Rachel Dovey shares some of the secrets to the success of Grand Rapids, Michigan after a year of transit improvements in the small city.
Rachel Dovey asks a question after acknowledging the surprising success of Grand Rapids: "As much larger cities on the progressive coasts struggle to prioritize multi-modal transportation against car-loving codes, infrastructure and voting populations, what is the Midwest city’s secret?"
Dovey interviewed Mayor George Heartwell to find a few answers to that question, which includes a regional transportation agency, The Rapid, that provides a voice for the city's surrounding suburbs, as evident by the voter-approved property tax that helped pay for a $40 million bus rapid transit line that opened in August.
Also enabling the city's successes is a 2002 update of the city's master plan, explained in the article by Planning Director Suzanne Schulz. "Two bold decisions came out of that update to encourage transit-oriented development," writes Dovey. "First, the planning commission can now waive all parking requirements for new developments that are located next to transit, a definite carrot for developers when parking is an expensive add-on."
FULL STORY: 6 Reasons Grand Rapids Earned a Place on the Great Transit Map
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UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies
Mpact (formerly Rail~Volution)
Chaddick Institute at DePaul University
City of Piedmont, CA
Great Falls Development Authority, Inc.
HUDs Office of Policy Development and Research