As the saying goes a picture is worth a thousand words .. This one is worth a few thousand stories on transport policy, included as part of a message promoting the ITF report titled “Cycling, Health and Safety”  In a nutshell, as summarized by ITF, the more people cycle, the fewer fatal accidents. Every kilometer cycled benefits society.

Image Courtesy: International Transport Forum . Click image to read the report “Cycling, Health and Safety”

While we are at it, I recommend you to check out the video series on cycling, safety & health on ITF’s YouTube channel:

The images below are from Pew States (most of them), tweeted out as part of the #StuckinTraffic Twitter chat featuring U.S. Secretary of Transportation Anthony Foxx and House T&I Committee Chair Schuster.  Please note that most of the images have embedded URL links pointing to a webpage/report. So, feel free to click on the ones that pique your interest to learn more.

P.S: Pardon any shoddiness as you scroll down. This post is a quick hack/harvest of compelling charts from the #StuckINTraffic twitter feed to show the landscape of transportation funding issues and why it is important to get the reauthorization done ASAP.

Image Courtesy: Pew States – US transportation funding 101—& why fed, state investment is declining:

Image Courtesy – Pew States – DYK? Transportation infrastructure funding stems mainly from states:

Image Courtesy: Pew States – Fed, states facing funding challenges as gas tax revenues stall: h

Image Courtesy: Pew States – US #transportation fed grant funding dips 9% from ’08 to ’14:

Image Courtesy: Pew States – New Pew report spotlights surface DOT funding declines, overall down $27B in real terms since 2002

Image Courtesy: Pew States – 66% of fed transportation revenue stems from gas tax—why it matters:

Image Courtesy: Pew States – Fed Highway Trust Fund—major source of state, local funds—running low

Image courtesy; Pew States

Image courtesy: Wonkblog via @TransportDems – 1 in 4 US bridges is deficient. #StuckinTraffic

Image Courtesy: @BikeLeague – What role do transit, bike and pedestrian projects play in local economies?

via YPTransportation.org

The Tennessee Department of Transportation (TDOT) Long Range Planning Division is accepting applications for a Community Transportation Planner 1 position in the Long Range Planning Division’s Office of Community Transportation, located in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Application for the Community Transportation Planner 1 position requires completion and submission of the following three items:

• Letter explaining applicant interest in the position
• Resume that is a maximum of two pages
• Written responses to the four application questions below

The three items should be emailed to Ms. Suzie Howard, Suzie.Howard@tn.gov, by 4:30 p.m. Central Daylight Time on Thursday, February 12, 2015.

MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS:

A Bachelor’s Degree in Planning or related field from an accredited college or university and at least two (2) years of planning experience

Or

Master’s Degree in Planning or related field from an accredited college or university

POSITION DESCRIPTION:

The Long Range Planning Division Community Transportation Planner 1 will assist in the Division’s development and implementation of strategies that coordinate the State’s land management and transportation infrastructure needs.

• Assists in the development of guidelines for coordination of land use and transportation decisions between state and local entities.
• Assists in the development of rural regional transportation plans, major thoroughfare plans, corridor management agreements, and statewide access management plans.
• Provides technical assistance to local community partners, Metropolitan Planning Organizations and Rural Planning and Consultation Organizations.
• Participates in regular collaborative opportunities with metropolitan transportation planning organizations, rural transportation consultation organizations, cities, and counties.
• Reviews new and established federal, state, and local plans and policies and makes recommendations for implementation.

This position will require occasional statewide travel.

APPLICATION QUESTIONS:

(Please use a separate sheet for each question.)

When answering the application questions, you should use examples of work related experiences. If you do not have appropriate work related examples, non‐work related examples are acceptable.

1. Describe two or three major trends in transportation and land use planning.
   • Do you see any of these trends in Tennessee?
   • What are some of the biggest challenges coordinating land use and transportation?
2. Give an example of a transportation planning idea or improvement that you had and how did it make a difference in the community that you were serving?
3. Give a specific example of a situation in which you had to deal with conflict when working with the public.
   • Describe in detail how you handled both the person(s) and the situation.
   • How did this affect the overall outcome of the situation or issue?
   • How did you document and communicate the outcome?
4. Provide a few detailed examples of professional and/or self‐improvement skills that you developed or enhanced over the past two years.
   • Were these skills prerequisites of your current position?
   • How have these skills assisted you in the performance of your current job responsibilities?

Please contact Ms. Tanisha Hall, Director, Long Range Planning Division, at Tanisha.Hall@tn.gov with questions about the position openings. 

via Citylab

This interesting chart was a part of a CityLab article that analyses how Germany is less car dependent than the United States by looking data from comparable cities in each of these nations.  What caught my attention, among the many things, is the difference in the carbon footprint.  In the US, Transport sector alone accounts for 32% of our overall CO2 emissions whereas in Germany it is only 19%.  If we ever get around to implementing a carbon tax, it could fall precipitously but I don’t see that happening anytime soon, given the current political discourse.

The data come from a recent comparison of German and U.S. planning approaches led by transport scholar Ralph Buehler of Virginia Tech. Drilling down to the city level, Buehler and collaborators find more of the same driving trends in an analysis of two large metros from each country: Washington, D.C., and Stuttgart.

Welcome!

The J.M.K. Innovation Prize is an exciting new initiative of the J.M. Kaplan Fund, a New York-based family foundation. In 2015 up to ten Prizes will be awarded to U.S.-based individuals or teams addressing our country’s most pressing needs through social sector innovation.  The Prize will provide up to three years of support at $50,000 per year, as well as a $25,000 “bank” of funds available for technical assistance or targeted project expenses, making a total award of up to $175,000.  Specifically, the Prize seeks to support inter-disciplinary innovation in the fields of cultural heritage, human rights, the built environment, and the natural environment.  The Prize is particularly designed for high-risk, early stage ideas being piloted or prototyped by dynamic visionaries.

The Creation of the J.M.K. Innovation Prize

For three generations, the J.M. Kaplan Fund has provided catalytic funding for projects in their early stages of development.  Whether a pilot project, a new organization, or a nascent initiative, work supported by the Fund has involved a certain level of measured risk that ultimately led to large-scale, transformative results.  The new J.M.K. Innovation Prize will further this legacy, providing funding to visionary social entrepreneurs throughout the United States who are championing emerging social sector innovations.

Differentiation from Other Innovation Programs

The burgeoning field of social innovation has become a recognized area in philanthropy.  The demand for funding of this type, however, has increased so rapidly that many worthwhile ideas fail to find backing from established funders.  The J.M.K. Innovation Prize will fill a gap in this marketplace, not only by providing critical capital to the social innovation field, but also by taking risks on projects that may be seen by others as underdeveloped or too small.

Another difference is that the J.M.K. Innovation Prize will build on the Fund’s longstanding areas of grantmaking interest while remaining flexible enough to allow for fresh and unexpected thinking.  Prize recipients will ideally innovate across at least two of the Fund’s four traditional disciplinary boundaries:

• Cultural Heritage (e.g., historic preservation, archaeology, architecture, arts & culture)
• Human Rights (e.g., immigration, homelessness, incarceration, public health, education)
• Built Environment (e.g., parks, open space, public space, waterfront revitalization, transportation)
• Natural Environment (e.g., oceans, conservation, land use, climate change, alternative energy)

Criteria for Selection

The J.M.K. Innovation Prize will be awarded to projects or ideas that: represent a game-changing answer to a clearly identified need; demonstrate an interdisciplinary or hybridized approach, ideally involving at least two of the four areas of interest to the Fund; demonstrate the potential to develop an actionable pilot or prototype with Prize funding; show scalable impact or impact beyond the initial pilot or prototype; and hold out the promise to benefit multiple individuals, communities or sectors through a clearly articulated theory of change.

Our 2015 Timeline

Interested individuals or teams may apply for the J.M.K. Innovation Prize from January 15 through April 30, 2015.  A short application will be made accessible via this website starting on January 15.  A sub-set of applicants will be invited to submit a second, longer application for the Prize in late spring.  A review of these second round applications will take place throughout the summer, with finalists being flown to New York City in the fall to present their ideas to the trustees of the J.M. Kaplan Fund.  The Prize’s awardees will be publicly announced in November 2015.

Award Details

Awardees are eligible to receive $50,000 per year for three years, as well as a $25,000 “bank” of funds available for technical assistance or targeted project expenses.  Accordingly, the total prize award amount will total up to $175,000 per prize recipient over the three year period.  These funds are intended to allow recipients to focus their attention on their social impact idea.  Awardees will also receive ongoing, dedicated support from the J.M. Kaplan Fund, including networking opportunities at in-person convenings.

Apply Now!

You may access the online round one application for the J.M.K. Innovation Prize from January 15 through April 30, 2015 by clicking here.  We are using the grant management software program Foundant Technologies for this process; the creation of a Foundant account is necessary to view the round one application itself.

Additional Information

For convenience, you may download this one-page document containing the information presented on this webpage. For any additional information, please contact:JMKInnovationPrize@JMKFund.org.

This chart was included as part of a brilliant blog post by our friends at TransitLabs, which analyses the various issues surrounding the perennial shortfalls that dog the highway trust fund (aka Gas tax).  Highly recommend reading the entire blog titled “Why the Trust Fund Keeps Running Out” and explore the beautiful visualizations that accompany the story.

Image courtesy: Transitlabs

Position Summary: The Bicycle Program & Transportation Communications Coordinator will coordinate the bicycle management program on campus, and identify opportunities to enhance bicycle safety initiatives. Based on benchmarking from other universities, recommend new and innovative bicycle programs for the campus community. Engage students and employees in bicycle planning. Serve as alternative transportation representative on university and/or locality committees reviewing bicycle programming and/or safety. Provide GIS data collection and mapping for alternative transportation and other Parking and Transportation units. Coordinate campus notices, news stories and special features for the Alternative Transportation program as well as other Parking and Transportation units for review by the division communication manager.

Photo by cbowns

Required Qualification: Bachelor’s degree in urban planning or public administration or equivalent training and experience. Demonstrated experience with alternative transportation modes (with an emphasis on bicycling). Working knowledge at the proficient level of GIS software, including ArcGIS, to record and analyze data, and make useful maps. Demonstrated experience analyzing and summarizing data in a variety of formats. Excellent customer service skills. Extensive computer experience and proficiency with Microsoft Word and Excel. Experience using illustration and desktop publishing software such as Adobe CS/5. Ability to complete numerous projects and details simultaneously and accurately. Excellent communication and interpersonal skills.

Preferred Qualifications: Experience working in university setting. Experience preparing press releases. Experience developing bicycle programs. Experience working with advocacy constituents.

For a complete listing of position qualifications, and to apply, please visit www.jobs.vt.edu, and search for posting SW0150063. Review of applications will begin 2/09/2015.

Click here to learn more and to apply

This chart comes from a report titled “The state of clean transport policy: A 2014 synthesis of vehicle and fuel policy developments” published by the International Council on Clean Transportation.

Air-pollutant emissions and public health

Exposure to outdoor air pollution resulted in 3.2 million early deaths worldwide in 2010 and ranks among the top ten health risks. Motorized transport is a major contributor to outdoor air pollution, particularly near major roadways and in urban areas with a high concentration of vehicle activity. The vast majority of health impacts from vehicle activity occur in India, China, Brazil, Mexico, and the countries in the Asia-Pacific region, Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa. Implementing world-class vehicle emissions standards would reduce transport air pollution-related mortality from approximately 270,000 deaths to 71,000 deaths in 2030 globally, with benefits that are greatly concentrated in major cities. These estimates are limited strictly to exhaust emissions of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) from light- and heavy-duty on-road vehicles in urban areas and thus represent a conservative estimate of health impacts from transport.

Image courtesy: theICCT.org

This report summarizes advances in national and international regulations intended to reduce energy use, mitigate climate change, and control air pollution from motor vehicles and fuels across eleven major vehicle markets from January 2013 through August 2014. These eleven vehicle markets—China, the U.S., the European Union, Japan, Brazil, India, Russia, Canada, South Korea, Australia, and Mexico—represented 85% of total vehicle sales in 2013. Click here to access the report and the presser.

Today’s White House blog post documents the revival and resurgence of the American auto industry that was once believed to be on the verge of extinction. The whole story is explained in the following three simple gifs.

Image courtesy: Whitehouse.gov

Image Courtesy: Whitehouse.gov

Image Courtesy: Whitehouse.gov