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New grant program to support smart development around transit lines is open for business

Webinar info updated below: A program created in the 2012 transportation law to help communities plan for transit-oriented development is open for business — and T4America is ready to help your community win some of that grant funding.

Building structured parking, public amenities and pedestrian-safe streets are part of the public infrastructure needed for successful economic development around transit.

One of the few bright spots in MAP-21, the 2012 update of the federal transportation program, was the creation of a small pilot program of competitive grants for communities trying to support better development within their new transit corridors — one smart way to boost ridership and support local economic development. *Funds can also be used on projects that increase capacity on existing transit lines, but for the most part, these funds will support planning for new transit lines.

It’s a small program, but one that could have a huge impact in the recipient communities. The Federal Transit Administration announced late last week that they’re now accepting applications from transit agencies until November 3, for a total of almost $20 million in available funding (for the two years since MAP-21 passed).

(Speakers updated 9/23) With the FTA open to receive grant applications, T4America has organized an online session to explain the program, how it works, and what kind of applications FTA will be looking for. We’ll have Homer Carlisle, professional staff for the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Development Committee, John Hemplemann, Founding Partner of Cairncross & Hempelmann, as well as experts from Transportation for America to discuss this new program. Find out more information about this webinar taking place on Friday, September 26, and register today right here.

According to the notice from FTA, “the grants will fund comprehensive planning that supports economic development, ridership, multimodal connectivity and accessibility, increased transit access for pedestrian and bicycle traffic, and mixed-use development near transit stations.”

This type of planning has been used successfully in transit corridors such as the Foothill Extension of the Gold Line which connected 11 small cities east of Los Angeles, the West Corridor that connects Denver with the suburban community of Lakewood, and the Green Line which connects Minneapolis to Saint Paul. As shown in these cases, planning for development along the entire corridor – rather than just one station area at a time –can attract private-sector interest as well as stronger community consensus by creating a complete picture of the development opportunities presented by the new transit line.

Rail and rapid bus lines often cross multiple jurisdictions, which can make coordinated planning of development at stations difficult. As an example, while most would agree some share of housing along such lines should be affordable to low-wage workers, what if none of the cities along the line choose to provide for it as part of new development at their station areas? What if one of the cities chooses not to allow walkable development at all around their new station, undermining the ridership potential of the entire line? Coordinated planning involving all of the jurisdictions along a corridor can help to address these issues at the front end, to capture the maximum development potential of the line.

FTA will focus on funding the kind of planning that would not occur without federal support. Grants will fund planning around an entire transit corridor, not just individual station areas, particularly corridors where there are significant challenges to transit-oriented planning, low levels of existing development, or limited local financial capacity.

Transit agencies that are building new transit systems or upgrading existing ones will be eligible to apply for new planning grants, in partnership with local land use agencies and the private sector, to help them efficiently locate jobs and housing near new transit stations, boosting ridership and increasing the amount of money gained back at the farebox.

A stirring persuasion for deciding to vote for transit: seeing it built next door

One of the most powerful avenues for persuading a skeptical community to invest in transit is to see it successfully implemented nearby — whether in the community or neighborhood right next door, or a city and region a few hours away. This trend is illustrated in two of this year’s Transportation Vote 2012 ballot measures through two very different stories in Virginia and North Carolina.

In the tidewater region along the Virginia coast, discussions ramped up in the 1980s and 90s about a light rail system connecting the neighboring cities of Norfolk — a little more inland — and Virginia Beach on the Atlantic Ocean, mostly via an underutilized Norfolk Southern railroad corridor that runs in a neat, straight line from Norfolk all the way to the beach.

In 1999, an attempt was made to pass a referendum on the potential light rail system in the City of Virginia Beach, but voters rejected it. Perhaps as a result of the controversy or simple issue fatigue after talking about it the concept for more than a decade, the Virginia Beach city council washed their hands of the whole affair and passed a resolution affirming that the city would have nothing to do with the future construction of the light rail system for ten years.

That setback didn’t stop the project in its tracks.

Norfolk decided to forge ahead on their own with a system spanning the core of their mostly linear city along the Elizabeth River. And in summer of 2011, The Tide — the first light rail system in Virginia — opened to huge crowds and daily ridership exceeding projections.

Crowds of people took rides during the Grand Opening of The Tide in Norfolk, Virginia. Newtown Road Station. Photo by D. Allen Covey, VDOT

Down the road in nearby Virginia Beach, citizens there finally got to move beyond renderings and promises and meetings and see a brand new working light rail system through the center of their neighboring city just a few miles away. Perhaps they bemoaned the perpetual traffic congestion on I-264 between the two cities and wistfully thought about how nice it would be to hop on a train at the beach and get to the downtown mall or the Tides baseball park right on the river in Norfolk.

But most powerfully, the idea of rail transit in their community was no longer an abstraction; a figment of some planner’s or city councilperson’s imagination. There it was, dropping off students by the thousands at Norfolk State and winding right through a newly rebuilt MacArthur Square and park by the mall every day with shiny new passenger vehicles on the way to the burgeoning hospital complex on the west side of town.

A year and a half later, it’s easy to understand how Virginia Beach voters went to the polls Tuesday and gave a hearty “me too!” to the Tide system. Though it was a nonbinding resolution directing the city council that still has the final say on moving forward, 62 percent of voters supported the measure. And in no small part because of the case study of success just a few miles west.

MacArthur Square in the center of Norfolk before, and how it looks after tearing down an old office building and creating a stop and a new park across from the downtown mall. First photo from Bing Maps, second photo by Steve Earley, the Virginian-Pilot

North Carolina Research Triangle

Raleigh-Durham and Charlotte are just a few hours apart on Interstates 85 and 40 and about the same size in population (1.7 million) yet Charlotte has done far more to invest in rail transit in the last decade, with more to come. (Though acknowledging the differences: Charlotte is a metro anchored by a central city and the more spread-out Triangle region is composed of the large and small cities of Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill, Cary and the suburban Research Triangle Park.)

After the better part of two decades of discussion and study, Charlotte’s new Lynx Blue Line opened in 2007 and is a popular line running south from downtown to “uptown” Charlotte that has stimulated a wealth of new development along the way. According to our friends over the Center for Transit-Oriented Development, the Blue Line has catalyzed more than 10 million square feet of new housing, retail and office development along the corridor.

Simliar plans have been discussed in the Raleigh-Durham metro area for almost as long, but with four cities in three different counties trying to agree on a single region-wide plan, they’ve certainly had a harder time making it happen.

Perhaps prodded along by the success of the Blue Line down the road in rival Charlotte, Durham approved a half-cent sales tax last year to fund transit operations and a regional light rail line toward Chapel Hill, and Orange County (Chapel Hill) approved their half-cent tax to do the same just this week on Tuesday.

Rendering of a station in Durham courtesy of Triangle Transit

Unfortunately, the third partner in the region, Wake County (Raleigh), decided not to put a sales tax on the ballot this fall, so as of yet, there’s no truly regional commitment to building rail transit.

Leaders of similar sized cities and regions know that investing in transit, the signals it sends to employers, and the kind of growth that it can stimulate are key to continuing to attract a smart workforce. In a similar story about Nashville, Ralph Schulz, president of the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce, told the Nashville Ledger that “the lack of a mass transit system costs the area about one in five businesses considering relocating here.” (In that story you’ll see that Nashville Mayor Karl Dean knows it too and is a tireless advocate for investing in more transit.)

With Charlotte signing on the dotted line with the Federal Transit Administration just a few weeks ago to move ahead on a 9-mile expansion to the Blue Line that will reach northward to UNC-Charlotte, the bar has been raised in the region which the Triangle most closely identifies as their competition for jobs and workers.

While they’re two-thirds of the way to a regional system with Orange and Durham approving the tax, unlike Norfolk’s story, the utility of a Chapel Hill-Durham line will be incredibly limited without including lines into Wake County to connect the thousands of jobs in the Research Triangle Park and downtown Raleigh with Durham.

But every trip that a Triangle leader or citizen takes down the road to Charlotte will be a powerful reminder that successful new rail transit in a similar still-sprawling southern city is a downpayment on future growth that reaps dividends in shorter commutes, more access to jobs and neighborhoods, and an increase in the type of walkable neighborhoods that are so heavily in demand these days.

On an optimistic note, if a booming suburban city in the South with jobs scattered across the region like Raleigh can find a way forward with more transit, there’s hope for many other similar regions.

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Though these regions have voted to tax themselves to invest in transit and make their vision for the future a reality, they can’t do it alone. They need a strong federal partner to come through and help leverage those local dollars into tracks in the ground one day.

America’s transit systems require $77.7 billion just to reach a state of good repair

Old Train Car with Broken Glass Originally uploaded by The Upstairs Room to Flickr.

Failure to keep up with regular maintenance and repair in many of our country’s public transportation systems due to tightened budgets is literally slowing us down, through longer commutes, unreliable service and reduced access, exacerbating the effects of a down economy and high unemployment.

This is part of what prompted Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood to seek a report on the cost of bringing our nation’s transit systems into a state of good repair.

The Federal Transit Administration study reveals chronic underinvestment in the nation’s transit systems and estimates $77.7 billion is needed just to rehabilitate what we already have. Unfortunately, that figure is more of a floor than a ceiling. The $77.7 billion would simply modernize and repair existing transit systems, without even beginning to build the tracks or build the new projects urgently needed to keep up with burgeoning demand.

Sadly, we are nowhere near where we need to be.

Rather than matching the needed level of investment, public transit spending in 2008 clocked in at less than $13 billion. According to the FTA, “the Study’s findings — in particular the magnitude of the investment backlog — emphasize the need for a more comprehensive understanding of transit reinvestment needs.”

The New York Times echoed that theme in a recent story. The Times noted a recent incident on Maryland’s commuter rail system (MARC) in which 900 commuters on a train home to Maryland from Washington, D.C. were stuck near Union Station for two hours, with temperatures reaching as high as 110 degrees. One especially disgruntled rider ventured that air-conditioned jails in Georgia would be preferable to staying on the train.

Though important, this isn’t just about comfort. Millions of Americans, young and old, urban and rural, rely on transit system each day to get to work, school or other daily needs. Disruptions to these services are much more serious than a mere inconvenience. In tough times, we should be making it easier for people to go about their lives and get to work, but chronic underinvestment in transit is making these things harder instead.

One of the biggest contributors to incidents like those on the DC Metro is simply the age of the equipment. Every year, the price of buying new parts and repairing rail lines goes up, and every year the upgrades or repairs don’t happen, keeping the trains running becomes more expensive and difficult.

Despite this, the Times notes that “the federal government is unlikely to step in to help the strapped city, state and local transit agencies,” despite what AASHTO spokesman Tony Dorsey described as “the perfect storm” that is “causing people in the transportation industry to feel very concerned.”

The Times’ outlook aside, there is a plan in Congress to provide aid to struggling agencies hit hard by shrinking state and local budgets. T4 America has strongly encouraged Congress to pass the Public Transportation Preservation Act, which would provide $2 billion in emergency operating funds to help keep systems afloat during this crisis of state and local budgets, as the Times noted.

Whether this bill passes or not, Congress must keep the FTA’s sobering numbers in mind when moving to reauthorize the nation’s surface transportation bill. Some will surely ask whether we can afford these investments, but the question we should be asking is how we afford not to make them.

Transit grants out the federal door, but what about the cuts?

Park and Ride Ribbon Cutting Originally uploaded by WSDOT

Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood is (rightfully) touting the great news on his blog this morning that the Federal Transit Administration met their ambitious deadline for distributing 100% of the transit funds from the stimulus package. That’s great news, but it should be accompanied by the sobering reminder that these public transportation systems that get people to work each day largely couldn’t use that money to keep from having to cut service at a time when it’s needed the most.

The FTA has now doled out 881 grants totaling $7.5 billion since the stimulus was signed last year, and LaHood notes that these grants have funded the purchase of nearly 12,000 buses, vans and rail vehicles; construction or renovation of more than 850 transit facilities; and $620 million in preventive maintenance to keep systems running smoothly.

But what about the hundreds of agencies cutting back service, raising fares, or laying off workers — like the terrible story from Atlanta we chronicled last Friday, where 25-30% of all service may be history come June?

Unfortunately, the FTA’s hands were tied with the rules for the grants set by Congress, which meant that almost all of the money had to be used to purchase new equipment or perform maintenance, even if those agencies couldn’t afford to hire or train the new drivers to operate the buses or railcars. We say “most of the money,” because a group of lawmakers were able to successfully include a provision in a separate bill during the summer that made it possible for local transit agencies to spend up to 10% of their transit stimulus money on operations. But in many places like St. Louis, where the deficit was ten times the $4.6 million they could now spend on service, that’s not enough to keep from having to make drastic cuts or lay workers off, even while getting an influx of federal money.

With a full transportation bill likely months away, in the short term we need to urge the Senate to include money in any future jobs bills to help keep transit systems running.

With millions who depend on these systems each day to get to work, making sure that reliable transit service doesn’t disappear will help get them to their jobs quickly and conveniently each day, ensuring that many of them stay employed.

Feds announce change to consider livability in funding transit projects

TriMet MAX on the Transit Mall Originally uploaded by paulkimo90

From the Transportation for America Flickr group.

Following through on a policy change hinted at for much of 2009, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood announced this morning that federal transit officials would begin considering expanded criteria as they select which transit projects to fund, bringing a new focus on improving livability and sustainability.

At the Transportation Research Board’s annual conference this morning, Secretary LaHood made it clear that a wider range of positive benefits would be considered in the application process for new transit lines or systems. These applications were being unfairly burdened by the previous administration’s cost-effectiveness measurement, which left out such benefits as energy efficiency, economic development and reduced emissions.

“Our new policy for selecting major transit projects will work to promote livability rather than hinder it,” he said. “We want to base our decisions on how much transit helps the environment, how much it improves development opportunities and how it makes our communities better places to live.”

Of course, the one problem that this will not fix is the very high demand for a limited supply of New Starts funding. Even under the old narrow rules for winning approval, only a small percentage of the many applicants were receiving limited funding, and even then, the federal government was only matching about half of local funds, compared with at least 80 percent for road projects.

Still, this change is keeping in line with the positive reforms contained in Chairman Jim Oberstar’s draft reauthorization bill released back in the summer. In June, we quoted the bill’s section on New Starts reform, noting that the proposal to remove the cost-effectiveness requirement and include other “livability” criteria “equalizes the treatment of proposed transit projects and elevates the importance of the benefits that will occur in the community once the project is built.”

The Obama administration and all the leaders at USDOT and the Federal Transit Administration are to be praised for their leadership in changing this program for the better. The next step is securing a greater share of funds for public transportation in the upcoming reauthorization and improving federal match rates to equalize the choices state or regional leaders face between new highways and new transit lines.

Update: Chairman Oberstar responded with a statement of his own praising the change, also observing that New Starts needs greater funding to meet the overwhelming demand. “Now we need increased investment dollars to follow this reform, so that we can move forward with transit projects that relieve congestion, reduce emissions, increase our energy independence, and promote more livable communities across the country,” he said. (From Elana Schor’s post on Streetsblog Capitol Hill)