Transportation experts gathered at the Urban Land Institute’s 2011 Fall Meeting in Los Angeles late last month looked into the country’s transportation future and predicted continued uncertainty at the federal level, along with a need for increased innovation at the state level, and increased private sector involvement in transportation infrastructure provision at the local level.
While a new federal transportation bill is unlikely before 2012, at the same time local governments are becoming increasingly sophisticated and innovative in using local financing tools to fund transit investments, including those for streetcars. Read about the dim prospects for transportation legislation and the bright ideas local governments are using to find ways to build streetcar systems.
In Texas, the tide is turning against big road projects located on the suburban fringe. In Dallas–Fort Worth, projections show both diminishing federal, state, and local revenues and a growing, changing population. Read what Mobility 2035, the regional transportation plan, lays out for the area’s resources, priorities, and policies for the next two decades.
Across the country, cities and stakeholders seeking to build new streetcar and light-rail systems are using various funding methods to put together the funding necessary to build and operate the lines, said experts at the Spring Council Forum. Read how all this is playing out against a backdrop of uncertainty at the national level about the size and direction of the federal transportation program.
New partnership models, coupled with greatly expanded private sector involvement, will be needed if cities are to build the urban transit infrastructure that is in high demand across the country, experts said during a panel at ULI’s Spring Council Forum in Phoenix. Learn what new partnerships and strategies leaders in Dallas and Los Angeles are using to move forward with streetcar investments.
At a Labor Day celebration this summer in Milwaukee, President Obama announced plans to create a national infrastructure bank—one of the first times he has publicly supported the strategy as president. When lawmakers take up the issue, they will need models from the United States and abroad. What lessons can be learned from the California Infrastructure and Economic Development Bank, or I-Bank?
The 2009 “stimulus bill,” the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (Recovery Act), has stabilized the economy, created jobs, and spurred investment in green infrastructure and energy efficiency, according to Obama Administration officials who spoke at ULI’s 2010 Fall Meeting on October 14. Read how the “largest investment in energy infrastructure in history” was spent and about an analysis done for Vice President Biden.
For years before the clock ticked down on the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users (SAFETEA-LU), policy makers and advocates have grappled with what should replace it. A major reform effort may be unlikely for the next few years, or longer. Where does a new bill stand, and what is happening in the meantime?
Though less clear, Transportation costs are second only to housing expenses in a typical family’s budget. But efforts to make transportation costs more transparent are underway. The ULI J. Ronald Terwilliger Center for Workforce Housing, working with the Center for Neighborhood Technology (CNT), has developed customizable housing and transportation calculators for three regions: Boston, San Francisco, and Washington D.C. These tools allow homebuyers and renters to enter assumptions about driving and commuting behavior into the calculator and compare transportation costs at different addresses. CNT is also developing a tool that will soon appear on online real estate listing sites in metropolitan areas nationwide, providing information about average transportation expenses for households in a given neighborhood.
Decades in the making, high-speed rail is finally coming to California. In 2008, the state passed a $10 billion bond initiative to build the first leg of its ambitious state-spanning high-speed rail network.
These nation-leading plans were rewarded in January with a $2.25 billion federal infusion, part of an $8 billion high-speed rail grant program made possible by the 2009 stimulus bill. When the California network is completed in 2025—with a projected overall tab of $45 billion—the state will have more than 700 miles (1,100 km) of track that will take passengers from San Francisco to Los Angeles in less than three hours, with trains achieving top speeds of 220 miles per hour (354 kmph). What will it mean for land use?
