The dependence on a car for making a decent living in the United States is quite pronounced, particularly in the poor neighborhoods of the United States.

NPR’s recent “Guilty and Charged” investigation shows how rising court fines and fees — often reaching hundreds or even thousands of dollars per person — often hurt poor people the most. “Two out of three African-American men in this neighborhood, of working age, don’t have a driver’s license,” he says while walking down Martin Luther King Avenue in Milwaukee. “And are consequently unable to access the jobs that are beyond the bus lines.”

Not sure where to begin.  Years of bad landuse and legal policies have created a system that is not equal to all.  In a nutshell, if you don’t have a driving license, you’ll be relegated to looking for jobs only accessible by a bus/transit system (or if you are lucky, you may find something within walkable distance from your neighborhood). Even these transit accessible jobs become more difficult to sustain for these residents when the transit funding runs into trouble, leading to service & route cuts. Until we fix this mess, we can’t expect social upward mobility for many of the poor citizens of the US. Listen to the audio below or you can click here to read the article.

Via City Fix Blog

Photo by mariordo59

The World Bank and EMBARQ Mexico – in collaboration with TransMilenio S.A. – will host the third annual “Building Leaders in Urban Transport Planning” course, which provides tools for systematic integrated mobility planning, corridor management, public transport planning evaluation alternatives, governance, finance, and public-private partnerships – all of which are key issues facing Latin American cities and cities worldwide. The course will use a hands-on learning approach, making extensive use of case studies, group exercises, and site visits – all aimed at highlighting linkages between the various components of the urban transport system. The deadline to apply to the course is January 9, 2015.

The event is part of the World Bank’s “Leadership in Urban Transport Planning” (LUTP) capacity building series, which develops leadership, awareness, and implementation strategies for urban integrated mobility planning. It is designed specifically for senior level decision makers at the national, provincial or city level – those who have a responsibility for urban transport at the policy making level, rather than a purely technical level. Academics, consultants, and other members of civil society are also encouraged to apply.

The Building Leaders in Urban Transport Planning course will consist of two parts. The period from January 19 to February 21, 2015, will be devoted to self-study, covering topics in land use and transport planning, and incorporating the environmental and social issues of urban transport planning. Participants will then partake in a seven-day hands-on workshop from February 22 to February 28 in Bogotá, Colombia – a city with a track record of leadership in sustainable urban transportand development. Following the workshop, participants will also have the option to partake in a six-month mentoring program to provide advice and guidance as participants work on city-level projects.

In addition to other special guests, #LUTPColombia 2015 will have the following distinguished faculty:

• Thierry Denis Desclos, Urban Transport Specialist, World Bank
• Ivan Jaques, Head of Energy Efficient Cities Initiative, ESMAP
• Arturo Ardila, Urban Transport Specialist, World Bank
• Dario Hidalgo, Director of Research and Practice, EMBARQ
• Adriana Lobo, Director of EMBARQ México
• Fernando Páez, Transport Director, EMBARQ México

Learn more about the event and apply here.

The event will be conducted in Spanish, and is organized with support from the Public Private Infrastructure Advisory Facility (PPIAF) and the Energy Sector Management Assistance Program (ESMAP). Follow updates on the proceedings on social media from @EMBARQMX and#LUTPColombia. 

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Here is a quick summary of  the what, why, who and when:

During April 24th-26th, I was in Chattanooga, Tennessee attending the 5th Annual Vanguard Conference, an experiential urban leadership gathering of 40 of the best and brightest urban leaders under 40, hosted by the national non-profit media organization Next City.  Mind you, I’m probably the least accomplished of this excellent group of 40 promising leaders, all of them working to improve cities across sectors, including urban planning, community development, entrepreneurship, government, transportation, sustainability, design, art and media. We convened in Chattanooga for a three-day series of presentations, workshops and neighborhood tours. The Vanguard conference will culminate in the Chattanooga Challenge, an ideas competition sponsored by the Footprint Foundation and designed to jump-start civic local innovation through a $10,000 grant for the winning proposal.

Here are a handful of observations from this conference:

• In a nutshell, it was a life altering experience. I got to learn so many issues associated with urban development, such as housing and economic issues, while further understanding the linkages and the crucial role of transportation systems in building a better urban environment.

Image Courtesy: metrojacksonville,com

• Met some of the best and brightest in the country and was in awe from the time I arrived till I left the city (even now I’m in awe of how much knowledge was exchanged and free flowing in that setting).

Image Courtesy: metrojacksonville.com

• When you adopt an unconference format, discussions flow freely and people are at ease to share their ideas. Moral of the story: do not host events featuring powerpoint presentations.  The conversations were engaging, stimulating and at times downright wild (particularly those conversations over the beers and coffees were excellent).

Image Courtesy: Metrojacksonville.com

Image Courtesy: metrojacksonville.com. A lot of beverages consumed and tons of knowledge exchanged.

image courtesy: metrojacksonville.com. Did I tell you it was wild and fun?

Image courtesy: metrojacksonville.com. Opening night party on the premises of the Aquarium building.

• People in the government at local levels work together and even when they work together to solve problems they are constrained by institutional biases and money shortfall.  The city owns a strategic piece of digital infrastructure – Chattanooga offers the fastest Internet connections in America through the city-owned fiber-optic network.
• City of Chattanooga is a great place and certain parts of it, like in most urban areas, has bad things going on.   As part of the Vanguard Conference’s Chattanooga Challenge, we were all divided into four groups and sent to explore different corners of the the city (East, West, North and South) by foot, bikes and transit.  I was part of the walking tour (Team West) that hit the West side and got to see up close the economic disparities that exist on either side of a major elevated highway (U.S. 27) that literally bifurcates the communities more details on the West Side tour in a different bullet below).

Image Courtesy: metrojacksonville.com. Team West, posing for a picture, moment before announced as Winners of the $10k Chattanooga Challenge.

• City of Chattanooga has a great bikeshare system, fantastic aquarium and an excellent set of touristy things like the historic Chattanooga Choo Choo Hotel (pictured below), great restaurants and watering holes across the town.

Image Courtesy: Metrojacksonville.com. Click image to see an entire set of image from a fellow Vanguard, Ennis Davis at Metro Jacksonville

• The city’s low-income residents, particularly those in the West side neighborhoods such as College Hill courts, are somewhat caught in a bad situation. These communities, slated for redevelopment within a decade or so, live quite close to the economic heart of the city. But they do not have a meaningful direct access where they can walk to their jobs and they are cut off by a major thorough fare. This has resulted in poverty and the usual accompaniments of crime and lack of education.  I was part of the Team West in the Chattanooga Challenge that visited these communities and pitched a strong proposal to connect the divided communities.  Our team, bolstered by three strong local young leaders, gained very illuminating insights that helped  us understand the situation at hand.  We suggested that the City of Chattanooga offer free Wi-Fi service to a public housing community on the city’s west side and develop a new pathway to connect the city’s downtown to the highway-marooned neighborhood.  I’m borrowing the narrative from Next City to explain how this is laid out: Right now, area residents, (shown in image below total population of 2481 with a median income of $9277) many of whom are children and downtown workers commuting from public housing developments to school or jobs in other parts of the city, must trek by foot on a dirt path and across highway ramps to reach the city’s center. Where the path enters their neighborhood, residents must pass through a hole in a chain-link fence.  Our teammate Marlon Brown, a city councilman from Mason, Michigan put it succinctly “the neighborhood is physically divided from the downtown at the same time as it is digitally divided from opportunities there. You have to remember, a city is only as strong as its least connected neighborhood. ” These next two images below came from our teammate John Bilderback, who quickly generated them to show how this community  is strategically located and yet remains far removed from better opportunities. What’s better – our winning idea will get a $10,000 boost from the local Footprint Foundation and the City will get to implement the proposal. And the local newspaper did an excellent article covering our winning proposal.  Yay!

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  Image Courtesy: John Builderback. Picture1 – Westside – Where the Resources are.

•  Last but not least I got to ride a bicycle after almost 15 years.  I am a regular transit user living in Washington, DC metropolitan area, where we are blessed with better transportation alternatives and a fantatistic world-class bikesharing system.  But I never had a reason to ride a bike because of my living and commuting options. Thanks to Chatanooga and my fellow Vanguards, I got to commandeer a bicycle one afternoon. It was a lot of fun and I reached my destination without embarrassing myself and an exciting story to tell (yeah, our group got yelled at by an older gentleman in a pickup for occupying a full lane on a main thoroughfare).  Sadly, despite the presence of a bikeshare system in the city, the number of bicyclists on the city streets were relatively low.

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  Image courtesy: http://photos.metrojacksonville.com/. Click image to see an entire set of image from a fellow Vanguard, Ennis Davis at Metro Jacksonville

Image Courtesy: Metrojacksonville.com