New Orleans Conference Highlights Rail

[allan thomas]

New Orleans Conference Highlights Rail As Catalyst For Economic Growth By DF Staff   Transportation experts, rail advocates, developers, planners, and community leaders from throughout Louisiana and the Gulf Region converged last week on New Orleans for a spirited, intense, and information-packed conference last co-sponsored by The University of New Orleans Transportation Center and the Center for Urban and Public Affairs, and the National Corridors Initiative.   The conference, “Setting a Vision for Sustainable Development: the Louisiana Transportation Renaissance,” was opened by keynote speaker, the Honorable John Robert Smith, Mayor of Meridian, Mississippi, former Chairman of the Board of Amtrak. Mayor Smith’s story is the renaissance of his own city starting sixteen years ago when few people understood that a downtown area could be brought back to life by reviving a railroad station and attracting economic development around that station.   Mayor Smith, one of the first mayors in America to understand the potential impact of transit-oriented development as a tool for economic revival in an urban environment --- despite significant local opposition --- succeeded in getting a new, well-designed downtown station built. Opened just 10 years ago, it has already prompted $135 million in direct investment in the immediate station neighborhood, as well as a spill-over affect in other areas of downtown Meridian.   Representing more downtown investment in a decade than had been seen in Meridian in the previous 40 years, Mayor Smith’s railroad station and transportation center effectively reversed what had been a long, slow decline of the small Southern city, and brought that city back to life.   Dr. John Renne, Associate Director of the Gulf Coast Research Center for Evacuation and Transportation Resiliency at UNO, said the United States, having over-invested in highways for most of the 20th century, is at this point at a disadvantage competitively when compared with more modern, transit and rail supported economies such as those in Europe and Asia.   “The system is broken,” he said. Building only roads has led to more congestion over time, which led to still more road building, and increasing suburban sprawl, even as downtowns were being emptied out of middle and upper-class workers and families. And now, he noted we’re not maintaining what we’ve built. When gas prices went up to $4.00 a gallon, we weren’t prepared. Household budgets were stretched to the limit by transportation expenses, which now surpass the cost of food for many families. The good news is that some cities have had great success with their rail systems: Denver, Phoenix, and Dallas have built light rail systems that have spurred great economical growth in the rail corridors.   Louisiana’s Secretary of Transportation Dr. William Ankner spoke of the absurdity of depending on gas taxes to fund our transportation systems. “Think of this,” he said, “We are paying for transportation with the revenue from a non-renewable energy sources!” We need a new paradigm in transportation, he said. We’ve always planned by modes which compete. We need to look at how transportation helps a community grow and plan integrated systems.   Kara Renne, a New Orleans planner, spoke of the “low-hanging fruit” ---- bike trails which can be built quickly for smaller amounts of money and can greatly improve mobility and quality of life while being environmentally friendly. New Orleans is aggressively planning expansion of the existing trails with federal stimulus funds and expects to complete 40 miles of bike lanes in New Orleans by the end of the year, noted Center for Urban and Public Affairs Director Dr. Billy Fields III. Moderator of one of the day’s several panel discussions   Optimism prevailed at the conference. Inspired by President Obama who understands the need for a world class rail system in America, advocates are encouraged that funding will be available for rail more than ever before. Developers and planners are now much more focused on the economic advantages of building dense, mixed-use neighborhoods near rail and transit in city and town centers.   Roberta Brandes Gratz, author of Cities Back from the Edge; New Life for Downtown and other important works on urban subjects, said “Cities only grow back to greatness when there is transit,” and she cited Toronto as an example of a thriving center where they saved their streetcar system.   Highways through cities have been destructive, she said. In Buffalo a huge area of the center city is still empty, caused by the construction of a highway, whereas in New York City, So Ho, Chinatown and Greenwich Village would not exist if Robert Moses had built his Lower Manhattan highway.   Also speaking was New Orleans Regional Transit Authority General Manager Justin Augustine III, who is also a senior executive at Veolia Transportation, a provider of management and other services to more than 5000 transit systems around the world. Augustine, a New Orleans native, gave a spirited description of future expansion of New Orleans streetcar system, which has become a symbol of the city and which has helped significantly in the post-Katrina recovery of New Orleans. Veolia operates NORTA under contract, as well as Jefferson Parish’s transit system and several others in Louisiana. http://www.nationalcorridors.org/df2/df03302009.shtml#New