Triad-area planners need to act with a more unified voice if they expect to successfully compete for limited federal transportation money, the U.S. secretary of transportation, Ray LaHood, said yesterday during a stop in Greensboro.
LaHood said that people in the various planning organizations in the Triad -- which includes four metropolitan planning organizations, or MPOs -- 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," he said. "Four MPOs is probably three too many.... If you speak with one voice, you'll be pretty damn powerful."
LaHood said that the U.S. Department of Transportation received $60 billion in requests last year for $1.5 billion in available Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery grants. The available money this year will be less, just under $600 million, he 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 and Conference Center. The summit was sponsored by the Piedmont Authority for Regional Transportation and the Piedmont Triad Partnership.
LaHood said that "livable" communities can be defined as areas with affordable housing and more transportation options than just driving.
Livable communities, he said, are places where children 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 has 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."
LaHood pressed for a rail system that links America's cities, which he hopes can be in place within the next 20 years.
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 there are too few potential riders in the area 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."
Once transportation projects are built, he said, they become catalysts for growth, which increases their use.
The executive director of PART, Brent McKinney, said that 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 that they can work together for regional projects.
"We do need to come together and speak with one voice," McKinney said.
pgarber@wsjournal.com.
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