Normal, Illinois' multimodal transportation center, funded with a TIGER grant from the Partnership. Image: Normal, Illinois

Through the partnership, the three agencies have coordinated transportation and land use policy to a greater extent than they did before, helping to curb sprawl and promote smart growth. This partnership has taken the federal agencies out of their “stovepipe” mentality and encouraged efficiency and collaboration at an unprecedented level. Why would lawmakers who want to reduce inefficiencies and waste in the federal government want to cut a program that has been so effective at doing just that?

Last fall, Mariia Zimmerman from HUD told Streetsblog that the Partnership has standardized guidelines to make it easier to apply for grants and eliminated some areas of inefficiency, overlap, and even direct contradiction among the agencies. But perhaps more importantly, she said the Partnership has transformed all of HUD, incorporating a focus on sustainability in all of the agency’s work.

A vote of support from the Senate would mean a lot to the Partnership, which saw its funding stripped in the House proposal for next year’s budget. But the Partnership isn’t the only potential casualty of the House plan: Highway and transit funding each get slashed by 34 percent, TIGER and TIGGER grants are cut entirely, high-speed rail gets nothing, the New Starts transit program gets slashed, and Amtrak is left gasping for air. If the Senate subcommittee doesn’t vote to save funding for these programs tomorrow, they have no chance.

See the Smart Growth America action alert for more information.

Get used to it.

Obama said the action was taken in the interest of “reducing regulatory burdens and regulatory uncertainty, particularly as our economy continues to recover,” but environmental groups slammed the decision as “a huge win for corporate polluters,” in the words of League of Conservation Voters President Gene Karpinski.

NRDC President Frances Beinecke said, “The Clean Air Act clearly requires the Environmental Protection Agency to set protective standards against smog — based on science and the law. The White House now has polluted that process with politics.” Sen. Barbara Boxer, chair of the Environment and Public Works Committee, said she was “disappointed” with the decision.

The decision has a major impact on efforts to reform transportation, NRDC’s Deron Lovaas told Streetsblog.

“It frankly makes our job harder, in terms of reducing pollution from mobile sources,” Lovaas said. “If they had set the standard closer to 60 parts per billion, as opposed to 80, regions and states would have to get really serious about transit, and really serious about smart growth, and really serious about reducing vehicle miles traveled, because the gains couldn’t all be made through better technology.”

Business interests had long lobbied against the tighter standards, and they expressed their pleasure at the president’s announcement. The Chamber of Commerce cheered the move, rationalizing that by waiting for the statutorily-required rule-making in 2013, the EPA “can base its decision on the most recent science, not 2006 science.”

According to the National Review, some Republicans had called the ozone requirements “the single most harmful regulation proposed by the administration” and estimated that the total cost of implementation would have been “at least $1 trillion over a decade and millions of jobs.” House Speaker John Boehner called Obama’s concession to polluters “a good first step” and said he was glad the White House “recognized the job-killing impact of this particular regulation.”

Did we mention it would have saved 12,000 lives?

When it comes to this report, a picture’s worth a thousand words. As the graph above shows, the biggest energy efficiency gains come from living in transit-oriented neighborhoods.

A household living in a single family detached house located in a typical sprawl development uses an average of 240 million BTU (British Thermal Units, a unit of energy output) of energy a year, while the same household would only use 147 million BTU if the exact same house were located in a compact neighborhood. Make that single family house an apartment and energy use is down to 93 million BTU.

“While energy efficiency measures in homes and vehicles can make a notable improvement in consumption, the impact is considerably less dramatic than the gains possible offered by housing type and location efficiency,” the authors write. The ideal solution, of course, is to combine smart growth with green technology.

The report serves as a high-level rebuke to those who dismiss the importance of smart growth for curbing energy use, a point of view that was reinforced by a recent report from the Pew Center on Global Climate Change. While putting a stop to the country’s many sprawl-inducing policies may not be easy, the EPA’s numbers show it’s necessary.

No wonder the residents of mid-coast Maine don't want traffic and sprawl to dilute this view. Image: Outside

The bypasses have been “hugely controversial, hugely disruptive, hugely expensive,” according to Kate Beaudoin, Chief of Planning for Maine DOT. She worked with local residents like White on a new corridor action plan to keep the small-town quality intact among the communities along Route 1.

It’s not just for nostalgia. Allowing Route 1 to be overwhelmed by traffic and sprawl would be detrimental to the tourism economy and the local culture. So a steering committee, made up of representatives from each of the 20 communities along a 100-mile stretch of the corridor, developed a plan to reduce traffic congestion.

The plan was recognized by the EPA yesterday as one of five winners of the agency’s annual awards for “Smart Growth Achievement.” It’s the first time the EPA has presented an award in the category of Rural Smart Growth.

The Gateway 1 Corridor Action Plan aims to preserve rural lands and habitat. Planners are kicking off a transit study to establish public transportation, and they’re integrating on- and off-street bike paths, according to lead planner Stacy Benjamin.

She notes that they used an open, collaborative process to get buy-in from the adjacent towns. But, she says, it wasn’t easy.

“It is a challenge to talk to people about land use regulation in Maine,” Benjamin said. “Some of the towns in the corridor don’t even have basic zoning.”

Sixteen of the communities have agreed to amend their local plans and ordinances to embrace the Gateway 1 plan.

It may not be a big surprise that New York, San Francisco and Portland were also recognized by the EPA for their smart growth initiatives. Their contributions to urban planning are well documented and highly touted, including on our pages. It was satisfying to see Baltimore, a not-so-usual suspect, win for “Smart Growth and Green Building.” But rural places like mid-coast Maine don’t often get singled out for praise on “urban” design, and the inclusion of the Gateway 1 plan was significant.

Now is a key time for advocates to sharpen their arguments about how rural areas and small towns benefit from smart growth principles. With a Republican majority taking control in the House, many of whom represent rural areas, they’ll need to be shown a vision of livability that they can relate to. As we’ve mentioned before, some House Republican leaders have made it clear that the way urbanists talk about “livability” doesn’t resonate with them.

The story of Maine’s award-winning corridor plan can help rural representatives understand that their interests align with smart growth too.

Places like Woodlawn Avenue in East Cleveland are languishing while investment in the region flows to car-based exurbs. Photo: Angie Schmitt

If you want to get a sense of how devastating sprawl has been to the urban areas of northeast Ohio, head over to Woodlawn Avenue in East Cleveland. Between the rows of boarded up buildings, a house collapses onto itself. Graffiti pays homage to dead loved ones — “R.I.P. Fife.” Nearby, stuffed animals have been stapled to a telephone pole in a memorial, presumably, to a dead child.

Travel thirty miles west to Lorain County, and they’re laying sewer pipe for a new housing development. The housing market is strong in exurban Avon, where a new highway interchange has spurred a rush in commercial real estate development on what was once forests. Here residents can commute an easy 35 minutes by highway to downtown Cleveland, while avoiding the higher taxes that come with closer-set communities, burdened by old infrastructure and the cost of providing social services to less affluent residents.

It’s a pattern that can’t be reversed without the type of comprehensive planning that the Obama administration has encouraged through its Sustainable Communities Initiative, which would receive a substantial boost with the passage of the Livable Communities Act.

For decades, residents of greater Cleveland have been moving up and moving out. In fact, long ago, East Cleveland itself was founded by industrialists, including Nelson Rockefeller, who were seeking shelter from what they thought were exorbitant city tax rates.

But that’s not what makes this region a special example of the destructive impacts of laissez-faire development. Housing works this way in many, if not most, mid-sized American cities, with less disastrous results. The difference in metro Cleveland is that, roughly since the 1970s, the regional population has been stagnant. That means, in essence, for every house built in Avon, a house in East Cleveland — or the city of Cleveland, or, increasingly, one of the inner-ring suburbs — is abandoned.

The result has been devastating for the central city and the smaller residential communities that encircle it.

Blighted, vacant homes discourage investment, weakening the already depressed urban housing market. Residential demolition costs anywhere from $5,000 to $10,000 per house, and that’s if there are no complications, such as asbestos or auxiliary structures. This cost becomes an additional burden for the urban municipality, even as it hemorrhages property tax revenues. As a result, city services suffer, and the downward spiral continues, carrying middle-class families further outward, isolating the poor in the center.

Meanwhile, metro Cleveland’s regional planning agency, NOACA, has maintained a neutral policy regarding sprawl — which is to say, it has no policy. Regional land use planning has been a political non-starter for the agency, which is governed by a board of roughly three dozen politicians, representing urban, suburban and exurban interests in approximately equal measure.

A few weeks ago, however, NOACA’s governing board quietly took a small step forward — one that could have big ramifications for the region. Board members passed a resolution agreeing to apply for a federal grant to conduct regional land use planning through the Obama administration’s Sustainable Communities Initiative. With support from the local philanthropic community, the Cleveland area will be pursuing a planning grant, in coordination with the regional governing bodies in nearby Youngstown and Akron.

The grant would provide up to $5 million to conduct regional planning related to land use, economic development, environmental quality, housing and transportation for the Cleveland area. Supported by the budding partnership between the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Department of Transportation, the grant would require the Cleveland region to determine which areas are appropriate for future development and which are not. This document would, for the first time, guide transportation and planning decisions with an eye toward sustainability.

Regionalism has been a buzzword in northeast Ohio for years. Urban and suburban leaders alike have been repeatedly exposed to the message that they should be cooperating, coordinating, even consolidating. And the urgency of the message is undeniable. Within Cuyahoga County, home to the city of Cleveland, there are 59 municipalities — each with its own council clerk, streets department and safety forces. The cost of maintaining often duplicative services makes the local tax burden in northeast Ohio relatively high, a fact that is off-putting to businesses the region desperately needs to attract.

But change doesn’t come easily in this part of the country. Where governmental consolidation has taken place across the state, it’s been fraught with costly litigation. In some cases, consolidation efforts have been outright rejected by the voting public. To northeast Ohio government employees, regionalism carries the threat of job loss. This is a frightening discussion in a metro area where dependable jobs are becoming increasingly scarce and where a relatively large proportion of the population depends on the public purse for a paycheck.

As each community pursues development separately, businesses and homeowners overwhelmingly pick the newer, farther flung communities, which are considered safer and often times offer lower development costs. In an effort to cope, urban leaders are working to convert vacant lots in the city of Cleveland back into agricultural use. Meanwhile, in Avon and in exurban areas throughout the region, more and more ready agricultural land is consumed for housing. All the while, the gap between the quality of life in the city and the suburbs — in terms of city services, public education and safety — continues to widen.

City interests have looked fruitlessly to the state and the federal government for policy reforms that would make Ohio cities competitive again. The state has responded with a series of nonbinding development recommendations, which so far seem to have had little effect on regional building patterns. Then along comes the Sustainable Communities Initiative, with the promise of $5 million for planning, which regional leaders — both suburban and urban — cannot ignore. Will that provide the push that Cleveland leaders have been praying for?

It’s too soon to celebrate a new chapter in northeast Ohio. After all, there’s no guarantee that the region will win the grant money. Even then, it is difficult to say how faithful local leaders would be to this guiding document. But if the act of planning brings Cleveland area leaders together to talk about collectively shaping a more sustainable community, that, in itself, is a huge victory for the region.

Donovan, LaHood, Jackson: Together forever? The Livable Communities Act would codify the partnership between HUD, US DOT, and the EPA. Photo: EPA

Most of the action would flow through HUD. This year the agency is funding $150 million in grants supporting regional efforts to improve access to transit and promote walkable development. The Livable Communities Act promises to scale up that program significantly, creating a new office within HUD, called the Office of Sustainable Housing and Communities, that will distribute about $4 billion through competitive grants.

The initial round of grants would fund comprehensive plans -- local initiatives to shape growth by coordinating housing, transportation, and economic development policies. Most of the funding -- $3.75 billion -- would be distributed over three years to implement projects identified in such plans.

While some Senators from rural states had expressed skepticism about the benefits of the bill for their constituents, yesterday's vote split strictly along party lines, with Democrats Jon Tester of Montana and Tim Johnson of South Dakota both voting in favor.

To make the case for the bill to his rural and Republican counterparts, Dodd singled out Envision Utah, a campaign that has built public support for smart growth policies in one of the country's reddest states. Not a single GOP Senator voted for the bill, however, even Utah's Bob Bennett, who told UPI, "I think the overall philosophy is wise, but I will be voting against it."

Some of the strongest backing for the bill has come from AARP, which sent a letter to committee members on Monday pointing out that the country's aging population will be poorly served if development patterns don't evolve to make driving less necessary. "Nine out of ten of our members tell us they want to stay in their own homes as they age -- most are living in suburban or rural areas and don't have access to public transportation," said Debra Alvarez, senior legislative representative for AARP. "There's a lot of things that can be done in small towns: co-locating things like post offices, grocery stores, pharmacies, and putting housing there too."

Advocates for transportation reform are now looking at the path forward for the bill. "We applaud the Committee for taking this major step forward on behalf of communities both small and large, and for American families looking for affordable homes in healthy neighborhoods with reliable transportation options," said Transportation for America director James Corless in a statement. "We urge the full Senate to follow their lead and give final passage."

Dodd has vowed to shepherd the Livable Communities Act through to become law before he retires in January. With Congress about to adjourn until September 13, he'll face a tight timeline. In addition to awaiting a vote in the full Senate, the bill has yet to clear a committee vote in the House, where Colorado representative Ed Perlmutter is the sponsor.

Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd (D-CT). Photo: The Washington Note

The first bit of news that emerged from the Senate hearing was the EPA's inclusion in the Sustainable Communities project that DOT and HUD announced in March. Yet a potentially bigger gesture of unity came from Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT), the Banking panel's chairman, who is planning legislation that would put some teeth behind the three agencies' goals.

Dodd said his forthcoming bill would create a competitive grant program to "provide incentives for regions to plan future growth in a coordinated way that reduces congestion, generates good-paying jobs, meets our environmental and energy goals, protects rural areas and green space, revitalizes our Main Streets and urban centers, creates and preserves affordable housing, and makes our communities better places to live, work, and raise families."

That's quite the mouthful. But it also suggests that even as Congress' jam-packed schedule pushes the prospects for a federal transportation bill past the September 30 deadline, senior lawmakers are committed to helping the Obama administration make good on its promises to encourage transit-oriented development and environmentally friendly land use practices.

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson even used a scientific metaphor to describe the agencies' goals. "Pedestrians are a good indicator species for a healthy community," she told senators today. "We're all about building a healthy community of pedestrians."

HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan focused on data, outlining his plans for a housing "affordability index" that would track transportation costs, both monetary and environmental in addition to local home values.

"Right now the federal government is in the way," he told Dodd. "We're holding up local efforts to try to do this integrated planning. This isn’t about forcing localities to do something they don’t want to do, this is about getting out of their way."

That message that might have resonated with Republicans who have echoed George Will's fearful criticism of federal "behavior modification" efforts -- if any GOP senators had attended the Banking hearing.

The rosy and coordinated future outlined by the three agency chiefs suggested that the administration is sincere in its pledge to consider transportation as a public health and environmental issue, not just an issue of more money to move people and goods.

The next question, then, is whether Donovan, Jackson, and Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood can use their political capital to push Dodd's bill from draft to law, while continuing to back common-sense changes that are possible now (reform for New Starts transit funding, e.g.).

Detroit car makers lost another battle in their fight against stronger emissions regulations last week, this time in Vermont.

The Burlington Free Press reports:

In a major victory for states' efforts to combat global warming, a U.S. District Court judge in Burlington ruled Wednesday that federal law does not bar Vermont from imposing tougher greenhouse gas emissions limits on cars and light trucks starting in 2009.

Judge William Sessions also rejected automakers' arguments that the standards -- written in California and adopted by Vermont and 11 other states -- are technologically impossible and financially impractical to meet.

The California rules would require automakers to cut greenhouse gas emissions by up to 37 percent by 2016.

During a 16-day trial in April, General Motors and DaimlerChrysler testified they would simply stop selling most models of cars and pickup trucks in Vermont, California and the other states if the emissions limits take effect.

Photo: Teknorat/Flickr