Protected: SGA Coalition Update – 4/4/11
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Protected: SGA Monthly Coalition Call Notes – 3/31/11
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Call for entries: Pennsylvania's 2011 Commonwealth Awards
Crossposted from Smart Growth America’s coalition partner organization 10,000 Friends of Pennsylvania.
10,000 Friends of Pennsylvania is now accepting submissions for the 2011 Commonwealth Awards. The Commonwealth Awards honor Pennsylvania projects that incorporate smart land use, smart design, and smart growth principles, as well as individuals who have contributed to smart growth. Through these awards, 10,000 Friends of Pennsylvania aims to raise awareness of projects that successfully demonstrate sound land use principles around the Commonwealth – projects that are development or redevelopment; in settings from urban to suburban to rural. The 2011 winners will be announced at a program on September 20, 2011 at the Hilton Harrisburg Hotel in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
Design award guidelines: for smart growth projects in Pennsylvania
Eligible projects must be located in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the project must have been built or been under construction after January 1, 2008. In addition to one grand Gold Award winner, Silver Awards, Bronze Awards and Commendations may also be granted to projects under construction or proposed after January 1, 2008. Multi-phase projects may be evaluated and awarded based upon achievements during a specific phase. The resubmission of projects is encouraged.
Project submissions may include, but are not limited to, these project types:
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Individual award guidelines: nominate a smart growth champion
Nominations are also invited to acknowledge Pennsylvanians who contribute to smart growth. Nominations are accepted in two categories: Contribution by a Citizen, and Contribution by a Public Official. Recipients will be cited for their direct contributions to smart growth and for their positive and valuable influence on their community, constituents, and peers.
How to enter
Visit 10000friends.org to read the full guidelines and to download the entry forms. Entries should be submitted to: Commonwealth Awards, 10,000 Friends of Pennsylvania, 200 N 3rd Street, 4th Floor, Harrisburg, PA 17101. Entries are due no later than June 15, 2011.
Livable Communities Coalition launches Fair Share for Transit campaign
At a rally yesterday in downtown Atlanta, the Livable Communities Coalition (LCC) launched its Fair Share for Transit campaign. Speaking at the rally, Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed voiced his support for the initiative which is designed “to explain the benefits of and need for significantly increased investment in transit service for the metro Atlanta region.”
Atlanta is in the process of identifying major transportation projects for the region for the next decade, and Fair Share for Transit wants to make sure transit, bicycle and pedestrian projects are included. LCC Executive Director Ray Christman explained these transportation choices will help Atlanta economically: “We have to invest now in transportation alternatives that will boost the region’s economic competitiveness, help attract good jobs and improve the region’s quality of life.” Fair Share for Transit backers include private business groups and representatives of the health, disability, social equity, environmental, transit, bicycling and pedestrian communities. More than 20 businesses and groups have signed on to the campaign to date.
The Georgia General Assembly recently passed the Transportation Investment Act of 2010, and next summer residents of Atlanta’s 10-county region will vote whether to raise sales taxes one percent for 10 years in order to finance a number of much anticipated and much needed transportation projects. According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, today “is the deadline for MARTA, the Atlanta region’s 10 counties and its cities and towns to get their desired projects to the state.” MARTA is not expected to set priorities until this summer, after the projects are initially reviewed by the state Department of Transportation’s director of planning and area elected officials. The campaign will continue until October 15th, when the final list of projects is announced.
Fair Share for Transit supporters include Atlanta Bicycle Coalition, Atlanta Neighborhood Development Partnership, Buckhead Community Improvement District, Cherokee Area Transportation System, Citizens for Progressive Transit, CHA, Coalition for the People’s Agenda, Atlanta Chapter of the Congress for the New Urbanism, Georgia Chapter of the Sierra Club, Georgians for Passenger Rail, Georgia STAND-UP, Georgia Transit Association, Hedgewood Realty, Henry County Chamber of Commerce, Resources for Residents and Communities of Georgia, RouteMatch Software, Southern Environmental Law Center, and Sustainable Solutions Georgia.
Formed in 2005, the Livable Communities Coalition is the Atlanta region’s smart growth advocate and catalyst. It unites nearly 60 organizations working to change the way metro Atlanta grows by focusing on land use, transportation, housing, and conservation of open green space and natural resources. Member organizations include regional leaders in the areas of aging, building and development, business, urban and landscape design, government, housing, planning, sustainable development, the environment, and transit and transportation alternatives.
New report and interactive map shows the state of our nation's bridges
Crossposted from Transportation for America
69,223 bridges – representing more than 11 percent of all U.S. highway bridges – are classified as “structurally deficient,” requiring significant maintenance, rehabilitation or replacement, according to a new T4 America report released today, The Fix We’re In: The State of Our Nation’s Bridges.
Those are the facts, and 69,000 bridges sure sounds like a lot, but what does that look like in real terms? Where are these bridges? Does your city or state have a lot of deficient bridges, or does the state do a good job taking care of them? Those questions are going to be much easier to answer with our online tools accompanying the report, launching today at t4america.org/resources/bridges.
We’ve taken the whole federal bridge database and put it online in a map, so you can type your address, and see all the bridges within a ten-mile radius. Structurally deficient bridges will show up as red icons. Click any bridge and you’ll get more information about it, including its rating in a box on the right.
Curious about how your state stacks up? Click on “By State” and click your state to see a quick overview of their performance, including the best and worst five counties, as well as their rank nationally and total percentage of structurally deficient bridges.
The national report and all 51 state reports are being officially released today at noon with a national telebriefing, but you can go ahead and check out the map and data now on our site. (Media members? Contact david.goldberg [at] t4america [dot] org if you want information on the telebriefing.)
Check out the map today and please spread the word about it. We’ll be posting several times throughout the day with more information about the national report, which is available for download now — as well as reports for all 50 states and D.C.
Complete Streets Champions Receive Legislative Leadership Award
For their efforts to improve the lives of older adults and their families, AARP awarded Representative Doris Matsui and Representative Steven LaTourette with Legislative Leadership awards. The awards recognized both Congress members for championing federal Complete Streets legislation in the 111th Congress.
SGA Asks: What can cities like Detroit do to rebuild their local economy?
Each week Smart Growth America poses a question to our readers to encourage discussion about smart growth ideas in neighborhoods across America. You can engage in the dialogue by commenting on our Facebook page or through Twitter with @SmartGrowthUSA. If you’re not already a fan or a follower, sign up to participate.
The 2010 US Census data released this week revealed that Detroit, among other cities, lost more residents than initially thought. This week, SGA asks: What can cities like Detroit do to rebuild their local economy?
The New York Times’ Room for Debate debates this issue in depth, with eight experts weighing in on revitalization opportunities presented by increasingly vacant cities across America. Among the points they raise:
- What if the government used a fraction of the billions it spends to subsidize home-building on ‘unbuilding’ projects instead?
- The record of top-down schemes to revive cities by remaking neighborhoods is littered with disastrous unintended consequences.
- The key to restoring a shrinking city’s health is to cut costs of doing business and ensure access to quality education.
- Build vegetable gardens and parks, but also consider tax incentives.
- We need to get over our tendency to throw out damaged goods; instead we need to retrofit them.
Which of the authors do you agree with? Disagree with? What role can abandoned property revitalization play in reviving a city?
Cutting costs through smarter growth in Raleigh, NC
In a piece today in TIME about growth and development in Raleigh, NC, Mitch Silver discusses the financial burdens many towns bear to support sparse development. To help reduce these costs, Raleigh has a comprehensive plan to guide economic growth and public and private investment in the city for the next 20 years. The plan is meant to help Raleigh “promote sustainability while maintaining and enhancing the natural and architectural assets of the City and promoting the social and economic welfare of its residents.”
- Read the full story: “Reigning in Sprawleigh” [TIME, 3/25/2011]
- Learn more about Raleigh’s 2030 Comprehensive Plan: http://www.raleighnc.gov/cp
Answers: Is there a road in your neighborhood that’s pedestrian unfriendly? How would you change it?
Earlier this week Smart Growth America asked our readers to weigh in on pedestrian unfriendly roads in their neighborhoods, and we’re excited to share the responses. We’ll be asking a new question next week – be sure to follow us on Twitter or become a fan on Facebook to join the discussion!
So: is there a road in your neighborhood that’s pedestrian unfriendly? If so, how would you change it? Here are some responses:
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If you’d like to learn more about making roads that work for everyone, visit Smart Growth America’s partner organization Complete Streets to learn more.
Main Street and open space: Smart growth at work in rural areas
Towns and cities across the country in all types of areas – rural, suburban as well as urban – can use smarter development strategies to create stronger, more vibrant communities. Such was the topic of a discussion at the National Building Museum in Washington, DC, on Thursday. Anna Read of the International City/County Management Association and Stephanie Bertaina of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Sustainable Communities discussed strategies that can help guide growth in rural areas while protecting natural and working lands and preserving rural character.
Read and Bertaina identified a number of benefits rural areas can reap by incorporating smart growth strategies. Smaller towns and cities often a struggle to maintain open space and small-town character while still benefiting from development, and though growth can bring the economic opportunity many rural areas want, it can also bring traffic congestion and other conflicts. The speakers acknowledged these sometimes conflicting needs and explained how smart growth strategies can help towns strike a delicate balance. Smart growth strategies help create an economic climate that enhances working lands and conserves natural lands, while protecting downtowns and Main Streets and helping those valuable assets thrive. In doing so, smart growth strategies can help build vibrant, enduring neighborhoods that people, especially young people, want to live in.
One example of this principle in action is the Texas Historical Commission (THC). Through its Texas Main Street Program, THC helps communities across Texas capitalize on their unique, authentic character. For many small businesses in the state, the Texas Main Street Program is a key to survival. As Britin Bostick, who sits on the Paris, TX, Main Street Advisory Board and chairs the downtown economic restructuring committee, explained to the Daily Yonder, THC’s Main Street revitalization effort provided “a necessary framework for us to build our downtown.”