Introduction

TCSP Program Objectives

How Does the Program Work?

First Year Awards

Project Descriptions

TCSP Accomplishments
Encouraging Innovation
Creating Partnerships
Leveraging Opportunities
Strengthening the Planning Process
Building the Knowledge Base
Demonstrating Results

TCSP Looks to the Future

TCSP Accomplishments

Encouraging Innovation

The TCSP program, first and foremost, is a demonstration program designed to stimulate new and innovative activities. The innovations proposed by the FY 1999 TCSP grantees take many forms.

 Innovations in community design practices will provide examples for other communities to work with when revising their local ordinances and implementing design strategies. Hartford, Connecticut, is developing "best practices" integrated circulation systems in three prototypical communities: urban, suburban, and rural. With the objective of strengthening economic development, model ordinances and intermodal design standards will be developed that address walking, biking, parking, traffic calming, transit, and trucking. With similar objectives, Saginaw, Michigan, is holding a charrette to redesign a suburban shopping center. The resulting changes will make the center accessible to pedestrians and transit passengers as well as to automobiles.

Innovative policies and actions will help communities throughout the nation achieve TCSP objectives. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, is designing a Location-Efficient Mortgage (LEM) program that recognizes and rewards the transportation cost savings of living in areas well-served by transit. Centre County, Pennsylvania, is creating a multi jurisdictional interchange overlay district to better manage and guide development surrounding 12 interchanges along a newly designated interstate in the county. Johnson City, Tennessee, and Tempe, Arizona, are creating zoning code changes consistent with the concepts of traditional neighborhood development and transit-oriented development.

Improved analysis techniques will help communities assess the full range of impacts associated with alternative development scenarios.  The metropolitan planning organizations for the Kansas City metropolitan area and the six-county Research Triangle region containing Raleigh and Durham, North Carolina, are developing computer-aided methods - including an interactive CD-ROM - to help visualize the impacts of various community design and development patterns. Researchers in Gainesville, Florida; Dane County, Wisconsin; and the Willamette Valley region of Oregon are developing computer-based analysis methods to quantify the fiscal, environmental, and travel impacts of various forms of development. These techniques will be available for use by other communities throughout the country in developing transportation, community, and system-preservation projects.

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