Citiwire.net » Agencies Collaborating: Affair of the Year.
Column by Neal Peirce on groundbreaking collaboration between HUD and DOT - - a situation that has yet to make an impression on most of my Economic Development Commission collegues:
In Chicago, there’s rejoicing in the offices of a scrappy 30-year old research and advocacy group, the Center for Neighborhood Technology–a pioneer in demonstrating how residents’ combined housing and transportation costs can be reduced in transit-served neighborhoods. It’s a “new day in Washington,” exult leaders Scott Bernstein and Kathryn Tholin, as CNT research and ideas area are poised to be “incorporated into the framing of the Obama administration’s urban policy.”
But critical tests loom on how quickly the new approaches are grasped and implemented through the ranks of the HUD and DOT bureaucracies, contends public administration expert Kent Watkins, a key promoter of the new approach. He notes that multi-billion dollar initiatives, including at least $8 billion for DOT and $9 billion in HUD stimulus spending, are currently “going out the door” without instructions to put a premium on joint transportation and housing initiatives.
But focus on reform will keep building this year with debate on reauthorization of the federal government’s basic transportation program. And even AASHTO–the American Assn. of State Highway and Transportation Officials, historically known as the “big roads” crowd–is making new moves. It wants to double–to $100 million a year–a decade-old federal initiative, DOT’s Transportation, Community and System Preservation Program, to help states and local governments accomplish “smarter growth,” more compact development.
And why? “States now recognize that sprawl–the cost of the current system–will eat us alive,” says AASHTO Executive Director John Horsley. He wants to see the DOT program enlarged with expanded incentives for local and regional bodies to come up with smart combined land use-transportation solutions.
The bottom line’s clear: albeit with fits and starts, radical change is brewing in how Washington impacts growth and development of America’s communities.
Comments