The online magazine of the Urban Land Institute this week published an article about the Cotton Belt in Dallas/Fort Worth entitled A Value-Capture Strategy for Transportation in Texas. (You have to be ULI member to read it, but I’ll tell you the premise.)

The value-capture strategy in question is an effort to find alternative and creative sources of financing for the construction of the 62-mile Cotton Belt rail line, which slices across north Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex. The North Central Texas Council of Governments (NCTCOG) selected Scott Polikov of the Gateway Planning Group to create the Partnership for Livable Communities and lead the process.

The goal is to raise private equity to build the line, and pay for it with a variety of means, including real estate development, on-site advertising revenue, station naming rights and other alternative financing mechanisms.

The beauty of the Cotton Belt is the regional government and private sector understand that the benefit of the line won’t be based purely on ridership, but on land use around it, which will follow traditional neighborhood development principles and be walkable and sustainable.

Kudos to these Texas urban development cowboys and their “git ‘er done” mentality to engage the private sector and market for doing the right thing and creating sustainable urban development. In a time of uncertain government funding, the Cotton Belt story is well worth a look!