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Tag: Smart City Challenge

An overwhelming number of cities applied to join our smart cities collaborative

Nearly 60 local governments from 31 states applied to join our collaborative for smart cities, including nearly half of the cities that entered USDOT’s Smart City Challenge. Applications closed two weeks ago — so what’s next?

smartphone-bus

After the outpouring of interest in the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Smart Cities Challenge, perhaps we shouldn’t have been surprised to see tremendous interest and enthusiasm from cities nationwide for our smart cities collaborative in partnership with Sidewalk Labs.

Nearly 60 local governments from 31 states applied to join the collaborative — including nearly half of the Smart City Challenge applicants and a number of the seven finalist cities — underscoring their desire to find ways to thoughtfully use technology to solve their pressing transportation and mobility challenges.

The applications came in from an incredibly diverse range of cities, from small to large and from coast to coast, including places like Seattle, WA; Kirkwood, MO; Charlotte, NC and Los Angeles, CA. A diverse group of cities will be at the table as members of the collaborative begin to define and design the “connected streets” of the future.

What do cities want?

Each applicant city identified a transportation-based problem they’re challenged by, an outcome they’re seeking, and a specific project they’re interested in developing to meet their needs. The applications showcased a diverse array of projects that shared an innovative drive toward problem identification, solution generation, and a willingness to take risks.

The application also included a list of fifteen potential technical and topical working groups to focus on in the collaborative. So far, cities expressed the greatest interest in connected and automated vehicles, carbon reduction strategies, shared mobility and first- and last-mile solutions, vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2X) implementation, and performance measures and data analytics. Although there was enthusiasm for all of the groups, we’ll eventually be narrowing the field down to just a few of the groups with the deepest interest.

In addition to the applications, we also received nearly 100 responses to our State of the Smart City Survey, which will help provide an incredibly valuable picture of where cities are at when it comes to technology and smart city ambitions.

This detailed survey asked cities to evaluate themselves on their status in implementing smart cities projects and technologies. Their submissions will enable T4America to develop a better understanding of what cities want, what gaps need to be filled, and how we can begin to provide technical assistance on a national scale.

We’re thrilled to work with local leaders and help them learn from each other as they figure out how to move forward with their ambitious plans.

We’ll be releasing the results of the State of the Smart City later this fall as well as sharing the work from the collaborative and what we’re all learning along the way as it takes off over the next few months.

This post was written by our Smart Cities team of Russ Brooks, Rob Benner and Steve Davis.

Applications are open for T4America’s smart city collaborative

Today, Transportation for America opened the application process for our national, multi-city collaborative with Sidewalk Labs. This partnership, announced back on June 1st, will help cities use technology to meet their pressing transportation challenges.

sidewalk lab music

When USDOT kicked off the Smart Cities Challenge and over 70 cities from across the country scrambled to put together applications detailing their smart city ambitions, it was clear that Secretary Anthony Foxx at USDOT had tapped into something vital unfolding in cities of all sizes across the country.

As we read through all 78 of those applications this spring, one thing became very clear: It’s really hard to put a finger on precisely what a smart city is right now, and what it means to be one. There are cities that have been opening up massive sets of municipal data to citizens for years allowing them to create apps or brainstorm ways to improve government services. Some cities have found new ways to use their own data to determine where transit services should be provided, but aren’t, and adjust accordingly. Some cities are testing partnerships with shared mobility providers to experiment with adding transit coverage or providing valuable last-mile connections.

Yet there are other cities that are clearly just dipping their toes into this arena, and are swept up to some degree by the availability of the grant money or enamored with technology as an end unto itself — often not yet certain of the specific problem that they’re trying to solve.

So what’s the norm? Where should a city be in relation to their peers?

To help establish a baseline and get a more organized sense of where cities are in this evolution, we’ve also distributed a State of the Smart City benchmarking survey to gather data from cities on the technologies and strategies they currently employ along with the tools they have at their disposal. T4America will use this survey as a baseline to measure the implementation of smart city technologies at both the national level and for individual cities in the coming years.

Whether or not your city is planning to apply to join the collaborative, you can help us get a better picture of your community by completing the State of the Smart City survey.

Our new national collaborative will bring cities into several working groups, each focusing on one aspect of a smart city, such as how to create a level playing field where a tiny startup of students can compete with a massive technology firm to create a new civic mobility app, ensure that new mobility options also serve the unbanked or low-income communities, or deploy congestion pricing in a way that helps provide more transportation options to more people.

The cities in the collaborative will work to develop pilot projects, share successes and failures, and engage with one another to come up with new, creative solutions to the problems at hand. If you and your city are interested in participating in the Smart City Collaborative, please fill out a short application here.

As we build this collaborative over the next few months and hear back from cities that are on varying points of this spectrum, we’ll be starting to coalesce around an idea of what a “Smart City” truly is. We have ideas, but no one has 100 percent of the answers at this point as this idea evolves, and cities should likely be skeptical of anyone who says they do.

We think a smart city is one that uses technology to discover where people are going and where they want and need to go, learns from that information and uses it to create safer, more efficient, and affordable transportation options that accelerate access to opportunity for all of their residents.

Those are our thoughts, but we’re eager to hear your feedback as well. 

So what do you think a smart city is? What does a smart city look like? How would you define one in a sentence or two?

Columbus, OH takes center stage of national movement for transportation innovation – but cities nationwide are interested in connected streets

Earlier today the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) named Columbus, Ohio, the winner of its highly competitive Smart City Challenge. The win gains Columbus $40 million from USDOT, $10 million from Paul Allen’s Vulcan, Inc., as well as additional matching local public and private investments of $90 million to help the city become a national proving ground for intelligent transportation systems and a suite of new mobility-on-demand services.

Columbus’ application focused specifically on increasing social equity and access to opportunity. The city’s Linden neighborhood has “a high proportion of carless households, unreliable access to employment and health services, a lack of access to digital information, and a high portion of cash-based households,” said Mayor Andrew Ginther.

In its application, Columbus outlined plans for several significant transportation innovations: an autonomous vehicle test fleet that will connect a transit terminal to a job center; increasing travel options in poor neighborhoods to better connect expectant mothers to health services; expansion of electric vehicle infrastructure; a multi-modal transit pass payment system that will include transit as well as ride-sharing and -hailing services; and kiosks that can reload transit cards for low-income residents without credit cards or bank accounts.

Columbus is far from alone in wanting to use innovative technology to better connect disadvantaged populations to opportunity. The seven other Smart City finalists — Denver, San Francisco, Austin, Pittsburgh, Portland, and Kansas City — are all working hard on these issues, as are the 71 other applicant cities that did not make it to the final round, and many more.

T4America will be working with a number of these cities through our recently announced partnership with Sidewalk Labs and a new Smart Cities Collaborative that will help define how technology can meet cities’ pressing transportation challenges. T4America will also be helping cities win funding, tools, and authority to advance smart city initiatives. This will be a huge hurdle as current transportation policy at the federal level and within most states either underfunds or completely ignores local governments.

The collaborative network will also begin to define and design the “connected streets” of the future. Just as the popular Complete Streets approach gives leaders a framework for making streets safer for everyone, connected streets outlines tech-enabled interventions that can help create a truly balanced, multimodal approach to urban transportation that expands access to job opportunities and improves quality of life for all residents.

USDOT’s Smart City Challenge is emblematic of a giant wave of change that’s coming to cities. Technology, innovation, and new mobility solutions are changing the urban landscape and will have big implications for public transit systems, public works departments and how many of us get where we need to go. Vibrant, thriving communities are ones that provide access and opportunity for people of all incomes. Local business and civic leaders are quickly discovering that they need to get out ahead of the coming disruptions and shape the technology transforming their cities or else get shaped by it.

USDOT’s drive to innovation has generated tremendous excitement across the country — in Columbus and beyond. There’s been an explosion of cross-departmental and cross-community collaboration from both the public and private sectors. Many cities also know they’ll need to undertake a large shift in their internal cultures. T4America is here to help cities lean forward and embrace these changes and drive the discussion about what they want their cities to look like in 25 years.

Secretary Foxx questioned at Senate THUD Appropriations hearing

The Senate Transportation, Housing & Urban Development, and Related Agencies (THUD) Appropriations Subcommittee hosted Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx, as well as USDOT Inspector General Calvin Scovel, on Wednesday, March 16 to discuss the department’s FY2017 budget request.

Here are some of the key highlights from the hearing:

Skepticism over a larger, new funding request

The administration’s budget would grow funding for the department to $98 billion in FY17, in part by raising new revenue through a new, $10.25-per-barrel oil fee. Chairman Susan Collins (R-ME) opened the hearing with a note of disappointment and incredulity that the administration would submit such a sizable revenue proposal just months after Congress passed the five-year FAST Act and after many years of debate over transportation finance in which the administration declined to offer specific funding options.

Support for TIGER funding

Several members of the committee—including Chairman Collins (R-ME), Ranking Member Jack Reed (D-RI), and Sens. Roy Blunt (R-MO), Christopher Coons (D-DE), and John Boozman (R-AR) voiced their support for the TIGER program and the projects it has funded. Sen. Boozman, however, had concerns about the department’s support for applicants and the way it helped strengthen the proposals in from applicants who were not awarded funds. Sec. Foxx spoke to the outreach the department is already doing and noted the success the program has had in funding projects in rural areas.

Support for Amtrak primarily in Northeast Corridor

There was support for Amtrak primarily from the two senators from the Northeast Corridor, Sens. Jack Reed (D-RI) and Christopher Coons (D-DE). They each spoke of the importance of making capital improvements on that corridor. Sen. Reed also sought assurance that the Northeast Corridor Futures project would not realign Amtrak service out of his state.

Metro closure was the only transit topic of conversation

The only discussion of transit in the hearing focused on the emergency shutdown of Washington’s Metrorail system. Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), chairman of the full Appropriations Committee, focused her questioning on ways that Congress or the department can further ensure Metro’s safety and improve reliability. Sec. Foxx placed the onus for additional improvement on the local jurisdictions—the District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia—to make safety a priority for the agency. He also said the department is looking into ways that it can require open grants to the agency be used for safety purposes.

There was no discussion of Capital Grants (New Starts) or other transit funding.

USDOT want to support all Smart City Challenge applicants

Several members asked how the department is anticipating new technology, especially autonomous vehicles. Sec. Foxx spoke of the innovative ideas submitted through the Smart City Challenge grant program. Though the department will pick just one winner, Foxx said the department plans to advise all of the losing cities on ways they may be able to fund their visions through other, existing funding sources.

USDOT on the way to establishing the Innovative Finance Bureau

 In response to a question from Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) about P3 financing for roads, Sec. Foxx said the department is well on the way to standing up the National Surface Transportation and Innovative Finance Bureau, a consolidated office for innovative financing created under the FAST Act.

Timing going forward

 House Appropriations Chair Hal Rogers has announced that committee will begin consideration of the first of 12 appropriations bills next week and we expect the Senate to proceed on a similar schedule, debating bills through April following the Easter recess. The House will apparently start on these appropriations bills even through consideration of the budget resolution has been postponed two weeks until after the recess. (The budget resolution declares intended top-line spending amounts, while appropriations bills set specific, program-level outlays.)