Transportation issues often top the list of concerns that people have about growth in their communities.  The New Mexico Regional Transit Districts Informational Toolkit, prepared by the ATR Institute under the direction of the NMDOT Research Bureau, provides a set of tools to help community associations become engaged in finding local solutions to transportation needs.
   

Despite the area’s notable heterogeneity, the North Central Regional Transit District (NCRTD) became the first regional transit district (RTD) certified in New Mexico. The NCRTD contains New Mexico’s largest and smallest Pueblos, one of the poorest and the richest counties, and rural communities steeped in 500-year old Spanish traditions juxtaposed against the “New Age” cosmopolitanism of Santa Fe.  Most observers believed that the diverse geographical, political, and economic landscape of the NCRTD would make it difficult to pursue new or ambitious projects. Organizational and jurisdictional barriers could have created roadblocks to effective collaboration.  

The NMDOT Research Bureau provided funds to develop a case study and model which could be followed by other potential RTDs in the State.  The ATR Institute was charged, as the organizing and research entity, with developing the RTD model and staffing the effort.  An Organizing Committee, representing public and private interests, was tasked with producing the certification documents and supporting materials, presenting them clearly and effectively to governing bodies and the public, and providing an example of cross-jurisdictional transit collaboration.

Creation of the NCRTD required public hearings in every jurisdiction.  One-on-one “study sessions” raised public awareness in every jurisdiction and fueled the process for obtaining the needed affirmative votes to join the NCRTD.

The NCRTD is composed of ten initial members and appears to be the first in the nation to have Tribal governments on the Board of Directors.  Not only have other jurisdictions requested help from ATRI and the NCRTD in forming their own RTDs, but Tribal entities outside New Mexico are paying close attention to the NCRTD and some New Mexico jurisdictions see the NCRTD’s collaborative and open process as highly significant for efforts to deal with other regional issues, such as water and wastewater infrastructure development.

Presentation:  A Case Study in Regional Transportation Consensus Building Between Local and Tribal Governments in New Mexico - 2005 Meeting of the Transportation Research Board of the National Academy of Sciences, Poster Session 248, January 2005, Social and Economic Factors of Transportation: Assessing Cumulative Impacts and Social Equity.