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Author Archives: Steve Davis

 About Steve Davis

Stephen Lee Davis is the AVP for Transportation Strategy at Smart Growth America.
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A highly cooperative spirit is taking root within the 16 cities in the Smart Cities Collaborative

Just a few blocks from the Capitol dome in Washington, DC, the 16 members of our Smart City Collaborative gathered together again two weeks ago to learn, share wisdom and find ways to collaborate on thoughtfully solving their transportation challenges with new and emerging technologies.

During the last in-person meeting in Minneapolis on the day after the election, we spent a good chunk of the time trying to help the cities back out a bit from the minutia of day-to-day, specific problems like, “which payment vendor should I use for X?” and “What technology do you use for Y?” and think more about the big picture problems they’re trying to solve. Existential questions like, “what kind of city do we want to be in ten years? How can technology help us get there?”

With the answers to those big picture questions firmly in mind and a spirit of collaboration already bearing fruit, we focused on three things during our second two-day meeting: Going in-depth on key issues with notable experts, discussing the action plans for the cities’ specific pilot projects, and a working session on specifically how to measure and quantify success.

One of the highlights of the first day was a terrific discussion about equity and accessibility in our changing digital world. The superb panel, led by Shin-pei Tsay from the Gehl Institute, discussed how technology is rapidly changing equity, accessibility and access to economic opportunity in cities — with an eye toward how Collaborative members can ensure that their projects help solve these challenges, rather than contributing further to the problem.

The first day’s panel discussion on how technology is transforming access to opportunities, with a focus on equity.  From left, Shin-pei Tsay, Executive Director of the Gehl Institute, Anita Cozart, Senior Director at PolicyLink, Tatiana Peralta-Quirós, Transport Economist at the World Bank and Rani Narula-Woods, California Program Manager for the Shared-Use Mobility Center.

Members got to hear directly from those involved with other interesting pilot projects elsewhere, like Pittsburgh’s self-driving Uber pilot, driverless shuttles in Contra Costa County, and on-demand transit projects in Oakland, CA and Salem, OR.

We brought in over a dozen outside experts with deep knowledge on issues like performance measurement, data-sharing between cities and transportation network companies (TNCs like Uber and Lyft), modular contracting and flexible procurement, to name a few. City reps participated in intimate, small group discussions where they could ask questions and try to fill gaps in their knowledge.

Gabe Klein with CityFi, formerly the director of Chicago and DC’s transportation departments, walked a group through his experiences in procurement.

Within the three working groups that we created based on what the applying cities were most interested in —automated vehicles, shared mobility and data analytics — a key goal of the year-long collaborative is for each city to launch a pilot project. But how should cities measure and quantify the success or failure of these projects that they’re hoping to get off the ground? For example, for a city that’s trying to run a small, automated vehicle pilot project, what should they be measuring? And what data points can actually be measured?

Doing real-time voting on some proposed metrics for measuring the performance of the cities’ pilot projects.

These are tough nuts to crack, but we all made progress at finding answers — all while trying to keep our eyes on how these pilot projects can help cities get ever closer to their answer to the “what kind of city do we want to be in ten years?” question.

One of the most illuminating comments we heard from a participant was that the Collaborative is creating the opportunity to get out of the day-to-day — where they may have scores of other unrelated responsibilities — to come together with like-minded peers to think long and hard about this one topic or their pilot project in a focused way.

With so much uncertainty right now with regards to federal transportation policy under a new administration and a new Secretary of Transportation, cities will be best served by working together to solve these challenges and avoid producing a new generation of transportation haves and have-nots.

It’s been an incredibly productive few months so far, and we’re eager to see what continues to come out of these cities as they work to ensure that this monumental, epochal shift in transportation is harnessed to shape their cities into places that are more sustainable, equitable and accessible.

The Smart Cities Collaborative is supported by Sidewalk Labs.

Learn more about USDOT’s final congestion rule and the rest of the final performance measures [webinar]

The new requirements released last week by USDOT for how states and metro areas will have to measure traffic congestion were just part of a larger package of new performance measures. Join us next week to unpack the congestion rule and the rest of the suite of new measures. 

Updated 1/26/17: Thanks to everyone who was able to join us on the webinar. Here’s the archived recording if you missed it or want to revisit. -Ed.

The 2012 transportation law (MAP-21) required transportation agencies to begin using a new system of performance measures to govern how federal dollars are spent. And it was indeed big news last week when USDOT — responding to thousands of your comments we submitted — backed away from most of the outdated measures of traffic congestion that were proposed. But this was just one part of a much larger package of new performance measures and with last week’s release, USDOT has now finalized all of the new measures for safety, the state of repair, congestion, air emissions and other aspects of our transportation system.

Join us next Tuesday on January 24th at 10:00 a.m. EST as we walk through the second two (of three total) final rules that cover road, bridge and pavement condition, and overall system performance (the latter is what includes the traffic congestion measures.)

T4America experts will be on hand to unpack these final rules, discuss what states and metro areas need to know about this crucial first step toward more performance-based and data-driven decision-making when it comes to transportation investments.

We’ll also be announcing a new opportunity for technical assistance on performance measures, as well as some survey results on the state of the practice at metropolitan planning organizations across the country. Be the first to hear about both.

More about performance measures

New T4A report out today: Measuring What We Value

How do we justify transportation expenditures? To many people, the perception is that project decisions are made in a murky, mysterious process, or, even worse, through a political process where only the projects with the most connections get funded. Further, it is not clear to the average person what all the spending gets them. With public confidence in government at low levels, it’s more important than ever to quantify the public benefits of transportation investment and let voters know what their money is going to buy — especially when attempts are being made to raise new money for transportation to fill the gap.

Transitioning to a more performance-based system of transportation investment was one of the key reforms of MAP-21 and these newly finalized measures could represent the beginning of a sea change in how funding decisions are made and our transportation system performs.

Read our 2015 report to learn more about performance measures

USDOT rewrites congestion rule in response to outpouring of feedback

At long last, USDOT has finalized new requirements for how states and metro areas will have to measure traffic congestion and in the final rule — responding to the outpouring of comments they received — they backed away from most of the outdated measures of congestion that were proposed.

Updated 1/26/17: See the bottom of this post for a video of our webinar explaining this rule and the rest of the final package of performance measures. – Ed.

Wait, what congestion measures? First, let’s take a moment to catch up on what’s happening here, since it’s been months since this was in the news.

For two years, USDOT has been working to establish a new system of performance measures to govern how federal dollars are spent and hold states and metro areas accountable for making progress on important goals, including how states and cities would have to measure (and address) traffic congestion. (Why does how we measure congestion matter? Read some background here.)

As first written, USDOT’s proposed measures would, as we said back in early 2016, “induce sprawl, harm the economic potential of our main streets by treating them like highways, punish cities investing in public transportation, completely ignore people walking, biking, carpooling or telecommuting, and push local communities of all sizes to waste billions of dollars in vain attempts to build their way out of congestion.”

So back in August 2016, we delivered letters from nearly 5,000 individuals and 150 organizations — including dozens of local chambers of commerce and elected officials — opposing USDOT’s flawed proposal and urging them to rethink their approach.

Here’s what 5,000 letters looks like next to a terrific book about Complete Streets for scale purposes since USDOT allows digital submissions.

We’ll be reviewing this newly-released 300-plus page measure in closer detail in the days to come, but our first take upon reviewing it is that FHWA heard the extensive feedback on a complex rule and responded positively to most of the requests that we made.

“Tens of thousands of commenters, through campaigns from T4America, the American Heart Association, and others, raised concerns about the vehicle-focused nature of the eight measures proposed in the NPRM,” FHWA wrote in their comments accompanying the new rule.

The changes are complicated and difficult to quickly enumerate, but four changes are worth highlighting quickly here.

First, we complained that FHWA’s singular focus on delay “paints an incredibly one-dimensional picture of congestion. Focusing on average delay by simply measuring the difference between rush hour speeds compared to free-flow 3 a.m. traffic fails to count everyone else commuting by other modes, rewards places with fast travel speeds at the expense of places with shorter commutes and less time spent behind the wheel overall, and completely ignores how many people are actually moving through the corridor.”

In response, FHWA dumped this peak travel reliability measure, more commonly expressed through the Texas Transportation Institute’s travel time index (TTI), which mostly is a measure of the difference between speeds in the middle of the night and rush hour. This peak travel time measure is gone.

Secondly, they added a “person-hours” measure of delay, which will consider how many people are using the road instead of just how many vehicles are delayed. This was one of our primary critiques of the draft rule, because simple vehicle delay is blind to how many people a corridor is actually moving — it only looks at the number of vehicles. If one corridor moves three times the amount of people as another corridor because of a carpool requirement or a lane dedicated to high-capacity transit, it shouldn’t score the same for congestion just because the travel speed or average delay is the same.

This is a significant change. This means that a congested road that’s full of single-occupant vehicles will never be viewed the same as a corridor that is congested but also multimodal or otherwise carrying more people.

Thirdly, and responding clearly to feedback, FHWA added a new carbon dioxide emissions measure to track the percent change in CO2 emissions generated by on-road mobile sources on most bigger roadways. (Specifically roads on the National Highway System, which, as this graphic reminds us, aren’t always just highways.)

Fourth and lastly, on the topic of multimodal corridors, “…after reviewing these comments, FHWA has decided to include a new multimodal measure — the portion of non-single occupant vehicle travel.”

How did FHWA explain their reasoning to add a measure requiring states and metro areas to set a target for moving people via modes other than single-occupant vehicles?

“Because transportation in urbanized areas is inherently multimodal, it is important to account as much as possible for the options that are available to travelers in those urbanized areas.”

How we measure congestion does matter. It is important to look at congestion and its connection to economic activity. This post from a department within FHWA on Twitter today highlights this connection and it isn’t what most elected leaders and transportation officials believe. Congestion is bad for economic success, right?

Especially after the collapse of the recent Bakken-fueled oil boom of the last few years there, do you think that North Dakota’s leaders would trade ten minutes on their average commute times for ten percent of New York State’s GDP? Does the lack of congestion equal economic success?

This final performance measure from FHWA and USDOT would suggest otherwise.  They are to be applauded, and it wouldn’t have happened without your support. By FHWA’s own admission, the letters that you and thousands of others sent were responsible for pushing FHWA on these critical points.

Stay tuned for more, and sign up for email from T4America to get this kind of news straight to your inbox, including news about a detailed webinar about the new rules happening soon.

Updated: Here’s the video of our webinar about the new performance measures. Read this post for more information.

Big questions largely avoided during the first confirmation hearing for Trump’s Secretary of Transportation nominee

Trump’s appointee to serve as Secretary of Transportation had a confirmation hearing yesterday before a Senate committee, and though she was light on specifics, there were some illuminating questions from Senators and answers from Secretary-designate Elaine Chao.

In a confirmation hearing largely overshadowed by the higher-profile (and more controversial) hearings going on at the same time for Secretary of State and Attorney General, Elaine Chao answered questions from senators on the Commerce Committee yesterday morning and provided at least a glimpse into what can be expected at USDOT under the incoming administration.

She filed a short opening statement that was light on specifics, but emphasized the need to increase private investment in infrastructure, to streamline the process of building transportation projects, and to help the federal government be a partner in the innovation of emerging technologies that is happening on the ground in cities — which is currently “led by the private sector,” she said.

In that statement, she identified how our transportation investments have helped us be competitive, but noted that those “gains are jeopardized by infrastructure in need of repair, the specter of rising highway fatalities, growing congestion, and by a failure to keep pace with emerging technologies.”

While highway fatalities are indeed increasing, pedestrian fatalities are also on the rise after years of decline. Following the release of Dangerous by Design 2016, which highlights the 46,000-plus people who were killed while walking from 2005-2014, T4America sent a letter signed by hundreds of supporters to the committee members asking them to press her on this safety issue.

Senator Brian Schatz from Hawaii took up the cause during the hearing, noting that we have a “serious safety crisis” overall, with more than 35,000 people dying on our roads in 2015 — “the largest increase in years;” “10 percent of those [deaths] were pedestrians,” he added, noting that the problem is particularly bad in Hawaii.

But “these [pedestrian fatalities] are preventable through best practices,” Senator Schatz added, noting how better street designs — and direct guidance from the federal government — can help states and MPOs build streets that are safer for everyone. He asked about her commitment to work on a safe streets agenda, to which Ms. Chao answered that she looked forward to working with him on the issue.

On the TIGER competitive grant program that is increasingly one of the best (or only) sources of funding for smart, local projects, Chao made no promises about overall funding for the program but noted that it was “one area of great agreement,” and that she was “impressed with how many members like it.”

On the elephant in the room, long-term funding for transportation, there was the typical rhetoric and few details — perhaps to be expected by any nominee at this point.

“President-elect Trump’s vision for an infrastructure proposal is ambitious, futuristic and comprehensive,” she said, noting that private investment and public-private partnerships need to be part of the mix. She was supportive of the TIFIA financing program (“It’s an important and valuable source of funding…we need more innovative sources like it.”) And she’s aware of the long-term structural problems with the gas tax, such as improved vehicle efficiency, and vehicle-miles-traveled — though now increasing after ten years of no growth — failing to come close to any of the federal projections for huge long-term growth.

She did answer a pointed question from Senator Cory Booker, who asked — financing and private investment aside — if she and President-elect Trump are in favor of increasing direct federal investment in transportation. Chao said, “I believe the answer is yes.”

And though it would be a question for Congress rather than the USDOT, she didn’t rule out Senator Mike Lee’s plan to essentially kill the federal transportation program, cut the federal gas tax down to a few pennies and let states decide whether or not (and how) they want to invest in transportation. “I’m open to all ideas,” she said, although this specific idea stands in stark opposition to the notion of increasing direct federal investment in infrastructure.

There was no vote on her confirmation today, and there could be another hearing for further questions. But evidence thus far suggests that Democrats are unlikely to oppose her nomination and she should be confirmed in a matter of time. As for what USDOT will look like under a Secretary Chao, there were a few hints of the approach today, but the proof will be in the pudding in 2017.

Watch the full video of the hearing above.

How one state is using transportation to boost their economy — a story of success from Massachusetts

Massachusetts’ recent economic development success is attributable in part to the leadership of the past two gubernatorial administrations — one Democratic, one Republican — and their efforts to focus state investments on improving public transit, repairing critical infrastructure and doubling down on supporting and creating the walkable communities that are in high demand.

This short story is adapted from Transportation Innovations That Save States Money and Attract Talent, our new short policy guide for governors. It shows how a fresh approach transportation is fundamental to creating quality jobs and shared prosperity while running an efficient government that gets the greatest benefit from every taxpayer dollar. – Ed.

Flickr photo by Massachusetts Office of Travel. https://www.flickr.com/photos/masstravel/29675157103/

Massachusetts won a major endorsement for their strategy when, in 2016, General Electric announced it would relocate its corporate headquarters from suburban Fairfield, CT, to the Seaport neighborhood in Boston. GE reportedly turned down sizable tax-incentive offers from other states and chose, instead, to locate in a walkable and transit-served location where the company could draw educated younger workers. GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt said that in Boston, GE found “an ecosystem that shares our aspirations.”

GE was just one of dozens of companies that have located to town or city centers in Massachusetts in recent years, as chronicled by Smart Growth America’s Core Values research. Boston and adjacent cities like Cambridge and Somerville are booming and are magnets for educated, young workers.

Over the past two gubernatorial administrations the state has invested in these walkable communities that anchor a talented workforce and foster economic development.

Former Governor Deval Patrick’s (D) administration championed new funding for transportation projects and inked an agreement that combined funding from the state, the federal government, and a private real estate developer to finance a new subway stop at Assembly Square. The station opened in 2014 and anchors a major mixed-use development that has transformed a former industrial site. The Patrick administration also advanced plans for an extension of the Green Line light rail service to more Somerville neighborhoods.

Though Governor Charlie Baker (R) won while running against future automatic increases to the state gas tax, he clearly understands that improving transit and investing in these walkable places was critical to the state’s prosperity.

MassDOT Secretary Stephanie Pollack presenting at T4America’s Transportation Leadership Academy focused on performance measures.

To achieve this vision, he appointed Stephanie Pollack, a transportation expert and transit advocate, to run MassDOT, the state’s department of transportation. While some in the state were surprised by his pick of a notable transit advocate to run MassDOT, Governor Baker and Secretary Pollack have a shared interest in reforming the state’s transportation programs to ensure that transportation investments are connected to economic development goals. They’re intent on measuring the results that are important for voters and taxpayers and holding the agency accountable for meeting them.

“Transportation is not important for what it is, it’s important for what it does,” Pollack frequently says — as she did at the last gathering of our Transportation Leadership Academy.

The Baker administration considered abandoning the Green Line project when faced with escalating costs. But the benefits of the project were too significant for the state to walk away.

As Pollack has said, “The return on investment in transportation, whether it’s the Green Line extension or another [project], is not just measured in how many people physically use it. It’s also measured in improvements to the economy, decreases in people’s commuting time, creation of new jobs and reduction in greenhouse gases.”

Instead, the state’s largest transit agency, the MBTA, found ways to lower the expected costs by redesigning stations and is contracting new management for the project. While focusing intently on reforming MBTA, Baker sought workable plans in order to maintain the commitments that the commonwealth, under previous administrations, had made to communities.

In order to achieve clear outcomes with transportation dollars, MassDOT began to implement a new, performance-based process to help select projects in which to invest. Evaluating the expected outcomes from every possible project helped the agency put together a capital plan that balances repair of critical infrastructure and further improvements to transit.

In addition to funding transit, MassDOT has also targeted funding specifically at making local streets better for walking and biking through an incentive-based complete streets program. A small investment of state funds leverages local funds to plan and build projects to make streets better for people traveling by foot and by bicycle.

Massachusetts is enjoying economic returns from administrations that understood how tailored transportation investments could support walkable communities. The leadership and reform efforts under both Democratic and Republican administrations is paying off with a state that is attracting talented workers, drawing relocating businesses, and creating quality jobs.

Read our full guide for Governors, which covers how state transportation policy too often fails to accomplish these types of goals, and offers recommended, proven solutions with a track record of success in other states.

While other cities try to replicate Houston’s successful bus network overhaul, Maryland’s plan for Baltimore falls short

At a time when other cities are redesigning their bus transit service and aggressively investing overall in public transportation to provide more consistent, predictable service to serve residents and employers, Baltimore — thanks to the state of Maryland — is attempting to get the most out of its bus system with only marginal new investment and changes in service that won’t do much to improve access to jobs, schools, or opportunity.

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MTA Route 3 bus on Cathedral at West Franklin Street in Baltimore. Flickr photo by Elvert Barnes.

One of the most widely read transportation stories of the past few years is the dramatic transformation of Houston’s public transportation system, made possible by completely rebuilding their bus network and re-launching in 2015. As CityLab’s Laura Bliss wrote earlier this year:

The old hub-and-spoke system that had for decades funneled commuters downtown was straightened into a grid that cross-cuts the sprawling city, with fewer redundancies, more frequent service, and all-day, all-week service on heavily used lines.

For no substantial increases in operational costs, Houston was able to redesign their system to connect one million people and jobs with high-frequency all-day service. Paired with an expansion of light rail, it’s brought a significant increase in both ridership and the access that their residents have to jobs and opportunity.

The map of Houston’s frequent bus service, before (and after) their 2015 network redesign.

Meanwhile, halfway across the country in the summer of 2015, another story was unfolding.

That summer, Maryland Governor Larry Hogan canceled Baltimore’s long anticipated Red Line rail project that would have created a powerful new high-capacity transit line through the city. It would have connected jobs at Bayview (Johns Hopkins Bayview, National Institutes of Health), Woodlawn (Social Security Administration, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services) and the downtown office core with scores of residential neighborhoods all along the line — including some of the West Baltimore neighborhoods that would benefit the most from the investment and connection to opportunity that a new transit line provides.

A rendering of a station on the proposed Red Line in Baltimore, canceled in 2015 by Governor Hogan.

With many in Baltimore still reeling, just a few months later, Gov. Hogan’s administration released BaltimoreLink, “a transformative new vision for the future of transit in Baltimore City.” It was billed as a $135 million investment to rework Baltimore’s transit service, but those numbers are a little deceiving, as you’ll see.

The city and region’s transit is planned and operated by the Maryland Transit Administration (MTA), a state agency. No Baltimore agencies are in the driver’s seat of their own transit system, and have surprisingly few avenues for oversight and accountability of the MTA-run system.

Assessing the state’s proposal

Back in the fall, T4America helped the Central Maryland Transportation Alliance (Transportation Alliance), a coalition that supports improving and expanding transportation options in the Baltimore region, perform a quantitative analysis on the plan to see if the numbers would bear out on the benefits the state was claiming. Would the plan improve access to jobs, schools, and healthy food?

After all, in principle, a major reworking of the bus system map to improve service was a goal long-sought by the advocates in Baltimore. Once the MTA launched the BaltimoreLink effort it became the goal of advocates to challenge the MTA to produce measurable improvements on key indicators.

On behalf of the Transportation Alliance, we performed an analysis of the change in accessibility under the new plan. Using Citilabs’ Sugar Access tool, we measured the change in access at the individual block level, looking at access to all jobs, as well as access to high-opportunity jobs and access from low-opportunity neighborhoods. We also looked at access to public middle and high schools and grocery stores.

So would it be truly transformative? Would it increase the number of jobs that are accessible to everyday Baltimore residents? Would it provide increased connections to opportunity for a wider range of people?

The short answer is no.

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A man studying while on on MTA Route 3 bus on North Charles at Centre Street in Baltimore. Flickr photo by Elvert Barnes

The long answer is that the plan “represents a missed opportunity to address regional goals in connecting households to jobs, schools, and essential services through transit,” according to the Transportation Alliance’s terrific summary of the findings. The bottom line is that BaltimoreLink does not deliver the promised transformational improvements and in contrast to MTA’s claims, we found a sharp decrease in accessibility on weekends (Sunday morning peak) and a marginal increase on weekdays. Read more about the detailed findings in the Transportation Alliance’s executive summary. (pdf)

In response, the administration initially attacked the empirical study, the Transportation Alliance and other local transit supporters. MTA recently released a revised plan which the Transportation Alliance and other stakeholders are reviewing. The MTA will hold public hearings in January, finalize the plan in March and implement the changes in June 2017.

Redeploying routes more effectively would be only one part of any proper solution. The region also needs local oversight in transit planning and an ironclad pledge for coordination between the state and the city to get anywhere near the kinds of benefit that Houston was able to realize. As the Transportation Alliance’s summary goes on to note:

Unlike Houston, Baltimore is an older, dense city where right-of-way is much more limited. Much of BaltimoreLink’s success in terms of speed and reliability hinges on coordination of road space and traffic signals between MTA and the City of Baltimore’s Department of Transportation. [But] without dedicated bus lanes and traffic signal prioritization, the potential benefits of this project may not be realized. It is inaccurate to anticipate reliable, rapid, transit going through downtown without dedicated right-of-way.

Looking ahead

While Baltimore stands to benefit immensely from redesigning its network, the benefits will be limited if the MTA merely reallocates its current resources — the state of Maryland needs to increase their investment in transit to improve service and accessibility for residents.

Click tor read our 2015 report analyzing the proposed economic benefits of the Red Line in Baltimore (and the approved Purple Line in the Washington, DC suburbs.)

In 2015, the city was on the cusp of going ahead with the Red Line, a brand new high-capacity rail transit line, which would have resulted in 83,000 more people living near high quality, frequent transit. Now, without that sizable (state and federal) investment represented by the Red Line, they’re on the receiving end of an alternate plan that represents just a 1.5 percent increase in MTA’s annual operating budget — about $70 million over six years; a plan that does little to separate transit riders from traffic congestion or tangibly improve access to jobs and opportunity.

That’s small potatoes, and the state needs to do better.

Maryland’s economic future is tied directly to the performance of their major metropolitan areas. Making smart investments that can increase access to opportunity for more people can help those places prosper, boosting the state’s overall economy in the meantime.

Houston it’s definitely not, but this story isn’t over yet.

Helping governors save money and attract talent through a fresh approach to transportation

A new guide released today by Transportation for America shows governors and their administration how a fresh approach to transportation is fundamental to creating quality jobs and shared prosperity while running an efficient government that gets the greatest benefit from every taxpayer dollar.

With new governors set to take office in the new year and scores of incumbents returning and setting their agendas for 2017, it’s crucial that they consider how transportation can be a valuable tool for achieving their policy goals — whether producing savings in the budget, attracting and creating jobs, giving taxpayers greater benefit for each dollar, or building healthy and safe communities.

Transportation failures — whether excessive time that people or freight are stuck in traffic, decreasing air quality, flawed implementation of mega-projects, or the perceived and real inefficiencies of government bureaucracy — are a drag on the economy and quality of life for residents.

Many state departments of transportation just aren’t well calibrated to solve today’s challenges. Planning is isolated from development and other infrastructure decisions, state programs have a narrow focus on building highways to the exclusion of building unified, holistic systems, and the most efficient solutions are often overlooked in favor of overbuilt or ill-conceived mega-projects.

And above all, the recipe for successful local and regional economic development has changed significantly.

In the past, economic development was focused on recruiting and luring large employers and expecting new workers to follow the jobs. But younger workers are choosing where to live and then looking for jobs. Economic development now depends on building great places that draw and anchor talent. Quality of life, vibrant communities, and transportation choices are no longer simply nice add-ons, they are essential to economic growth and prosperity in communities large and small. And employers are making the same shift to stay competitive, seeking communities with these features precisely because they attract talented workers.

Yet the transportation policies and bureaucratic practices in so many states often fail to provide the infrastructure that helps build these kinds of places that businesses are now flocking too. Instead, many state agencies are continuing to offer transportation strategies more suited to solving yesterday’s problems. State policymakers need to change the focus of transportation spending in order to realize the full potential from these investments.

This new guide offers best practices to help state leaders achieve greater benefits and avoid costly pitfalls in their transportation programs, including several examples of states solving problems by instituting reforms within their transportation programs.

  • Virginia developed a new system to pick projects based on benefits and better communicate the benefits of each state investment.
  • Tennessee saved millions of dollars by right-sizing and reconsidering projects that had long been in their pipeline. One $65 million project became a $340,000 project, with nearly the same benefits.
  • Colorado built a new, multimodal corridor with tolled lanes and bus rapid transit to provide commute options.
  • California has launched a new, all-electric car share program in disadvantaged neighborhoods.

As new governors begin their terms and new legislatures are seated, it is a critical time to evaluate state transportation spending and how we can get greater benefits from these programs. The examples in this guide from around the country show how governors, administrations, and state DOTs have solved problems by reforming policies and practices. Download it today.

We can help states achieve these changes through tailored technical assistance and through START network policy support. Find out more and join this network today.

 

Our Smart Cities collaborative kicked off with an inspiring two-day gathering

On the morning after the presidential election, thanks in part to the support of the McKnight Foundation, representatives from 17 cities gathered in Minneapolis for two days to kickstart our yearlong collaborative focused on proactively shaping cities through transportation and technology.

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Members of the collaborative give a thumbs-up following the close of the two-day meeting in Minneapolis.

In the wake of an election that focused a lot on what divides us, it was inspiring to be with such an amazing collection of leaders from 17 cities, large and small, and watch them begin to develop connections and sow the seeds of collaboration during the inaugural meeting of T4America’s Smart Cities Collaborative, which has been supported by Sidewalk Labs.

We had three main goals for the meeting: help participants build relationships with others from their peer cities and get to know one another, establish the core problem or problems that they’re trying to solve, and then start developing an action plan for a specific pilot project.

For two days, we heard lively discussions as the participants described their inspiring views on what kind of cities they want be in the future, exactly what they want to accomplish during the Collaborative, and how technology can help them achieve their goals.

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Most encouragingly, a palatable “me-too” vibe saturated both days as people started talking and realizing that other cities — whether much smaller, larger or far away — are dealing with many of the same issues.

“It really helps to talk to peers with similar issues who understand the concept of shared mobility,” one of the participants told us afterward.

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And instead of getting down into the weeds with questions like, “Which payment vendor should I use, or how do I build this smartphone app?” we tried to back up to a bigger picture view, starting with questions such as, “What transportation challenges are your city struggling with? What outcomes would you like to see in 10 years? How can we ensure that new transportation models and digital tools are inclusive of everyone?”

That’s not about technology, that’s about vision.

After all, a smart city isn’t the one with the most technology. A truly smart city is one that understands how they can utilize technology to help them get where they want to go.

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But the collaborative isn’t only about goal-setting or big-picture concepts — it’s also about real-world projects. Over the course of two days, each city was responsible for the initial development of an action plan for a specific pilot project. The participants worked together in small groups organized around topics like shared mobility, automated vehicles and others to identify what political and policy considerations, financial hurdles, project metrics, and community engagement strategies they’ll need to consider along with what technical assistance needs they have.

“I feel like we walked away with an actionable 12-month plan,” another participant told us.

These cities are eager to ensure that this monumental shift in transportation doesn’t shape their cities without their input and produce a new generation of transportation haves and have-nots. And with so many new questions looming over federal transportation policy, working together to solve these challenges will be crucial.

We had a tremendous two days with these cities and are eager to see what comes next.

Want to know more about smart cities and why all of this matters? Read this post for more background:

Smart cities: why now?

Capital Ideas 2016

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State policy panel brooke lierman marko Liias stacey abrams
Dave Williams capital ideas breakout group 2
Capital Ideas wide shot Geoff

The premier conference on state transportation policy and funding

November 16-17, 2016 in Sacramento, California

With Congress finally wrapping up their five-year transportation bill in late 2015, the focus is fully on states when it comes to policy and funding for transportation. At least 23 states have stepped up and passed new transportation funding legislation since 2012. An unfortunately much smaller number of states have passed smart policies to reform how those dollars are spent. In early 2017, a host of new state legislative sessions will begin again and transportation will be on the front burner in many state capitols.

Our second Capital Ideas conference took place in Sacramento, CA on November 16-17. Read about the 2016 conference here.

Wrapping up Capital Ideas: Making the case for smarter state transportation policy

After two days of hands-on expert advice — and hopefully some inspiration and encouragement — state and local leaders from all over the country are returning home from our second Capital Ideas conference better equipped to advance creative and innovative transportation funding and policy reforms to make the most of limited infrastructure dollars.

Capital Ideas wide shot Geoff

Smart Growth America president and CEO Geoff Anderson kicking off Capital Ideas in Sacramento, CA on November 16, 2016

For two days in Sacramento, more than 50 speakers interacted with 200-plus smart, passionate leaders helping their states take a different path when faced with dwindling transportation revenues or outdated, 1950’s policies that are ill-equipped to solving the complicated, multimodal challenges that local communities face today.

We heard from state DOT officials doing impressive things to save money and spend it more effectively. We heard from state legislators who’ve rolled up their sleeves and raised new revenues for transportation. We heard from experts at nearly all levels of government who are thinking about the future of technology and the ramifications for the communities we call home.

And we heard from a red-state republican state legislator who detailed his journey from transit skeptic to believer in a keynote on the second day of Capital Ideas.

When Utah House Speaker Greg Hughes was tapped to serve on the Utah Transit Authority’s board in Salt Lake City, he confessed that he didn’t even believe at the time that transit was a prudent investment. But part of the powerful story of how he came to see the necessity of investing in transit was his discovery that certain highways being widened (at high cost) would be at capacity and completely congested within only six years.

And as he became something of an evangelist for investing in transit to provide more options and a balanced, multimodal system for the booming region, he would point out the heavy cost of putting all the eggs in one basket. “How much land would we have to condemn to do something like this? How much would this cost?” he would ask other local leaders in tandem with this photo from his presentation:

Greg Hughes Capital Ideas congestion photo

But perhaps the most exciting part of Capital Ideas was the 25-plus separate breakout sessions that stretched across both afternoons.

After half a day firmly rooted in folding chairs mostly being talked to, the breakouts allowed participants to interact and go hands-on with notable experts. Experts like Dave Williams with the Metro Atlanta Chamber, who shared Georgia’s experience with passing state legislation to enable local transit referenda. (A measure that Atlanta voters approved last week to raise $2.5 billion in new tax money to invest in MARTA and transit in the region.)

Dave Williams capital ideas breakout group 2

Dave Williams with the Metro Atlanta Chamber, top center, walks his table through Georgia’s experience passing state legislation that altered the state’s gas tax and also enabled Atlanta to go to the ballot for transportation funding.

 

Delegate Brooke Lierman capital ideas

During the breakouts, Maryland Delegate Brooke Lierman, right, shared her experience advancing state legislation to begin evaluating and scoring transportation projects on their merits.

We covered an incredible range of topics, but a few clear themes and a hopeful undercurrent ran throughout the two days.

T4America Director James Corless noted that nearly every story of transit ballot box success was preceded by a failure. Salt Lake City. Denver. Seattle. Atlanta. And the list goes on.

“It’s OK to fail,” he exhorted everyone. “It’s ok, as long as you learn and get back up. And you have to get back up.” And most importantly, “There is no need to do it alone. And in fact, you can’t do it alone!”

Indianapolis shows a good road map for doing it together.

“Indy’s strong local coalition [for their successful transit ballot measure] included the Indy Chamber and numerous faith-based groups and churches,” he noted. “That’s a good roadmap for coming together to make the investments we need to build prosperous local economies and ensure that everyone can connect to opportunity.”

With a lot of looming question marks about federal transportation funding and policy right now, the importance of getting state (and local) transportation policy right is coming into sharp focus.

As the conference closed wrapped up Thursday afternoon, T4America chairman and former Mayor John Robert Smith offered a reminder that solutions need to come from the bottom up, and that we will succeed or fail based on the breadth of the coalitions we build.

John Robert Smith Capital Ideas“We’ve heard about the importance of knowing who is in the foxhole with you and appreciating the strength of those in the foxhole with you, but I want us to expand and broaden the coalition we have here. We’re going to need to be bipartisan and inclusive,” Mayor Smith urged participants. “I want you to help us find those people, find those stories, lift up those stories and support that voice and perhaps we can have an impact on minds that might otherwise be closed.”

And for those discouraged by what’s happening at the federal level (or any level, truthfully) when it comes to decisions made about investing in transportation, Mayor Smith reminded everyone — especially the scores of elected leaders in the room — to hold fast to the long view of progress.

“When I speak to local elected officials, I always tell them: If your commitment and vision is limited by a four- or eight-year term, you’re failing the people you represent,” he said.

“Your commitment and vision has to be decades ahead. It has to be beyond your service, and perhaps even beyond your lifespan. The work that we do, the plans we make, the vision we have, will neither be completed and realized nor will it be destroyed in a four- or eight-year term. Our vision, our plans, our commitment are bigger than that. They’re bolder than that. They’re more resilient than that. I want to encourage you: stay that course, be that voice.”

We’re incredibly grateful for the 200-plus people who traveled to Sacramento for Capital Ideas and helped made it a rousing success. Thank you so much for joining us. Many of the participants who came to learn were also some of the policy experts at the roundtables. Panelists stuck around and dove into other issues they were interested in. Capital Ideas was knowledge- and experience-sharing of the highest order.

Our heartfelt thanks goes to the Sacramento Area Council of Governments for co-hosting the conference and pitching in at every turn and in every way. And we thank our sponsors: TransitCenter, Uber, CalTrans, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission and the Rails-To-Trails Conservancy.

See you in 2018??

Billions in transit measures approved Tuesday — unpacking the 2016 election results

Though we’ll be waiting to see where the federal chips land with President-elect Donald Trump’s incoming administration and the congressional committee changes, Tuesday night’s biggest transportation news was the fact that local voters across the country approved scores of ballot measures that raise new local money for transportation improvements.

Transpo Vote 2016

View the results on the slate of measures we were tracking here.

Representing more than $150 billion of the more than $200 billion in local transportation measures on Tuesday’s ballots, residents of Los Angeles and Seattle approved measures that will make enormous decades-long expansions in local and regional transit. In L.A.’s case, an overwhelming number of voters (nearly 70 percent) said “YES” to investing more of their tax dollars in public transit, approving Measure M to add a half-cent to the sales tax and extending 2009’s Measure R half-cent transit tax for perpetuity.

In an election where President-elect Trump played heavily to economic concerns, the residents of Indianapolis — enabled by legislation actually signed by VP-elect Pence — voted to increase their income taxes to improve and expand their historically subpar bus service.

Indy’s plan will create new connections and dramatically improve service for current customers, while also starting the buildout of an impressive bus rapid transit network to connect yet more neighborhoods and people to opportunity. In Raleigh (Wake County), voters approved a half-cent sales tax for building out the regional transit network. Planned service, including 20 miles of new bus rapid transit routes and new commuter rail, is expected to quadruple transit ridership in the county in the next ten years.

It’s worth noting that local leaders from both Indy and Raleigh spent a year in the Transportation Innovation Academy we conducted with TransitCenter back in 2015, laying much of the groundwork for these successful campaigns.

Transportation innovation academy denver group

2015’s Transportation Innovation Academy class of Raleigh, Indy and Nashville.

In Atlanta, the city residents within Fulton County approved a half-cent tax for MARTA, their transit system, to raise $2.5 billion to fund subway extensions, hefty improvements in bus service, new light rail on the Beltline project which will eventually encircle the city with transit, a walking/biking trail and linear parks, and improvements to bike and pedestrian connections near stations and bus stops.

The federal level

As for the incoming presidential administration, President-elect Trump’s 100-day plan includes an infrastructure push, which “leverages public-private partnerships, and private investments through tax incentives, to spur $1 trillion in infrastructure investment over ten years. It is revenue neutral.” In his acceptance speech last night, he said, “We are going to fix our inner cities and rebuild our highways, bridges, tunnels, airports, schools, hospitals. We’re going to rebuild our infrastructure, which will become, by the way, second to none. And we will put millions of our people to work as we rebuild it.”

There’s no clear roadmap of what’s to come in January 2017, or what any Trump-backed infrastructure package would look like. According to this piece in Yahoo News, there’s an indication that “Trump’s plan would rely heavily on private funding, with the government encouraging investment through a tax credit that would raise the return to investors and lower the cost of borrowing to states and municipalities that would oversee the projects.”

Stay tuned for more information over the next few weeks, and don’t miss Thursday’s livestream discussion at 12 p.m. Central time on Facebook Live. If you weren’t able to tune in, you can view the full video of the livestream here: https://www.facebook.com/transportationforamerica/videos/10157670655470117/

11/11 Addendum: Here’s the Director’s Note from T4America Director James Corless in our post-election newsletter:

Without a doubt, the outcome of Tuesday’s presidential race was a surprise. But there are similarly surprising — and encouraging — trends in Tuesday’s local elections that illustrate part of the path forward for cities and towns eager to continue making smart transportation investments.

Indianapolis, covered above, is a great example.

Deep in the heart of a state that went solidly for President-elect Trump and also contributed the Vice President-elect to the ticket, the residents of a large county that includes a wide spectrum of incomes voted to increase their own taxes for transit. And the improved and expanded transit service will pay dividends first and foremost to the lower-income Marion County residents that depend on the current service or would benefit the most from better connections to jobs and opportunity.

As we move forward and look for ways to build bridges and unify our communities after an unusually divisive national election, it’s important to find common ground and ways to work together to make our communities the best they can be. Indy’s strong local coalition included the Indy Chamber and numerous faith-based groups and churches. That’s a good roadmap for coming together to make the investments we need to build prosperous local economies and ensure that everyone can connect to opportunity.

What should the next administration do when it comes to transportation?

sga-transition-guide-coverOne of the biggest challenges for the incoming presidential administration is to make the economy work for individuals and families of all income levels. This short new guide of federal policy recommendations is designed to help the new administration accomplish just that.

As part of Smart Growth America, today we’re releasing Expanding the Economic Recovery to All Americans Through Smarter Growth, a short guide from SGA providing concrete recommendations that federal officials in the incoming administration can implement to help grow the middle class, connect more Americans to opportunity and expand opportunities for creating lasting wealth.

DOWNLOAD THE REPORT

This short document covers SGA’s specific policy recommendations within five broad strategies:

  1. Create more housing choices
  2. Connect Americans to opportunity by providing more transportation choices
  3. Empower local communities
  4. Invest in existing communities
  5. Make smarter, more cost-effective investments

T4America’s transportation policy recommendations within this document show how the incoming administration can connect Americans to opportunity by providing more transportation choices, empower and invest in local communities and make smarter, more cost-effective investments.

Indicators pointing to an economic recovery don’t matter if you still can’t get a job, your housing costs are escalating, or the opportunities are drying up where you live. While median household income has risen in recent years, it is still shy of where it was in 2007, adjusted for inflation. And among lower- and middle-income households, it has been slower to rebound. The contentious 2016 election has highlighted deep divisions and shown that there are wide disparities between who is experiencing recovery and who is missing out.

Though they are vital to Americans’ prosperity, the role of housing, transportation, and access to education and job opportunities have been largely missing from any national conversation about boosting wages, expanding the middle class or providing pathways out of poverty.

Smart growth is not a cure-all and the administration should lean hard on other economic, social and cultural solutions. But given the effects of housing and transportation costs on people’s pocketbooks, smart growth strategies — expanding economic prosperity, improving lives by improving the communities that we call home, and creating opportunities for people to have a high quality of life and build wealth — have to be part of the solution.

[VIDEO] How did Utah build miles of transit and raise state transportation funding?

How did Utah leaders and citizens stare down a recession while raising new state revenues for transportation and making a range of investments to bolster the economy and quality of life? On day two of our Capital Ideas conference on November 16-17, Utah House Speaker Greg Hughes will be on hand to answer that question and others.

Click the video above to hear a few nuggets from Capital Ideas keynote speaker Speaker Hughes about his state’s approach to building consensus for new transportation investments.

Back in 2015, the Utah legislature voted to raise the state’s gas tax and tie it to inflation, and provide individual counties with the ability to go to the ballot with sales tax increases to fund critical local transportation priorities — which ten Utah counties approved a year ago.

Republican House Speaker Greg Hughes has been on the front lines of these efforts to raise new state funding, empower local communities and build a huge regional transit system nearly from scratch in Salt Lake City. In addition to Speaker Hughes, hear from an expansive roster of other speakers at this year’s Capital Ideas conference.

Don’t miss out on these conversations. Join us in Sacramento on November 16-17 for Capital Ideas. Register now and reserve your spot!

REGISTER TODAY

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Thanks to our conference sponsors

SACOG logo

Capital Ideas is co-hosted by SACOG

We also recognize the generous support of our many philanthropic partners who have helped make this conference possible.

Members get a deal!

Dues-paying T4America members get $100 off registration. Inquire with us about getting a promo code. Find out more about T4America membership here.

Come a day early for the first national Complete Streets conference

A reminder that Street Lights: Illuminating Implementation and Equity in Complete Streets will be taking place on the day before Capital Ideas begins. Get two great conferences out of one trip to California — register today to secure your place in the room.

Help show just how dangerous our streets can be for people walking

This fall, our colleagues at the National Complete Streets Coalition will release Dangerous by Design 2016, a report that will again rank the nation’s most dangerous places to walk using the Pedestrian Danger Index. This year’s report will dive deep into how income, race, and place play an outsized role in how likely people are to be killed while walking. And they’re looking for your help when it comes to illustrating just how bad it can be out there.

For too many people, a walk is a deadly risk. Poorly designed streets have led to an epidemic of pedestrian fatalities, especially among people of color and in our nation’s poorest neighborhoods. More than likely, one of these dangerous streets or intersections is near you or is one you have to use every day. When T4America last released a version of this report back in 2011, we had powerful photos submitted from all over the country.

Help illustrate the hazards you face everyday by expanding upon those photos previously submitted. Send in photos of streets in your neighborhood that are “dangerous by design.” Streets like these:

Metro ATL Pedestrians06Metro ATL Pedestrians41Walking in the ditch

Poorly designed streets like these above — often built or designed with federal dollars or guidelines — endanger pedestrians, cyclists and drivers alike. And as this latest edition of Dangerous by Design will expand upon, people of color and census tracts with below average income are disproportionately represented.

Here’s how you can help:

  • Send in photos via email to photos@completestreets.org.
  • High resolution photos are preferred for maximum quality.
  • Please indicate how photos are to be credited if used online or in the report.
  • Provide information about the photo. Where was the photo taken? Is this a street that you have to use regularly?

We want to see the missing crosswalks, missing curb ramps, and the long and dangerous treks along busy highways. We want to see every way that our current road designs have failed to provide for the safety and convenience of everyone that needs to use them. Help show just how difficult and dangerous we’ve made walking for so many people. The NCSC folks are preparing the report now, so pass them along soon!

16 cities join T4America’s Smart Cities Collaborative to tackle urban mobility challenges together

In a new collaborative supported by Sidewalk Labs, cities will work together to create policies, pilot emerging technology & share insights to improve transportation in cities small and large.

Washington, DC; New York, NY – Transportation for America (T4A) and Sidewalk Labs announced today the sixteen members of a new T4A Smart Cities Collaborative to explore how technology can improve urban mobility, creating a tangible new opportunity for the scores of ambitious cities that did not win or weren’t eligible for USDOT’s Smart City Challenge. Over the coming year, the collaborative will bring together these cities to tackle the challenges related to implementing smart city policies and projects — sharing best practices and technical assistance, and piloting new programs.

Nearly 60 cities applied to be a part of the collaborative, which will hold its first meeting in Minneapolis on Nov. 9-10, 2016.

“We’re in the midst of the most transformational shift in urban transportation since the start of the interstate era more than 50 years ago. And just like that era, cities have enormous potential to help or harm their residents with the decisions they make,” said James Corless, Director of T4America. “It’s incredibly encouraging to see this long list of cities proactively shaping the future to ensure that this monumental shift in transportation doesn’t shape their cities without their input and produce a new generation of transportation haves and have-nots.”

“We have spent the past several months speaking directly with cities across the country, and what we’ve heard is mobility is a major issue across the board. Cities know that technology offers ways to improve mobility, but exactly how to realize its potential isn’t obvious,” said Sidewalk Labs Chief Policy Officer Rohit T. Aggarwala. “Cities understand that they need to work together, but the question has always been how best to band these municipalities in partnership. This collaborative will be an unprecedented step in unifying these urban areas and accelerate solutions that provide affordable, efficient ways to get around.”

Through the collaborative, the member cities will form working groups that will focus on three core areas:

  • Automated vehicles, and their potential impact on urban transit systems, congestion, transportation equity, and the environment.
  • Shared mobility, and how it could help cities provide equitable, affordable, and more sustainable transportation choices.
  • Performance measures and data analytics, and how to use data to manage complex transportation networks and achieve transit equity and environmental goals.

Initially, the cities will participate in a variety of information-sharing meetings, both with each other and with industry-leading transportation experts. From there, the groups will receive direct technical assistance, create pilot programs, and share results with the rest of the collaborative to drive best practices across the country.

The collaborative is the result of the partnership T4A and Sidewalk Labs announced in June to engage cities in developing efficient and affordable transportation options for all. The partnership builds on T4A’s experience collaborating with state and local governments to develop forward-looking transportation and land-use policy, combined with Sidewalk Labs’ expertise working with cities to develop digital technology that solves big urban problems.

The sixteen cities participating in the collaborative are:

  • Austin, TX
  • Denver, CO
  • Centennial, CO
  • Chattanooga, TN
  • Lone Tree, CO
  • Los Angeles, CA
  • Miami-Dade County, FL
  • Madison, WI
  • Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN
  • Nashville, TN
  • Portland, OR
  • Sacramento, CA
  • San Francisco, CA
  • San Jose, CA
  • Seattle, WA
  • Washington, DC

—

ABOUT TRANSPORTATION FOR AMERICA:
Transportation for America is an alliance of elected, business and civic leaders from communities across the country, united to ensure that states and the federal government step up to invest in smart, homegrown, locally-driven transportation solutions — because these are the investments that hold the key to our future economic prosperity. T4America is a program of Smart Growth America.

ABOUT SIDEWALK LABS:
Sidewalk Labs is an urban innovation company that works with cities to develop technology that solves big urban problems across transportation, housing, energy, and data-driven management. It’s the result of a partnership between Alphabet and Daniel Doctoroff, the former Deputy Mayor of Economic Development and Rebuilding for the City of New York and the CEO of Bloomberg LP.

For interview requests, please contact:

Going deep with regional leaders on using performance measurement

We wrapped up an in-person workshop today with seven local groups of metropolitan leaders, learning how performance measures and a data-driven approach to assessing the costs and benefits of transportation spending can lead to better decisions and a smarter transportation network.

Transportation Leadership academy boston 1 Transportation Leadership academy boston 2 Transportation Leadership academy boston 3

Throughout yesterday and today in Boston, MA, a team of T4America staff have been joined by some notable experts with on-the-ground experience to dive deep into the topic of performance measures with metropolitan leaders from seven regions across the country. It’s part of our yearlong Transportation Leadership Academy focused on performance measures.

What’s performance measurement? More carefully measuring and quantifying the multiple benefits of transportation spending decisions to ensure that every dollar is aligned with the public’s goals and brings the greatest return possible for citizens.

If you’ve been following along, we’ve been writing regularly about how the transportation law that Congress passed in 2012 (MAP-21) created a new system for states and metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) to measure the performance of their investments against federally-required measures.

This year’s iteration of our Transportation Leadership Academy is focused on providing these local leaders with tools and support to incorporate this new system into their processes of creating plans, selecting projects, and measuring the effectiveness of each transportation dollar that gets spent. This program, created in partnership with the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), is educating these seven teams made up of local business, civic, elected leaders, and transportation professionals.

Though the academy is focused on working with regional leaders, a few states also have experience with performance measures. In Massachusetts, as part of a 2013 deal to raise new revenue for transportation, the legislature required the DOT to develop and use performance-based criteria in the state’s transportation investment decisions. Stephanie Pollack, the head of MassDOT, shared her experience with this week’s attendees and why it makes sense to assess transportation projects together and against one another, rather than just sone-by-one.

“Transportation works as a network and fails as a network,” she said. “So why do people think we can fix the network project by project by project? I’m most interested in what is the best suite of projects.” She went on to describe why data matters, but only if you measure the right things. “You should be asking people what matters to them and measure that. If you don’t, you are telling your customers that what matters to them is unimportant. …Data is only useful if it helps you tell a story or make better decisions.”

There are other metro areas that have been using performance measures for years and have valuable experience to share.

The MPO for the Bay Area, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC), has done more than most metro areas when it comes to using data and sophisticated modeling to aid and assess their decision-making. Participants got to hear the Hon. Steve Kinsey discuss MTC’s deep experience using cost-benefit analysis and their quantitative approach to performance measures.

And Robin Rather, a strategic communications veteran who has done deep research into the topic, explained how the messages and language matter, i.e., making the case for performance measures in economic terms is one of the most effective ways to get skeptical MPO board members or the public to buy-in to the idea.

This second academy workshop wraps up early this afternoon, marking the end of the academy’s in-person gatherings. Training will continue via other forms through the rest of the year, and we’ll be following up with some thoughts on the academy and sharing the perspectives of some of the participants. Stay tuned.

USDOT reopens the comments on the MPO Planning and Coordination Rule

In an interesting move, US DOT has reopened public comment on the MPO Planning and Coordination rule, which proposed requiring urbanized areas with multiple MPOs to coordinate their planning efforts together, among numerous other changes. The proposed rule received over 500 public comments before it closed on the original August 26 deadline. (See T4America’s public comment here.)

The extension allows for an additional month of public comments, setting the new comment deadline to October 24, 2016. 

USDOT appears to taking the unusual step of leaving the question entirely open of whether any provisions in the proposed rule will actually be finalized and turned into new regulations. FHWA and FTA are requesting specific public comment to inform their decision of “whether to finalize any provisions within the scope of the NPRM” including comments on:

  • potential exceptions that should be included in the final rule, and criteria for applying such exceptions;
  • the impact of the proposed requirements for unified planning products where multiple MPOs serve the same urbanized area; and
  • detailed comments on expected costs of the rule.

Comments submitted under the extension should address the points above and previously submitted comments should not be resubmitted. Federal Register Notice here. T4America’s summary of the NPRM is here and T4America’s public comment is available here.

Measuring what we value: Prioritizing public health to build prosperous regions

A new package of case studies released today by T4America, in partnership with the American Public Health Association, showcases a range of strategies that metro area planning agencies can use to strengthen the local economy, improve public health outcomes for all of their residents, promote social equity and better protect the environment.

CDC APHA health case studies

Today, we’re launching Measuring what we value: Prioritizing public health to build prosperous regions, four short case studies that extend our previous work on data-driven decision-making for choosing transportation projects.

Download the four case studies below.

A growing number of the metro leaders, elected officials and citizens we talk to are asking questions like: can the people in neighborhoods more likely to be unhealthy easily get out for a walk or bike ride without having to traverse dangerous streets? Do our regional planners effectively consider the impacts on regional air quality as we choose which projects to build? Is the area putting forward the most competitive possible projects to win limited state or federal funding for walking and biking?

A handful of metro areas have found smart, data-driven ways to better conceive, select and build the transportation projects that can help address these looming questions. We’re happy to share with you four of those stories from metro areas big and small: Sacramento, CA; Broward County, FL; Nashville, TN and Greensboro, NC.

Download each one below.

SACRAMENTO, CA
Promoting health and economic prosperity through data-driven decision-making

Citrus Heights community center groundbreakingUsing a lens of improved economic performance by improving public health, the Sacramento Area Council of Governments (SACOG) adopted several health- and social equity-related performance measures into a rigorous, data-driven process for choosing transportation projects, resulting in more projects that make it safer and more convenient to walk or bicycle.

Download the Sacramento case study. (pdf)

BROWARD COUNTY, FL
Healthy, safe & prosperous by design: Building complete streets

Prompted by a need for safer streets, the Broward Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) spearheaded an effort to build regional consensus and political support for planning, designing and building more complete streets projects. As a result, 16 of the MPO’s 31 jurisdictions have adopted Complete Streets resolutions or guidelines, and the MPO increased funding for active transportation projects, with 90 individual bicycle and pedestrian projects totaling $120 million awarded funding since 2012.

Download the Broward case study. (pdf)

NASHVILLE, TN
Prioritizing public health benefits through better project evaluation

Nashville missing sidewalksBacked by data from comprehensive health studies and growing public demand to make biking and walking safer and more convenient throughout the region, the Nashville Area Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) designed a new scoring and selection process to prioritize transportation projects that can bring health benefits. The MPO’s new approach substantially increased the amount of funding in the their long-term transportation budget dedicated to making it safer and more attractive to walk or ride a bicycle, making strides toward improving the health of the region’s residents.

Download the Nashville case study. (pdf)

GREENSBORO, NC
Healthy competition: Using data and modeling tools to win funding for active transportation projects

Greensboro sidewalks Guilford CollegeTo make walking and biking safer, more equitable and more convenient in Greensboro, North Carolina, the Greensboro Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) developed a rigorous evaluation and data-driven selection process to analyze and select the best possible bicycle and pedestrian projects for the metro area’s available funds, and to help the region better compete for the limited, competitive funding controlled by the state.

Download the Greensboro case study. (pdf)

The development of these case studies was made possible through a contract between the American Public Health Association and Transportation for America funded through cooperative agreement 5U38OT000131-03 between the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American Public Health Association.  The contents of this document are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of the American Public Health Association or the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Metropolitan planning for healthier, safer, more prosperous regions

How can metro area planning agencies strengthen the local economy, improve public health outcomes for all of their residents, promote social equity and better protect the environment? Join us to hear the stories of how a handful of metro areas have found smart, data-driven ways to better conceive, select and build the transportation projects that will help meet those regional goals.

Flickr photo by the Broward MPO. /photos/speakupbroward/24986492294

Flickr photo of an event by the Broward MPO. /photos/speakupbroward/24986492294

Metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) not only have responsibility to create regional plans that govern federal spending within their borders, but those in larger regions also control a limited amount of transportation funds directly. How they manage these responsibilities has a huge impact on the health of their residents and their access to jobs and other opportunities.

Can the people in neighborhoods more likely to be unhealthy easily get out for a walk or bike ride without having to traverse dangerous streets? Does an MPO effectively consider the impacts on regional air quality as they choose which projects to build? Is the area putting forward the most competitive possible walking and biking projects to win limited state or federal funding?

We’re excited to bring you the stories of a handful of MPOs that have good answers to all of these questions next week via a new series of short case studies and an accompanying webinar on Thursday, September 22 at 1 p.m. EDT. Register for the webinar with the link below.

REGISTER NOW

 

Register for the webinar and you’ll be the first to receive a copy of these new case studies. If you work for an MPO, advocacy group or health organization and want to learn about ways to increase or improve the quantity and quality of active transportation projects in your region, this one is for you.

The MPOs we’re featuring have found ways to better use data and modeling tools to win funding for active transportation projects, standardize the process for building safer, more complete streets, or promote health and economic prosperity through transparent, data-driven decision-making. And we’re excited to share their stories with you.

On the webinar, we’ll have a short conversation with staff from four MPOs featured in the case studies. They’ll share details on their policies and programs, the transportation projects that resulted and the partnerships they had to forge to taste that success.

Join our team and experts on September 22nd at 1pm EDT. Register today!

Development of the case studies featured in this webinar was made possible through a contract between the American Public Health Association and Transportation for America funded through cooperative agreement 5U38OT000131-03 between the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American Public Health Association.  The contents of this document are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of the American Public Health Association or the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

How can cities embed creativity through artist-in-residence programs?

Join us for the second webinar in our series further exploring the role of arts and culture in transportation planning and community development, as we discuss two cities’ artist-in-residence programs.

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The Architecture of Endlessness designed and painted by NKO, a mural on the Red Wall surrounding the Link Capitol Hill Station. Flickr photo by Sound Transit

In 1977, Mierle Laderman Ukeles became the first, and still only, artist-in-residence at New York City’s Department of Sanitation, a job she still holds today. Four decades and thousands of handshakes later, Ukeles’ pioneering work has become a model for cities engaging with artists to bring a creative approach to municipal challenges.

Today, Minneapolis, Seattle, Saint Paul, Boston, Los Angeles, and other cities across the US run artist-in-residence programs, embedding local artists inside city departments to promote creative thinking, attract attention to mundane but crucial municipal processes, and shift narratives about city residents and workers.

Register to join us on September 21, 2016 at 4 p.m. EDT for our online discussion about artist-in-residence programs and hear from experts as we explore some recently created and established artist-in-residence programs in city agencies.

  • Ben Stone, Director of Arts & Culture, Smart Growth America/Transportation for America
  • Seleta J. Reynolds, General Manager, Los Angeles Department of Transportation
  • Alan Nakagawa, Creative Catalyst Artist in Residence, Los Angeles Department of Transportation
  • Colleen Sheehy, President & Executive Director, Public Art Saint Paul.

 

REGISTER TODAY

 

Reminder: Have you browsed our new guidebook to creative placemaking yet? Visit Back in February, T4America launched The Scenic Route, an online interactive guide to creative placemaking in transportation to introduce the concept to transportation planners, public works agencies and local elected officials who are on the front lines of advancing transportation projects.

To continue building on that work, we’ve launched this series of webinars to further explore the role of arts and culture in transportation planning and community development. Catch up with the first one from August here.