Reconnecting America is a national non-profit organization that is working to integrate transportation systems and the communities they serve, with the goal of generating lasting public and private returns, improving economic and environmental efficiency, and giving consumers more housing and mobility choices. Reconnecting America provides both the public and private sectors with an impartial, fact-based perspective on development-oriented transit and transit-oriented development, and seeks to reinvent the planning and delivery system for building regions and communities around transit and walking rather than solely around the automobile. Toward this end we have undertaken two programs:

• Center for Transit-Oriented Development, our main program, focuses on using transit investments to spur a new wave of development that improves housing affordability and choice, revitalizes downtowns and urban and suburban neighborhoods, and provides value capture for individuals, communities and transportation agencies.
• Reconnecting America's Transportation Networks focuses on linking our separate aviation, rail and intercity bus systems into an integrated network in order to improve economic productivity, enhance consumer choice and value, and improve environmental performance and energy efficiency.

Reconnecting America grew out of the work of the Great American Station Foundation, which was formed in 1995 to assist communities with the revitalization of historic rail stations as a way to both improve transportation services and bring life back to downtowns. We found that these station projects have tremendous power to link transportation to community revitalization, and are often the first step toward building transit-oriented towns. Bringing different transportation providers together unlocks vital synergies in the transportation system, increasing customer choice and building stronger local economies. Making these connections – between transportation and development and between the different transportation modes is challenging, but absolutely essential to resolving the apparent tension between effective transportation and vital communities. In order to help communities make these connections, the Great American Station Foundation’s Board of Directors asked us to revise our mission and our organization and to broaden our scope of work in 2002.