The Portland City Council is moving forward with a plan to improve transit service through a series of targeted improvements to some of the city’s most delayed bus and streetcar corridors. Known as the Rose Lane Project, it’s designed to advance equity, reduce carbon emissions, and increase transit ridership with quick-build projects. It also offers lessons to other cities struggling with sluggish transits systems mired in a sea of cars.
On Tuesday, February 18, LOCUS and Smart Growth America are launching the National Opportunity Zones Marketplace to facilitate and spur equitable smart growth development across the country, with a focus on Opportunity Zones.
Upon the release of the President’s proposed FY 2021 budget request to Congress, SGA President & CEO Calvin Gladney issued this statement.
The Richard H. Driehaus Form-Based Code Award is back for its 12th year! If your community has adopted a form-based code that is promoting people-scaled development and a mix of uses, send us your code.
The House majority’s recent infrastructure proposal finally recognizes what Smart Growth America has been saying for years: We’ll never be able to build and sustain healthy, prosperous and resilient communities without a unified approach to transportation, climate, water, land use, and community development. This is a smart first step, but the details will determine whether or not these investments improve the deep inequities in America, or just make them worse.
Transportation doesn’t just mean cars or trucks—or just bikes, buses, and walking. Transportation is all of those and more, and different modes are better suited for different people, different stages of life, and different tasks. But in America our “transportation system” is more often than not comprised mostly of highways and roads designed solely for cars, with little space for people. The essay below is a personal reflection on how transportation needs and desires change, yet our transportation system often makes it challenging and dangerous to get around without a car.
Schools are natural places to encourage walking and biking. However, the share of students who walk or bike to school has declined for decades. We recently spoke with Fionnuala Quinn and Margot Ocañas about how to make areas around schools safer for getting around without a car, and help students feel confident and comfortable engaging with the planning process.
The City of Greenfield and the Town of Montague in Massachusetts’ Pioneer Valley sought technical assistance through the first-ever Massachusetts Opportunity Zones Academy to help determine future equitable development project feasibility in their three Opportunity Zones.
The proposed South Salem Commuter Rail Station has brought a lot of attention to an underutilized area of land in Salem, which also happens to be a designated Opportunity Zone. During the inaugural Massachusetts Opportunity Zones Academy, SGA provided the City with three different development scenarios to consider for the land use and zoning near the proposed station site.
The towns of Barnstable and Yarmouth on Cape Cod worked with SGA’s Form-Based Codes Institute during the first-ever Massachusetts Opportunity Zones Academy to gain insight on how to take advantage of their designated Opportunity Zones to create a better sense of place within the two towns.