Transportation & Community Development
Transportation and healthy communities are related. A diverse, walkable community depends on a transportation infrastructure that provides a variety of ways to get around, serving pedestrians and transit-riders as well as drivers. A good transportation network also relies on healthy communities, since no one wants to ride transit to or from unwalkable or unsafe neighborhoods.
Transportation & Community Development
CNT has worked on a number of projects designed to encourage community development and promote transportation options. In this section of the website, some of these projects are presented.
Housing and Transportation Affordability Index
The Housing and Transportation Affordability Index, developed through CNT’s partnership in the Center for Transit Oriented Development (CTOD), is an innovative tool that measures the true affordability of housing. The traditional measure of affordability used by planners, lenders, and most consumers recommends that housing should be less than 30 percent of income. The Housing and Transportation Affordability Index, in contrast, takes into account not just the cost of housing, but the costs of housing and transportation.
Smart Growth in Older Communities
One of CNT’s most exciting new projects is a public planning project to draw community benefits from undervalued transit and freight assets in Cook County suburbs. The two communities that have signed agreements with CNT for an integrated planning process are Blue Island and Harvey.
Transit Future
In response to the urgent transportation crisis facing Northeastern Illinois, The Center for Neighborhood Technology (CNT) has launched the Transit Future campaign to advocate for both reform of the Regional Transportation Authority and for a substantial increase in its funding by the State of Illinois. The campaign is targeted at the members of the Illinois General Assembly and the Governor of Illinois.
Transopoly
The public involvement tools in the Transopoly series were developed to help the general public understand the relationship between transportation planning and land use planning. The tools are unique in that they require users to make fiscally prudent choices within a long-range vision for transportation planning, Two tools within the series are group activities and require diverse groups to build consensus. These are Transopoly and Neighborhood Transopoly. e-Transopoly is designed for an individual to use at a personal computer, although friends or family members could make choices together.
Margins to Mainstream
CNT and the Surface Transportation Policy Partnership hosted two webinars in 2007, aimed at educating transportation advocates, government officials, developers, and citizens, on the transportation planning process. These webinars are part of a larger project whose goal is to improve the quality of public involvement during transportation planning.