How Transportation and Community Partnerships Are Shaping America

How Transportation and Community Partnerships are Shaping America Project for Public Spaces, Inc. Contents 2 Introduction 4 Rebuilding Neighborhoods, One Bus Stop at a Time Los Angeles, California Leimert Park Village North Hollywood 6 Merchants and Transit Agency Link Commuters and Commerce Woodbridge and Maplewood, New Jersey Woodbridge Station Maplewood Station 8 The Little Buses That Can — Shuttles Fight Sprawl and Congestion With Service Boulder and Durango, CO GO Boulder Durango LIFT 10 New Light Rail Stations Reveal Potential in Neglected Neighborhoods St. Louis, Missouri Wellston Station Delmar Station 12 Doing Development Differently as Light Rail Expands Portland, Oregon Jefferson Street Station “TileLink” community tile project, Delmar MetroLink Station, St. Louis: Orenco Station Artwork by Catharine Magel 14 Five Steps to Getting Started Leimert Park Village landscapers with Bev Cashan, Executive Director, Leimert Park Village Community Development Corporation Introduction Transit facilities… Concerns about livability are shared by A New Era for Transportation: every type of community, in inner cities, Partnerships Around Place and transporations small towns and rural areas. This booklet The case studies included in this booklet corridors… are explores how people in these communi- address how transportation partnerships ties are working in partnership with natural focal points are re-shaping America. Each of these transportation agencies on locally- partnerships relies upon the input of for communities. initiated projects and programs to create those who use and experience a place on transportation systems that enhance a places. While this booklet emphasizes regular basis. The focus is not only upon the direct relationship between communi- the bus stop, street, or station itself, but ty reinvigoration and community- on how these facilities connect to the supportive transit facilities, case studies surrounding districts and public spaces also demonstrate how the sympathetic and make these areas more economically design of roadways strengthens the stable, safe, and productive. connection between the two. Although these projects occur at Transit facilities, whether a simple the micro level, they are combating bus stop or a major train station, and macro-level problems by: transportation corridors, whether a main • Creating strong town and neighbor street or a boulevard, are natural focal hood centers that act as an antidote points for communities. To view them to sprawl; as catalysts for strengthening community life necessitates a shift from the way • Increasing transit ridership to reduce transportation has traditionally been con- dependency on driving and its ceived. In this more holistic, “place-mak- negative environmental impacts; ing” partnership approach, transit opera- • Reducing the need for costly tors, traffic engineers, residents, mer- investments in new public infra- In Somerville, Massachusetts, chants, property owners, city agencies, structure, such as highway subway construction was fol- planners, architects, and developers, as construction and roadway widening; lowed by streetscape improve- well as community and faith-based organ- ments, traffic calming measures • Guiding private sector development and an influx izations are demonstrating that through in a more sustainable, transit- of new businesses which has these partnerships, they can bring togeth- supportive way. revived Davis Square and made er the goals of transportation agencies and the livability goals of communities. it a livability community. Transportation partnerships, there- fore, not only provide an opportunity to pool resources and share responsibility for implementation, but create a mecha- nism to address broader “quality of life” issues. This place-making process is unlike the more typical approach to planning, whereby separate design profes- sionals and city agencies carry out their own isolated schemes, with little aware- ness about where these projects may lead. Working Incrementally Place-making is rarely accomplished through a single, large-scale construction project. In fact, many places are success- fully improved in a very short period of time with low- cost design changes. The short-term projects featured in this book- 2 let took between two and twelve months to implement, yet they are not interim partnerships established to help maintain Place-making calls solutions. Rather they are stepping and manage a facility, the extent of its stones within the context of a larger plan, impact on the economic vitality of its adja- for new ways of serving as catalysts for productive cent commercial districts, and the degree measuring the success change, while providing immediate to which a facility functions as a commu- enhancement for communities. nity gateway. of transportation The successes achieved by the case facilities. Measuring Success studies presented in this booklet are Place-making also calls for new ways directly attributable to the skill and of measuring the success of transporta- effectiveness of the partnerships tion facilities. In the case of streets, suc- established to carry them out. These case cess studies highlight specific projects that is measured based upon how well addressed different transportation and pedestrians, bicycles, autos, and transit livability concerns in a variety of are accommodated and the extent to communities and among different which a street reflects, preserves, and constituencies. Reading about these real enhances a community’s unique personali- success stories will inspire transportation ty and is supportive of local businesses officials and their many existing and and residents. Transit service itself should potential partners to pursue, with fresh not be evaluated only in terms of system conviction, the true potential that our ridership and on-time performance, but nation’s transportation systems and according to the number of community facilities offer to the communities they serve. Portions of this booklet were excerpted and adapted from the following publication: The Role of Transit In Creating Livable Metropolitan Communities (TCRP Report 22), Transit Cooperative Research Program, National Academy Press, Washington, DC (1997). It contains more infor- mation about the following case studies: Woodbridge, NJ; the NJ Transit Station Renewal Program; GOBoulder, Boulder, CO; LANI, Los Angeles, CA; Wellston Station, Wellston, MO; and the “place-making” approach to transportation planning. 3 Los Angeles, California Rebuilding Neighborhoods, One Bus Stop at a Time hung colorful banners, redesigned their Project Partners n the wake of the civil unrest that streets to be more pedestrian-friendly, Federal Agencies gripped Los Angeles in April 1992, and revitalized vacant lots as parks and Transit Agencies Los Angeles mayor Richard Riordan I community gathering places. As these County Governments launched the Los Angeles Neighborhood groups have matured, most have suc- Initiative (LANI), a grassroots program City Governments cessfully leveraged additional funding to designed to restore people’s sense of Mayors make longer-term improvements and ownership over their neighborhood Downtown Associations and become permanent organizations for commercial districts. LANI focuses on Chambers of Commerce community revitalization. developing community plans for Local Businesses LANI also helps put community plans neighborhood main streets, beginning into action by streamlining the govern- Community and Non-Profit with pragmatic improvements to areas Organizations mental approval process to reduce delay adjacent to bus stops and rail stations. and bureaucratic frustration. As a result, They realized that transit stops can LANI groups have been able to work as also function as focal points for partners with city, state and county agen- shopping, community, economic, cies to make these projects a reality. In and social activities. addition, LANI staff uses their knowledge “What makes LANI In each of the twelve LANI neighbor- and influence to assemble resources from hoods, a local organization is given a work is the fact that, to multiple federal, state, city, and private grant to develop a bus stop area plan, sources and pass them through to proj- the greatest extent and responsibility for the grant’s ects planned by local communities. possible, we give con- administration. LANI then helps these organizations to evolve a trol and funding to the shared vision for their community to actually neighborhood. The members of these realize its vision. It’s organizations, which not just a plan that sits include local residents, businesses, and communi- on a shelf.” ty groups, have planted —Joyce Perkins, trees, installed and paint- LANI Executive Director ed new streetlights, Locally owned businesses sport new flower “Without LANI, we would not have gone as far or as fast as we have. LANI was the wheel that started everything turning — not only at the beginning, but on an ongoing basis.” —Beverly Cashen, Executive Director of the Leimert Park Village Community Development Corporation Leimert Park Village with new bus shelter 4 North Hollywood Transit Art Park - after with Pitfire Pizza Leimert Park Village North Hollywood “What LANI Leimert Park Village, built in the 1920s as For years, the old downtown of North taught us was that a planned community, is emerging as one Hollywood had been reinventing itself as of Los Angeles’ premier African-American an arts and theater district, but progress if you make small

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