Heather Thompson

Chief Executive Officer

Organization

Institute for Transportation and Development Policy

Established in 1985, ITDP is a global non-governmental organization working to deliver sustainable transportation in cities around the world. Through a combination of technical assistance, direct advocacy, and policy guidance, ITDP helps deliver equitable, accessible transportation systems that mitigate the impacts of climate change, improve air quality, and support prosperous, livable cities. ITDP works across five continents, with offices in China, Brazil, India, Indonesia, East Africa, Mexico and the United States. Our extensive resources for city and national governments, planners, policymakers, and activists include technical reports, guides, and standards — the BRT Standard, TOD Standard, and Bikeshare Planning Guide, to name a few — as well as communications products, all of which seek to share knowledge and lessons learned toward scaling successful projects.

ITDP has been working in the international finance space for more than a decade, with a proven track record of securing commitments for sustainable transport investments. In 2012 at Rio+20, ITDP worked to secure a pledge from eight multilateral development banks to provide $175 billion for sustainable transport over a decade. This experience informs our current efforts, not only to grow financing but to establish mechanisms so that money is spent on effective, financially sustainable projects that meet today’s climate and equity challenges.

As part of ITDP’s Cycling Cities campaign, we have been working with multi-lateral development banks, bilateral agencies, and other partners to identify barriers to financing cycle lane networks and tools and resources that would help make the case for this type of investment. Our report, The Path Less Traveled, co-written with the World Bank, makes the case for scaling up financing for active mobility, leveraging best practices, and identifying and replicating successful investment mechanisms based on several case studies from Global South cities.

ITDP is currently working with the World Bank to develop a comprehensive cost-benefit analysis ROI tool for cycle lane networks that quantifies climate, health, and safety impacts. The tool aims to help cities and development bank staff make the case for national ministers to invest in urban cycle lane networks, especially to expand access to and ridership of BRT and metro.

Building on this knowledge, ITDP is now working to define easily replicable project archetypes, which bring together multiple sustainable modes and revenue streams, to reduce barriers and risks and facilitate more impactful investments in cycling and pedestrian infrastructure, e-BRT, and metro.

We are in constant conversations related to financing with our regional teams and partners, including many development banks worldwide.

 

CCFLA has been an invaluable resource to us as we continue to map the ecosystem of transport financing players, opportunities, and challenges. In the past year, CCFLA has helped connect us with project preparation facilities (PPFs) so that we can learn more about their structure, goals, links to development bank financing, etc. and better understand how to leverage these and other players to unlock more sustained financing for sustainable transport projects.

ITDP has attended several in person CCFLA workshops and online Action Group sessions, including presenting at a recent Action Group session. Through this participation and discussions with CCFLA staff, we have identified the opportunity to better connect with the Project Preparation Action Group to identify PPFs we can partner with to scale up finance for successful urban transport archetype projects with development banks.