smart cities Archives - Page 3 of 3 - Transportation For America

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

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

smartphone-bus

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

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

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

What do cities want?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What does it mean to be a smart city?

What does it mean to be a smart city? Though the definition is certainly evolving and will continue to do so, it’s important for municipal leaders and advocates in aspiring smart cities to begin developing a good answer to this basic question.

Real-time bus arrival information in a Seattle bus stop. Flickr photo by SDOT.

This year’s Smart City Challenge from USDOT generated a tremendous amount of excitement and also forced cities to step out of their comfort zones, work across departments and put together a coherent business plan for their ambitions. Overall, as we noted in our last post, as we read through the applications, it’s still really hard to put a finger on precisely what a smart city is right now, and what it means to be one.

One of the first tasks for our Smart City Collaborative will be to start defining that question.

t4america sidewalk labs partnership The Smart City Collaborative is our national, multi-city collaborative with Sidewalk Labs to help cities use technology to meet their pressing transportation challenges. Cities in the collaborative will join working groups focused on one aspect of a smart city and collaborate to develop pilot projects, share successes and failures, and engage with one another to come up with new, creative solutions to their unique problems. Find out more and apply here.

At Transportation for America, we start with the concept that a smart city uses technology to discover where people are going and where they want and need to go, and learns from that information to create safer, more efficient, and affordable transportation options that accelerate access to opportunity for all of their residents.

While technology is important, it’s only a tool in the toolbox. It’s the means, not the ends. But what ends? What goals? Every conversation about smart cities should start with outcomes and purposes first, such as:

Engaging a wider range of our community and solicit feedback from people who might have been left behind in the past.
Building a more efficient city that gets greater returns from each investment.
Developing a more equitable and inclusive city with improved access to opportunity for everyone.
Understanding as much as possible about residents’ needs, in order to craft solutions to better meet them.
Testing and failing and learning from mistakes quickly to take charge of their destiny.

Technology is a part of helping cities reach those goals, but it needs to be wielded thoughtfully and intentionally. As Allison Arieff said in an interesting New York Times piece recently, “Are we fixing the right things? Are we breaking the wrong ones? Is it necessary to start from scratch every time?”

Cities don’t need to have social media or a fancy app to meaningfully engage their residents. There are still proven ways to improve transportation options for more people without on-demand transit or new mobility apps. Cities can smake safety for people walking or biking a high priority immediately without new vehicle-to-infrastructure technology or smart traffic signals.

With these thoughts in mind, here are four things starting to emerge as core aspects of a smart city.

Smart cities are more equitable and inclusive

Smart cities ensure that new technologies are used to accelerate access to opportunity for all residents — not just certain segments of the population. The most successful cities are good at creating opportunity for people of all incomes. This starts with the city driving the discussion and ensuring low-income residents and communities of color, and especially the unbanked and digitally disconnected, are always included in the conversation. It’s critical that any new developments or technologies reduce the divide between the transportation haves and have-nots.

Smart cities use technology in a way that brings benefits to every resident — regardless of age, ability, income, or zip code.

Smart cities work closely and transparently with constituents

Engaging more people in more productive ways is a bedrock of better, more inclusive decision-making. Like the process of creative placemaking (chronicled in depth in this T4America resource), when residents are involved in meaningful ways in the process, they’re not only more likely to feel ownership of the outcome, but the end product is almost always better.

Face-to-face, old-school community meetings should still be a staple of any city’s efforts, but new technologies offer the chance to receive feedback from people in new ways; real-time feedback and data on everything from air or noise pollution to dangerous intersections to places where transit service is lacking.

Smart cities are dealmakers who aren’t afraid to take risks

Cities that sit on the sidelines while these disruptions take place will see their cities shaped by others, without their feedback, and very possibly without the best interests of all of their residents in mind.

Cities need to learn how to drive the discussion and be the dealmakers. The old 20th century regulatory framework no longer applies. Cities need to make deals and negotiate vendors and providers on their terms and ensure that these changes enhance transportation choices for everyone.

A cultural shift within municipal governments will also be necessary; political and executive leadership will need to be willing to test and fail. As former Chicago and Washington, DC transportation head Gabe Klein illustrates with real-world examples in his terrific short book Startup City, cities need to think more like flexible, nimble tech startups than lumbering bureaucracies.

Cities need to be willing to launch pilot projects, test ideas, learn from those experiments, and be willing to share the results even when they fail. Big companies, universities, and startups across the country are developing new pilot projects for first/last-mile solutions, automated vehicles, urban delivery technologies, new parking platforms, and much more. Smart city leaders are the ones that proactively engage these groups to help solve their major challenges to accomplish their city’s goals. Innovation and solutions are coming from every direction today.

Smart cities know what data to collect and how to use it

It’s important that cities know what’s happening in their communities and on their networks, and that means collecting data — lots of it. That information can come from a variety of sources; from residents, sensors, cell phones, vehicles, cameras and much more. Cities need to have a complete and holistic picture of what’s happening in order to make the best possible decisions.

Cities must have a process in place for analyzing and understanding their data in order to accomplish their goals. Only then will they begin to know how to use it to inform their day-to-day operations and long-term policy goals. And this is the underlying goal that can often be lost in the “smart city hype:” finding ways to make more informed and educated decisions to help a city become what they want to be.

As urban populations continue to grow, many of the problems of yesterday and today – congestion, economic inequality, pollution – grow with them. There are ways to leverage technology and better data in order to combat these challenges in new and more efficient ways and be vibrant, attractive, inclusive, prosperous places to live.

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

Applications are open for T4America’s smart city collaborative

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

sidewalk lab music

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

National media applauds T4America and Sidewalk Labs partnership

We recently announced that we’re teaming with Sidewalk Labs to help cities strategically use data and technology to develop better transportation options for all. With USDOT’s Smart Cities challenge wrapping up in the next month with the selection of just one winner, our collaborative will engage the 77 other hopeful cities and provide guidance on ways to proceed thoughtfully and intentionally with their ambitious plans. The announcement of our new partnership was met with approbation and excitement—take a look at some of the excerpts below:

“But what about the dozens of cities who submitted ideas [to USDOT’s Smart Cities contest] but didn’t win? Whose proposals are now collecting dust? Sidewalk’s collaboration with T4A is tailored to that problem…To understand why Sidewalk wants to work with T4A, it helps to know a bit about its history. T4A is actually part of Smart Growth America, a nonprofit that helped popularize a planning idea called “complete streets,” a set of design and policy recommendations that, in a quietly revolutionary way, suggest that streets should be designed not just for cars, but for buses, cyclists, walkers, and more. Sidewalk Labs sees [T4A] as the perfect partner to develop the next generation of recommendations, which are digital: “connected streets.” – Fastco Design

“The collaboration will tap into the superpowers of each entity. Sidewalk Labs has digital technology expertise, while the Transportation of America has experience working with state and local governments to develop transportation and land use policy. Transportation for America, or T4A, is an alliance of elected, business, and civic leaders from across the United States.” – Fortune.com

“Sidewalk Labs will bring the tech, as the group’s already developing platforms for connected cities, like Flow, which lets cities aggregate and analyze data from multiple sources such as sensors, cameras and apps. T4A’s bringing the muscle, as it already has experience working with cities and their governments, experience tech companies don’t necessarily have. T4A will develop a study on the current state of transportation and tech, to help guide cities to answers for transportation issues.” – CNET

“Helping cities tackle transportation problems with emerging technology is the thrust behind a partnership announced Wednesday between Sidewalk Labs and Transportation for America.”  – Route Fifty

“Transportation For America has a vision that aligns with the goals of Sidewalk Labs: Both aim to transform urban areas big and small to better serve the needs of its citizens with an emphasis on infrastructure within communities, rather than the highways that connect them.” – Inverse

Check out additional coverage in Next City and Curbed.

Empowering cities to shape their urban mobility future, a Q&A with T4America’s James Corless and Russell Brooks

In an era of constantly emerging technology and mobility solutions, cities face a critical choice—they can either play a role in shaping the technology to accomplish their goals, or passively be transformed by it. Our new partnership with Sidewalk Labs will work with dozens of U.S. cities to thoughtfully and intentionally use emerging technologies to meet their most pressing transportation challenges. By harnessing powerful data and new digital tools, cities have the potential to develop efficient and affordable transportation options for all.

In addition to yesterday’s big announcement, we sat down with Eric Jaffe of Sidewalk Labs for a Q&A about the role cities can play in building connected streets, and T4America’s plan to make it happen. Read an excerpt below featuring James Corless, Director of Transportation for America, and Russell Brooks, Director of T4A’s Smart Cities initiative. The full Q&A is available on Sidewalk Talk.

Let’s start with the basics. What do you mean by “connected streets”?

CORLESS: Connected streets is similar to complete streets in as much as it’s not a checklist. It’s an approach. In complete streets, it’s an approach to actually designing a street and a network of streets that works for everyone. If this is the next generation, in connected streets, it’s really about using data and technology to make sure that transportation systems work for everybody and works for cities — to move people regardless of the mode of transportation seamlessly, quickly, efficiently, and affordably.

What are the benefits of connected streets for city residents and communities?

CORLESS: If cities aren’t shaping and driving this conversation, we could make problems worse. But if we do drive the conversation, and cities actually shape this proliferation of technology and services, then I do think we’ll going to be able to reduce the divide between what I’d call the transportation haves and have-nots. If you’re on a fixed income or work a late shift, you’re going to be able to actually get home faster, more affordably. You’re going to be able to connect to more opportunity, be able to get your kids to child care much more easily than you could before. I do think we need to remember from a consumer perspective that if we can get this right and we can empower cities with the tools, the authority, and the funding, we’re going to make transportation networks work for everybody, regardless of income, age, and ability. That’s a promise of connected streets.

T4A spends a lot of time on the ground with local governments. How do you counsel them in terms of getting ready to partner with the private sector in ways that might be unfamiliar to them, but that need to be productive for everyone to gain the advantages of these technologies?

BROOKS: I think part of it is educating the cities around the possibilities. As I’ve been talking with cities around the Smart City Challenge, I think some of them don’t understand that they have that lever of power, or the extent of what’s possible. I think that’s a really big part of it. I think it’s helping them generate the partnerships from the local community to actually drive that change. Which is something we’ve been doing for a long time. When it comes to the work we’re doing building consensus and coalition in local communities. And helping them identify those outcomes and needs, so they understand that technology isn’t the goal but it is the tool.

T4America is partnering with Sidewalk Labs to help cities thoughtfully use technology to solve their transportation challenges

With 77 hopeful cities leaving USDOT’s Smart Cities challenge empty-handed after the winner is announced later this month, we’re excited to announce a new partnership with Sidewalk Labs to help those cities and others develop efficient and affordable transportation options for all by thoughtfully and intentionally using emerging technologies.

t4america sidewalk labs partnership

If you’re not familiar with Sidewalk Labs, they’re a relatively new city-focused company developing technology to solve big urban problems like transportation, housing, energy, and data-driven management. It was formed by an affiliation between Alphabet (Google’s new umbrella company) and Daniel Doctoroff, who has firsthand experience with these challenges as a local official himself, serving in the Bloomberg administration as the former Deputy Mayor of Economic Development and Rebuilding for the City of New York.

At T4America, we’ve been spending the last few years shifting away from a sole focus on federal policy and have expanded into equipping local leaders at all levels to find ways to get more people where they want to go quickly and affordably. And now, over the course of the next year, our two organizations will work with dozens of U.S. cities to better define how technology can help them meet their pressing transportation challenges by harnessing powerful data and the availability of new digital tools.

Here’s what Anand Babu, COO of Sidewalk Labs, had to say about our new partnership in our joint press release:

“Too often there’s a disconnect between tech interventions and transportation outcomes. We’ve seen cities embrace a more holistic approach in our collaboration with the U.S. DOT Smart City Challenge, but it’s important to broaden that discussion to all the other cities looking for better tools to improve mobility. By drawing on Transportation for America’s long experience working within local communities, we can focus the conversation on cities’ goals and break down the divide between technologists and city leaders. And as a result, we’ll build a network where best practices and ideas for solving these problems through emerging technologies can be shared among cities across the country.”

Cities can’t be passive right now as technology and new mobility solutions are combining to change the landscape of cities almost overnight. Cities can either help shape the technology transforming their cities and accomplish their goals, or have themselves be shaped by it. There’s no real third option. It’s crucial for cities to know what kind of city they want to be and set some tangible goals before pursuing technology solutions.

Any dog can be a guide dog if you don’t know where you’re going, right? And if you don’t know where you’re going, any technology will get you there.

“Working with Sidewalk Labs, we can help local leaders learn about the possibilities presented by emerging technologies, but also help first codify what they want to achieve in terms of transportation equity, reliability, and access, so the technology can be put to best use,” said T4America Director James Corless in today’s release.

With the Smart Cities Challenge from USDOT wrapping up in the next month with the selection of a winner, 77 other cities that miss out on the $40 million will be left with only the proposal they crafted and their ambitions. Money or no, many of those cities will be serious about finding ways to move their plans forward. In addition, many cities may be navigating a range of third-party private providers and other companies at their doorstep selling products or offering solutions as a result of the competition.

This partnership will not only allow us to provide guidance to cities to proceed thoughtfully, but even more importantly, help them to learn from each other as they set goals and start to figure out how to intentionally move forward with their ambitious plans.

We’re excited to team up with Sidewalk Labs to find yet another way to support smart, local, homegrown transportation plans that will help move more people more quickly and affordably.

Sidewalk Labs and Transportation for America Announce Partnership to Help Cities Solve Local Transportation Challenges with Emerging Technology

Outreach Effort to More Than 70 Cities Will Help Cities Get Smarter About Transportation and Share Best Practices on Creating “Connected Streets”

Sidewalk Labs and Transportation for America (T4A) announced today a new partnership to engage cities in developing efficient and affordable transportation options for all. The two organizations will work with dozens of U.S. cities to define how technology can help them meet their pressing transportation challenges. This collaborative will help local leaders get more people where they want to go quickly and affordably, enhancing livability and sustainability, by harnessing powerful data and the availability of new digital tools.

The partnership will build on Sidewalk Labs’ expertise working with cities to develop digital technology that solves big urban problems, combined with Transportation for America’s experience collaborating with state and local governments to develop forward-looking transportation and land use policy. Through the partnership, T4A will launch an in-depth study on the state of current transportation policy and technology in American cities, and build a peer-learning collaborative of city leaders to define and design the “connected streets” of the future.

Connected streets will advance the concept of complete streets into the digital realm. Just as the complete streets framework gives local leaders the policy tools to improve the safety and equity of streets for all users across all modes, connected streets offers tech-enabled interventions that can support local efforts to move people more seamlessly, efficiently, and affordably. Connected streets can help create a truly balanced, multimodal approach to urban transportation that expands access to job opportunities and improves quality of life across a city.

“Too often there’s a disconnect between tech interventions and transportation outcomes. We’ve seen cities embrace a more holistic approach in our collaboration with the U.S. DOT Smart City Challenge, but it’s important to broaden that discussion to all the other cities looking for better tools to improve mobility,” said Anand Babu, COO of Sidewalk Labs. “By drawing on Transportation for America’s long experience working within local communities, we can focus the conversation on cities’ goals and break down the divide between technologists and city leaders. And as a result, we’ll build a network where best practices and ideas for solving these problems through emerging technologies can be shared among cities across the country.”

“In the course of providing technical assistance to local communities over the past few years, we continually hear from cities who want better tools to tackle the same problems of congestion, growing commutes, and access to affordable transportation options,” said James Corless, director of Transportation for America, a project of Smart Growth America. “Working with Sidewalk Labs, we can help local leaders learn about the possibilities presented by emerging technologies, but also help first codify what they want to achieve in terms of transportation equity, reliability, and access, so the technology can be put to best use.”

Sidewalk Labs announced in March that it is building a new transportation coordination platform called Flow, in partnership with the U.S. Department of Transportation and seven finalist cities from the DOT’s Smart City Challenge. The Flow team has met with all the finalists to understand the challenges they face and what tools might help them meet their goals for creating efficient, sustainable, equitable, and safe transportation systems. The winner of the Smart City Challenge will be announced in June, and will receive Flow at no cost.

—

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.

Though not selected as finalists, other Smart Cities Challenge applicants still hopeful to make their plans a reality

Though 77 cities will leave USDOT’s Smart Cities competition empty-handed later this summer, T4America is looking to help many of those cities advance the great ideas still deserving of help.

Seven cities were selected two weekends ago as semifinalists in the first-ever Smart City Challenge from USDOT, a competition that will eventually award $40 million to just one of those seven cities to help them rethink urban mobility, powered by innovative new technologies. Which means that 77 of the 78 will ultimately walk away empty-handed without any funding. (Save for the $100,000 that the seven semifinalists received to further develop their initial proposals.)

After reaching out over the last few months to all of the cities that applied, T4America held an invite-only conference call earlier this week to offer advice and support for advancing parts of their applications forward; applications with interesting responses to the question of how to rethink the future of transportation within cities of all sizes.

USDOT was a guest on our webinar, offering ideas, suggestions about other possibly little-known federal programs that can be used to advance certain ideas, or more information about grant programs like TIGER or the new freight grant program that can meet the need.

One of the most interesting things that USDOT shared with everyone was this graphic showing a list of 13 challenges facing cities. (There are certainly others, but this is fascinating summary of some of the most pressing.)

USDOT smart cities — challenges for cities

Win or lose the Smart Cities Challenge, these issues above are ones that cities of all size face today or will be facing in the future for years to come as the landscape radically changes due to the impact of new technologies, consumer preferences and new mobility options.

We at Transportation for America are excited to find ways to support these other cities that are eager, engaged and motivated to become smarter cities and ask big questions about the future of mobility in their communities. This week was a small step forward, and we’re hopeful for more chances to help support cities that are ready to rethink the status quo when it comes to transportation.

Are you associated with one of the cities that applied (or chose not to for whatever reason) and missed the invite-only conference call this week? Email us at smartcities@t4america.org

Seven semifinalist cities selected over the weekend in USDOT’s Smart City Challenge

Over the weekend, while appearing at the South by Southwest Interactive festival, USDOT Secretary Anthony Foxx announced the selection of seven cities to continue as semifinalists in the first-ever Smart City Challenge — a competition that will eventually award $40 million to just one city to “use technology to connect transportation assets into an interactive network.”

Through this open competition for a sizable grant award, the USDOT and Secretary Foxx have asked cities to think big on the future of mobility, and what could they do with $40 million to bring that future to fruition.

78 cities from 34 states plus the District of Columbia applied for their chance to win the single $40 million grant. Foxx, speaking at SXSW on Saturday, said, “The level of excitement and energy the Smart City Challenge has created around the country far exceeded our expectations,” said Secretary Foxx. “After an overwhelming response – 78 applications total – we chose to select seven finalists instead of five because of their outstanding potential to transform the future of urban transportation.”

The cities of Austin, TX; Columbus, OH; Denver, CO; Kansas City, MO; Pittsburgh, PA; Portland, OR; and San Francisco, CA will now receive $100,000 each to put more meat on the bones of their proposals and create a detailed roadmap on how they will make their plans a reality. Come June, one of those cities will be selected to receive the full $40 million grant to implement their winning plan over a three-year period.

What about the other 73 cities?

USDOT kicked off an incredibly important discussion and 78 cities responded by asking big questions about the future of transportation within our cities. While we’re celebrating these seven cities today, come this Summer, there will be 77 cities that leave empty-handed, and many of them will have great ideas still deserving of help.

Where can they turn?

For one, we at Transportation for America are kicking off an effort to help support these other cities that are eager, engaged and motivated to become smarter cities and ask big questions about the future of mobility in their communities. Next week, we’re going to be holding an invite-only online discussion soon with the applicants that weren’t selected. (We’re reaching out to most of you directly, but if you’re interested and don’t hear from us, email us at smartcities@t4america.org)

More than 300 private companies — whether popular providers like Uber or Lyft, backend technology companies like Amazon Web Services or Google, or providers of intelligent transportation systems like NXP or Siemens — have expressed their interest to USDOT to work not just with the winning city, but with other smart, forward looking cities that are thinking about the future of urban mobility.

These other cities will certainly need help figuring out how best to proceed, and how best to do it without the aid of a $40 million grant to kickstart their efforts.

T4America will be announcing some exciting partnerships in the coming days and weeks that will help make connections between these cities and the private companies, providers and experts to help support their work, so stay tuned.