USDOT’s Reconnecting Communities Program
Yesterday, the US Division of Transportation introduced the preliminary 45 winners for the Reconnecting Communities grant program, a first-of-its-kind initiative to revive communities broken by highways and different large roads. With the announcement, this system takes a small, however important step to make the nation’s strategy to transportation planning extra accountable and sustainable.
There’s rather a lot to have a good time. The successful Reconnecting Communities proposals largely help grassroots efforts to handle historic injustices and construct new infrastructure that promotes walkability and multimodal entry for underserved communities.
However the restricted quantity of development grant funding (solely sufficient to help six initiatives) reminds us extra must be executed to restore the harm previous infrastructure investments have brought on, specifically to Black and brown communities. To attain this objective, USDOT should allocate further funding from applications past Reconnecting Communities and, simply as importantly, work to finish freeway expansions that trigger much more harm.
Let’s dive in to see simply how far the Reconnecting Communities program has moved the needle.
The Highlights
Previous to the announcement, there was concern that state DOTs have been eying the Reconnecting Communities program to fund routine freeway upkeep and even deliberate expansions, justifying their purposes with restricted freeway caps. We’re comfortable to report that (with one exception) USDOT turned these purposes away, setting the precedent that this system’s funds shouldn’t be utilized in help of highways.
As a substitute, USDOT awarded 12 planning grants and three development grants to communities the place grassroots freeway combating campaigns are actively working towards reparative initiatives according to the scope of the grant software. In a number of circumstances, these campaigns have been companions on the applying. That is an encouraging pattern we’d wish to see extra of. Tasks with group consensus behind them are higher capable of meaningfully deal with resident wants and are much more prone to be efficiently applied.
When it comes to the varieties of initiatives funded, practically half the cash went to proposals to cap highways (12 initiatives) and 1 / 4 of the cash to proposals to take away both highways or different obstacles to connectivity (11 initiatives). The remaining funding covers two transit initiatives, 5 full streets initiatives, and 9 research to establish obstacles and search for open-ended options.
Though the pool of development grant recipients is small, they mannequin how businesses in partnership with communities can take a people-centered strategy to transportation planning. Three specifically we expect are price highlighting:
As for planning grant initiatives, practically half of them are brazenly backed by community-based organizations. They make up a part of the pipeline for future capital development grants and set the desk for even larger motion in direction of reparative transportation planning within the long-term. Notable planning grant recipients embrace:
- In Tulsa, many members of the group see I-244, constructed by Greenwood, as a barrier to rebuilding historic Black Wall Avenue. The North Peoria Church of Christ, displaced by the freeway’s development, and its companions acquired $1.6 million to find out how the freeway might be eliminated and land returned to Greenwood and North Tulsa residents.
- In Seattle, the coalition Reconnect South Park is searching for options to reunite the South Park neighborhood, which is split by State Route 99. The group already has funding help from the Metropolis of Seattle, which now has a further $1.6 million for additional planning actions.
- In Portland, Albina Imaginative and prescient Belief and the Metropolis of Portland acquired $800,000 to check how new land created from a freeway cap over I-5 could be a catalyst for rebuilding the historically-Black Albina neighborhood.
Room for Enchancment
Nonetheless, there are a number of disappointing facets to the announcement. USDOT missed alternatives to help further group teams, just like the Claiborne Avenue Alliance in New Orleans, which for years has championed the elimination of the Claiborne Expressway and considerably raised the profile of the necessity to reconnect communities within the interval main as much as the passage of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Regulation.
Solely three of the 39 successful planning grant purposes have a community-based group as their lead applicant. If USDOT is critical about creating reconnecting communities options tailor-made to native wants, it ought to goal to fund extra community-based organizations to allow them to carry data {and professional} experience from exterior the conventional channels of infrastructure improvement that previously haven’t served residents.
On the identical time, a number of initiatives are planning to reconnect communities divided by highways within the not-so-distant previous, and even the longer term. The Metropolis of Little Rock received an award to check capping a freeway that’s being expanded proper this second, whereas the Metropolis of Austin acquired funds to plan a cap over a proposed growth of I-35. For all intents and functions, these investments search to restore the harm freeway expansions are inflicting proper now. USDOT ought to leverage the Reconnecting Communities program to discourage state DOTs from actually having the ability to cowl their errors in real-time.
Extra Work to Be Achieved: What’s Subsequent for Reconnecting Communities
Whereas yesterday’s announcement is unquestionably price celebrating, there’s much more work to be executed. The restricted funding for this system ($1 billion over 5 years) isn’t equal to the overwhelming demand for reconnecting communities initiatives all through the nation. This 12 months alone, USDOT acquired 435 purposes for this system, searching for a complete of over $2 billion in funding.
Furthermore, many states are utilizing the inflow of versatile federal infrastructure funds to construct freeway initiatives deliberate a long time in the past, earlier than we totally understood the local weather, well being, and financial harm they trigger. In communities like Houston, Milwaukee, Salt Lake Metropolis, Shreveport, Jersey Metropolis, El Paso, Portland, Cincinnati, and Austin (and extra), deliberate freeway expansions threaten to repeat the errors of the previous at an exorbitant value (simply these 9 expansions are estimated to value over $33.4 billion in complete). They’ll additionally add to the whole sum of bodily, social, and financial harm that may ultimately want restore.
To meet the promise of reconnecting communities as a precept, America Walks urges the next subsequent steps from all ranges of presidency:
- Dedicate further funding from all out there sources to show Reconnecting Communities plans into accomplished initiatives.
- Cease freeway expansions that may trigger much more harm and take away them from long-range plans.
- Concentrate on infrastructure investments that concurrently enhance outcomes for mobility and security, well being, and the atmosphere.
Essentially the most cost-effective Reconnecting Communities challenge we may undertake in the present day is to strike outdated freeway plans from the books, so we are able to totally spend money on the varieties of related, transit-friendly, walkable and accessible communities that People need.