Christopher Boylan, MTA
Oz Griebel, Connecticut Transportation Strategy Board
George Schoener, U.S. D.O.T.
George Warrington, NJ TRANSIT
Jeff Zupan, RPA
Moderator: Buz Paaswell

• The consensus of the group was that reauthorization of the federal transportation legislation will be a difficult battle for our Region. The Region's motto may become faith-based: "Washington helps those who help themselves." Inotherwords, if we can raise local revenue, we're more likely to get federal funding as well.

• After years of hard work to bring its vast system into a legitimate State of Good Repair, the MTA is now able to move forward with numerous major projects.

• New Jersey's biggest transportation priority is construction of a new commuter rail tunnel under the Hudson, a project known as Access to the Region's Core (ARC). An MIS is nearly complete, to be followed by an EIS.

• RPA's biggest regional transportation priorities are East Side Access, a four-borough Second Avenue Subway (including Long Island and JFK access) and ARC. These projects are considered crucial to relieving congestion and promoting long-term economic development.

Paul Crotty, Verizon
Chris Jones, RPA
John E. Lane, Bank of New York
Mitchell Pally, Long Island Association
Moderator: Alice Rivlin, Brookings Institution

• The actions by the Bank of New York following 9/11 and the directives of the Federal interagency white paper on security indicate a complex response by the financial services industry. While some back-up facilities are likely to be relocated to distant locations, there is a strong pull to keep most core functions within the region.

• Telecommunications improvements since 9/11 are adding flexibility and redundancy to the system, particularly in Lower Manhattan, and should help to retain financial activities.

• More than most regions, the Tri-State area has an armature of multiple commercial centers connected to each other and to a large, diverse labor force by an extensive transit network. This provides a variety of location choices that can support an increasingly complex corporate and industry structure.

• Areas of the region, such as Long Island, that are playing only a minor role in the decentralization of financial services, have nonetheless developed thriving economies around a diverse set of professional, technical, health and education services.

Edward Blakely, New School University
Rev. Patrick G. Duggan, Sustainable Long Island
Carolyn Lukensmeyer, AmericaSpeaks
Joseph Maraziti, Maraziti, Falcon & Healey
Janette Sadik-Kahn, Parsons Brinckerhoff
Moderator: Petra Todorovich, RPA

• Effective public participation processes meet people where they are - you have to schedule meetings at times and in places where families and working people can attend.

• A picture tells a thousand words - new technologies for visualizing plans and 3D animations can show how plans will look on the ground. However, even the best animation can't save a bad plan.

• Methods for intergovernmental communication are as important as communication between the government and the public. Websites such as LowerManhattan.info function not only to keep the public informed, but include an intranet section for public agencies working on a project.

• The case of the "Big Map" in New Jersey demonstrates the importance of public participation, and communication across different levels of government. The map developed in 2001 as part of the New Jersey State Plan underwent an extensive cross-acceptance plan and enjoyed broad support. The "Big Map" came out of nowhere and has been blasted by members of the Governor's own political party.

Alexander Garvin, LMDC
Arthur Imperatore, Arcorp
Christopher Kui, Asian Americans for Equality
Nikki Stern, Swanke Hayden Connell Architects
Madelyn Wils, Community Board 1
Moderator: Tom Wright, RPA

• Alex Garvin demonstrated how the Libeskind plan connected to the surrounding area, and integrated into the West Street Promenade endorsed by Mayor Bloomberg's vision for Lower Manhattan.

• Arthur Imperatore demonstrated how new ferry services from Brooklyn, Queens, New Jersey and Westchester could quickly and efficiently provide greater access for commuters to Lower Manhattan

• Madelyn Wils and Christopher Kui talked about the needs of the residential communities. Madelyn noted the similarities between the needs of residents and the needs of the business community - providing access and services, creating new public spaces, and moving quickly to build momentum and give hope to the residents and workers downtown. Chris observed that while Chinatown had not been physically destroyed, many people's lives had been severely disrupted. These consequences appeared over time, as jobs disappeared, traffic issues worsened, and decisions were made sometimes without engaging the Chinatown community.

• Nikki Stern brought all these issues together, talking very eloquently about how she had spent a day in Lower Manhattan with her husband in the summer of 2001. They observed things they liked about downtown - the plaques to historic events, the meandering streets, the waterfront. And they noticed the things they didn't like about downtown - the bare plazas, poor shopping. Nikki noted that all of the revitalization efforts downtown had an opportunity to transform the district, which would be the greatest memorial to the lives lost on 9/11. She particularly pointed out that the competing needs of the site and neighborhoods - to memorialize a tragedy and create vibrant new life, to provide for jobs and commerce while nurturing a local community - were not exclusive options, but all parts of the puzzle that could be put together to create something truly transformative.

Albert Appleton, RPA
Marcia Bystryn, League of Conservation Voters
Ernest Cook, Trust for Public Land
Maureen Ogden, Garden State Preservation Trust
Moderator: Robert Pirani, RPA

• Go to the source: use smaller amounts of money to fund projects like watershed protection and brownfield policy so you don't have to spend more money on reactionary things like water treatment plants and measures to deal with sprawl.

• Convince people in government that the public cares about open space through surveys or by putting environmental issues on the ballot. Push to get environmentally conscious people in office.

• Work equally hard on maintaining current funding sources as well as finding new ones. While we lobby for new sources of money, older, continuous sources are being cut.

• Conservation sells itself - initiatives like the broadly successful efforts to create local open space taxes work because the public can see what they are getting for their money. State funding can be tied to these popular programs, as was done in New Jersey.

• Think large and outside the box - We don't spend enough money on land acquisition relative to other environmental quality infrastructure. Land conservation is an important tool for addressing water quality and transportation - look to these relatively larger sources of funding as a means for addressing conservation needs.

Anthony Iton, Stamford Health Department
Katherine Kraft, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
Jonathon Rose, Jonathon Rose & Companies
Roy Strickland, University of Michigan
Moderator: Rob Lane, RPA

• Roy Strickland, an urban designer who discussed the new and expanded role of school planning in healthy communities, described partnerships between the school district, local businesses, and local social service providers. Pointing out that the US will spend approximately $200 billion in public school capital projects in this decade, he points out that the school district is too large an employer - too large an "industry" - not to leverage this spending for an expanded agenda involving these new partners.

• Jonathan Rose, a developer of sustainable and affordable mixed-use communities, described several unusual partnerships that are part of his projects. In one new community in Denver, a community greening and gardening exercise was implemented in partnership with a local municipal botanical garden society. Interestingly, he feels that several of the innovative recycling strategies - such as using the ground up cement from the demolition of existing structures on the site in the new masonry construction - are not only environmentally friendly, but economically advantageous.

• Dr. Anthony Iton described the unusual partnership that has emerged in Stamford around RPA's West Side project which brought together his Health Department, the City of Stamford Land User Planning Bureau and RPA around an initiative effort to link the design of a new greenway project to a program to increase activity levels in the community. A local community center is a key partner as well, as this will be the point of interface with the community.

• Lastly, Dr. Kate Kraft of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, in describing healthy communities initiatives around the country, pointed out the extent to which good community design is a necessary but not sufficient condition to get people to be more active. Partnerships between town planners, health professionals and local grass-roots organizations are needed to develop advocacy and education programs that get people using the existing and new facilities.