Ignacio Lafuente

AWARD

SECOND PLACE

Ignacio Lafuente

REDESIGNING THE FUNDING STRUCTURE AND STORYTELLING FOR BUENOS AIRES’ RER

The purpose of this term paper is to reconsider the importance of the Red de Expresos Regionales (RER) in Buenos Aires, the project reconnecting the city’s main commuter rail lines, despite its recent failure. The well-known reasons for its abandonment (mostly financial and political) will be contrasted with many of its mostly undisputed advantages, namely travel time savings, fare equity, and improved opportunities for land use. A need for reshuffling will come up as the way to isolate a good project from its unsuccessful implementation. After discussing the context, the options that failed, and some unexplored but also unpromising alternatives, a bold (yet quite experimental) nationallevel Tax Increment Financing district will be proposed as a relevant source for investment and/or debt repayment.

Ignacio Lafuente is an economist and urban planner from Argentina. After performing economic analyses addressing project valuation, land policy, and public-private development for the government of the city of Buenos Aires for 4 years, he is now completing his Master in Urban Planning program at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, concentrating in Transportation and Infrastructure. His career goal lies at the intersection between those two experiences: designing effective land policies to fund transportation infrastructure projects.