T4America Blog

News, press releases and other updates

Posts Tagged "atlanta"

Seven things to know about our last Smart Cities Collaborative meeting of 2018

Last week in Atlanta, Georgia we wrapped up our second cohort of the Smart Cities Collaborative with the fourth meeting of 2018. Once again, staff representing cities, counties, transit agencies and other public sector agencies from 24 cities gathered together to share their experiences and learn how others are using technology and new mobility to become better places to live.

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States that take chances get rewarded, and six other things we learned this year at Capital Ideas 2018

We’re fresh back from Capital Ideas 2018 in Atlanta, and as in years past, this year’s conference was an incredible alchemy of passion, knowledge, inspiration, and amazing people from around the country. For those of you who weren’t able to make it to Atlanta, here are seven things that we learned.

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On National Walking Day, too many Americans are still having to endure unsafe streets

While we missed recognizing National Walking Day last week while the Complete Streets conference was happening in Nashville, we wanted to come back this week and revisit a post from 2012 looking at what’s actually keeping more people from walking in many of our metro areas.

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Trump’s budget will hurt local communities

President Trump’s first budget request for Congress is a direct assault on smart infrastructure investment that will do damage to cities and towns of all sizes — from the biggest coastal cities down to small rural towns. Tell your representatives that this proposal is a non-starter and appropriators in Congress should start from scratch.

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Three separate ballot measures for transportation in the Atlanta region cleared to proceed

After the crushing defeat of a huge regional transportation ballot measure in 2012, Atlanta is poised to rebound this fall. After recent action by city and county leaders to place measures on the ballot, voters in the Atlanta region will be making at least three critical decisions this fall about sizable new investments in transportation.

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Spokane is one of a growing slate of cities considering transit ballot measures to help stay competitive and successful

With a ballot measure for transit looming this fall, T4America Chairman John Robert Smith traveled to Spokane, WA to speak to city officials, business leaders, and other community stakeholders about the long-term economic and social benefits of public transit investments.

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A look at progress around the country on improving state transportation policy & raising new funding

Scores of state legislatures are still in session or nearing the end of their sessions. With transportation funding and policy on the docket in scores of states, here’s a roundup of the progress being made in states working to create more transparency, build more public trust in transportation spending, and even raise new money.

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Georgia’s legislature moved last night to enable Atlanta to fund new transit & local projects

After an up-and-down last few years when it comes to transportation funding, the Georgia state legislature successfully passed a pared-back bill last night that will allow voters in the City of Atlanta to decide whether or not to raise new funds for expanded transit service throughout the city, in addition to other transportation investments in the city.

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Urban bike trails in cities like Indianapolis, Dallas and Atlanta are proving to have rich economic benefits to city neighborhoods

Affirming a trend seen in other cities, Indianapolis’s eight-mile Cultural Trail has been a boon to the neighborhoods adjacent to it — as well as the city as a whole — increasing property values of homes and businesses and giving residents and tourists an efficient, unbroken path to walk, bike and move around the city.

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State Farm is moving to concentrate thousands of employees in locations near transit

State Farm, one of the country’s largest insurance companies, is betting big on transit in three cities by building or expanding regional hubs on sites with good access to public transportation, reflecting a clear strategy to attract and retain talent who increasingly want to live and work in locations connected by transit.

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15 issues to watch in ’15, Part III: People

The members of Congress who will rewrite the nation’s transportation policies and attempt to raise funding to keep the program afloat is just one important discussion taking place this year. More states will continue efforts to raise transportation revenue and mayors in communities of all sizes will move forward key transportation initiatives; among others on a long list of people with an important role to play in 2015. Here are five that rose to the top, but tell us who you think we missed.

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Metro areas on the cutting edge of transportation planning: Introducing The Innovative MPO

On Dec. 10, Transportation for America will release a one-of-a-kind guidebook showcasing leading-edge approaches to regional transportation planning, called “The Innovative MPO.” We will launch it with a webinar the same day, open to all. To learn more and register, click here. In this post, we provide a preview of the kind of topics you’ll encounter in the guidebook.

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UPS chief and other business leaders urge Congress to pass a bill that helps both commuters and freight

19 Nov 2014 | Posted by | 1 Comment | , , , , ,

An editorial from the head of one of the world’s most important freight companies — based in the city where we hosted a policy breakfast on the same issue two weeks ago — puts a bright line under the importance of Congress updating our country’s outmoded freight policy in the next federal transportation authorization.

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Important transportation ballot measures decided yesterday

Though there were some significant defeats for promising transportation-related ballot measures yesterday, they continue to be approved at very high rates and a few key wins carry some important impacts for years to come.

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After spurning it for decades, suburban Atlanta county seems poised to join regional transit system

Though many cities or counties will be deciding ballot measures to raise local funds for transportation in a few weeks, in many states local jurisdictions have to get permission from their state legislature to decide those questions locally. One of the most notable examples of this will be taking place in a county in the heart of metro Atlanta, Georgia.

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Locals encountering help or hindrance from states on their transportation plans

Flickr photo by John Greenfield http://www.flickr.com/photos/24858199@N00/10090187245/

Several places have been in the news lately as they find their ambitious efforts to solve transportation challenges hinging on legislative action this lawmaking season. In some, state legislators are helping out with enabling legislation, but in others they are challenging the concept of local control and threatening needed investment.

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Congestion rankings make news, but what do they really mean? Very little for most residents

7 Feb 2013 | Posted by | 3 Comments | , , ,

The Texas Transportation Institute always garners a flurry of headlines with the release of the annual Urban Mobility Report and its Travel Time Index (TTI), which purports to rank metro areas by congestion. Oft-cited and interesting though they may be, however, the rankings don’t really say much about the lives of the people who live in those places.

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Telling only half the story of congestion, travel time and the quality of our metro areas

A popular study on traffic and congestion in our metropolitan areas is widely cited by the national, state and local media with every annual release, but it doesn’t tell the entire story. Far from it. That’s because measuring congestion while ignoring the actual time and distance spent commuting is a poor measure of what residents’ actually experience on a day-to-day basis.

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Is metro Atlanta vote a bellwether for transportation funding?

traffic jam on 85 outside atlantaThe Atlanta region soundly rejected a penny sales tax to fund $7.1 billion in new transportation improvements for the traffic-snarled region. Coming on the heels of the passage of MAP-21, a federal bill indicating a shrinking federal role in transportation funding, many wondered: Will metro regions and localities be able to bootstrap their way out of congestion and mobility woes? Was the failure of Atlanta’s transportation vote a bellwether for votes in other states and metros?

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Atlanta transportation vote: “You pay it one way or another”

16 Jul 2012 | Posted by | 4 Comments | , , ,

It took three tries in the Georgia legislature for metro Atlanta to win the right to vote itself a regional sales tax to fix its transportation woes, and another two years of a grinding political process to come up with a list of 157 highway and transit projects  that just might do the trick. Now […]

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