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Transportation is changing, but curbs are not: Lessons from the first Smart Cities Collaborative 2020 meeting

The third year of the Smart Cities Collaborative is off to a strong start. Last week, Transportation for America brought together the three pilot cities in the Collaborative to work through devising and designing strong curbside management pilots.

A break-out session at the first Smart Cities Collaborative meeting in Boston.

In 2018—when the last Smart Cities Collaborative wrapped up—electric scooter-sharing was brand new. Now, scooters, bikeshare, rideshare, and other mobility trends have gained stronger footholds in cities, becoming important features of the transportation ecosystem. 

But while these new technologies are changing transportation, one thing has stayed the same: the way we use curbs. 

Curbs are magical places where land use and transportation collide, often times making them cities’ most valuable assets. Which is why the 2020 Collaborative—which kicked off last week in Boston—is focused on developing better curbside management strategies through pilot projects. 

Three of the 17 cities participating in the 2020 Collaborative—Bellevue, WA; Boston, MA; and Minneapolis, MN—will launch curbside management pilots later this year. These cities’ teams met with us in Boston to brainstorm how they can make their pilots successful and scale what they learn across their cities. 

The current state of the curb

Managing curb space can be a work-in-progress. A city official puts “pedestrian zone” signs that had been moved back in their rightful places.

Curbs are more valuable now than ever before, according to Cityfi’s Camron Bridgeford. T4America teamed up with Cityfi to create the curriculum for the Collaborative—which inevitably began with what makes curbs so special in the first place. 

It comes down to simple economics: The fixed supply of curb space and the number of competing demands increases curbs’ value. For example, curbs are key to the movement of goods and people, as well as used for transit, storage, short-term parking, construction, streetscaping (like street trees), tactical urbanism, and snow removal, but there are only so many curbs. With the recent (and growing) number of new mobility technologies, it is a critical moment for cities to better leverage their curbs to advance the public good. 

For cities considering curbside management pilots, Camron recommends considering the following factors: pricing, design and way-finding, demand and access, operations and enforcement, partnerships, data, and performance measures. 

The importance of outreach

In many places, demands on curb space are increasing faster than public perception of what curbs are and what they could be. This poses a huge hurdle for cities considering changing their curbside management policies: explaining what they’re doing to people accustomed to traditional uses of curb space, such as on-street parking. 

Communicating the importance of rethinking streetscapes that haven’t changed in decades calls for more than just one public meeting. Cities need to show people what different uses of curb spaces look like, and for that they need creative communication strategies. 

The Collaborative came up with a few communication ideas, such as prioritizing stories over data (what’s more compelling: statistics or a tale of someone who could now get to work safely because of a protected bike lane?) and using pilots themselves as an outreach tool—because what’s a better way to explain what you want to achieve city-wide than showing people how it works on one block? 

Outreach is critical to successful pilot projects and policy implementation. If the public isn’t on board, your project will never leave the station. 

Data with a purpose

Smart Cities Collaborative co-director Emiko Atherton assists a team in a brainstorming session.

The advent of new mobility technologies is a huge opportunity for cities to learn more about how people get around by all modes of travel. But data is useless if cities don’t determine what they want to achieve with it. 

T4America’s director Beth Osborne took Bellevue, Boston, and Minneapolis on a rhetorical journey to determine why they want to collect mobility data in the first place. That journey started with identifying a problem. 

For example: many cities experience traffic back-ups that occur when a delivery vehicle double-parks. Most people take for granted that back-ups are bad, but Beth asked our three cities: why are these back-ups a problem? 

The cities answered: back-ups are bad because they increase vehicle and bus travel times and make streets unsafe for people walking and biking, as drivers double-parking or stuck in traffic might behave in unpredictable ways. That led the cities to their problem statement: We need to reduce incidences of double-parking in order to improve safety and travel times. 

By always asking “why,” cities can make sure that the data they collect aligns with their goals. 

What’s next for the Collaborative?

Between now and May, Bellevue, Boston, and Minneapolis will work on launching their curbside management pilots. This spring, we’ll gather with them and the 14 “peer” cities in the Collaborative in Bellevue to learn more about strategies for leveraging curb space. 

T4America selects 3 cities to launch curbside management pilots

The three pilot cities. From left: Boston, Bellevue, and Minneapolis

WASHINGTON, DC – Transportation for America (T4America) is thrilled to announce that it has awarded three cities with funding and support to complete curbside management pilot projects. The three cities are Bellevue, WA; Boston, MA; and Minneapolis, MN. 

The awards are a new component of T4America’s Smart Cities Collaborative. Now in its third cohort, the Collaborative is a year-long program for public sector transportation leaders to share their experiences with new mobility technologies and develop best practices to ensure that these services improve city life. 

“The demands on curb space are rapidly increasing, but the policies and tools on how to share this limited resource are not, said Beth Osborne, director of Transportation for America. “We’re excited to work with these three cities to put what we’ve learned from the past two cohorts into practice and identify best practices and guidelines for better curbside management.”

T4America believes that peer-learning is the most valuable part of the Smart Cities Collaborative, which is why the three “pilot cities” will be joined by participants from over 10 other cities. The final list of cities participating as these “peer cities” will be announced next week. 

“We are proud to be selected as one of only three cities nationwide focusing on how to best manage curbside space so that it meets the current and future needs of all users of city streets,” said Boston Mayor Martin J. Walsh. “I am encouraged that several of our recent efforts, such as piloting pick up and drop off space for rideshares and implementing performance parking, proved Boston’s willingness to find innovative solutions to our transportation challenges and helped to secure our participation in this joint effort.”  

“With rapidly increasing job and population growth in Bellevue, managing the city’s curbside space is becoming increasingly important,” said Transportation Director Andrew Singelakis. “Participating in the Smart Cities Collaborative will help us meet this challenge. We’re honored to be selected as a pilot city and grateful for the strong support we received from King County Metro, Bellevue Downtown Association, Bellevue Chamber of Commerce and others.”

“Minneapolis is proud to continue our partnership with T4America and the Smart Cities Collaborative, which has helped us develop capacity to harness technology to reach our transportation goals, “ said Robin Hutcheson, Minneapolis Public Works Director. “We are excited to be selected as one of three pilot cities in the 2020 cohort.  With this partnership and assistance we will develop and implement strategies to address the changing nature of curbside use, as well as learn from and share our learnings with the other participating cities.”

The third round will officially begin in February 2020. Learn more about the Smart Cities Collaborative. 

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.

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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.

Massachusetts event highlights the growing trend of states moving to enable more local transportation funding

“Let the voters decide.” It’s a mantra we hear all the time in politics, but not quite as much in transportation. Yet that’s starting to change, as nearly a dozen states have taken steps to empower local communities with new or enhanced taxing authority for transportation over the last few years, putting the question directly in the hands of voters.

Update: (5:23 p.m.) WAMC radio story about the briefing is at the bottom of this post.

Like in Utah, where legislature moved in 2015 to increase the state’s gas tax, tie it to inflation, and then provide individual counties with the ability to go to the ballot to increase sales taxes to raise yet more dollars to invest in their local transportation priorities. Voters approved the 0.25% sales tax increase in ten of the 17 counties where it was on the ballot last November. And in Virginia, state legislators in 2014 created a new regional funding mechanism and boosted sales taxes in the state’s two biggest metro areas (Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads) explicitly and only for transportation projects.

This growing movement of states taking action to empower local communities and put questions in the hands of the voters was the hot topic at a legislative briefing in the Massachusetts state capitol this morning, sponsored by a host of organizations including Transportation for Massachusetts and the Metropolitan Area Planning Council.

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From left, Salem Mayor Kim Driscoll, MAPC executive director Marc Draisen, Former Indianapolis Mayor Greg Ballard, T4A Director James Corless (speaking), Pioneer Valley Planning Commission executive director Tim Brennan and Kristina Egan from Transportation for Massachusetts at this morning’s breakfast in the MA state capitol.

The briefing was in support of S1474 and H2698, bills in the Massachusetts legislature known as “enabling legislation” that would allow cities, towns or groups of cities new authority to raise one of four different sources of local taxes explicitly for local transportation projects.

tracking state policy funding featuredTracking state policy & funding

We are closely tracking this piece of state legislation and scores of others as part of our new resource on state transportation policy & funding. Visit our refreshed state policy bill tracker to see current information about the states attempting to raise new state or local funding in 2016, states attempting to reform how those dollars are spent, and states taking unfortunate steps in the wrong direction on policy.

T4America Director James Corless kicked off the discussion speaking to his own experience with ballot measures in California. “There is no better way of rebuilding the transportation brand with voters than asking them to tax themselves for projects and then delivering those projects and making good on that promise,” he explained.

In Indiana, the legislature acted in 2014 to change state law and allow metro Indianapolis counties to have a long-awaited vote on raising income taxes to fund an ambitious new public transportation network built around bus rapid transit.

Former Indy Mayor Greg Ballard, who told the Indy Star that he’d “been to the Statehouse more on [Indy’s enabling legislation] than any other issue,” was shared a local perspective this morning on how important it is for local cities to have more of a hand in deciding their own future and staying competitive.

“This is all about attracting talent…the local option transportation tax is a critical tool for mayors because, let’s face it, mayors know best what their most pressing transportation problems are,” Mayor Ballard said.

“When I became mayor we had one transit line on a map. We had no bigger, regional vision. What our local option tax has done is allow us to think big. So we now want to take seven new transit lines to the voters, and the local option tax made it possible to embrace such an ambitious vision. People used to move for a job now they move for a place – that’s why transportation and quality life is critical to make your economy competitive.”

The leaders of Massachusetts’ cities and towns are eager to put the question to voters. Marc Draisen, executive director of the Metropolitan Area Planning Council in the Boston metro area, said, “This bill sets a high bar — you have to let local voters decide on their own future…if they don’t like it, they will reject it.”

And the Mayor of Salem, Kim Driscoll, said that as things stand now without the legislation, it’s an uphill battle for cities like hers to invest in what they most need to stay competitive.

“The ability to connect people to places is critical. But for a place like Salem we simply don’t have the tools to invest in the projects that can make that happen,” she said. “This bill would unlock great ideas in the communities that really want it”

T4America director James Corless reminded everyone that the success of local cities and towns are intrinsic to the state’s economic prosperity.

“The best ideas are coming from cities and towns; empowering communities and promoting innovation is essential to a strong future.”

Updated 5:23 p.m. — WAMC Northeast Public Radio did a story about this morning’s briefing. Read or listen to the story here. An excerpt:

State Senator Ben Downing is sponsoring a bill to enable a community or group of municipalities to enact a tax to finance local transportation projects.

“This is a way to control much more directly how we raise and how we spend money for transportation,” Downing said. “It’s also a way to guarantee that the dollars that are raised will stay in the community where they are raised.”

…Transportation for America Director James Corless says since 2013 10 states have passed similar legislation. “In part they realize Congress is not going to come to their rescue anymore and increasingly even state capitals are broke,” said Corless.

—

This story is part of the work of T4America’s START Network — State Transportation Advocacy, Research & Training —  for state elected leaders and advocates working on similar state issues.

Find out more and join today.

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Seven metropolitan areas selected to participate in yearlong transportation training academy

Continuing T4America’s dedication to cultivating local transportation expertise and knowledge, we’re proud to announce the selection of seven local groups of metropolitan leaders to participate in a new yearlong training academy focused on performance measurement to better assess the impacts and benefits of transportation spending.

This 2016 Transportation Leadership Academy is the second such training program for local leaders created by T4America in as many years. (Our first academy was created in partnership with TransitCenter in 2015. -Ed.)

What is performance measurement?

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 — is an emerging practice that forward-looking metropolitan areas of all sizes are beginning to use.

The transportation law passed in 2012 (MAP-21) created a nascent system for states and metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) to measure the performance of their investments against federally-required measures. Some metro areas were doing this for years before MAP-21 passed; others are now trying to determine how to incorporate this new system into their process of creating plans, selecting projects, and measuring the effectiveness of each transportation dollar that gets spent. This yearlong training program will provide these local leaders with tools and support for this endeavor.

The academy is particularly timely considering that the U.S. Department of Transportation is working to finalize a new set of transportation performance measure procedures and regulations — possibly as soon as this year — which we’ve been writing about here regularly.

Why performance measures?

“It’s never easy to raise money to invest in transportation, and more than ever before, citizens want to know how the decisions are being made to spend their money,” said Transportation for America Director James Corless in our press release today. “A more accountable system that sets tangible goals with input from the community, chooses transportation projects that will help the community meet those goals, and then measures the outcomes in a feedback loop will be essential to rebuild public confidence in transportation agencies and for ensuring that we get the best bang for the buck going forward,” Corless said.

This program, created in partnership with the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), will educate these seven teams made up of local business, civic, elected leaders, and transportation professionals, prepare them to act on opportunities within their communities and plug them into a dynamic national network of like-minded leaders throughout the country.

The yearlong academy will consist of in-person workshops with participants from all seven regions — Boston, MA; Cleveland, OH; Des Moines, IA; Indianapolis, IN; Lee County, FL; Seattle, WA; and South Bend, IN — ongoing technical assistance throughout the year, regular online training sessions, and expert analysis of their plans and progress on deploying performance measures.

What the participants had to say

“The benefit of being selected for this is program allows Central Indiana to have access to best practices in the industry as they’re being developed,” said Anna Gremling, executive director of the Indianapolis MPO, in their official release today. “Our team will use what we learn through this process to assist in the development of the 2045 Long Range Transportation Plan that will begin in mid-2016.”

“This is the future of transportation in an era of aging infrastructure and limited revenue – continually measuring the performance of the transportation network to ensure we’re making the smartest investments possible,” Des Moines Area MPO Executive Director Todd Ashby said. “We are thrilled to be included in cutting-edge thinking on the best practices in this field.”

“Our entire team is honored to be selected by Transportation for America for this first-ever transportation leadership program, particularly with groups from such a diverse cross-section of the country,” said Brian Hamman, Lee County Commissioner and Chairman of the Lee County MPO. “The knowledge this team will gain, and the national network we’ll create with other forward-thinking leaders, will serve Lee County’s transportation efforts well into the future.”

Boston’s Olympic bid aims to be the first where you don’t need a car

Three Massachusetts-based organizations recently published Putting Legacy First, a report that makes a series of recommendations intended to support the official 2024 Boston Olympics bid. Their smart recommendations focus on ensuring that the transportation investments made to support a walkable, transit-oriented Olympics and Paralympics will also be primed to serve the Bay Staters well for years to come.

The authors recognize the potential of transportation as a catalyst for short and long-term change. Improvements that the city and state officials can start on now will improve Boston immediately, like addressing the backlog of MBTA’s maintenance needs or focusing future development on creating more walkable, bikeable and livable neighborhoods in affected areas, will also go a long way to making a more widely supported bid. Additionally, by rallying around the challenge of being the first Olympic and Paralympic games that visitors can attend car-free, the authors pose a challenge to federal, state and local officials to think about transportation for the disabled and enabled populations equally.

“We’ve known for a long time that our transportation system – especially the MBTA – needed lots of maintenance and investment just like many transit systems throughout our country. This winter certainly proved it. The Games could provide the deadline that the Boston area may need to create a system Bostonians can be proud of, but it requires that the state, cities and towns, and the Olympic host committee work together to overcome the political and financial barriers that stand in the way of a world-class transportation system,” said Kristina Egan, director of Transportation for Massachusetts.

How do they propose to achieve this goal? Putting Legacy First has eight transportation recommendations, Putting Legacy First Covera few of which are summarized below:

  • The Olympics and Paralympics should serve as a catalyst to accelerate efforts to make the MBTA fully compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).
  • Infrastructure improvements that are solely related to the Games should be financed entirely by private sources. Projects that generate shared benefits to the Games as well as long-term public benefits should be financed by a mix of public and private funds.
  • Since all the main venues are along the coast or Charles River, the report strongly suggests Olympic planners use the Games as an opportunity to build resilience to climate change, sea level rise and storm surges.

One concern expressed by the critics of the Boston 2024 bid is the fear that citizens will wind up paying for a large amount of new infrastructure while receiving few of the benefits. What they view as a current lack of public information and participation adds to this concern. In response, the report offers ways to mitigate those concerns by clearly defining public and private sector roles, as well as recommending that the Commission, “maximize public input and participation with a special focus on under-represented groups”.

“We have to put legacy first,” said Marc Draisen, executive director of MAPC, whose staff are the prime authors of the report. “It’s not just about writing a winning bid and making the Games a success; it’s about making sure our region ends up with more affordable homes, better jobs, beautiful parks, and a 21st century transportation system. These things won’t just happen by themselves. We have to leverage the Olympic bid to make them happen, and the sooner the better.”

While the International Olympic Committee will not announce the 2024 host city until 2017, many civic-minded groups are ready to fight for a blueprint that ensures their investments into such an opportunity benefit the greater Boston region and have lasting positive effects for decades to come.

Putting Legacy First was written and published jointly by the Massachusetts Smart Growth Alliance, Transportation for Massachusetts and the Metropolitan Area Planning Council (a T4A member).

Massachusetts vote a bellwether for efforts to raise state transportation revenue

In 2013, the Massachusetts legislature came together on an ambitious plan to raise necessary revenues for transportation, passing a three-cent gas tax increase as well as indexing it to inflation. Now, a year after the legislature approved it, voters on Nov. 4 will decide whether or not to repeal part of the package.

MA bridgesThough more than 20 states seriously considered plans to raise new transportation revenue since 2012, Massachusetts was on a short list of 12 states that managed to coalesce around a successful plan. The final plan to raise the gas tax by three cents and index it to inflation, providing an additional $600 million each year to invest in transportation, received at least a partial endorsement from voters this year when all but one of the legislators who supported it won their primary elections.

However, an anti-tax organization took issue with the move to allow the gas tax to rise with inflation and gathered enough signatures to get it on this year’s ballot.

About a third of states index their gas taxes to ensure that growing construction costs don’t result in a net loss of funding to maintain and build their networks. This has become especially important as declining driving and improved fuel efficiency are further reducing revenue from the fuel taxes that provide the bulk of transportation funding. (Question 1 on the ballot only repeals the indexing to inflation, not the three-cent increase, which will stay in place no matter how this measure turns out.)

Supporters of the measure argue that taxes shouldn’t automatically increase without legislative action. The flip side of that argument is that leaving them at a static level basically amounts to regular tax breaks in today’s dollars.

States have all the more reason to index to inflation given the declining contribution expected from the federal program, given a Congress that has not acted to raise the gas tax since 1993.

Kristina Egan, the director of Transportation for Massachusetts, offered further reasons to index to Governing Magazine:

[Egan] said requiring legislators to vote on gas tax hikes every year is “impractical,” because the state legislature focuses on transportation, at most, every five or six years. Because transportation projects typically take years to plan and build, she said, “having a predictable and stable revenue source helps us think ahead for which bridges we can repair and which we can’t afford. If you put that up for a vote every year, you’re undermining that planning process.”

Massachusetts has one of the oldest transportation systems in the country, and even with a focus on repair and maintenance, the backlog of deferred maintenance is outpacing the revenues that the current model brings in.

At an average age of 57 years, Massachusetts has some of the oldest bridges in the entire country, well over the national average of 43 years old. The average age of all structurally deficient bridges is an astonishing 75 years old, also well outpacing the national average of 65. Twenty-seven bridges have been closed altogether in recent years. According to state data, bad roads and potholes cost drivers $2.3 billion per year. Improving the ability of the state to simply keep up with these kinds of repairs is a major focus for the coalition of groups and organizations (http://saferoadsbridges.com/) opposing this ballot measure to repeal funding.

The state is still paying for the Big Dig, and nearly 100 percent of the transit authority’s fares (MBTA) actually go towards paying down debt service on the state’s transportation debts, making it a financial challenge to maintain and expand new service to meet the burgeoning demand in the growing metro region. (The Big Dig debt ended up on the “T” books a few years ago when transportation agencies were merged.)

Question 1 has been an issue in this year’s gubernatorial election as well. Republican Charlie Baker has been campaigning on repealing the indexing of the gas tax, and Democratic challenger Martha Coakley wants to keep the current funding system intact.

There’s a significant coalition statewide opposing the measure, including business groups, the local AAA chapter, more than a dozen mayors, public health groups, and others. As Rick Dimino, President & CEO of A Better City in Boston, wrote in recent op-ed (pdf):

Losing this money for transportation means that we won’t have adequate resources for critical investments that will grow jobs and the economy…The outcome of this ballot question will impact the day to day quality of life for virtually everyone in the commonwealth. The gas tax may not be everyone’s favorite thing or even the ideal way that some would want to pay for transportation. But the vote to keep last year’s progress in place should be an easy choice

The Massachusetts vote will be watched with great interest in many other states that have or are considering plans to raise new transportation dollars in 2015 and beyond. We’ll be watching the returns and will be reporting back here in detail on how Question 1 fares at the ballot.

Capital Ideas sidebar promoDo you live in one of those states that are considering plans to raise new transportation dollars in 2015 and beyond? Do you want to learn more about this campaign in Massachusetts and hear lessons direct from the MA campaign on this measure? We’ll have Kristina Egan from Transportation for Massachusetts on hand in Denver for Capital Ideas on Nov. 13-14, unpacking the lessons they’ve learned from their campaign to raise transportation funding in MA, as well as this effort to repeal it. Don’t miss it!