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Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission
Session: Regional Transportation Investments March 31, 8:45 AM Barry J.
Seymour Other papers from this session: Regional Smart Growth: Livable Centers Initiative Transportation For Livable Communities Session Abstract Planners have always recognized that the form and pattern of transportation infrastructure is a key determinant in defining the type and distribution of land use development. At a regional scale, metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) were mandated and created to assure that transportation planning and investment was coordinated across jurisdictional boundaries. These MPOs traditionally limited their role to assuring regional system connectivity, leaving the details of design or community integration to others. In recent years, a new role for MPOs and regional councils has emerged. As regional planners have come to understand how transportation infrastructure shapes regions, communities and individual projects, they have also conceived of new ways to target transportation investments. Once limited to large-scale highway or transit projects, a number of regional planning agencies now provide funding directly to communities to support a range of smart growth and livable community initiatives. In Atlanta, the Livable Centers Initiative is providing $1 million per year to support local planning for residential, mixed-uses and connectivity in regional activity and town centers. A $350 million commitment in their long-range plan provides priority funding for projects that emerge from these studies. In the San Francisco-Oakland region, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission provides funding to local governments for site planning and improvements to support transit-oriented development and affordable housing. In Philadelphia, the Transportation and Community Development Initiative of the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission is providing $1.5 million to 26 communities for transit-oriented development, main street revitalization and community redevelopment plans, as initial leverage for future funding in the $36 billion long-range plan. These programs have now been active for several years and the success and limitation of this regional approach have been discovered. These programs are a model for many MPOs. Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission Author and Copyright Information Copyright 2003 by author Barry J. Seymour |