Staff Blog News
Wednesday, April 3rd, 2013
35 Facts for CNT’s 35 Years: Each week we’ll expand on one fun fact. Enjoy!
#4 Solar Greenhouses
Growing tomatoes in a hydroponic greenhouse on a rooftop in West Garfield Park. It was audacious—and caught the attention of the New York Times, resulting in CNT’s first national press story (NYT subscription required).
Christian Action Ministry (CAM) was a faith-based community development organization on Chicago’s West Side. CAM ran a range of programs, including preschool and job training. For the late 1970s, they were on the cutting edge. When Scott Bernstein proposed building a rooftop greenhouse on their building at West Madison between Homan and Pulaski to increase local access to fresh fruits and vegetables, they embraced the idea enthusiastically.
A skeptical Christian Science Monitor took note, as well, observing that “this kind of urban self-help agriculture is very new. There is much excitement about the possibilities, but little proof of how things will work out.” Read more »
Posted in 35th Anniversary, Featured, General News | No Comments »
Monday, April 1st, 2013
One of the strongest arguments in favor of investment in public transit is the role it plays in mitigating traffic congestion. The logic is simple: more train and bus commuters mean fewer car commuters and fewer cars on the road. A recently released working paper from University of California scholar Michael Anderson provides some real data to back this up. In 2003, employees of the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority went on strike, shutting down the cities bus and train services.
The strike, lasting 35 days, provided an ideal natural experiment demonstrating what one of the countries busiest metro areas would look like without transit services. Anderson found that during peak periods, delays caused by traffic on L.A’s major freeways increased by 47 percent or 0.19 minutes per mile. The delays were more pronounced on freeways that parallel major transit lines reinforcing the idea that transit provides a real alternative to car travel for millions of commuters. The working paper estimates that the benefit of transit in terms of traffic reduction for Los Angeles ranges from $1.2 billion to $4.1 billion per year. Read more »
Posted in Going Places, National, Regional, Staff Blog, Transit Expansion, Transit Policy, Transit Ridership, Transit-Oriented Development | 1 Comment »
Wednesday, March 27th, 2013
35 Facts for CNT’s 35 Years: Each week we’ll expand on one fun fact. Enjoy!
#3 Deep Tunnel
Maybe we were just ahead of our time. In the late 1970s, the early days of CNT, we had the radical notion that multiple, smaller investments in infrastructure were better than a gargantuan, one-size-fits-all approach. It’s a concept that’s certainly more in vogue now, in fields from planning to engineering to fundraising. (Heck, just ask a certain former CNT board member about the impact of thousands of small donations…)
Back then, though, we were attempting to advocate our position as relative Davids in the face of a Goliath called “Deep Tunnel.” This time, David didn’t fare as well.
Photo: Chicago Tribune (Oct. 9, 1980)
The Deep Tunnel Project, officially known as the Tunnel and Reservoir Plan (TARP), was commissioned in the mid-1970s and billed as a solution to reduce flooding in the Chicago region and curtail the flow of raw sewage into Lake Michigan. As civil engineering projects go, Deep Tunnel was in a league of its own: a megaproject.
CNT was part of a larger coalition of organizations and individuals called the TARP Impacts Project (TIP), which initially came together over the proposed price tag of Deep Tunnel relative to its projected impact. The $7.3 billion budget translated to $4,000 per Chicago-area household, or over $100 million per neighborhood in the region. TIP, and CNT, believed that smaller, more affordable, and more direct actions could work as well or better than the pricy Deep Tunnel. Read more »
Posted in 35th Anniversary, Featured, General News | No Comments »
Wednesday, March 20th, 2013
35 Facts for CNT’s 35 Years: Each week we’ll expand on one fun fact. Enjoy!
#2 The Neighborhood Works
They were the days of disco. Saturday Night Fever was #1 at the box office. The BeeGees had two of Billboard’s Top 10 singles. Jimmy Carter, while not so “disco,” was president. Inflation was on the rise, and the U.S. was creeping towards the precipice of an unprecedented energy crisis. It was January, 1978.
In Chicago, a team of community activists led by Scott Bernstein, Jesse Auerbach, and Kathy Tholin launched an information service, in print form. It was designed to help neighborhood organizations, economic development groups, and individuals take action to improve the viability and health of communities. They called it The Neighborhood Works, and its spirit and influence are felt yet today.
The founding editors (Scott, Jesse, and Kathy) opened the inaugural issue with a welcome, a bit of a mission statement, and a definition of what “neighborhood technology” meant at the time and how it could be developed. In a way, it was the Google Reader or news aggregator of its time, compiling news stories, scientific research and DIY tips on topics from food to energy to housing to jobs.
Over the years, several committed individuals served as volunteers, artists, advisors, and editors. Their efforts were widely appreciated and remembered fondly. Mary Fran Riley, Vice President of Development & Communications at Accion Chicago, described how, “In days before the Internet, The Neighborhood Works was an invaluable source of information for those of us working in community development.” Read more »
Posted in 35th Anniversary, Featured, General News | No Comments »
Wednesday, March 13th, 2013
35 Facts for CNT’s 35 Years: Each week we’ll expand on one fun fact. Enjoy!
#1 Scott Bernstein – Champion of Cities
Scott Bernstein started working in Chicago’s West Garfield Park neighborhood in the ‘70s and envisioned innovative strategies that could turn around this community. In 1978, he, along with Stan Hallett, co-founded the organization that would become CNT to stimulate creative solutions to neighborhood problems. CNT began with three projects: community greenhouses, opposition to the Deep Tunnel and the publication of The Neighborhood Works. Read more »
Posted in 35th Anniversary, Featured, General News | No Comments »
Friday, March 1st, 2013
Photo Credit: Steven Vance/Flickr Creative Commons License
With deficit reduction still the watchword in public policy and with federal spending on a downward slope, states and regions are exploring different ways to fund programs and public works like transportation infrastructure. Traditionally, highways and roads are mostly paid for through the Highway Trust Fund which was designed to draw on gas taxes paid by motorists. However, from time to time as the fund runs dry, the Congress tops it off with money from general revenue. Although some economists dispute this, deficit financed highway construction is generally considered to be less than optimal public policy.
As part of the Hamilton Project’s 15 Ways to Rethink the Federal Budget, Jack Basso and Tyler Duvall discuss the potential solution offered by ‘user fees’—in other words, charging road users directly for the use of certain highways. Sometimes called ‘congestion pricing’, the main advantage of this proposal is that it succeeds in both raising revenue to reduce the deficit and reducing traffic congestion and the negative effects associated with it. The pair estimates that a federal user fee could raise $312 billion over the next decade, money that could be used not just for deficit reduction but also to invest in smarter infrastructure projects like expanding and improving transit systems that would help mitigate congestion even further.
User fees are often politically unpopular, at least in the beginning. Motorists naturally resent being obliged to pay for something that they previously used ‘for free’. The truth of course is that building and maintaining highways has never been free and the congestion that plagues so much of the highway system costs motorists directly in wasted time and wasted fuel as well as harming the environment. Proponents of user fees argue that the cost of road use should be borne by road users and that if the cost was reflected by the price, many would reconsider whether and when to make their journey by car.
Basso and Duvall point to the example of Singapore, a city of 5 million that occupies only 250 square miles of land. Despite their population density, Singapore’s use of electronic road pricing has delivered both increased revenue and free flow speeds on its major roadways. As the traditional funding mechanism for surface transportation infrastructure becomes increasingly inadequate, perhaps user fees are the sort of innovative method that policy makers should consider to pay for transportation infrastructure.
Posted in Going Places, National, Staff Blog, Transit Funding | No Comments »
Friday, February 22nd, 2013
When we talk about public transit, the discussion usually focuses on cost savings to users or the impact on carbon emissions. According to a new study published in the American Journal of Public Health, taking public transit is not just good for our wallets and our planet, but for our bodies as well.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommend that adults do at least two and a half hours of moderate intensity aerobic activity every week. While the word “aerobic activity” generally conjures up images of treadmills and elliptical machines, moderate intensity aerobics are activities that are often already engrained in our daily lives. This includes things like tennis, gardening, bicycling (at speeds under 10 mph), and brisk walking. Without realizing it, regular public transit users may be getting their entire recommended amount of moderate intensity exercise while walking to and from their trains.
The study found that those who live in large cities with rail systems are 72 percent more likely to spend at least 30 minutes a day walking to and from public transit. When done every day, they will get the two and a half hours of weekly exercise that the CDC recommends. From 2001 to 2009, the number of people transit walking at least 30 minutes a day rose from 2.6 million to 3.4 million. With continued investment in rail systems, the number of people reaping the health benefits of transit walking will continue to grow.
These insights provide an important reminder of the connection between public transit and public health. Built urban environments can either facilitate or hinder physical activity, and the ability to safely walk to public transportation is an integral part of this. Not only must policymakers and city planners make effective public transit a priority, but they must also be sure to equip neighborhoods near rail stations with the infrastructure necessary to make them safe for pedestrians. As we plan to expand walkable public transit access in Chicago, it is likely that improved cardiovascular health and lower body weight will follow close behind.
Copies of the study can be downloaded here.>>
Posted in Chicago, Going Places, Staff Blog, Transit Policy | No Comments »
Monday, February 11th, 2013
If there was ever a reason for more transit it is embodied in the recently published report from the Texas A&M Transportation Institution (TTI). Its 2012 Urban Mobility Report details the enormous costs associated with the ever increasing traffic congestion blighting America’s major metro areas. It calculates, for example, that in 2011 commuters spent 5.5 billion hours sitting in traffic (equivalent to the total amount of time that businesses and individuals spend filing their annual tax returns), wasted 2.9 billion gallons of fuel and pumped out 56 billion extra pounds of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
Photo Credit: Steven Vance/Flickr Creative Commons License
The Chicagoland area ranks 7th overall when it comes to hours wasted due to traffic congestion, 8th in terms of wasted fuel and 5th in terms of total dollar cost. The average Chicago commuter spends 51 hours a year in traffic, consuming 24 extra gallons of fuel. Traffic congestion cost each Chicagoan commuter an average of $1,153 in 2011. This is not efficient use of resources. Chicagoland commuters are also contributing to global warming by pumping out more than 2.3 billion pounds of carbon dioxide while sitting in traffic.
I agree with some of the potential solutions cited in the report. The authors point out that in the absence of public transit services in the 498 major metro areas studied, the situation would have been a lot worse. Commuters would have suffered through an additional 865 million hours of wasted time and consumed 450 million extra gallons of fuel. This wasted time and fuel would have cost, according to the report, an additional $20.8 billion, a 15% increase over current congestion costs.
Photo Credit: Zesmerelda/Flickr Creative Commons License
While the report mentions increased highway capacity and more efficient use of highway infrastructure as part of a potential remedy, it emphasizes the importance of greater investment in expanding and improving public transit services in cities and their surrounding areas. Transit services don’t just take cars off the road improving traffic flow. They offer a safe, affordable and environmentally friendly alternative. The huge costs, financial and environmental, caused by traffic congestion highlighted in this report lend even more weight to the argument for greater commitment to transit infrastructure laid out in CMAP’s GOTO 2040.
Read the full report here.>>
Posted in Chicago, Going Places, Location efficiency, National, Regional, Staff Blog, Transit Funding, Transit Policy | No Comments »
Thursday, January 31st, 2013
CNT will be participating in an upcoming summit on Building a 21st Century Transit System. Riders for Better Transit, a group dedicated to organizing Chicagoland transit riders to push for improved and expanded services in the city, will be hosting a summit at the UBS Tower Conference Center on February 25th. Bringing together a group of transportation policy leaders, the summit will discuss the challenges of creating a 21st century transit system. Focusing on issues like reform of the transit authorities’ governance structure and funding sources and investment strategies of the Chicagoland transit system, expert panels will discuss potential solutions to the problems facing the region. Read more »
Posted in Featured Portfolio News, Location efficiency, Transit Funding, Transit Policy, TransitFuture, Transportation and Community Development | No Comments »
Thursday, January 24th, 2013
At CNT, we advocate for transit because it is an important strategy for reducing carbon emissions that contribute to climate change. Climate change is one of the greatest threats facing our planet today, so it was good to hear President Obama reaffirm his commitment to take action on the issue in his recent inaugural address. The Presidential Climate Action Project, which CNT participated in creating, sets out specific, practical steps that the President and Congress can take to reduce America’s carbon emissions and set the country on the path towards a renewable energy future. The President is certainly familiar with the report (I personally put a copy of the freshly printed 2008 version of it in then candidate Obama’s hand) and has indicated his support in the past for many of the steps that it outlines.
Although climate change has become a sensitive issue politically, there are important steps that the President can take to advance the agenda without legislation. CNT encourages him to follow the recommendations contained in the PCAP and communicate directly with the American people about the importance of taking action on climate change and of the economic opportunities presented by making the transition towards a green, advanced energy economy.
The President should also engage with Congress to push for the passing of legislation capping carbon emissions or pricing carbon. These market based mechanisms, by promoting efficiency and encouraging the private sector to invest and innovate in new, green sources of energy, must be part of any comprehensive solution to the problem.
The decision surrounding the construction of the Keystone XL tar-sands pipeline presents the President with an opportunity to demonstrate his commitment to tackling climate change. CNT urges him to kill the pipeline which does nothing but increase America’s dependency on polluting fossil fuels. Recent severe droughts and extreme weather conditions has reminded everyone of the urgency of the threat that we face. CNT encourages the President to follow through on the promises he has made as soon as possible.
Read the 2012 PCAP Action Plan here>>
Posted in Advocacy, Going Places, National, PCAP, Transit Policy | No Comments »
