News for May, 2006
Tuesday, May 30th, 2006
If you live in the Chicago region, that’s the question the Chicago region’s new Regional Planning Board (RPB) wants you to answer.
The RPB is hosting seven public meetings across northeastern Illinois to gather comments on the 2030 Regional Transportation Plan Update. The meetings began May 16 and conclude June 16.
The meetings are using a new planning game called Transopoly(SM), created by CNT, which helps participants prioritize the kinds of transportation investments they believe should be made in the region. Transopoly has received favorable feedback from those who have used it, and it is featured in a recent publication of the Federal Highway Administration, How to Engage Low-Literacy and Limited-English-Proficiency Populations in Transportation Decisionmaking.
If you live in the Chicago area, plan to attend a meeting to make your voice heard. It’s the best way to ensure that the transportation investments we make today, which will shape the region’s development and be with us for years to come, are those that will serve the diverse needs of the region’s residents.
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Tuesday, May 23rd, 2006
CNT’s Scott Bernstein was in Seattle with the Congress for the New Urbanism’s CNU John Norquist to talk with residents and city leaders there about their options for replacing the elevated Alaskan Way Viaduct, which runs along the city’s waterfront. Options are being considered given concerns about the road’s structural integrity. CNT and CNU have been partnering on a project to look at the economic and environmental outcomes of replacing elevated highways — which has happened in places like San Francisco, Portland and Milwaukee — with at-grade lower-speed boulevards. Preliminary research on these three cities indicates that economic outcomes have been largely positive.
Scott discussed how the typical household in the Puget Sound region owns 2.4 cars and spends 22 percent of its income on transportation, mostly associated with the costs of driving. The regional yearly household transportation bill is therefore about $16.5 billion, or about $1 trillion over the lifetime of a viaduct replacement. Investing in transit could bring that bill down considerably. Scott was quoted as saying, “Getting people to think about transportation and the cost of living has been key to turning around bad decisions.”
John and Scott’s expert opinions and ideas created a lot of buzz, which you can read about in both the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and the Seattle Daily Journal of Commerce.
And for another viewpoint about the Viaduct, read a column by Michael Hintze from the May 2006 issue of Planning magazine. Read more »
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Sunday, May 14th, 2006
CNT participated in several sessions at the recent 2006 American Planning Association Conference in San Antonio.
At the Strategies for Reducing Energy Demand through Effective Planning session, we presented on our recent planning work in Kane County, Illinois. Our work in Kane County was to help leaders in the county develop strategies and programs to address the county’s increasing electricity needs, improve energy efficiency and manage peak electricity demand.
We also organized a session with the Center for Transit Oriented Development to discuss the Affordability Index — our work to quantify the value of neighborhood accessibility in order to come up with a more accurate measure that takes into account transportation costs as well as housing.
Both sessions were well-attended and well received. View the Kane County presentation or the Affordability Index presentation.
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Monday, May 8th, 2006
CNT is proud to be among the groups featured in the forthcoming book and PBS series, Edens Lost & Found, which highlights practical solutions and models for urban transformation in four U.S. cities: Chicago, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and Seattle.
The Chicago show, the first to air, begins next week with a premiere on May 18 @ 8:00 p.m. in the Chicago market. Take a look at when Chicago: The City of Big Shoulders airs in your market.
One of the goals of the project is to encourage residents to get involved — whether at home, at work, at school or in the neighborhood — in endeavors that promote more sustainable development. If you live on one of the four cities that are highlighted, check out your city’s action guide to connect with possible opportunities in your area.
Tune in and take action.
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Monday, May 1st, 2006
Sunday’s Minneapolis StarTribune examines how the housing choices of workers in the Twin Cities is now playing out in the context of today’s high gas prices. The article draws heavily on findings from CNT’s work with the Center for Transit Oriented Development and the Brookings Institution to create a new measure of housing affordability that factors in transportation costs.
The article nicely illustrates the increasing cost of transportation workers assume as they move further from the region’s core, away from neighborhoods characterized by their walkability, transit access and proximity to local services and amenities. Readers are challenged to think about just how affordable homes on the region’s edge — where land prices are low — really are now that gas prices are putting a dent in workers’ pocketbooks so severely.
Read more »
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