This free, online webinar was organized by Meeting of the Minds.

Archive materials

Program

This past summer, the Massachusetts legislature passed a bill dedicating $3 billion to transportation over 5 years. We’ll explore how grassroots advocacy catapulted transportation to the top of the priority list for the Governor, Speaker of the House, and Senate President, and how grasstops outreach, communications work, and “inside baseball” saw a campaign through to victory. Part of the new transportation funding will likely support restoring a rail line to three older industrial cities. In preparation for the rail, 31 cities and towns have been working together to shape the economic and housing development the rail will bring. The region has selected areas for development and for protection, and the state, in an unprecedented way, is aligning its investments to support this smart growth plan. The presenter will discuss the bottom-up strategies for change (and their limitations) and lessons learned from the efforts to create a regional plan for smart growth and win new transportation funding.

Speaker

Kristina Egan

Director
Transportation for Massachusetts

Kristina serves as the Director for Transportation for Massachusetts, a coalition of 35 organizations working to double the number of people using transit across the state, promote walking and biking, and create great places.

Before joining Transportation for Massachusetts, she served at the Massachusetts Department of Transportation as the Director of the South Coast Rail project, a $1.9 billion passenger rail extension. As part of this project, she led the development of the award-winning South Coast Rail Economic Development and Land Use Corridor Plan, which is a smart growth blueprint currently being implemented by 31 cities and towns through zoning and planning changes. Immediately prior to being appointed to the Patrick Administration, Kristina served as the Director of the Massachusetts Smart Growth Alliance. Kristina holds a M.A. in International Economics and International Relations from Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, and a B.A from Wesleyan University.

She also serves the Vice-Chair of the Town Council in Freeport, Maine, is the mom of an energetic third-grader who is teaching her about every sport under the sun, and is married to a political columnist who keeps her on her toes.

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