Transforming communities through major transit investments

How can cities build more livable communities with transit? More than twenty years ago that question led to the creation of Rail~Volution, an organization that started as a series of events in the Portland metropolitan area and then grew to become a leading national network, resource and advocacy organization. Each year the nonprofit sponsors a major conference bringing together professionals in transportation, urban planning, community development and others who share its vision of “transforming America’s cities and regions into livable places – healthy, economically vibrant, socially equitable and environmentally sustainable – where people have transportation choices.”

 At this year’s Rail~Volution conference, held on October 21-24 in Pittsburgh, Maggie Super Church, CLF Vice President for Market Innovation and Impact, participated in a session on “Aligning Resources for Equitable TOD.” Along with Alyla Gaskins from the Center for Community Investment and Thatcher Imboden from Sound Transit, Seattle, the group discussed how to overcome barriers to development, the role of public, private and philanthropic partnerships, creating new models for cross-sector partnerships and how those partnerships can escalate implementation of ETOD projects. Maggie gave a presentation about HNEF and talked about rising inequality and concentrated poverty, how and why HNEF was created, how it works, its cross-sector partners and its challenges and successes to date.