Smart Growth and Transportation: Issues and Lessons Learned (2005)

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1 1 9 Introduction John Horsley, American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials Let me introduce your panel and give a briefbackground on each of our four speakers andask them to kick off the discussion. First is Maryland Transportation Secretary John Porcari, our host. John runs one of the most multi- modal departments in the country, from Baltimore– Washington International Airport to the Port of Baltimore, to highways and mass transit. John runs an incredibly effective operation, highly regarded around the country. Before being named secretary by Governor Glendening, he served as Deputy Secretary of Transportation and as Assistant Secretary for Economic Development Policy for the Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development. Jim Codell, the Secretary of the Transportation Cabinet in the state of Kentucky, will become the President of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) starting with our meeting in Alaska [October 2002]. In the area of context-sensitive design, Jim has joined Maryland and three other states in being a national leader in adjusting the state approach to design to be more responsive to community concerns. Jim was previously the chair of AASHTO’s standing committee on the environment. One of his emphasis areas when he takes over as presi- dent will be environmental leadership. We held an excit- ing conference in Lexington, Kentucky, earlier this year on historic preservation and transportation, and I don’t know of any state doing more toward investing in his- toric preservation than Kentucky. Before joining the state department of transportation and being appointed by Governor Patton, Jim was a construction contractor. Bob Dunphy has been with the Urban Land Institute (ULI) forever. ULI has been working on the smart growth issue for many years. As you may know, ULI represents developers around the country, who, from what I have witnessed, are taking a very progressive attitude toward smart growth. There are a lot of posi- tive changes taking place as they design their work. Bob has his B.S. in civil engineering from Catholic University and a master of science and civil engineering from Texas A&M. Ron Kirby, who was added to the panel after the program went to print, has been the Director of Transportation in the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments for many years. He runs the metropolitan planning organization (MPO) for the greater Washington, D.C., area. Ron received his under- graduate and doctorate degrees from the University of Adelaide in South Australia. I wanted to indicate some positive developments that AASHTO is engaged in. We just held a national compe- tition on smart growth sponsored by the Federal Highway Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency. We had 32 applications from 22 states, and at our conference [in October 2002] in Anchorage, we will honor eight winners from that com- petition. I won’t tell you who the winners are here, because we are going to announce that in Anchorage, but let me give you a flavor of some of the competitors. The state of Wisconsin, for example, had been trying to improve US-12, a route that goes north from Madison to Minnesota. There is a terrible fatality rate on that heavily traveled route. But it goes right through the 63805_127_164 4/7/05 2:53 AM Page 119

heavily populated Dane County, through a rural county just north of Dane County, and then through the Baraboo Hills, a sensitive geologic area that the Department of Interior has been trying to protect. The concern was that if they four-laned that route, instant sprawl would occur in the outer reaches of Dane, the next county, and then threaten that sensitive Baraboo Hills area. Finally, the Council on Environmental Quality brokered an agreement. So of the $78 million improvement to four-lane this U.S. route, $18 million will be spent on improvements beyond the right-of-way, including $500,000 on a community growth plan, a sub- stantial investment in transit in the greater Dane County area, and somewhere in the range of $10 million going into the purchase of development rights to preserve farmland and preserve view corridors along the route. That is an interesting case study in Wisconsin. Five states in AASHTO—Kentucky, Maryland, Utah (interestingly enough), Connecticut, and Minnesota— are our lead states on context-sensitive design, using the flexibility in our design manual to embrace and make possible community-sensitive solutions. New Jersey has also decided to advance that idea. It is using one of my favorite design firms, Project for Public Spaces out of New York City, to train 600 of its engineering staff in how to use the full flexibility in context-sensitive design. In addition, New Jersey is implementing an urban villages concept by using transit assets to rein- force downtown revitalization through investments in transit-oriented development. California, through the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, is using all sorts of small-scale invest- ments to reinforce quality development and smart growth initiatives in the communities in and around the Bay Area. So there are some exciting things going on at the MPO level and at the state department of trans- portation level, and two of the most progressive states in the country are represented here. 1 2 0 SMART GROWTH AND TRANSPORTATION: ISSUES AND LESSONS LEARNED 63805_127_164 4/7/05 2:53 AM Page 120

1 2 1 Incentives for Smart Growth in Maryland John Porcari, Maryland Department of Transportation I am with the Maryland Department ofTransportation, which includes a number of sepa-rate authorities. We have tried to use the entire department and the transportation authority as tools to implement smart growth. At the risk of stating the obvious, that is where the money is. If it is an impor- tant public policy goal, you have to have transporta- tion as one of the leading elements in the vanguard of smart growth. We began this journey several years ago. One of the first acts was to review our entire capital program, and we took projects out of our capital program that were not consistent with smart growth. Several bypasses around small towns and cities throughout Maryland had been on the drawing boards for 10, 15, 20 years. We had never had the construction money in for them, but these jurisdictions certainly believed that they were going to get a bypass at some point in the near future. It was a very sobering experience to get the reaction from these towns when they no longer had that project on the books. One of the things we learned quickly was that the interaction with other state agencies and espe- cially with local jurisdictions is absolutely critical to this. In Maryland, as with many other states, the land use planning is actually at the local level. We have a state- level Department of Planning, but until the enactment of smart growth legislation, it largely played a coordinating role. It plays a much more substantial role now. In several of those early cases, we took highway bypasses out of our capital program and turned them into positive experiences. For example, we worked with the city of Westminster on the goals of the original bypass. What were they trying to do? What is the bal- ance between main street being a state regional highway and being the lifeblood of commerce for this town? By listening and making sure we were listening before we were talking and by having an elaborate process with our local jurisdictions, we were able to reach at least a rough consensus on how to go forward without building a highway bypass. That has worked fairly well. We are doing the same thing in other areas of the state. We cannot have a smart growth orientation in transportation without taking that step into land use. Another example is called the Perryman Peninsula at Harford County, north of Baltimore, which was zoned for about 13 million square feet of industrial property. There was no possibility, from an adequate public facil- ities perspective, for all of that property to be developed that way. In a collaborative process with the State Planning Office, the Governor’s Office of Smart Growth, and the county planning and transportation staff, we were able to work out an end result that sub- stantially changed the density and made for a much more rational development plan. You heard earlier in some of the discussions from Neil Pedersen, for example, a little bit about the neigh- borhood conservation projects and how some of the specific smart growth projects work in Maryland, but let me give you a budgetary perspective. We have gone from a standing start to more than $170 million over the next 6 years of what we call neighborhood conser- vation projects. Typically, we would mill and resurface and do storm drainage work. Now we do a much more comprehensive program with landscaping, median 63805_127_164 4/7/05 2:53 AM Page 121

work, brick pavers, street furniture, bus stops, and pedestrian-level lighting. It is important to understand when you interact with elected officials that if you do it right, smart growth programs could be one of the most politically popular things that elected officials do. These neighborhood conservation projects have become wildly popular in Maryland, to the point where our state highway staff is welcomed in communities. You have all been at public hearings where it is the other way around, so this is quite refreshing and rewarding for our employees. There are two reasons for this. First, some of the ear- liest neighborhood conservation projects that were done in Maryland were in rural areas, luckily. We didn’t have the rural-versus-urban fight over smart growth because even the most rural areas of the state have a county seat or a township where the main street was eligible for a neighborhood conservation project. If you look at the legislative power in many states, many of the chairs are from rural areas. Having this eligibil- ity helped get through that portion of the discussion quickly and made it a statewide program. The other important thing about these projects is that as our highway, transit, and other transportation projects get more complicated and harder to build every year, 8-, 10-, 12-year cycles for major transportation projects are fairly typical. These smart growth projects are something that you can promise an elected official and actually deliver within a 4-year election cycle. You shouldn’t minimize the importance of that. They very quickly figured out that these are projects they can fight for, turn a shovel on, and take credit for. They could cut the ribbon on it before they ran for reelection. That is part of the dynamics of how these programs work in Maryland, and it is one of the reasons that smart growth, even for the initial skeptics, has been adopted heartily and virtually across the board by many of the elected officials that more typically would be opposed. I mentioned the neighborhood conservation program, but within our transit and transit-oriented development program, a key part of our business plan for transit is to maximize the investment we have already made through transit-oriented development. There is a good example in Baltimore, where we had assembled some property to build the light rail station. We left derelict buildings there that were boarded up for a number of years. We subsequently demolished them and built structured parking and have a mixed-use development that has been successful. We have others under way as well. I know we have a number of panelists here and that you would like to get to the questions and answers. That is a very brief overview of some of the smart growth issues related to transportation. I will tell you that in a relatively small, compact state like Maryland, where we have a little more than 5 million people and we are going to have 1 million more in the next 20 years, even if we weren’t disposed to pursue smart growth, we would have to, and we are doing so wholeheartedly. 1 2 2 SMART GROWTH AND TRANSPORTATION: ISSUES AND LESSONS LEARNED 63805_127_164 4/7/05 2:53 AM Page 122

1 2 3 Selling “Quality of Life” in Kentucky Jim Codell, Kentucky Transportation Cabinet Kentucky had several bills dealing with smartgrowth legislation with the words “smartgrowth” in them, and none of them even got to a vote. With two or three exceptions, we are, for the most part, a rural state. As you might expect, it became a controversial, divisive subject. That being said, since we couldn’t get to first base with our smart growth bills, we are endeavoring to use the planning process, and the transportation process specifically, to improve the quality of life, using that angle as opposed to the smart growth angle. It seems to be catching on because we are selling the fact that it is the responsible and right thing to do. Our governor, who was and is a supporter of smart growth, couldn’t get to first base with it. He is using his powers, both his executive power and his power of per- suasiveness, to alter the mind-set of the citizenry. He is a former coal stripper, which doesn’t really sit well with some of the environmental community, and they look at him and wonder what he is doing. He is also a mechanical engineer, so I don’t know whether that helps him or hurts him. I’m a former contractor, so you have two champions of the quality of life endeavor, let alone smart growth, who are both a little suspect. We are both working at this and trying to alter the culture or the ethic of our troops. To that point, the fact is that we are being welcomed in some of the communities across our commonwealth because of our change in attitude and philosophy. This reputation of the Transportation Cabinet (the old Department of Highways) in Kentucky wasn’t formu- lated or created in the past year or two. We’ve worked long and hard to create a less-than-desirable reputation. So trying to turn that ship requires a little work. But after 61⁄2 years of trying to alter this ethic or culture, they have realized that Codell is not going away, and Governor Patton is not going to let me go away. So here we are, still trying to right the ship. I think we are mak- ing progress because we are selling it as the right and responsible thing to do. It is clearly demonstrated by the employees of the cabinet. We have engineering liability and all this business in Kentucky. But you cannot permit that to be used as a crutch. We have limitations, obviously, but we have to work hand-in-hand with the Federal Highway Administration, and most important, we have to tune in and listen to what the customers, the taxpayers, want. We have to demonstrate clearly to them that we are try- ing to address their needs, their desires, and their demands. They are paying for the facilities. In Kentucky we have transportation enhancement projects, commu- nity projects, and what we call a Renaissance Kentucky project, where we are using transportation enhancement funds to revitalize the cities and leveraging those funds to make improvements and rejuvenate and rehabilitate downtowns across the commonwealth. That is working. But first and foremost, to do the right thing and the responsible thing, we have to change the ethic of the workforce. When that is done, the credibility issue goes away—it becomes a positive as opposed to a negative. We still cannot talk about “smart growth” in Kentucky, but we can talk about improving quality of life, and we are doing that effectively. Certainly, we have progress to make in some areas, and there is always the cost issue to overcome. But we have a proj- 63805_127_164 4/7/05 2:53 AM Page 123

ect in northern Kentucky right now where doing it the right way and the responsible way will cost millions of dollars. Doing it the economic way, or the way the developers and a minority of people in the community want to do it, costs less, but the majority of the people would rather do it the responsible way, $10 million to do a complete urban renewal. We have had context-sensitive design. We have the Paris Pike project, which goes through the horse farms and the agricultural areas of Kentucky, between Paris and Lexington, and we have used context-sensitive design philosophy on that effectively. We have a proj- ect in downtown Lexington called the Newtown Pike extension, where we are addressing the environmental justice issue quite effectively. It is 3 or 4 years down the road. All in all, it is listening, engaging, and demonstrating that we are doing the right and responsible thing. 1 2 4 SMART GROWTH AND TRANSPORTATION: ISSUES AND LESSONS LEARNED 63805_127_164 4/7/05 2:53 AM Page 124

1 2 5 Smart Transportation and Land Use The New American Dream Robert Dunphy, Urban Land Institute If you are in the transportation business, thenyou’re in the real estate business, and you ought tosupport smart growth. Regardless of what termi- nology you use, you know what it is, and there are good reasons to support it. The first obstacle to making smart growth and trans- portation part of the normal mind-set is convincing the consumer. It may be that you have done too good a job of providing transportation. That is a surprising mes- sage. But a survey done by the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) and the National Association of Realtors asked people who had purchased homes in the past 5 years about the most important aspects of buying a home. They found that the most important factors by far were larger homes, at an affordable price, in a good neighborhood, with proximity to work coming in a dis- tant third. Clearly, the buyers don’t quite get it. Gary Garczynski, president of NAHB, commented that the survey demonstrates that home buyers are quite con- scious of the trade-offs they make when buying a home. Gregg Logan pointed out in his presentation that people tend to drive for value. I think unless we can convince people that they should stay for value, there’ll be a con- tinuing contradiction between individual decisions and public policy. The mantra in real estate is location, loca- tion, location. We need to get the message across that being there is the best transportation solution. As part of the survey, they asked, “What would you like to change about the house?” About one in four people said it was an awfully long commute. Maybe this is just buyer’s remorse, but the only way you can explain this inconsistency, to the extent that we would expect consumers to be consistent, is that they are look- ing for a house at a price and a location, but if they can’t get all three, they go for the first two and then they present the problem as a traffic problem for you, the transportation agencies, to solve. I think the great opportunity is that with a smart growth policy behind you, the transportation agency can afford to just say no. You’ve made your compromise. Governor Glendening pointed out that we have spent seven decades getting ourselves into this current pattern of development that we call sprawl and it will take a while to get out of it. If you look at the compo- nents, the widespread availability of cars has been a big factor. On the government side, so have the Interstate highway system and Veterans Administration and Federal Housing Administration mortgages. Developments on the private side include Levittown— mass-produced, cheap tract housing—and shopping malls (this is according to a survey of 150 urbanists). I think the critics dismiss the results of this as sprawl, but for millions of home owners, it is the American dream, and we have enjoyed huge success in the past 50 years. Changing public policies can certainly affect develop- ment patterns, and to make them saleable, we need to keep the dream alive—that is an important component. In my opinion, the biggest impediment to linking smart growth and transportation from the policy side is one of changing public attitudes. In the public sector, we have preserved a separation between land use and transportation, and it is somehow seditious for trans- portation planners to consider the impacts of mobility improvements on land markets and development. These 63805_127_164 4/7/05 2:53 AM Page 125

decisions seem to be the province of local developers and local planning officials. As a result, you have the situation in which state departments of transportation have a huge stake in transportation investments that have been highly suspect, and they are very nervous about getting involved in land development. Regional agencies have been equally skittish. In the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments, the former chair- man said they couldn’t even put land use and trans- portation together on the same page. Les Sterman, Executive Director of the East–West Gateway Coordinating Council, said land use is the third rail of public policy for an MPO—touch it and you’re dead. Of course, the federal reluctance to deal with it is leg- endary. One of my favorite stories is about the Transportation and Community and System Preservation (TCSP) program, which was originally supposed to be called the Transportation and Land Use Demonstration Program, but that name was considered offensive to some of the members who were putting it together. They did a search and replace and changed the name of the program to its current name. The challenge in beating sprawl is to replace it with something better and something that avoids the problems but still offers more choices—this new American dream. We need more choices in housing and transportation. We talked about two examples yesterday, infill and its reverse. Infill has the benefit of providing transportation, building housing, putting people where the transporta- tion choices are. It’s all about choices. This is the greatest and most effective way to deal with it. It is also probably the one that is least accessible to a transportation agency because somebody else is responsible for the develop- ment program. But there are places with rich choices of transit, walking, taxis, and everything. A good example is in Kentucky. The Renaissance Kentucky program encourages downtowns as vibrant places with lots of choices. Traditionally, we have been moving away from that, but it involves state investment and local encouragement to help make these great places. We know that among the benefits of smart growth infill development are reduced transportation costs and being able to take advantage of existing infrastructure. You may want to create a prime properties list—a place where there is already infrastructure and where the transportation agencies would like to see development in preference to out there on the fringe. You can do this without legislation. There is a project in Bethesda, Maryland, called the Bethesda Row Project, that has been widely written up. It illustrates a lot of the challenges of infill develop- ment—problems with land assembly and land cost, approvals, financing, and even parking. They success- fully overcame the challenges with strong support from Montgomery County. But it illustrates how difficult that kind of development is and how everything has to go right for it to work, including, in the case of Montgomery County, a 1,000-space parking garage that was done as part of the plans. That is the infill. The edge is less clear. What do you do about managing the edge? What are the obstacles to greenfield development in these areas? Generally there are none, which explains why most of the development has been on the edge and not as infill. Part of the answer may be to make it more difficult to do that. However, we realize that these areas proba- bly are going to account for 80 percent or more of the new development, so it is important to get them right and to consider a broad range of transportation choices up front. If we accept that transportation agencies are in the development business, they have much to contribute— funding, staffing, and leadership. We have seen many examples at this conference. Transit agencies have a spe- cial opportunity and need, since they are often subject to the deteriorating market within prime transit districts— the places where transit works best. Pointing out good locations for development, which builds transit ridership and facilitates planning and property, helps advance a transit agenda and a broader livability context. I’ll close by asking how many of you are in the trans- portation business. How many consider that you are in the real estate business? All hands should go up, and you should support smart growth. 1 2 6 SMART GROWTH AND TRANSPORTATION: ISSUES AND LESSONS LEARNED 63805_127_164 4/7/05 2:53 AM Page 126

1 2 7 Metropolitan Planning Organization Perspective on Smart Growth, Land Use, and Transportation Ron Kirby, Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments Our involvement with smart growth as an MPOreally came most recently out of a visioningprocess we went through in the mid-1990s to try to reestablish the policy component of our trans- portation plan, which was long outdated—it was developed in the 1970s. One of our overriding con- cerns was that every major transportation project that came through our process was questioned in terms of how it fit into the big picture. Whether it was a high- way project or a major transit project, we were asked, “What is its impact on sprawl and land use?” We were not very well positioned to answer that question. In developing this vision from the transportation perspective, we argued that for transportation planning we needed a composite general land use and trans- portation map of the region that identifies the key ele- ments needed for regional transportation planning: regional activity centers, principal transportation corri- dors and facilities, and designated green space. The MPO adopted that in 1998, and then we began work- ing with other committees at the council of govern- ments that deal with the land use side of the equation to develop that map. From a transportation point of view, we put forward our long-range plan, which we had adopted through 2025. It was a fiscally constrained plan to meet federal requirements. That was all we could afford. We had a number of study corridors on that map. Then we went to the committee of planning directors from the local governments and asked them to put together the other piece of this map—the land use piece—and designate activity centers and green space and tie them into our transportation corridors. We had, going into this exercise, adopted forecasts of popula- tion, employment, and households through 2025 by small traffic zones, which we used for transportation planning. Those forecasts came through the land use side of our operation, and the planning directors put them together. We started with a whole set of forecasts, which were essentially what the local governments collectively believed would be the future development pattern in the region. It was reasonably tied to the transportation plan. Certainly, there was a lot of development around the Metrorail stations, which was already built into the forecasts. But going back into those and trying to aggregate those forecasts into distinct centers that could be iden- tified in the region as places where we wanted to have growth and focus our transportation resources was not a simple exercise. I think everyone recognized that we were looking at a multinucleated development pattern. In metropolitan areas, it is not just the downtown or central area anymore. Employment is going to the sub- urbs and outer suburbs. But how can we get it devel- oped and concentrated so that we can serve it efficiently with transit and not only highway access? We spent many months of effort in interplay between the technical planning staff and our elected officials. We had an oversight committee for this exercise composed of elected officials from both the MPO and the local governments. They looked at all of our products, and if they didn’t look right, they sent them back for further technical analysis. There was a lot of back-and-forth 63805_127_164 4/7/05 2:53 AM Page 127

about how we would define centers and whether the right things got in as centers. Is this what we expect to be a center, or is this the criterion that we want? There was a lot of iteration before we got a final product. We ended up with 58 centers designated: 5 in the central core area of the District of Columbia, 15 so- called mixed-use centers, 9 employment centers, 20 so- called suburban employment centers, and 9 that we designated as emerging employment centers—places that may not now or even in 2025 have a lot of employ- ment or be fully developed. But they are clearly devel- oping locations, and we wanted them explicitly noted, because the lead time for transportation investments and land development is such that you have to look way into the future at areas that are beginning to develop, as well as those that are already developed. We used primarily employment criteria to define these, although we used residential density as well for the mixed-use centers. Everyone involved was concerned about how this was going to be used. It could imply that where the growth is going is also where the transportation is going, and where the growth is not going the trans- portation is not going. Or it could be the reverse—that it meant we ought to put more transportation invest- ment to encourage growth in areas that don’t have it currently. Or it could be some combination of the two. The fact that the current forecasts were not neces- sarily what we wanted to see in the region led right up front to a declaration that when this map is done, it will be descriptive, not prescriptive. We recognize that it describes our current forecast but does not neces- sarily prescribe the way we want the region to go or where we want our investments to go. The first thing we may do when we finish the map is start figuring out how to change it to make it look different in terms of development, concentrations, and transportation investments. Another development was that we used the term “green space” in developing this map, and we put quo- tations around it because we didn’t know what it meant. It turned out to be prescient because the plan- ning directors couldn’t figure it out either. They had completely different definitions of green space in differ- ent jurisdictions and were not able, in this time frame, to reconcile those definitions or decide what they wanted the term to mean. So the whole issue was put on the back burner to be revisited later. We did agree at the end of this that we had a tool. It was published several months ago, and to respond to Bob Dunphy’s concern, the title is “A Tool for Linking Land Use and Transportation Planning.” We were a lit- tle hesitant about using that. We asked, “Is that too strong? Is anyone not going to like that?” But nobody has objected. We consider it a tool, a basis on which we can improve these linkages. Early versions had these disclaimers. There was a resolution that said the board of directors accepted it, and it had a big disclaimer that it was descriptive and not prescriptive. Somewhere toward the end, that was dropped and I was delighted. We agreed that it was a tool and that it is to be used to encourage mixed-use development and increase the per- centage of jobs and households in regional activity cen- ters. It got to be a fairly proactive description in the end. We also agreed to update it every 3 years as we get new forecasts. Over time, it will reflect the way we want the region to look as opposed to what our current forecasts say. A few obvious questions and uses come out of this right away. As soon as we started putting the map together, we immediately asked ourselves, “Where is development forecast, where does it exist now in fore- cast, and where do we not have adequate transporta- tion and particularly transit?” There were some major concentrations—Tysons Corner, Virginia, and the Dulles Corridor, where we have a tremendous amount of development and continuing development and no rail transit. The other question was, “Where do we have trans- portation and not a lot of development?” We have a number of Metrorail stations where there is virtually no development projected, even in 2025. That raised some questions. There are certain parts of the region where that is more prominent than others. There was a reaction by some elected officials that not all of those stations are in places where we can have high-density development or even mixed use. They are residential areas. Just because you have the transporta- tion access, it doesn’t mean you will be able to put in a lot of high-density development. There are issues with local land use and people who live there. They have a certain vision of that area that has to be recognized. Some of our citizens groups asked, “What about the gentrification issue?” As they look along some of those rail lines and stations that were designed to serve medium- and lower-income areas, and the kind of devel- opment that has occurred around some of the other sta- tions, there is the question of whether we are going to continue to permit enough low-income/medium-income housing and development in these new developments. It brought that issue to the table. Finally, going back to the green space issue, we asked, “Where we do want neither development nor transportation?” It would be helpful if we could “rope off” certain areas of the region and allow nothing there except very low-density development. There would be no more development or transportation. One official used the term “stay away” zones—zones to rule out for both transportation and development. We are still working on that. I think the concept is important. 1 2 8 SMART GROWTH AND TRANSPORTATION: ISSUES AND LESSONS LEARNED 63805_127_164 4/7/05 2:53 AM Page 128

What the map did for the first time was graphically illustrate data that we had been using for many years. But we had never put the data on a map, defined activ- ity centers by using employment criteria, and then illus- trated them graphically. I think it has really raised everyone’s awareness of what our future projects are, what some of the issues are, and helped us come to grips with what we need to do. I want to close by mentioning one successful smart growth and transit-oriented development project that had all the right characteristics. Time and again, at the MPO level, projects are controversial. Everything that comes forward has something wrong, and we have to struggle and struggle. Well, this one got all the green lights because it hit all of these criteria. It’s a new infill Metrorail station at New York Avenue, where there is fairly good highway access and potential for a transit station—the Red Line goes right through the area. There is a lot of development potential, being in an older warehousing area, and some creative developers put together a program, which is one-third financed by the private sector. We got the federal government to pay for one-third and the District of Columbia paid for one- third—about $84 million total for a new Metrorail sta- tion. When we did our plan update, we put in 6,000 more jobs that were coming as part of the development. So there was an opportunity to add a new transit sta- tion and a lot of new development that was part of the package for that particular transportation improvement to the long-range transportation plan. The land use and the transportation really came together in that instance, and frankly you wouldn’t have gotten one without the other. If there were no transit station, we wouldn’t have had the development. If it were not for the develop- ment, we couldn’t have afforded the transit station. It is a nice example of that linkage, and it has obviously raised the idea of looking for others like that. The Environmental Protection Agency has evaluated that particular measure, along with some others around the country, and has done a report in which it tried to quantify the impacts of that development on land use, air quality, and vehicle miles of travel as compared with that development going to other locations in the region. In one scenario, we looked at distributing it throughout the District of Columbia. In another, we put it in a sub- urban transit location. Although I won’t go into the details, I would say, on the basis of our work and the case study done in Portland, that suburban transit- oriented development can work well for the region because we have a lot of development there already. That is where a lot of residential development is. You can get jobs close to where people live and get transit ridership concentrated in suburban locations. It gets back to the multinucleated development concept for the region. In this particular example, the suburban alter- native wouldn’t have been that much worse than the one downtown in terms of vehicle miles of travel and air quality; these results surprised a lot of people. 1 2 9WHO MUST BE INVOLVED AND WHAT ARE THE OBSTACLES? 63805_127_164 4/7/05 2:53 AM Page 129

1 3 0 Discussion Audience question: Over the past decade, we have really seen a dramatic change in state transportation planning in terms of MPOs and their incorporation of land use issues in their planning, which I think has been driven at least in part by federal legislation [the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act (ISTEA) and the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century (TEA-21)]. With the new round of federal leg- islation coming up, can we look forward to AASHTO and some of the states taking the lead in perhaps insti- tutionalizing some of these smart growth ideas, either at a policy level looking at funding flexibility, or perhaps championing new funding streams to support commu- nity revitalization or transit-oriented development? Can we look for support going forward in the next round of federal transportation legislation? John Porcari: The short answer is yes, at least from Maryland’s perspective. We are active on a number of levels on reauthorization, and at the risk of stating the obvious, the most important thing is that the pie gets a little bit bigger this time around if we are going to do all these great things. Having said that, there is a lot of flexibility in TEA-21, perhaps more than we use. There are certainly some obstacles on smart growth projects in using transportation dollars, but I have to say by and large, if you push the envelope, you can do it. The obvi- ous set-aside categories like enhancement, for exam- ple—I think at least the states could certainly use more of that. But the real issue is how we are going to accom- plish our first priority, rebuilding what we have as it becomes 25 to 35 years old, and still have a new con- struction program and a smart growth reconstruction program. You can’t do both—at least we can’t—within the existing funding constraints. Jim Codell: To amplify what John said, obviously funding is the main issue, and maintaining our existing infrastructure is first and foremost. But infrastructure and maintenance and even expansion, in some cases, will have to be done in a different vein or in a different light, as opposed to initial construction. So those factors will have to be considered. I would agree with John’s comment about using fed- eral money for transportation enhancement projects. In my opinion, we have the flexibility that we need. FHWA has worked with us, certainly in Kentucky and across the nation, to enable us to have the flexibility we need to address the various projects. Transportation enhancement projects, specifically, are popular and will continue to be popular in the future. But first and fore- most is the funding level: where we are going, how we get there, and whether we can increase the program. We have to increase the program if for nothing else than to maintain the infrastructure that we have. John Horsley: Let me give you some specifics that the state departments of transportation and AASHTO are proposing to include in next year’s reauthorization. First, we are proposing 35 percent growth in the high- way program and 44 percent growth in the transit pro- gram. We need both facets of the program to grow. In terms of sustaining the 10 percent dedicated set-aside for transportation enhancements, one of the issues on the table is what to do about the TCSP program. We haven’t taken a position on that, and I have asked our reauthorization steering committee to develop a posi- 63805_127_164 4/7/05 2:53 AM Page 130

tion and present it to our board during our meeting in Alaska. Audience question: To follow this discussion, financ- ing for transportation increased about 40 percent as we went from ISTEA to TEA-21. Yet during that time, a greater number of states cut their gas tax than raised their gas tax. The Amalgamated Transit Workers Union has a proposal to provide a funding incentive in TEA-21 reauthorization for states that offer flexible state fund- ing as opposed to this set-aside just for roads. Is that the kind of incentive that perhaps AASHTO could get behind to help us reform the funding flexibility to sup- port smart growth? In addition, would AASHTO con- sider increased suballocation of federal funds to regions and local communities to help support these kinds of smart growth planning and investments so that we don’t end up with the situation we have today, where one out of four Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality (CMAQ) dollars is going unspent because it is shifted over to National Highway System or other road expansions? John Horsley: First, let me get the facts straight and then ask my panelists to address the substance of your question. During the past 10 years, investment from all levels of government went up substantially. You’re right that the fastest rate of growth was the federal govern- ment, but the largest growth came from state govern- ments, then county and city governments. So there was substantial growth in transportation across the board, but the single largest contribution came from state depart- ments of transportation, which have contributed about twice the growth that came from the federal government. Growth is coming from all three levels of government, but the greatest share is from the states. John Porcari: At least from the Maryland perspec- tive, we flex funds all the time from one category to another. I do think it is a valid point that at the state and local levels, if you are not willing to match those funds and if you are not going to put your money where your mouth is, then it is going to be difficult to ask for more at the federal level in a reauthorization process. By the way, we would be happy to take that unspent CMAQ money, because we are over the top on that cat- egory. The dynamics are obviously different in each state, but I think that a smart growth approach in the process of building a transportation program consistent with smart growth is also a great opportunity at the state level to build political support for more revenue from the state. To be blunt, if you do it right, the kinds of projects you are delivering are exactly the kind that would enable an elected official to make that tough vote for a gas tax or other increase. Ron Kirby: I think going from ISTEA to TEA-21 and on, there will, it is hoped, be a gradual evolution in the federal program away from categorical—here is the highway program, here is the transit program—to a structure with more flexibility. I think that is what we need. In terms of overall funding needs, mention was made of rehabilitation and maintenance requirements. That is a big requirement in our region, for transit as well as highways. That will take up a lot of the money. I think that leads you to many of these new facilities requiring mixed funding. It is not going to be the 80/20 federal match anymore. The example I used here, the New York Avenue station, is one-third federal, one-third private. Some of the major road projects we are looking at are mixed funding with development districts, tax dis- tricts, and so forth. That is probably a good thing because it forces the land use linkage. If you don’t get the land use, you can’t get the facility because you don’t have the demand. I think we will see more of that. The federal share may go down, but the federal program is still critical. In terms of the structure of the program, it gives you the ability to do it right, but it also allows you to do it wrong. You have complete flexibility. I’m not sure how much more prescriptive the federal program can be, but I think, in general, flexibility to move funds across these categories is important. Audience question: Bob, you mentioned the need to have the different sectors work together and particu- larly to bring in the private sector in reinventing sub- urbs, which is something you’ve done a lot of work on. I’m wondering about dealing with parking lots and sur- face parking in grayfields and how institutions can work together with the landowners or private develop- ers who have already taken ownership of that area. Doing a pedestrian-friendly redevelopment of an exist- ing shopping center means creating sidewalks and walkways in a totally privately held place. I’m curious about the institutional arrangements that have worked for that situation. Robert Dunphy: Are you talking about a private strip center or a private failed mall? I mentioned in one of the meetings that ULI took on this issue of the sub- urban strip—the ugly, deteriorating suburban strip— and put together about a dozen experts who brought in a retail perspective and an engineering perspective and a design and planning perspective to create some choices and options. That is available online at our website at www.uli.org. For a failed mall, and there are a number of examples of those, if the numbers work and the market works, it could be an entirely private operation. I think the growing trend is to create more of a town center kind of pattern. Then there are a couple of examples of ones where they have actually “de-malled” it. The recent one I’m thinking of, a project in Colorado, was a transit-oriented develop- ment around one of their light rail stations, City Center Englewood. It was a failed mall and it is a mix of public and private where the transit agency has the station, the city has a plaza, it is in front of the City Hall offices, there 1 3 1WHO MUST BE INVOLVED AND WHAT ARE THE OBSTACLES? 63805_127_164 4/7/05 2:53 AM Page 131

is private development, there is infill housing, and there is even a big box on the perimeter of the property. Nobody wants to admit it is there, but in fact it provides a very valuable financial component to the project and to the city for taxes. Audience question: I would like to go back to the question that Charlie asked at the end of the last session. Bob Grow quoted some statistics from your survey in the Greater Salt Lake area that about 15 percent of the citi- zens said they trust government, about 15 percent said they trust the private sector, and most say they trust them- selves and they have to take the initiative. Then other questions were raised: Do AASHTO and the state depart- ments of transportation embrace or oppose creative solu- tions and community-responsive designs? Can we have our investments and our design decisions in sync with smart growth? This is a group from the Transportation Research Board perspective addressing smart growth. In yet another world, you have your community develop- ment directors at the city and county levels, and there is a bureaucracy of state planners and state community devel- opment directors. How do we get a better dialogue going between those of us in the transportation world and those in the land use world? They are different parts of the bureaucracy, the approach is different, and, Bob, you are in the crosshairs for both of us. John Porcari: One easy way you can get a dialogue going within the public sector is—and I think Governor Glendening mentioned this—a smart growth subcabi- net. Ours meets regularly, and in addition to the secre- tary of transportation, we have housing and community development, planning, health and mental hygiene for some of the social service issues, and the environmental secretary. It is a very nuts and bolts forum to work out some of those issues. Probably the most important par- ties, the local jurisdictions, are not at the table on any given project using that mechanism, so we have to bring them in on a project-by-project basis. But that is one very quick-and-dirty way that you can do that. Ron Kirby: The local jurisdictions are at the MPO table, and that is one of the opportunities we have to link the land use planning with transportation. You are absolutely right—the land use issue comes down to the local jurisdictions, the local planning directors, and the local officials. All of those decisions are going to involve those people and the local community. If we don’t make that link, we are not going to be able to do these kinds of projects. It is absolutely critical. Robert Dunphy: You also need to have a long- lasting, high-visibility aspect to this notion that every- body buys into, and keep it up. If the economic devel- opment director isn’t on board, it wouldn’t be out of line for the director of the department of transportation or the state agency or city level to say, “This is what is going on, and you need to get with the program.” I’m thinking of Arlington County, which has had a program to concentrate growth along its two transit lines for 30 years now, with huge impacts and benefits. Everybody buys into it and even the citizens understand it, know it, and support it. Jim Codell: In Kentucky, we obviously have two dif- ferent situations. As I said before, we are mostly rural, and dealing with the MPOs and the few metropolitan areas that we have is one thing, as opposed to dealing with the other regions of the state. When we go to the other regions, we are there to facilitate and to listen to what they have and show them what they might have or what they can create, and try to glean from them what they want. We take those measures in non-MPO regions because the MPOs normally have a more defined way of going about what they want and they have a better idea of where they want to go and a bet- ter vision. But at the same time, everything being equal, I think it is incumbent on us as a transportation cabinet to listen, to engage, and to explain to them that we can’t be everything to everybody. We can tell them what they might get and offer them the various choices, give them the various options. We ask if they want to do this or that and try to focus on what they want first, rather than telling them what we can do for them or the way they have to go about it. You need to explain to them that you have some flexibility and you will use it. 1 3 2 SMART GROWTH AND TRANSPORTATION: ISSUES AND LESSONS LEARNED 63805_127_164 4/7/05 2:53 AM Page 132