RTA Joins DePaul's Chaddick Institute to Hold TOD Planning Workshop

February 14, 2017

Brian Hacker, Senior Planner, RTA Local Planning and Programs

I’m excited to announce that the RTA, in partnership with DePaul University’s Chaddick Institute will be holding a half-day workshop on transit-oriented planning in our region. This year’s theme, Making an Impact, focuses on plan implementation and will feature presentations and discussions from a variety of speakers representing local governments, transit agencies, and the development industry who have been involved in TOD plan implementation—many of them with the help of the RTA . The workshop will be held on Wednesday, March 8th, from 8:30 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. at the DePaul Center in downtown Chicago. Registration is free and available online at https://rtaplanningworkshop.eventbrite.com.

The RTA’s Community Planning program, which provides funding and planning assistance for transit-oriented planning and implementation projects, has led to partnerships with over 100 municipalities, six county governments, and four councils of mayors within the RTA service area. This  workshop gives us the opportunity to share information on our planning efforts with these partners from around the region: the challenges, the success stories, and the lessons learned.

This year we’ve chosen to focus on the notable progress made by several communities to implement their transit-oriented plans and the community benefits resulting from their efforts, like bicycle and pedestrian improvements, new transit facilities, mixed-use developments, and multi-family housing. With rising demand for the pedestrian-centric lifestyle that transit-oriented development (TOD) offers, communities around the region are seizing the opportunity to grow around their transit assets according to visions established in their Community Planning studies. The 2017 Planning Workshop offers a forum to share some of these plan implementation case studies and the lessons they offer for the future of planning in our region.

The Workshop features two informational sessions and a panel discussion. Each session includes two presentations and a question and answer section. The panel discussion will feature representatives from the public and private sectors in a discussion of current trends in the market for TOD. For more details, please see the tentative agenda below.

We hope you can join us for this half-day of ideas and discussion focused on planning and implementation around our regional transit system.