Month: November 2011

Partnership in jeopardy: call your members of Congress today!

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If you haven’t yet called your representatives in the House and Senate to express your support for the Partnership for Sustainable Communities, today is a crucial day to pick up the phone. Funding for the Partnership is being decided now, and your call could be the one that helps keep these programs for the year to come.

Call today! Click here for information about calling your representatives.

With funding for the Partnership in serious jeopardy, voicing your concerns to your members of Congress is crucially important to the decision-making process, and it only takes a few minutes.

The Partnership for Sustainable Communities helps towns and cities across the country spur economic growth by investing in local jobs and local communities. This is an efficient, effective investment of taxpayer dollars and one that will keep our country strong for years to come. Help us fight to keep these programs alive!

Tell your representatives to support the Partnership for Sustainable Communities: Call your members of Congress today.

The Partnership depends on the support of advocates like you. When you speak out, Congress listens! Please take a few minutes to call your members of Congress today.

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Summary of the Senate MAP-21 transportation bill proposal

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Crossposted from Transportation for America.

The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee released a draft of the transportation bill late Friday. The EPW committee’s portion of the bill covers what’s known as the “highway” title. (The Banking Committee is responsible for writing the “transit” title and the Commerce Committee covers rail and safety. Those sections of the bill have not been released yet.)

We’ve prepared a short few pages on what MAP-21 means for the federal transportation program. This top-line analysis is a bit on the wonky side, but hopefully it’ll be helpful if you’ve been trying to summarize the 600 pages of bill text.

One of the most visible changes MAP-21 makes is to restructure seven core highway programs and 13+ formula programs into just five core highway programs. This graphic below illustrates those changes. Read on for the full summary, which you can also download here. (PDF)

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Spotlight on Sustainability: Thurston County, Washington

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The following is based on an interview with Kathy McCormick, Senior Planner for the Thurston Regional Planning Council.

When the state of Washington adopted a Growth Management Act in 1990, local jurisdictions set about creating Comprehensive Plans; soliciting public participation in the process. Thurston County was one of them. Now, in the twenty-plus years since that piece of legislation was enacted, the region has grown by over 100,000 people, making it one of the fastest growing counties in the state. “We have a great foundation in the plans that exist from the 90s,” says Kathy McCormick, Senior Planner for the Thurston Regional Planning Council, “But, how can we continue to grow if people don’t know about those plans and how can we address the needs of a changing population if we don’t know what those needs are?” Over two decades later, the region is getting the chance to revisit those issues.

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Request for proposals [update]

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As part of our work with the Governors’ Institute on Community Design, Smart Growth America is seeking to augment our team with a contractor to act as technical experts at Governors’ Institute workshops. Smart Growth America is accepting proposals from firms interested in being part of a grant application to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, for grant EPA-OP-OSC-12-01. The estimated project period for the grant will begin April 1, 2012, and may be up to five years.

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Take action! Help defend funding for the Partnership for Sustainable Communities

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The Senate and the House of Representatives have each proposed budgets for the 2012 federal fiscal year, and each proposal includes different levels of funding for the federal Partnership for Sustainable Communities.

This week, the two houses are scheduled to reconcile their budgets and will decide funding for the Partnership and its programs for next year. That means this week is a crucial time to voice support for the Partnership.

Tell your Senators and Representative that to support the Partnership for Sustainable Communities: Call your members of Congress today.

The Partnership is an innovative and effective collaboration between the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Transportation and Department of Housing and Urban Development. Through the Partnership these agencies coordinate federal policies, programs and resources to achieve multiple goals at the same time. This makes policy more efficient, makes best use of taxpayer dollars and helps build strong, durable economies in communities across the country.

The Partnership depends on the support of advocates like you. When you speak out, Congress listens!

Voice your support: Tell your Senators and Representative to continue funding the Partnership in Fiscal Year 2012.

Let’s work together to protect programs that put taxpayer dollars to good work and strengthen America’s local economies: call your members of Congress today.

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Transportation investments spur private development in downtown Kent, Ohio

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Architect’s rendering of proposed Kent Central Gateway. Image via Kent State University.

When the federal government invests in infrastructure, the funds directly help communities with large, long-term projects. But these investments go beyond direct help: when the government invests in an area, private developers often follow its lead and invest as well. In doing so, these federal investments have an even bigger impact.

Downtown Kent, Ohio, is a great example of this. After many public meetings to create a vision for the city’s future, Kent is transforming its downtown into a vibrant public space. A $20 million TIGER grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation (part of the Partnership for Sustainable Communities) has helped the town build a new multimodal transportation facility – and the city is now experiencing over $100 million in related development.

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Merging smart growth and economic development in New Jersey

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Photo of NJ Transit’s River Line light rail by Flickr user Schaffner.

New Jersey, the most densely populated state in the nation, has historically been a leader in smart growth efforts. In 1986 the state passed its State Planning Act which, among other things, mandated the creation of a State Development and Redevelopment Plan and a State Planning Commission to oversee the plan. The Plan was subsequently developed and laid out a vision for encouraging growth in areas with existing infrastructure while preserving farmland and open space. To help accomplish this vision, the Plan included a State Plan Map to guide investment decisions.

While New Jersey may have some of the strongest smart growth policies on the books, the results on the ground have been more mixed. Though many state agencies have integrated aspects of the State Plan into their regulations, widespread implementation of the plan does not exist at the state level, where individual agencies continue to pursue their own missions. Locally, the state’s strong home-rule tradition meant that the State Plan was merely advisory for municipalities, and attempts to incentivize compliance have been cumbersome and inconsistent. All of this has led to disappointing results in achieving the State Plan’s goals. While there have been smart growth success stories – like the revitalization of New Brunswick and the Gold Coast in Hudson County – the state continues to lose open space to low-density development at an alarming rate.

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