The Alabama Cooperative Extension System's Urban Affairs and New Nontraditional Programs Unit is an active member of Envision Coastal Alabama (ECA). ECA is a volunteer grassroots agency that brings Mobile and Baldwin County residents together to enhance the quality of life in those areas.
In February 2005, ECA sponsored a Regional Public Transit Summit in Mobile that attracted hundreds of people from a multi-state region of the Gulf Coast.
The media summary of the event made note of the intensive growth in the Gulf Coast region driving the need for public transit solutions that impact a range of social, health, safety, educational, and economic issues.
The road to a regional public transit system---one that would cross county lines to link low-income workers to jobs, provide freedom and mobility for a rapidly aging population, and ease the clogged asphalt arteries that carry commuters and tourists between coastal communities---may not be an easy one. It is an ambitious idea, after all, and one with a sizable price tag.
Yet that road got a little bit smoother during "Imagine a Region" when leaders from the public and private sector came together with some of the nation's foremost authorities on transportation. Among them were Dr. Thomas Sanchez, head of the Department of Urban Affairs and Planning at Virginia Tech, and winner of the 2000 Journal of American Planning Award for writing an article that illuminated the vital connection between transit and employment.
Sanchez painted a sobering picture of a future that is fast approaching Alabama's southernmost counties. "Across the nation, within the next 30 years, we will have 90 million new people," he said. "This is a fast-growing region, and with change of this magnitude, effects on the local landscape will be massive."
Sanchez urged local leaders to think ahead. "This dramatic change is going to occur. We're at the stage now to say what it will look like on the ground. As the population continues a steady migration toward the nation's coasts, hundreds of thousands of new highway miles will be needed to accommodate travel. But that's not realistic. We need to accommodate people in other ways," he said.
Dr. Sanchez went on to say that land use policies need to consider transportation systems, and these decisions need to be made on a regional basis with all entities working together. Current studies show that every dollar invested in public transit returns more than twice that amount in economic activity. In addition, rural counties with effective public transportation average 16 percent higher in net earnings.
Congressman Jo Bonner, who co-sponsored the event, praised the regional consciousness for taking root in the southern end of the state. He was pleased that differences are being set aside among old rivalries and competition between neighboring municipalities or counties who scramble for pieces of the region's economic pie.
"There's a new attitude growing. The need for public transportation was first adopted by Envision Coastal Alabama's equity committee two years ago, and they started discussing the need for a regional approach to the area's problems," Bonner said. "If we are willing, after decades of resistance, to look past our imaginary boundaries, there is nothing that will prevent us from reaching our true potential."
Transportation is a critical equity and economic issue in citizen's lives. Disenfranchised individuals suffer financially and personally when they can work, but lack the transportation to get to work. The growing aging and disabled populations will only continue to be engaged in premature institutionalization or alienation without a large-scale change in the manner in which the region addresses the need for public transportation. Jobs go begging in extreme coastal areas of Baldwin County while Mobile workers who lack transportation struggle to find work. A local ferry builder sends vans to Mississippi for workers each day while Mobile and Baldwin County residents who need employment sit idle.
A comprehensive system of transportation services to all major regions of the coastal area is vital to provide equal access to employment, health care, and all the other needed services that equate to a quality standard of living for all. The transportation summit marked the beginning of a collaborative process to systematically address mobility barriers in the Gulf Coast region and to improve the quality of life.