new transit lines is especially critical where new development is expected to help pay for needed transit improvements, neighborhood amenities, or other community benefits.

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Biden Announces $53 Billion for High-Speed Rail; the Infra Community Responds

Wednesday, February 9th, 2011

“As President Obama said in his State of the Union, there are key places where we cannot afford to sacrifice as a nation – one of which is infrastructure…As a long time Amtrak rider and advocate, I understand the need to invest in a modern rail system that will help connect communities, reduce congestion and create quality, skilled manufacturing jobs that cannot be outsourced. This plan will help us to do that, while also increasing access to convenient high speed rail for more Americans.”
-Vice President Joe Biden

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Guest on The Infra Blog: John Robert Smith, President & CEO, Reconnecting America

Thursday, February 3rd, 2011

John Robert Smith is the President & CEO of Reconnecting America, former Mayor of Meridian, Mississippi, and a long-time leader on behalf of passenger rail. He is co-chairman of Transportation for America, a former Chairman of Amtrak’s board, and a former member of the transportation committees of the National League of Cities and the U.S. [...]

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The Infra Community Responds to the State of the Union Address

Wednesday, January 26th, 2011

“…we need the fastest, most reliable ways to move people, goods, and information – from high-speed rail to high-speed internet.”
-President Barack Obama
State of the Union Address, January 25th, 2011

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Analysis Of Federal Sustainable Communities Grants

Thursday, November 11th, 2010

RECONNECTING AMERICA
The past few months have been an exciting time as large and small communities, representing all corners of the country, have worked on developing collaborative planning processes that will address the unique conditions in their region and which will improve the quality of life for the diverse people that live, work and play there…The impetus for this has been competition for grants springing from the unprecedented partnership announced last year between the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Department of Transportation and the Environmental Protection Agency.

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Weaving Together Vibrant Communities through Transit-Oriented Development

Tuesday, August 31st, 2010

RECONNECTING AMERICA
Transit-oriented development (TOD) is a community development model focused on nurturing healthy people and places and better connecting them to one another through a robust, “multimodal” transportation network. At its core, TOD is about connecting, or reconnecting, the fabric of our communities— imagine a quilt, if you will—where neighborhoods and places of varying shapes, colors, sizes and textures are integrated into a vibrant and cohesive region. Implementing equitable TOD involves rethinking the current paradigm, where a person’s zip code can determine important outcomes such as educational attainment or employment opportunities.

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