LaHood: Cooperation key to winning transportation funds (Winston Salem Journal)
Triad area planners need to act with a more unified voice if they expect to successfully compete for limited federal transportation funds, U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said during an appearance in Greensboro Wednesday.
LaHood said people in the various planning organizations in the Triad — which includes four metropolitan planning organizations — need to put aside their various agendas and work together.
“You all need to decide what’s important, put it on a piece of paper and agree on it,” LaHood said. “Four MPO’s is probably three too many…If you speak with one voice, you’ll be pretty damn powerful.”
LaHood said the U.S. DOT last year received $60 billion in requests for $1.5 billion in available Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery grants. The available money this year will be less, just under $600 million, LaHood said.
LaHood spoke to a group of more than 100 area transportation and economic-development officials as part of the Piedmont Triad Livable Communities Summit, held at the Grandover Resort & Conference Center. The summit was sponsored by the Piedmont Authority for Regional Transportation and the Piedmont Triad Partnership.
LaHood said “livable” communities can be defined as areas with affordable housing and more transportation options than just driving. He said livable communities are places where kids can walk or ride bikes to school, where senior citizens who don’t want to drive can still get to where they need to go, and where commuters have access to other modes of transportation such as light rail.
That’s the kind of community that people want and that businesses are attracted to, he said.
Transformation to livable communities begins at the neighborhood level, he said, through small changes such as adding sidewalks, bike lanes or greenways.
LaHood said that since he became transportation secretary he’s been to 80 cities in 35 states.
“I have yet to see a place where livability is more important,” he said about his visit to the Triad. “You’re on the right track.”
One thing LaHood pressed for is a rail system that links America’s cities, which he hopes can be in place within the next two decades.
Local officials have looked at commuter rail for the Triad along a 33-mile route between Hanes Mall in Winston-Salem and N.C. A&T University in Greensboro. But a study released last year determined that the potential number of riders in the area would not be enough to make it viable.
“My answer to that is if you build it they will come,” LaHood said. “I’ve seen it happen all over America.”
LaHood said that once transportation projects are built, they become catalysts for growth, which boosts their use.
PART executive director Brent McKinney said North Carolina’s MPO structure dates to the 1960s. He said that all four of the MPOs that serve the Triad have their own characteristics, but he believes they can work together for regional projects.
“We do need to come together and speak with one voice,” McKinney said.
By Paul Garber | Journal Reporter
Published: April 28, 2010
GREENSBORO
