1. Review of Transportation and
Infrastructure Improvements as a
Revitalization Strategy
John-Mark Palacios
URP 6545
Urban Revitalization Strategy
Yanmei Li
19 February 2013

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Table of Contents
List of Figures.............................................................................................................iii
List of Tables..............................................................................................................iv
Executive Summary.....................................................................................................1
Introduction ...............................................................................................................2
Background and Geographical Context...........................................................................................................2
History...........................................................................................................................................................................5
Implementation..........................................................................................................5
Success factors............................................................................................................9
Case Studies..............................................................................................................11
Atlanta........................................................................................................................................................................11
Fort Lauderdale......................................................................................................................................................12
Conclusion................................................................................................................13
References................................................................................................................14

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List of Figures
Figure 1. Sidewalk improvements in Duluth, GA.....................................................................11
Figure 2. Rendering of a Sistrunk Blvd. intersection with buildings...............................12

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List of Tables
Table 1. USDOT Performance Measures for TIGER Grants.....................................................9
Table 2. Performance measures from Maine DOT's Gateway Route 1 project............10

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Executive Summary
Transportation and infrastructure development is an effective strategy for urban
revitalization. Whether done prior to a redevelopment project or with the intent of
spurring redevelopment, the strategy can be a good choice for the planner trying to
improve a city, a neighborhood, or a corridor. In some cases regulations might
require capacity improvements in conjunction or prior to a new development, so
that is always a consideration. If certain transportation or utility capacity goals must
be met, the reconstruction also provides opportunity to ensure other goals, such as
livability, walkability, and sustainability, are met. The strategy has been tested in
many areas, including Atlanta, Georgia, and Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Sound overall
planning in this area should also make it easier to secure funding for pieces of a
large project.

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Introduction
Improving transportation and other infrastructure is often used to encourage
redevelopment in an area. Sometimes the strategy has been to beautify the public
spaces and let the private building owners be inspired to improve their properties.
Other times the transportation improvement comes first with a specific
redevelopment strategy for the surrounding land use to follow. If the improvement
also adds capacity or permanent transit features to an area, it is also likely to spur
redevelopment that takes advantage of the large influx of people into the corridor.
Transportation capacity improvements or additions to the transportation network
can spur new development in rural areas and otherwise shift general development
patterns, whether these consequences are planned or not.
This report will analyze the where, why, when, what, who, and how of the
implementation of transportation and infrastructure improvements as a
redevelopment strategy. We will look at some of the tools used to measure the
success of the outcome and look at two cases where local communities have
implemented the strategy.
Background and Geographical Context
Transportation facilities are everywhere, as without them we could not move
around and conduct our daily business. Different types of facilities are located in
different areas and tend to affect development in different ways. There are urban
facilities, which on the block scale might include local streets, on-street parking,
sidewalks, bike lanes, streetcars, buses and related infrastructure. These urban

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facilities also typically include other infrastructure such as water pipes, sewer pipes,
power lines, communications lines (phone, cable TV, fiber optic, etc.), gas lines.
These other infrastructure types are so common that improvements to an urban
roadway always include coordination between the designers and the utility agencies
to determine where conflicts are. SimCity, the popular city-building simulation game,
has nodded to the seeming inseparableness of transportation infrastructure with
utilities by simplifying the road network in their latest version to incorporate water,
sewer, and electric lines by default.1
Modern urbanized areas generally have multiple urban clusters, requiring
transportation and infrastructure connections between the clusters as well as
feeding the clusters from outlying areas. This type of transportation infrastructure
can include some of the same elements as urban streets, but the roadway facilities
are usually wider, including arterial and collector streets as well as freeways. The
transit facilities could include not only streetcars but also light rail, commuter rail,
and even bus rapid transit facilities. Some of the clusters are developed around train
stations in transit oriented development.
Transportation and infrastructure also connects cities and regions. The
transportation facilities include rural roadways, the interstate highway system,
intercity passenger and freight rail, and even canals and the intracoastal waterway.
Development patterns often consist of cities or suburbs springing up along the
transportation lines, such as near a highway interchange or a rail station. Airports
and seaports serve a similar purpose of connecting cities and regions, but their

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location in or adjacent to urban areas will affect development and redevelopment
patterns in urban areas. Other infrastructure connecting cities or regions could
include long distance electric transmission lines and communications lines. These
serve a support function and may be necessary to attract a certain type of industry
such as heavy industrial or high tech within the city.
Florida also includes space as a transportation mode,2 which serves primarily to
develop and attract a growing high tech industry. In the future it could connect cities
in space with cities here. Currently the focus of these efforts has been centered
around the “Space Coast” region which includes Cape Canaveral, but with the right
transportation and infrastructure connections to this region, industries could begin
to spread to Orlando or even south towards Miami.
Additional infrastructure could include flood control structures, landfills and
recycling stations, or antenna towers.3 These tend to be spot locations that are less
tied into the road network. They all serve a crucial support function to conducting
business and living within a city or region, so planning efforts do need to account for
them. Typically the scale is larger, with water management controlled on a regional
basis by entities such as the South Florida Water Management District,4 waste
disposal facilities often run by counties or regional private enterprises, and antenna
towers often run by national or multi-state cellphone and communications
companies.
In order to limit the scope of this report, we will focus on those transportation and
infrastructure facilities that affect urban development.

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History
Transportation has been spurring development and redevelopment for years. In the
1800s the transcontinental railroad brought about a giant boom in westward
development for the United States. The development of the next national
transportation system, the interstate highway system, paved the way for the
development of suburbs and urban sprawl, allowing bedroom communities to
spring up far from urban business districts. Within cities, the streetcar began the
development transformation from one centered around walkability to a larger scale.
While many streetcar lines were shut down in the mid-1900s, today cities such as
Fort Lauderdale clamor to have streetcars in order to spur redevelopment of their
downtowns.5
Implementation
Transportation and infrastructure is typically implemented in public spaces,
whether in downtowns, urban clusters, or connecting these areas. Public roadways
require right-of-way owned by a government agency, whether municipal, county, or
state. Utilities are either located within these rights-of-way or in easements
purchased from private property owners, so they are still public spaces. Rail lines
also require their own rights-of-way if they do not share space with the street. , is
These are often owned by private companies who were granted eminent domain
powers, although in some cases a government agency purchases the right-of-way. As
a local example, Tri-rail tracks were purchased from the CSX Corporation by the
Florida Department of Transportation in order to run their commuter rail service.

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Train stations, airports, or seaports, while generally including an element of public
space, generally consist of buildings and other facilities that may be located on
private right-of-way owned by the port or rail agency. To continue the Tri-Rail
example, South Florida Regional Transportation Authority, the entity that manages
Tri-Rail, owns some station locations, while FDOT owns others.
Often the transportation and infrastructure development is directed at downtown
areas in need of redevelopment, through the plan of a Community Redevelopment
Agency or other local plan. The purpose is to encourage more economic investment
in the area, improve the quality of life of residents and workers, and of course
provide mobility and connectivity options for the area.6
Typically government agencies develop the transportation infrastructure. These
could include state departments of transportation, county government, city
government, Community Redevelopment Agencies, downtown development
authorities, transit agencies, Metropolitan Planning Organizations, and others. In
some cases the transportation infrastructure is developed by private enterprise, as
was historically the case with the railroads and streetcars. Florida East Coast
Industries owns rail tracks that helped build the entire South Florida area and now
continues to provide freight service. This company is developing passenger rail
service to connect Miami, Fort Lauderdale, West Palm Beach, and Orlando, which
should encourage economic development in these areas. Since the company also
owns real estate near the stations, they are intending to stimulate development on
their own properties.7

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Like any good redevelopment plan, residents, workers, and the business community
should also be involved in the development. This could be achieved through
meetings with homeowners or residents associations, or by collaboration with a
local Chamber of Commerce.
Transportation improvements often come before any other redevelopment is
implemented. The city of Oakland Park’s CRA, for example, set about redeveloping
their main street before the private development came in. Their plan called for
redevelopment of this transportation corridor that would also complement several
public-private partnerships along this street.8 The plan was approved in 2005, and
the improvements to the main street were completed by 2009.9 Over 3 years later,
the private development has not yet materialized—but the point is that the
transportation improvement was built first. Utility and other infrastructure
improvements could be built with the transportation improvements, or they could
be built independently. Hollywood CRA has proposed moving the power lines that
are currently overhead to underground as part of their redevelopment plan in order
to improve the aesthetics of their beach area.
Typical improvements in an urban area include sidewalk improvements to make the
area more walkable. This could include widening the sidewalk to allow sidewalk
cafes, more space to walk, and a buffer between the pedestrian space and the traffic
space. This buffer space, the “furniture zone,” might include street trees to provide
shade, beauty, and clean air; benches to provide relaxation, bus shelters to improve

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transit access, lighting to improve nighttime safety, bike racks or even bike sharing
stations to allow better access by bicycle, public art, and utility or signal cabinets.
Improvements might also include bicycle facilities such as on-road bike lanes,
shared use paths, or separated cycle tracks. For the automobile portion of the
roadway, investment could include on-street parking, reduction in the number of
lanes, switching to or from a one-way street, an increase in the number of lanes, or a
conversion to a pedestrian-only street.
Transit improvements besides shelters could include dedicated bus lanes, bus rapid
transit infrastructure, streetcar or light rail tracks and stations, or subway or
elevated rail stations. Pretty much any fixed guideway transit would offer a sense of
permanence, add economic development, and provide an incentive for
redevelopment.
Infrastructure improvements could include the already mentioned undergrounding
of utilities for beautification purposes or to reduce storm vulnerability, but it could
also include adding capacity in order to support new uses or additional density.
High rises might need a larger water main and sewer system on the adjacent street,
high tech companies would need a fiber optic communications cable to provide
sufficient internet bandwith, and industry would need high voltage power lines to
run machinery. These would be planned accordingly depending on the specific goals
for an area or a street.

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Success factors
With recent government grants such as
TIGER for transportation improvements,
performance has been a clear expectation.
Table 1 shows some performance
measures used by the US Department of
Transportation in the TIGER grants that
have been issued. For any projects that
add capacity, whether to transportation or
for utilities, the measures are quite simple.
Planned development will generate so
many trips, require so many gallons per minute of water, or require so many volts of
electricity. If you have met the projected development capacity you have achieved
success.
Capacity is not the only performance measure, however. The performance measures
in Table 1 are all transportation related more than economic related, but the USDOT
also claims that “Livability and Sustainability are at the heart of TIGER’s selection
criteria.”11 The criteria do not appear to be widely available, however. While criteria
such as Automobile Level of Service or traffic counts have been around for years,
determining livability criteria for transportation improvements is a fairly new area
for transportation professionals. USDOT published the “Livability in Transportation
Guidebook” that has some discussion of the concepts, but does not spell out hard
Table 1. USDOT Performance Measures for
TIGER Grants.10

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and fast guidelines. The guidebook analyzed some case studies, however, which had
some performance measures determined by the agency. Table 2 shows the
performance measures developed by Maine DOT for a corridor visioning project.
Performance
area
Mobility Accessibility Jobs-housing
balance
Rural Lands
and Habitat
Community
Character
Specific
measures
Vehicle-miles
traveled
(VMT)
Transit
ridership
Accessibility
to jobs
Acres
conserved
Viewshed
Impact
Traffic
volumes
Walkability Accessibility
to retail
Habitat
Impacts
Commercial
Strip
Impacts
Level of
Service (LOS)
Bikeability Emergency
medical
response
Housing in
core growth
areas
Jobs in core
growth areas
Table 2. Performance measures from Maine DOT's Gateway Route 1 project.12
These are some measures that could be used, but there is a lot of flexibility in this
area. If a project is pursuing a grant, planners will undoubtedly endeavor to tailor it
to any performance measures that are included in that grant. With the shifting trend
at the national level away from pure capacity measures towards a measure of
economic benefits and livability improvements, we should see better projects in the
future.

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Case Studies
Atlanta
The metropolitan area of
Atlanta, Georgia, has issues
with congestion on its
roadways to the point where
a typical resident has one of
the longest commutes to
work in the nation. Low
density development has
also contributed to a rapid
loss of green spaces in the area. The Atlanta Regional Commission (ARC) established
a grant program called the Livable Centers Initiative in 1999 in order to improve the
quality of life by addressing these areas. This program sought to connect businesses
and residences, improve walkability, and add transit and housing options
throughout the region.
From 2000 to 2011, 93 planning studies were funded. The ARC measured success by
sending a survey to local government staff. The vast majority of respondents had not only
adopted the Livable Centers Initiative, but also incorporated them into their
comprehensive plan.13
Figure 1. Sidewalk improvements in Duluth, GA.13

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Fort Lauderdale
Fort Lauderdale, Florida, has a neighborhood that has often been viewed as run-
down, crime-ridden, with drug lords cruising the streets. This neighborhood, located
on the wrong side of the CSX tracks (west) and just to the north of the downtown,
has a high population of people with low incomes with 41% below the poverty level,
and 83% of housing occupied by renters. The city decided to redevelop one of the
main east-west roads running through this neighborhood, Sistrunk Blvd. This
reconstruction involved reducing the number of lanes on Sistrunk and providing
significant pedestrian improvements, including artistic lighting.14 No bike facilities
were included on the project. Some rumors I have heard from FDOT staff are that
they were not included because the police didn’t want to encourage drug dealers,
who often rode their bicycles. According to Renee Cross at the city of Fort
Lauderdale, no bike lanes were installed due to lack of coordination between the
Public Works department doing the project and the other city planning offices.15
Despite one issue with
the plan, most of the
project intent was
good. Since Sistrunk
was a county owned
road, there was some
disagreement between
the city and county, Figure 2. Rendering of a Sistrunk Blvd. intersection with buildings.14

17. Palacios 13
who wanted to continue using the road to move traffic.16 The differences were
resolved and the reconstruction project is now complete. The eventual development
plans are shown in Figure 2.
Conclusion
This is an effective redevelopment strategy that has been tried and tested in many
places. The federal government is embracing it as a strategy and beginning to
incorporate some of the performance measures into its grant programs, so the
opportunity is ripe for improving transportation and other infrastructure in order
to spur redevelopment or to complement planned redevelopment.

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References
1 Price, D. (2013). We built this city… the SimCity legacy: Past, present and future –
preview. Retrieved 2/19, 2013, from http://www.shanethegamer.com/?p=2809
2 FDOT aviation - space programs. Retrieved 2/19, 2013, from
http://www.dot.state.fl.us/aviation/space.shtm
3 Forman, M. B., & Mooney, J. (1999). Learning to lead: A primer on economic
development strategies (pp. 26). Dubuque, IA: Kendall/Hunt Pub.
4 SFWMD about us. Retrieved 2/19, 2013, from
http://www.sfwmd.gov/portal/page/portal/xweb about us/sfwmd about us
5 Palacios, J. (2008). Wave rolls on. Retrieved 2/19, 2013, from
http://www.transitmiami.com/transit/wave-rolls-on
6 Forman, M. B., & Mooney, J. (1999). Learning to lead: A primer on economic
development strategies (pp. 27). Dubuque, IA: Kendall/Hunt Pub.
7 Viglucci, A. (2012). Passenger trains to run from miami to orlando. Retrieved 2/19,
2013, from http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/08/09/2943014/trains-to-run-
from-miami-to-orlando.html#storylink=misearch
8 COMMUNITY REDEVELOPMENT AREA (CRA) PLAN. (2005). Retrieved 2/19, 2013,
from http://www.oaklandparkfl.org/news/cra/cra_plan.cfm
9 Himelberger, P. (2009). CITY UPDATE. Retrieved 2/19, 2013, from
http://www.oaklandparkmainstreet.com/enews/12-09/
10 U.S. Department of Transportation. (2011). TIGER discretionary grant program:
Driven by performance. Retrieved 2/19, 2013, from
http://www.dot.gov/sites/dot.dev/files/docs/TIGER_DISCRETIONARY_GRANT_PR
OGRAM.pdf
11 U.S. Department of Transportation. (2011). TIGER discretionary grant program:
Livability and sustainability. Retrieved 2/19, 2013, from
http://www.dot.gov/sites/dot.dev/files/docs/TIGER_LIVABILITY_SUSTAINABILITY
.pdf
12 Rue, H., McNally, L., Rooney, K., Santalucia, P., Raulerson, M., Lim-Yap, J., . . .
Burden, D. (2010). Livability in transportation guidebook: Planning approaches that
promote livability. ( No. FHWA-HEP-10-028).
13 Biton, A. (2012). Atlanta regional commission’s livable centers Initiative—
Supporting plans for a better quality of life. Retrieved 2/19, 2013, from
http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/livability/case_studies/atlanta/index.cfm
14 Urban Design Associates. (2008). Northwest/progresso/flagler heights
implementation plan. Retrieved 2/19, 2013, from
http://www.yumpu.com/en/document/fullscreen/4426631/urbandesignassociate
s-city-of-fort-lauderdale/18
15 Cross, R. (2013).
16 Wyman, S. (2010, 10/12/10). Work on sistrunk boulevard facelift to begin next
month. The Sun Sentinel