Infrastructure and Influence: Realigning Real Estate, Regulation, and Public Mobility

At the request of CALSTART, the Capstone team examined how U.S. municipalities can move clean transportation projects from climate commitments to executable finance and implementation strategies in a volatile federal policy environment. The project focused on the institutional and financing barriers that shape electric bus deployment, EV charging infrastructure, transit-oriented development, and related clean mobility investments, with particular attention to the capacity gaps facing mid-sized and fiscally constrained cities.

The team developed a policy and finance toolkit grounded in case studies of Buffalo, Denver, Seattle, and Atlanta, alongside review of value capture, federal credit programs, green bonds, CDFIs, green banks, tax credits, public-private partnerships, and land use tools. The analysis found that municipalities often know what infrastructure they need, yet lack the transactional capacity to assemble capital stacks, align utilities and developers, structure public benefits, and sequence approvals on infrastructure timelines. The team therefore framed clean transportation implementation as a problem of institutional design, risk allocation, and intergovernmental coordination.

The team’s recommendations were designed to help CALSTART and municipal partners translate clean transportation goals into actionable deal terms. They included a diagnostic framework for matching city types to feasible financing tools, early use of land banking and affordability protections in value-capture districts, stronger utility and developer coordination, and a convening role that allows lessons from one project to inform the next. The report concluded that clean transportation progress depends on building local capacity to combine finance, land use, equity protections, and implementation strategy before projects reach financial close.