1373044 - Public Transportation – The Best and Worst Solution for Huntsville, Alabama

In 2022, US News ranked Huntsville, Alabama as the No. 1 Best Place to Live in the country. It also tagged it as the 16th fastest growing city in the nation. It is a dynamic, sprawling city with a booming economy based on defense, space, and a range of high-tech industries. With the recent opening of new Toyota/Mazda facility another bolus of new jobs has been added that draw workers form the city and surrounding counties. Local agencies and the Alabama Department of Transportation are in a continual struggle to keep up with demand, both existing and forecasted. Public transportation in Huntsville, as in many small- and medium-sized cities, is underdeveloped and underutilized. And while it seems like it could be the perfect solution for such a rapidly growing metropolitan area, the city and region still struggle against the entrenched automobile dependency that has shaped the region for a century. This presentation will explore the physical and policy (e.g., land use) and institutional barriers, as well as some of the sociopolitical and historical issues, facing public transportation progress in Huntsville, and by extension other similar regions in the country. The presentation will conclude, however, on a positive note as it conceptualizes how such a city can avail itself of new transportation modes and technologies that can integrate public transportation into a truly multi-modal future.