Community Initiatives & Projects

Corridors of Opportunity Initiative

Corridors of Opportunity promotes sustainable, vibrant, and healthy communities through development and revitalization along the region’s emerging transitway system. 

Encouraging development like new businesses and housing around transit provides numerous opportunities for the surrounding community. Businesses are exposed to more customers and the community grows jobs. This type of development also makes more efficient use of the public investment and tax dollars.

By boosting important projects along specific transit corridors, Corridors of Opportunity helps to ensure that future regional investments will help everyone. The project is doing additional work to ensure those that have been traditionally excluded from the positive impacts of expanded transit – minority communities, new Americans, persons with disabilities and low-income residents – benefit from new projects.
 

Woman in front of bus stopCorridors of Opportunity is partnering with communities and neighborhoods to:
  • Provide funds for more housing close to rail and transit that is both affordable and energy efficient.
  • Connect employers with job seekers who are easily able to reach the workplace through transit options from their nearby neighborhoods.
  • Help local and minority-owned businesses grow through loans, marketing and business planning.
  • Encourage developers through special grants and loans to build or renovate buildings that will offer jobs and affordable housing near bus or rail stops.
LRT Train
Through the Corridors of Opportunity initiative, the Council and a broad consortium of policymakers, foundations, community organizations, and leaders work together to support nearly two dozen planning and implementation activities. Benefiting from these efforts are communities along seven of the region’s existing and planned transitways:
  • Southwest LRT (Green Line),
  • Bottineau LRT,
  • Gateway Corridor,
  • Cedar Avenue BRT,
  • Central Corridor LRT (Green Line),
  • Hiawatha LRT (Blue Line)  
  • Northstar Commuter Rail   


More about Corridors of Opportunity.