Challenge
Puerto Ricans’ attachment to automobiles exceeds even that found in the continental United States. Many families in Puerto Rico spend as much as 40 percent of their net income on owning and maintaining an automobile. Congestion, environmental issues, and the economic dependency of the island population upon automobiles forced the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico to develop and pursue an enormous transit project to solve long standing transportation challenges.

The Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, historically, had never received capital funding for any transit project, let alone one of such magnitude. The Commonwealth retained O’Neill and Associates to help develop a policy approach to obtain federal funding and to build local support and understanding for the project.

Solution
O’Neill and Associates helped the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico build support for the project through a carefully crafted and executed combination of government, community and public relations. Given that the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico does not pay any federal gasoline tax into the U.S. Highway Trust Fund, and that it does not possess voting representation in the U.S. Congress, O’Neill and Associates had to develop an extraordinarily unique approach to gaining federal funding so that the project could go forward.

The challenge lay in molding public perception—showing public transportation as a modern, reliable and economically sensible way to travel. The public and community relations efforts consisted of education processes involving public meetings, one-on-one sessions with decision makers, media relations to ensure a constant stream of positive press and production of collateral materials including videos, print advertisements and presentations.

The island government had not previously developed a community affairs strategy to develop support for a transit project. O’Neill and Associates developed key messages that included the centrality of the project to a modern rapid transit system and positioning the project as an asset that would make Puerto Rico a “leading light” in the region, possessing the engineering and transportation envy of the other Caribbean island economies. Additional messages promoted the projected enhancement of the local economy and increased employment. O’Neill and Associates provided extensive outreach to the private sector, including Banco Populas, the largest financial institution based in the Caribbean.

Results
As a result of O’Neill and Associates’ communications and government relations campaign, a $306 million full-funding grant agreement with the Federal Transit Administration was achieved, as well as a $300 million TIFIA loan through the US Department of Transportation.

Today, Tren Urbano is composed of 16 stations along 10 miles of track connecting San Juan to its western suburbs. With a daily ridership exceeding 100,000 commuters, the next phase of the project will add additional lines and connect to other train, bus and ferry routes.

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