Building The New Transit Town

[This article originally appeared in the Winter 2009 "Platform" newsletter.]

I was Mayor of Meridian, Mississippi when we opened Meridian’s Union Station 12 years ago to link rail, bus and city transit in a way that created a sense of place upon arrival in our downtown. This project was the first multimodal transportation center in Mississippi and one of the first in any city of our size in the U.S. The investment in that station leveraged more than $135 million in additional public and private investment in the downtown core, leading to the restoration of our historic downtown. In many ways that Union Station project was what we now call transit-oriented development.

The success of this project led a group of us to create the Great American Station Foundation in 1998 out of the belief that transportation investments can create real value for communities. As our knowledge and understanding of transit-oriented community development evolved, the Great American Station Foundation also evolved, becoming Reconnecting America in 2003. This national nonprofit effort began focusing on the ways that multiple modes of transportation could link to and complement every other mode and create healthier, more equitable and vibrant neighborhoods that together make up truly livable cities and regions. As President and CEO, Hank Dittmar broadened the understanding of the impact of transportation on quality of life. When Shelley Poticha took the job in 2004 she began focusing on placemaking through our core program, the Center for Transit-Oriented Development (CTOD) – a partnership with the Center for Neighborhood Technology and Strategic Economics. My work begins on the strong foundation of Hank’s and Shelley’s leadership.

Sam Zimbabwe has been named director of CTOD, and he will work to foster relationships that broaden our reach across the U.S. with the goal of creating replicable TOD models that bring equitable and sustainable development to scale. We will focus our energies and attention on the “reconnecting” piece of Reconnecting America, because if we are serious about this mission we must be strategically focused in cities and regions across the country – in urban centers and rural places alike. And while CTOD is the centerpiece of our work we do have three other primary work programs: policy development, leadership development, and Transportation for America.

Policy Director Mariia Zimmerman continues to promote federal transportation policy reform and federal partnerships in Washington D.C. with great success. With the growing interest by Congress, the Administration and local elected officials in better linking policies and investments to sustainability goals, we will bring additional housing and environmental policy skills to our team in the coming months through new staff.

Catherine Cox Blair, formerly with the City of Denver, will be in charge of the leadership development program, education and outreach. Catherine brings considerable experience in local government to our team, and will help us forge partnerships with elected and appointed leaders and diverse stakeholders in the community development and transportation arena. Catherine will share our best practices and the lessons learned from our work through a variety of venues including webinars and peer-to-peer exchanges, as well as our successful publications.

I co-chair Transportation for America, a broad coalition of 360 organizations that is focusing on reauthorization of the federal transportation bill as well as working to align our national, state and local transportation policies on an array of issues including economic opportunity, climate change, energy security, health, housing and community development. I find a pent-up enthusiasm and energized awareness of our shared beliefs: The South, Southwest and middle America as well as the far West and Northeast are all imagining a future in which communities and regions are connected by an integrated transportation system. That energy and enthusiasm is apparent on Capitol Hill as Congress and the Administration begin crafting what can and should be a transformational reauthorization bill in which high-speed and conventional rail, local transit, walking and biking are an integral part of the solution to mobility, regional connectivity, and environmental and health concerns. More asphalt and concrete is no longer the answer. We need community development and housing around transit nodes with the goal of creating truly walkable, livable communities.

I was present when President Obama unveiled his vision for high-speed rail and committed to making it his signature public works project. I have never seen such devotion to transportation from the chief executive of our land, and it has inspired an exciting list of high-speed rail proposals. This effort will require the support of the mayors of cities large and small, as well as professional planners, community leaders and advocates, and public and private sector transportation operators. Now is the time to coalesce our efforts and raise our combined voices, for there is a sense of urgency. This time we must get our transportation agenda right or we will lose the opportunity of a generation.

I left two children and my 3-year-old grandson Ethan in Meridian to come to Washington and engage in this work. The work we do today will in large measure set the course of Ethan’s future. When he is a man will we still be fighting over precious oil reserves to fuel our economy or will he be free, really free, to make transportation choices? To fail now is to fail Ethan and his generation. We cannot afford to make this mistake. I look forward to our good work together.

Blogger Urbanophile was in Boston for Rail~Volution. While there he caught up with Reconnecting America CEO John Robert Smith and posted this 2 minute video.