Rail-Volution Is Underway in America

I have been wanting to write a blog about the presentations, conferences, meetings, site visits, and odd trips I attend or take that are related to urban-regional planning and development. Living and working in Boston provides extensive opportunities for hearing and talking with hundreds of thoughtful people who are involved with developing local communities.

I would like to report on Rail-Volution 2009, a national conference about “Building Livable Communities with Transit” that was held in Boston at the Westin Seaport Hotel October 30-November 1. About 500 people attended from around the country and beyond. There were federal officials, state and local transportation staffers, developers, regional transit authority officials, bike and walking advocates, neighborhood activists, a couple academics, planners of many stripes, bloggers, and people interested in the next big thing in urban development.

Rail-Volution covered a wide range of topics with the biggest concentration on transit-oriented development (TOD) adjacent to rail stations. Portland, OR, seems to be at the cutting edge of this trend. The general take-away from the conference is that large cities across the country are developing new transit lines—subways and streetcars—and are building new buildings and neighborhoods around them. Though it’s an effective response to climate change, the real reason it’s happening is that some of the population wants a more walkable urban lifestyle. They are tired of having to drive everywhere and getting stuck in traffic.

Attending such a conference can be a hit-or-miss affair. Which sessions do you attend? The scheduled speakers are not always there. The program description is not always accurate. One speaker from London was supposed to discuss his hometown’s accomplishments, but he ended up speaking about Edmonton, Canada—it was informative nevertheless. One person who was supposed to discuss how Boston has been innovative with transit ended up trashing the MBTA and said Boston is so dysfunctional it is incapable of being innovative.

In this blog I only want to convey a couple insights about the overall direction of transit and transit-oriented development, as observed from a bevy of presentations and conversations.

The greatest progress has been made on the two coasts. There is much exciting development and policy about climate change in San Francisco-Bay Area, Seattle, Portland, and Los Angeles, as well as in the old transit-oriented cities of Boston, New York, and Chicago. Some impressive work related to transit is taking place in Denver, Salt Lake City, Dallas, and Houston. These Sunbelt cities, which blossomed during the postwar auto age, are embracing transit and urban density with the zeal of converts.

Whenever you attend a conference that preaches to the choir, you wonder what outside people think. In particular, you wonder what the American public is thinking about how to cope with climate change. Polls show the percentage of Americans who are deeply concerned about climate change has dropped from about 77% to 57% in a little more than a year. As President Obama and Congress get serious about climate change legislation and the economy struggles, many Americans are skeptical of major new initiatives.

One of the most interesting points was made by Aaron Reen, of Chicago and Urbanophile Blog. His blog focuses on Midwestern cities, trend-setting Chicago (see the Chicago Climate Change Plan) and places like Indianapolis, St. Louis, and Cincinnati, which have been slow to get on the bandwagon for TOD. Reen’s blog is intended to share information between Midwest cities and hasten the adoption of transit-oriented strategies. Reen finds, however, that conservative Midwesterners (more small “c” conservatives than right-wing ideologues) are suffering from an industrial economy that is truly in crisis. Many of the Midwestern cities, with the exception of Chicago and Minneapolis-St. Paul have been slow to make the transition to the information-service economy. These communities are tied to their automobiles and wonder how transit can turn them around. This is the heartland of auto manufacturing, and many people are loathe to embrace development strategies based on transit.

Aaron Reen’s point is well taken. You can see where skepticism is coming from on the cap-and trade bill being discussed in Congress. For more on this check out Reen’s blog at www.urbanophile.com.

The transit proponents attending the tenth annual Rail-Volution believe that it is a matter of time before more of the country gets on the transit bandwagon. Former Massachusetts
Governor Michael Dukakis made the analogy that rail is where highways were in the early 1950s, before President Eisenhower signed the Interstate Highway Act. Dukakis argued that, as gas prices rise, climate change becomes more accentuated, and the benefits of compact urbanism and transit become more evident, the revival of intercity rail (especially high-speed rail) and local public transit will accelerate.