Episode 54: Mode Shift for Federal Funding

Yonah Freemark is a senior research associate in the Metropolitan Housing and Communities Policy Center at the Urban Institute. Harriet Tregoning is director of NUMO, the New Urban Mobility alliance. They are co-authors of a new report, Charting out a Next-Generation Place-Based Federal Transportation Policy: Recommendations for more Equitable, Sustainable Mobility.

Transportation is the biggest contributor to climate-changing emissions and generational wealth is tied to access to opportunities. Yet, Tregoning says, affordable access is not what our transportation systems are built to provide. Spending “caters to vehicles, speed and congestion and is indifferent to people, especially if they are not in those vehicles.”

We need, Freemark says, “a mode shift in thinking” at multiple levels of government, about everything from who’s involved in selection of projects, to decisions about use of right of way, to what we require from new developments.

More funding for capacity building would foster a community-wide view of transportation impacts. That, in turn, would lead to involvement of more partners from the start, closer coordination with land use and affordable housing decisions, and better access to jobs, health care, parks, social services and schools. “We should think about money in terms of all these aspects of life together,” Freemark says.

Listen to the podcast – and read the report – for specific recommendations and examples of ways to change processes to achieve better outcomes.