webinars Archives - Page 2 of 3 - Transportation For America

Webinar wrap: How artist-in-residence programs can embed creativity in city agencies

The second webinar in our series further exploring the role of arts and culture in transportation planning and community development was a terrific discussion of two cities’ artist-in-residence programs.

creative placemaking webinar presentation play

Click to play the full webinar recording

On September 21, we had a great online discussion about artist-in-residence programs, hearing from experts and exploring some recently created and established artist-in-residence programs in city agencies.

Did you miss the webinar? Catch up with the full recorded presentation here.
Download the accompanying slide presentation here. (pdf)

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.

Rather coincidentally, and proving even further that these programs are topical, the New York Times published an article on NY Department of Sanitation Artist in Residence Mierle Ukeles yesterday. Finally, if you’re interested in following along with progress in St Paul’s City Artist program and LA DOT’s Artist-in-Residence program, visit their websites here and here.

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.This series of webinars is continuing to explore the role of arts and culture in transportation planning and community development. Catch up with the first one from August here.

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 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.

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.

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.

How can the arts and design help neighbors envision the future?

Developing an inclusive vision for a community’s future is challenging work and it frequently suffers from not including enough voices. What role can artists and designers play in improving the visioning process? Join us for the first in a new series of webinars further exploring the role of arts and culture in transportation planning and community development.

Back in February, T4America launched The Scenic Route, our online interactive guide to creative placemaking in transportation with an online conversation designed to introduce the concept of creative placemaking 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’re launching this new series of webinars further exploring the role of arts and culture in transportation planning and community development. Join us for the first of this series, as we discuss the practice of community visioning exercises, and how artists and designers can help improve those processes. Join us on Thursday, August 11, 2016 from 4-5 p.m. EDT.

About our speakers

James Rojas, PLACE IT!
James Rojas is an urban planner, community activist, and artist. He has developed an innovative public-engagement and community- visioning method that uses art-making as its medium. He has collaborated with municipalities, non-profits, community groups, educational institutions, and museums, to engage, educate, and empower the public on transportation, housing, open space, and health issues.

Renata Soto, Conexión Américas
Renata Soto is co-founder and Executive Director of Conexión Américas, a nonprofit organization based in Nashville and founded in 2002 to promote the social, economic and civic integration of Latino families.

Ben Stone, Smart Growth America
Ben Stone is Director of Arts & Culture at Smart Growth America and its program Transportation for America. Ben leads the organization’s broad efforts to help communities across the country better integrate arts, culture, and creative placemaking into neighborhood revitalization, equitable development, and transportation planning efforts.

Catch up on the launch of our guide to the FAST Act

Last week, we launched our guide to the FAST Act, covering the shortcomings, omissions and opportunities in the federal transportation law that sets policy and funding for transportation until the year 2020. Download your copy of the guide below and if you missed the launch webinar, catch up with the presentation at the end of this post.

Click to download the guide to the FAST Act.

Though the bill will provide a level of funding certainty through 2020, to accomplish this feat, Congress essentially killed the concept of a trust fund for transportation by transferring $70 billion in general taxpayer funds into the highway trust fund, offset by accounting maneuvers and budget gimmicks.

For example, the bill is virtually silent on the issue of emerging tech-enabled mobility options or other coming innovations, provides no increase in local control over funding — continuing to defer almost all authority to states — and fails to move the ball forward on performance measures after the first steps made by MAP-21 in 2012, among other shortcomings and missions.

This short guide explores the shortcomings and opportunities presented by the law in further detail, and provides several short tables that show the funding available to states and metro areas over the life of the bill.

Get your copy here.

On July 14th, our policy team was joined by Mayor Chris Koos, T4America advisory board member and Mayor of Normal, Illinois, to discuss the FAST Act in detail, with a focus on the impacts for local communities.

Did you miss the webinar? You can catch up with a recording of the presentation, the slides, and the questions that were asked & answered here.

What would a better measure of congestion look like? Unpacking an alternative

USDOT’s draft rule that will govern how states and metro areas will have to measure and address congestion would define “success” in incredibly outdated ways. In a webinar earlier this week, we discussed better ways to measure congestion and a proposal we’re sending to USDOT.

Nearly 3,000 of you have already sent letters to USDOT telling them that their draft rule takes the wrong approach. But is there an alternate proposal that could get traction with USDOT as they modify the proposal based on the feedback they receive?

In a webinar on Wednesday, July, 13th, our policy team discussed alternative measures for congestion and unpacked the proposal that we’re submitting to USDOT for their consideration, which was developed in collaboration with a handful of MPOs, transit agencies, state DOTs, and advocates throughout the country.

Click the image at right (or here) to view the presentation from the webinar and hear more about the proposal we are submitting to USDOT this week. Update: For those of you who are more technically inclined, you may download our full 12-page proposal (pdf) that we submitted to USDOT on July 14th.

Deciding how to evaluate which projects are “successful” will influence which transportation projects are selected and built for years to come. And the problem with using old measures for assessing traffic congestion is that it leads directly to old “solutions,” like prioritizing fast driving speeds above all other modes of transportation and their associated benefits. We’ve been illustrating this with some simple graphics that show what results when “moving cars fast” becomes the prime or only consideration:

Congestion We All Count

Have you sent your letter yet? There’s still time.

Success is about a lot more than moving cars fast. Tell USDOT to improve their proposed rule. Sign an individual letter that we will deliver on your behalf to USDOT.

Join us on 7/14 for the release of a helpful new guide to the FAST Act transportation law

Next week, T4America will be releasing a new guidebook intended to help you understand the changes made in 2015’s five-year transportation law and provide you with the necessary information to best leverage the federal transportation program. Sign up for a kickoff webinar next Thursday afternoon and receive an early copy by email.

FAST Act Guide Promo

Join us Thursday, July 14th at 4 p.m. as we briefly discuss Falling Forward: A Guide To the Fast Act with some of our policy experts and other special local guests who will add some insight on what the bill means for local communities. Register for the webinar and we’ll email you a copy first thing on July 14.

About the FAST Act and this new guide

In 2015, Congress adopted their first long-term surface transportation law in more than a decade. Known as the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation (FAST) Act, the bill provides federal transportation policy and funding for five years (FY2016-2020). Though the bill will provide a level of funding certainty through 2020, to accomplish this feat, Congress essentially killed the concept of a trust fund for transportation by transferring $70 billion in general taxpayer funds into the highway trust fund, offset by accounting maneuvers and budget gimmicks.

While there were a few positive changes, the FAST Act doubled down on the status quo of federal transportation policy and failed to make virtually any of the changes so urgently needed by our rapidly urbanizing and changing country. For example, the bill is virtually silent on the issue of emerging tech-enabled mobility options or other coming innovations, provides no increase in local control over funding — continuing to defer almost all authority to states — and fails to move the ball forward on performance measures after the first steps made by MAP-21 in 2012, among other shortcomings or omissions.

There were also a few notable changes (positive and negative) made in the FAST Act, and we’ll explore the shortcomings and opportunities presented by the law in further detail in this guide.

Register today and join us on Thursday, July 14th to hear more and get your copy.

USDOT’s congestion measure is not good — what would a better one look like?

Thousands of you have sent letters to USDOT on their draft rule that will govern how states and metro areas will have to measure and address congestion — a proposal that currently defines “success” in outdated ways. It’s clear that USDOT’s proposed measure doesn’t cut it, but if you want to hear more about a better way to measure congestion, join us next week.

Join T4A’s policy team on July, 13th at 3 p.m. EDT to learn about some proposed alternatives to improve USDOT’s congestion performance measure, as well as measures covering performance of the National Highway System, Interstate freight movement, on-road mobile source emissions, and greenhouse gases.

Nearly 3,000 of you have already sent letters to USDOT telling them that their draft rule takes the wrong approach. But what would a better measure look like, and is there an alternate proposal that could get traction with USDOT as they modify the proposal based on the feedback they receive?

The alternatives we’ll be discussing on this webinar were developed in collaboration with a handful of MPOs, transit agencies, state DOTs, and advocates throughout the country. Join the webinar on July, 13th at 4pm EDT to learn more, ask questions, and engage in this rulemaking process.

Congestion We All Count

Have you sent your letter yet? There’s still time.

Success is about a lot more than moving cars fast. Tell USDOT to improve their proposed rule. Sign an individual letter that we will deliver on your behalf to USDOT.

Join us for the release of Planning for a Healthier Future

Thanks to 2012’s MAP-21 legislation, all metro areas and states will soon be using a limited array of performance measures. While the in-progress federal requirements will cover a limited range of measures, T4America is releasing a new resource next week to help metro areas find ways to use performance measures to improve public health, address social equity concerns, and advance environmental quality.

Join us next week on Wednesday, June 22 at 4:00 p.m. EDT for a special online discussion about the new report, including firsthand experience from some of the metro regions that participated in a related two-year collaborative — more about that below. Sign up and be the first to get a copy of the Planning for a Healthier Future report in your inbox next Wednesday.

While the federal performance measures currently being developed will cover limited metrics like safety, condition of roads and bridges, or how to measure congestion, this report lays out additional measures that enable MPOs and regions to understand the health impacts of transportation and land use decisions within three other dimensions: physical activity, traffic safety, and exposure to air pollution.

This report is the result of our two-year Planning for a Healthier Future collaborative with teams from the regions of Seattle, WA, Portland, OR, San Diego, CA and Nashville, TN. These four regions are actively working to improve health, increase access to opportunity for vulnerable populations, protect the environment and promote economic competitiveness by developing and implementing transportation performance measures for their respective metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs)

Performance measures and health?

urban design for health transportation impacts health

Cities and regions around the country face important choices about how and where they want to grow, how to connect people to economic prosperity and how to use limited resources to promote healthy communities and provide a great quality of life for all of their residents.

Performance-based planning allows stakeholders and decision-makers to understand how a given investment, policy, or decision “performs” across certain measures over time — providing more clarity and transparency on exactly what state or regional transportation dollars are accomplishing. As a result of the transportation projects that get built, is the air cleaner? Do more people have access to opportunity? Is environmental quality made better or worse? Are the impacts on people’s health — especially vulnerable populations — positive or negative?

This detailed report summarizes current best practices in the development of health, equity and environmental measures that can be used to evaluate the performance of transportation investments at a regional scale. It aims to explore and test a variety of different data-driven measures that can evaluate packages of transportation investments — such as those frequently bundled together by MPOs in transportation plans.

Join us next week to learn more and get your copy!

Kresge Calthorpe report logos

Find out who made the “Best Complete Streets Policies of 2015” list tomorrow (4/12)

More than 80 communities passed Complete Streets policies in 2015, and these policies are some of the strongest and most effective ever passed. Which policies stood out as the best? Find out tomorrow when Smart Growth America’s National Complete Streets Coalition unveils the annual ranking of the best Complete Streets policies in the nation.

Guadalupe Street in Austin, TX. Austin had one of the highest-scoring policies of 2014. Which communities will be on the 2015 list? Photo courtesy of the City of Austin.

Crossposted from Smart Growth America and the National Complete Streets Coalition

Notably this year, one community scored a perfect 100 on their Complete Streets policy. In the near decade that we have been tracking policies, this is the first time a community has achieved a perfect score. Which community passed the perfect policy? Join us for the launch of this year’s rankings to find out.

To kick off this year’s rankings, join us for an online discussion on Tuesday, April 12, 2016 from 1:00-2:00 PM EDT. This event is free, but registration is required. Webinar registrants will also be the first to get a copy of this year’s rankings, bright and early tomorrow morning. Register today for tomorrow’s kickoff event.

WHAT:	Announcing “The Best Complete Streets Policies of 2015”
WHEN:	Tuesday, April 12, 2016, 1:00-2:00 PM EDT
WHO:	National Complete Streets Coalition staff, leaders from communities with top-scoring policies, and additional special guests

Join the event to find out which community scored a perfect 100, learn how communities create top-scoring policies, and understand what your community can do to craft an outstanding policy of its own.

2015 Complete Streets contenders

82 communities passed Complete Streets policies in 2015 and were included for consideration in this year’s rankings. They are:

Fairbanks, AK
Fairbanks Metropolitan Area Transportation System, AK
North Pole, AK
Hot Springs, AR
Little Rock, AR
San Mateo, CA
Moraga, CA
Stamford, CT
West Hartford, CT
Cape Coral, FL
Longwood, FL
Naples, FL
Orlando, FL
St. Petersburg, FL
Gainesville, GA
Savannah, GA
West Des Moines, IA
Windsor Heights, IA
Carbondale, IL
Park Forest, IL
La Porte, IN
South Bend, IN
Vincennes, IN
Dry Ridge, KY
Grant County, KY
Independence, KY
Taylor Mill, KY

Ashland, MA
Beverly, MA
Framingham, MA
Hudson, MA
Lynn, MA
Longmeadow, MA
Natick, MA
Northampton, MA
Norwell, MA
Weymouth, MA
Middleville, MI
Mount Pleasant, MI
Portage, MI
East-West Gateway Council of Governments, MO
Pagedale, MO
St. Louis, MO
Mississippi Gulf Coast Metropolitan Planning Organization, MS
Oxford, MS
Glendive, MT
Polson, MT
Greensboro Urban Area Metropolitan Planning Organization, NC
Raleigh, NC
Omaha, NE
Keene, NH
Swanzey, NH

Asbury Park, NJ
Bound Brook, NJ
East Amwell, NJ
Hamilton, NJ
Monroe, NJ
Moorestown, NJ
Northfield, NJ
Somerville, NJ
Albuquerque, NM
Bernalillo County, NM
Mid-Region Council of Governments, NM
Auburn, NY
Chautauqua County, NY
Sodus Point, NY
Owasso, OK
Reading, PA
Myrtle Beach, SC
Sioux Falls, SD
Tennessee Department of Transportation
East Ridge, TN
Battle Ground, WA
Mabton, WA
Sunnyside, WA
Toppenish, WA
Wapato, WA

Complete Streets policies—including laws, resolutions, executive orders, policies, and planning and design documents—encourage and provide safe access to destinations for everyone, regardless of age, ability, income, ethnicity, or how they travel.

The Coalition evaluates policies based on 10 policy elements, including the policy’s vision, the project types included, and next steps for implementation, among others. Ogdensburg, NY had the nation’s highest-scoring policy in 2014.

More than 830 jurisdictions at the local, regional, and state levels have now enacted Complete Streets policies—a remarkable feat considering that a mere 33 policies were in place a decade ago. Join us on April 12 to celebrate the best policies of 2015 and safer, more convenient streets that work for everyone.

Did you miss last week’s discussion on the 2016 TIGER grant program?

If you missed last week’s online discussion about this year’s $500 million TIGER grant program and the new $800 million FASTLANE freight grant program, catch up here with the full presentation and audio.

It was great — though not surprising — to see so much interest about how to prepare the best possible application. After all, these programs are among the very few ways for local communities to access federal funds directly for important projects.

For this that missed the session or were unable to attend, we wanted to provide the presentation and full audio of the session — with the full Q&A at the end.

Download the presentation. (3.5 mb PDF)
Download the full audio. (6 mb mp3)

We mentioned it during the session, but we want to make sure you also know about our expanded suite of technical assistance offerings, announced last week.

Transportation for America technical assistance

As Beth Osborne, the head of our technical assistance program, noted yesterday, we do offer assistance with TIGER applications through that service, offering advice, writing or review support to help give you the best possible chance to win funding. We’ve even written several applications in the past and can provide that service if you’re interested, so please get in touch with us directly or through the form at the bottom of that page.

T4America members thinking of applying for TIGER this year get a free hour of time from our team of TIGER experts. Not a member but interested in learning more about joining T4America? Contact Erika Young at erika.young@t4america.org.

And keep an eye out for more from us about TIGER in the months ahead. Congress will once again be deciding the future of this program beyond 2016 during the appropriations process that’s underway now, and you can help preserve it by weighing in with your legislators when the time is right.

Watch last week’s creative placemaking online discussion

As part of the kickoff for T4America’s brand new online interactive guide to creative placemaking in transportation, we hosted an online conversation on the topic last week. If you missed the webinar, you can catch up here.

Creative placemaking harnesses the power of arts and culture to allow for more genuine public engagement — particularly in low-income neighborhoods, communities of color and among immigrant populations — in the development of transportation projects.

T4America’s new online interactive guide, The Scenic Route: Getting Started with Creative Placemaking in Transportation, introduces the concept to transportation planners, public works agencies and local elected officials who are on the front lines of advancing transportation projects.

Watch last week’s archived webinar

Participants heard from James Corless, Director, Transportation for America; Erika Young, Director of Strategic Partnerships, Transportation for America; Duncan Hwang, Development & Communications Director, Asian Pacific American Network of Oregon (APANO); Luann Algoso, Community Engagement Manager, APANO; Laura Zabel, Executive Director, Springboard for the Arts; and Jun-Li Wang, Artist Community Organizer, Springboard for the Arts.

In the webinar, APANO shares some of the creative placemaking strategies employed to combat the pressure of displacement anticipated by a forthcoming high-capacity transit project in the Jade District of Portland, OR. Continuing the conversation, Springboard for the Arts discusses its grassroots efforts to advance the community’s vision for the Twin Cities’ Green Line light rail.

Watch the webinar, browse the guide, share it with others, and let us know what you think!

View the Guide

Join us for the third online discussion of the Innovative MPO on July 8th

Building on the range of new ideas for metropolitan planning organizations outlined in our Innovative MPO report, join us for the third in a series of online discussions to help MPO staff, board members, and civic leaders find smart ways to use their funding and planning authority to get better outcomes for their regions.

First, if you’re asking, “What’s The Innovative MPO?”, it’s a great free resource we released in late 2014, so the first thing to do is to cruise over to this page and get your copy immediately.

With your guidebook now in hand, join us next Wednesday (July 8) for our third online discussion on the content of the guidebook. This time out, we’ll be focusing on a range of tools and techniques that MPOs can use to get to or stay on the leading edge of smart transportation planning in regions small and large.

Specifically, we’ll be looking a few provisions in the Senate’s recent proposal for a six-year transportation authorization that will create some new opportunities for innovative MPOs prepared to capitalize, how one region is taking advantage of an amazing wealth of data to better measure the performance of their transportation dollars, and an emerging placemaking and planning approach that leverages arts, culture and creativity to foster more inclusive economic development in communities of any size.

Joe McAndrew, T4America policy director, will discuss a few key provisions in the Senate’s long-term transportation bill, and the opportunities it will create for the MPOs best prepared to take advantage.
Monique De Los Rios-Urban from the Maricopa Association of Governments (MAG) will touch on performance measures and data collection. MAG has an amazing online suite of data research tools that you can test drive right here.
Erin Evenhouse, T4America Midwest outreach manager, will discuss the emerging practice of “creative place-making,” and share stories of how some metro regions are using this inclusive approach to planning — as well as some details on a forthcoming T4America toolkit for MPOs and others on the practice.

Helping metros respond to the booming demand for more transportation options

Building on the range of new ideas for metropolitan planning organizations outlined in our Innovative MPO report, we’re hosting the second in a series of online discussions to help MPO staff, board members, and civic leaders respond to the booming demand for new transportation options, driven by demographics and technology.

Click here to download your copy.

First up, have you downloaded your copy of The Innovative MPO yet? It’s a great free resource we released a few months ago, so get your copy now. Second, join us on April 22nd at 3 p.m. EST for “Innovative Regional Mobility: A Review of Best Practice and Future Trends.”

Changes in market preferences, technology and travel patterns are driving a new consumer demand for a range of transportation options. Ensuring that your region is competitive in this new mobility context is crucial to its economic success and quality of life. T4America’s Innovative MPO guidebook offers many examples of the creative mobility solutions that communities can implement to become more responsive to these demand changes going forward.

Join experts from T4America, the Broward MPO, Wasatch Front Regional Council and the University of California at Berkeley to learn about best practices and trends in how transit and mobility solutions are changing our communities and attracting talent.

Erika Young, Director of Strategic Partnerships, T4America
Ted Knowlton, Deputy Executive Director, Wasatch Front Regional Council (WFRC)
James Cromar, Director of Planning Livability Planning Studies, Implementation of Transportation & Land Use Improvements
Susan Shaheen, Ph.D. Adjunct Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering Co-Director, TSRC

UPDATE: Better bang for the buck — learn more about performance measurement

UPDATE 2/18/15: The release webinar has been rescheduled for March 3, 2015 from 3:30-4:30 p.m. EST. The report release and webinar were delayed due to rough winter weather. The registration link is once again active, so go ahead and register today!

Developing a better system to measure the performance of our transportation spending is an idea that’s gaining momentum, and we want to help you be on the cutting edge.

On [UPDATED] Tuesday, March 3, Transportation for America is releasing a new report on performance measures called “Measuring What We Value: Setting Priorities and Evaluating Success in Transportation.” To accompany the release and help explain an issue that’s even more wonky than other issues in the world of transportation planning — we’ve organized a helpful webinar on March 3rd from 3:30-4:30 p.m. EST.

We’ll discuss the report, hear experts explain the benefits of measuring the performance of our transportation spending and share some examples of real-world success. Register now.

Those presenting during the webinar include:

Beth Osborne, Senior Policy Advisor for T4America, formerly Deputy Director for Policy at USDOT.
Matt Carpenter, Director of Transportation Services, Sacramento Area Council of Governments (SACOG)
Jim Hubbell, Principal Planner, Mid-America Regional Council (MARC)
Erika Young, Director of Strategic Partnerships, T4America

Why is this report necessary?

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 could represent a sea change in how funding decisions are made and our transportation system performs.

This report looks at the innovative DOTs and MPOs experiencing early successes in measuring the performance of their transportation system and making investments based on getting the best bang for the buck, and also lays out smart recommended goals and measures from T4America for making this transition.

Click here to be notified about the report’s release on March 3rd and sign-up for our newsletter to stay up-to-date on all report releases.

New grant program to support smart development around transit lines is open for business

Webinar info updated below: A program created in the 2012 transportation law to help communities plan for transit-oriented development is open for business — and T4America is ready to help your community win some of that grant funding.

Building structured parking, public amenities and pedestrian-safe streets are part of the public infrastructure needed for successful economic development around transit.

One of the few bright spots in MAP-21, the 2012 update of the federal transportation program, was the creation of a small pilot program of competitive grants for communities trying to support better development within their new transit corridors — one smart way to boost ridership and support local economic development. *Funds can also be used on projects that increase capacity on existing transit lines, but for the most part, these funds will support planning for new transit lines.

It’s a small program, but one that could have a huge impact in the recipient communities. The Federal Transit Administration announced late last week that they’re now accepting applications from transit agencies until November 3, for a total of almost $20 million in available funding (for the two years since MAP-21 passed).

(Speakers updated 9/23) With the FTA open to receive grant applications, T4America has organized an online session to explain the program, how it works, and what kind of applications FTA will be looking for. We’ll have Homer Carlisle, professional staff for the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Development Committee, John Hemplemann, Founding Partner of Cairncross & Hempelmann, as well as experts from Transportation for America to discuss this new program. Find out more information about this webinar taking place on Friday, September 26, and register today right here.

According to the notice from FTA, “the grants will fund comprehensive planning that supports economic development, ridership, multimodal connectivity and accessibility, increased transit access for pedestrian and bicycle traffic, and mixed-use development near transit stations.”

This type of planning has been used successfully in transit corridors such as the Foothill Extension of the Gold Line which connected 11 small cities east of Los Angeles, the West Corridor that connects Denver with the suburban community of Lakewood, and the Green Line which connects Minneapolis to Saint Paul. As shown in these cases, planning for development along the entire corridor – rather than just one station area at a time –can attract private-sector interest as well as stronger community consensus by creating a complete picture of the development opportunities presented by the new transit line.

Rail and rapid bus lines often cross multiple jurisdictions, which can make coordinated planning of development at stations difficult. As an example, while most would agree some share of housing along such lines should be affordable to low-wage workers, what if none of the cities along the line choose to provide for it as part of new development at their station areas? What if one of the cities chooses not to allow walkable development at all around their new station, undermining the ridership potential of the entire line? Coordinated planning involving all of the jurisdictions along a corridor can help to address these issues at the front end, to capture the maximum development potential of the line.

FTA will focus on funding the kind of planning that would not occur without federal support. Grants will fund planning around an entire transit corridor, not just individual station areas, particularly corridors where there are significant challenges to transit-oriented planning, low levels of existing development, or limited local financial capacity.

Transit agencies that are building new transit systems or upgrading existing ones will be eligible to apply for new planning grants, in partnership with local land use agencies and the private sector, to help them efficiently locate jobs and housing near new transit stations, boosting ridership and increasing the amount of money gained back at the farebox.

Kicking off “Transportation Vote 2012”

Local communities across the country are preparing to vote on the people, plans and projects that will set the tone for transportation progress in the months and years to come — with many communities already showing us how it’s done. Transportation Vote 2012 will help educate voters, advocates and candidates and keep abreast of transportation-related campaigns as they unfold.

As the House and Senate struggle to come to agreement over renewing the federal program, local governments and voters are feeling urgency about the state of our infrastructure. And voters across the political spectrum are supportive of spending their money on improving it – despite an ongoing a fiscal crisis and the anti-government rhetoric that permeates political discourse.

With maintenance needs growing along with population and travel demand, local governments increasingly are asking voters to approve ballot measures to fund transportation – and usually succeeding.

What is Transportation Vote 2012?

For the next six or seven months, we’ll be offering a series of online presentations, including interviews with experts and lessons we’ve learned, that will help individuals and non-profit groups talk about transportation effectively; engage in educating candidates around transportation reform and infrastructure investment; understand why and how local transportation ballot measures are winning at the polls. We’ll be sharing inspiring success stories from other communities; profiling local leaders and communities who are showing Congress how it’s done.

Whether covering the upcoming historic transportation ballot measure in Atlanta, telling the story of St. Louis’ successful transit referendum that saved their bus service and expanded rail transit in 2010, showing you what you can do in an election, or highlighting a spate of candidates making transportation a key issue in a local election, we’re going to equip you to get more engaged and help improve transportation decisions in your community.

Join us for the first presentation. Free and open to the public.

This first Transportation Vote 2012 online presentation is coming up next Thursday May 17th at 2 PM EDT, so register today and save the date. It’s completely free and open to the public — not just T4 America coalition members or supporters.

Do you work for a non-profit organization and want to raise the profile of transportation issues during the election but are unsure of the “do’s and don’ts” when engaging in educational activities around an election? For this first event, we’re going to talk about the types of educational activities that 501(c)3 non-profit organizations can legally engage in around the elections to raise the profile of transportation.

Join us May 17 at 2 p.m. EDT for “Transportation Vote 2012: Engaging in Elections for Non-Profit Organizations.”

And look for the TV2012 banner above on the T4 America website to mark more coverage and events, coming soon!

Debate panelists split over buses, broader impact of transit investments

Albuquerque1 Originally uploaded by Transportation for America

The new Rail Runner commuter rail service in New Mexico has been hugely popular, drawing new riders and luring former drivers to the service.

Monday’s online debate on conservatives and public transportation was billed as a back-and-forth on why the ideological right should embrace public transportation. While differences persisted between our conservative and libertarian panelists about the impact of transit investments, another schism developed over how big a role buses should play.

Monday’s debate hosted by Transportation for America centered around the book Moving Minds: Conservatives and Public Transportation, written by conservatives William Lind and the late Paul Weyrich.

Lind used his opening remarks to summarize the book and refute the oft-repeated right-wing argument that public transportation requires government subsidies while automobiles and the roads required to support them are somehow a free-market outcome.

“In fact, the dominance of the automobile is a product of massive government intervention in the marketplace,” Lind said, citing decades of federal support for the interstate highway system as streetcars remained privately operated — resulting in crushingly unfair competition. “Conservatives above all people should know what happens when you subsidize one competitor and tax the other.”

“You’re either investing in (both highways and transit) or subsidizing both,” agreed panelist John Robert Smith, president and CEO of Reconnecting America and former mayor of Meridian, Mississippi. “You can’t have it both ways.”

Sam Staley, director of urban and land use policy at the libertarian Reason Foundation, was the designated mass transit critic of the debate, which he conceded was “probably accurate” but in need of further clarification. Staley is skeptical about the ability of transit to drive economic development or result in major lifestyle changes.

“I definitely think that transit has an important role to play,” Staley said, “but I think we need to be paying a lot more attention to the conditions under which transit works and when it doesn’t.”

Staley cited the Washington D.C. Metro’s Orange Line, saying transit has succeeded in dense, developed areas like Ballston in Northern Virginia but is less effective when those conditions are missing in places like New Carrollton, on the Maryland side of the District. (Didn’t the changes along the Orange line in Virginia come about largely due to that transit investment?)

Despite his misgivings about mass transit in general, Staley found himself in the unlikely position of defending buses from Lind’s attacks. Lind argued most Americans “don’t like riding buses” and that only trolleys or streetcars would persuade choice-riders to give up their cars, to which Staley responded: “If we discount buses, we’re really doing a disservice to transit generally.”

The final panelist, American Public Transportation Association (APTA) president Bill Millar, also defended buses, saying the industry is rapidly adopting new technologies like bus rapid transit and dedicated lanes, which will appeal to drivers.

Panelists answered a number of interesting questions from listeners on topics such as public-private partnerships, rural transit needs and winning over anti-tax conservatives. Overall, despite differences over the role of buses and transit’s ability to influence broader change, panelists agreed on the general importance of public transportation and the need to make practical decisions not rooted in partisanship.

Smith put it well: “As mayor, I never found a pothole or a railroad crossing that identified as a Democrat or a Republican.”

If you missed the webinar or want to listen again, you can do that with any of the links below, or on the webinars page:

Audio/video of session with presenter slides (click to launch in a new window)
Full audio file (.mp3)
Full downloadable video file (.mp4)
Read more about the Moving Minds book.
Buy the book from Reconnecting America

Still time to register for today’s discussion on conservatives and public transportation

What is the conservative rationale for providing efficient public transportation? Some conservatives would likely suggest that the entire concept is an oxymoron. Conservatives William Lind and the late Paul Weyrich believe otherwise.

This is the final post in a three-part series on Moving Minds: Conservatives and Public Transportation, the subject of an online debate later today (at 3 p.m. Eastern, register now!) Panelists include co-author Lind, mass transit critic Sam Staley, director of urban and land use policy at the Reason Foundation; John Robert Smith, president and CEO of Reconnecting America and former mayor of Meridian, Mississippi; and Bill Millar, president of the American Public Transportation Association (APTA).

The authors identify four elements to their conservative vision for good public transport: coverage, frequency, ease of connection and a preference for rail over buses.

In a previous post, we noted the community-building element of public transportation and how that exemplified a conservative value few would fault. There is also the element of preserving — or, in some cases, reviving — what has worked in the past. Many of America’s greatest cities not only have a tradition of robust transportation infrastructure, but they also contain a historic built environment with untapped potential.

“As conservatives, we want to revive America’s older, industrial cities,” the authors note. “Older cities have lots of infrastructure that can be built on. Conservatives prefer building on what exists to creating vast systems from nothing (at vast cost).”

While lining up with many traditional conservative principles, the notions of preserving resources, building on existing traditions and making good use of what we have are goals most can support.

As conservatives, Weyrich and Lind do not speak the language of visionary social programs and even say they “desire no new technology.” Yet they reach the same conclusion as others in increasing public transportation investment as a means to achieve both economic and social ends.

We hope you’ll join us at 3 p.m. today.

Conservatives and public transportation — join us on Monday the 14th

Conservatives and Public Transportation book cover

UPDATED: This session has been rescheduled for 12/14. If you already signed up with the link below, you won’t need to do a thing, and should get an email from us.

“As conservatives, our first principle is the reality principle,” wrote William Lind and the late Paul Weyrich in Moving Minds: Conservatives and Public Transportation. “Public policy must be based on reality, not on the fairy-tale wishes so beloved by liberals.”

Left-leaning transit advocates need not be insulted.

The authors are simply trying to talk about public transportation in ways that appeal to right-of-center allies. If your interest is piqued, you’ll definitely want to join us for an online debate next Monday, December 7, December 14th in which a handful of experts, including co-author Lind, will discuss — and debate — the ideas contained in the book. Register for the debate here.

Reality-based planning can find appeal across political persuasions because everybody relies on America’s transportation system in one form or another. Even people who don’t use public transportation on a regular basis receive numerous benefits from its expansion, the authors point out. The reason? More rail passengers means less traffic congestion and faster commute times, a win-win.

In Salt Lake County, Utah, for instance, supporters of a referendum on light rail developed a campaign aimed at non-transit riders with the simple message: “even if you don’t ride it, you use it.” One ad focused on an automobile wheel moving along faster because of less crowded roads, while another emphasized the advantages of less traffic congestion, the authors noted.

They offer three concrete reasons in the book for why transit is good for non-riders. The first is the reduction in road gridlock. The second is “the big football game” or the car being in the shop or some other circumstance that creates the need for an alternative. The third reason is that lower congestion and better transit access actually raises property values and improves quality of life.

The authors make several peripheral points as well, such as the influence of heavy subsidies and market distortions on the prevalence of auto-oriented, low-density growth — a concept getting some notoriety in the last week.

“Every urban and suburban area should offer two alternate building codes, one the current ‘sprawl’ code and the other a code that allows traditional neighborhood design, where living, working and shopping are all close by each other,” the authors argue. “Which code will prevail? Let the market decide!”

Weyrich and Lind also reject the oft-prevailing wisdom that the “obvious” solution to traffic congestion is building more roads or lanes. When more lanes are made available, people who would not have driven otherwise make additional trips, inducing demand and resulting in yet more gridlock — the exact problem that the lanes were supposed to solve.

There is no unanimity about public transport among conservatives. One right-leaning mass transit critic is Sam Staley, director of urban and land use policy at the Reason Foundation. He will appear alongside Lind in Monday’s debate, along with John Robert Smith, president and CEO of Reconnecting America and former mayor of Meridian, Mississippi; and Bill Millar, president of the American Public Transportation Association (APTA).

We hope you’ll join us too. Register today.