Transportation & Community Development
CNT’s Transportation & Community Development work is centered on the idea that thriving communities and transportation options are interconnected. CNT’s work will focus on research and advocacy around housing and transportation affordability and ways to revitalize communities using existing transportation infrastructure.
FEDERAL
Encourage Congress to Enact a Multi-Year Transportation Reauthorization that Requires Accountability and Increases Funding for Transportation Alternatives. It is critical to the future of America’s transportation infrastructure that a reauthorization requires accountability for meeting national transportation goals as well as increased funding for transportation alternatives, such as public transit. To this end, we will continue to work with national and local coalitions to advocate for accountability and funding for transportation alternatives.
Promote Inclusion of Development Around Freight Rail as National Policy. Used in tandem, transit-oriented development (TOD) and cargo-oriented development (COD) are effective strategies to redevelop older suburbs’ downtown and industrial areas in part by leveraging each suburb’s transportation assets. CNT will continue to share lessons from its COD-TOD work in Chicago’s south suburbs with the Federal Railroad Administration and collaborate on ways to export these effective strategies to other parts of the nation.
STATE
Promote the Redevelopment of Disinvested Communities. CNT will advocate for state legislation that creates provisions for revitalizing communities and resurrecting the state’s industrial base.
Encourage Affordable Housing Investment in High Opportunity Areas that Have Low Transportation Costs. Providing affordable housing in walkable places with good access to jobs and a range of transportation options improves the quality of life and mobility of low- and moderate-income households. A CNT Housing +Transportation (H+T®) Affordability Index analysis of investments made by the Illinois Housing Development Authority (IHDA) has provided a jumping off point for CNT to discuss how IHDA might target public housing investments in communities that have high opportunity for jobs and education and low costs for transportation.
Advocate for Equitable Funding for Transportation in Chicago. CNT believes it is imperative for the state to provide proportional transportation funds to the Chicago region. The Chicago region contains 63% of the state’s population, but it regularly receives less than 40% of state transportation funds. CNT will work to align the region’s transportation funding with the tax revenues it generates by supporting implementation of the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning’s GO TO 2040 Plan.
REGIONAL/LOCAL
Promote Policies and Projects that Facilitate People’s Use of Transit and Other Alternatives. CNT has been a vocal advocate of transit, bicycling, and walking as a way to save money and protect the environment. We will continue to support efforts to provide transportation alternatives, specifically through our promotion of a Pre-Tax Transit Benefit Ordinance and I-GO Car Sharing.
Support Projects that Incorporate Transit-Oriented Development (TOD). TODs are comprised of compact residential neighborhoods with an interconnected street network, mixed land uses, and concentration of retail and services built around convenient transit connections. TOD helps people reduce driving and its related expenses and pollution, cuts sprawl, creates a customer base for retail, and is a tool to revitalize struggling older communities. CNT is partnering with 42 communities in Chicago’s south suburbs to implement transit-oriented development by securing public and private funds to acquire and prepare land for redevelopment around the area’s rich transit infrastructure.
Incorporate CNT’s Expanded View of Affordability in Local Planning Efforts. The conventional definition of housing affordability is that housing is affordable if a family pays no more than 30% of its income on a rent or mortgage payment. CNT’s H+T Index is redefining affordability by uncovering the substantial hidden transportation costs of a location and arguing that affordability metrics must include both housing and transportation costs, and those costs should not exceed 45% of income. CNT will encourage the adoption of this expanded view of affordability as a metric in future planning for the region.
