Foursquare Integrated Transportation Planning (Foursquare ITP) is looking for a qualified Transportation Planner or Senior Transportation Planner / Project Manager to contribute to, assist, lead, and/or manage teams on a diverse array of transportation projects for state and local governments, primarily in the Washington DC Metropolitan Region. Resumes are due this Friday, June 29.

Position Description

In addition to work with state and local governments, this position will also be committed half-time to a transportation planning contract with the Washington Headquarters Services (WHS) division of the Department of Defense, providing subject matter expertise in planning and implementing transit and transportation demand management programs at the Pentagon and Mark Center. In addition to the WHS contract this position will potentially contribute to on-going efforts that include heavy rail station environmental analysis, TDM plan development, performance measurement, TIGER grant management, long-range transit analysis and planning, transit development plans, and transit capital and operations planning.

Depending on the level of experience of the selected candidate, the position will be designated as a Transportation Planner or Senior Transportation Planner / Project Manager (STP/PM).

The selected candidate will work as part of a team and will be responsible for research, analysis, report development, field work and meeting participation on a wide variety of transportation projects. The selected candidate will be involved in transit development plans, transportation needs assessments, station area plans, transit route planning, financial planning, and transit performance monitoring. The position will require research and data analysis utilizing a variety of sources, including transit ridership data, survey data, and existing plan information. It will require excellent communication skills, both written and oral.

If the selected candidate is a STP/PM, he or she will serve in two capacities depending on the project. As a project manager, the STP/PM will lead project teams of transportation planners to deliver high quality solutions to Foursquare ITP’s clients in a timely manner, within the scope and budget of the assignment. In addition to leading project teams, the STP/PM will conduct some of the work involved in the assignments as well as overseeing the quality of the work of the rest of the project team. The STP/PM will be responsible for the client relationship as well as the coordination with any prime consultants or sub-consultants with whom the project is being executed

In some cases, the PM/STP will serve in a senior transportation planner role, where he/she will accomplish project assignments under the direction of another PM. In this position the candidate will also be expected to contribute to business development including proposal writing and presentations.

Experience

5-15 years of relevant experience with a Masters in transportation planning, urban planning, or similar substitutable for some of those years. Topical area expertise in transit planning; transit program implementation; corridor-level multimodal planning; regional transportation planning; transit development plans; short and long-range transportation plans; transportation demand management (TDM); Environmental Impact Statements/Environmental Assessments; Land Use and Economic Development; and Strategic Planning. A strong working knowledge of the Washington Metropolitan area is required.

About Foursquare ITP

Foursquare Integrated Transportation Planning is a transportation planning, design and policy analysis firm based in Rockville, Maryland. As a small firm, we are able to give our clients the personalized attention that they seek and deserve. Foursquare ITP focuses on projects that relate to sustainable transportation, primarily in the area of public transit. We offer our clients expertise in regional transportation planning and coordination, public transit planning, strategic planning, and transportation demand management. More information is available at www.foursquareitp.com

Foursquare ITP is a small, growing business and the successful applicant must be a motivated self-starter who is passionate about transportation planning, transit, and transportation demand management. He or she must also be flexible to meet client demands and a dynamic workflow. All qualified applicants must live in or be willing to move to the Washington DC metropolitan area, and must be available for work starting no later than August 6. Due to a rapid ramp up on the work for WHS, resumes will only be accepted through this Friday June 29.

Please send resumes or questions about the position to Lora Byala at lbyala@foursquareitp.com.

Source: The Economist

Car-sharing programs have been gaining a lot of popularity and building up momentum over the years, especially in urban environments such as Washington, DC, NYC, etc.  The Economist has done a good coverage of the growing trend and here are some of the interesting nuggets that caught my attention:

• One rental car can take the place of 15 owned vehicles
• By 2016 the market will be worth $6 billion a year, half of that in America, with a total of some 10m users
• Zipcar already has 400,000 members, mostly in America where it is thought to have 80% of the market.
• A car owner doing 12,000 miles (19,000km) a year can save $1,834 by shifting to a car-sharing service

Car-sharing started in Europe and spread to America in the late 1990s, when the first venture opened in Portland, Oregon, a traditional hangout of tree-huggers. For years it was organised by small co-operatives, often supported by local government. It still has a green tinge. One in five new cars added to club fleets is electric; such cars are good for short-range, urban use. But sharing is no longer small.

Frost & Sullivan, a market-research firm, estimates that by 2016 the market will be worth $6 billion a year, half of that in America, with a total of some 10m users. Outside America, most of the growth is in Britain and other north European countries such as Germany. The market leader is a company called Zipcar, founded in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which is now headed for a public listing. Zipcar already has 400,000 members, mostly in America where it is thought to have 80% of the market. It recently bought Streetcar, the market leader in London, though competition authorities are still scrutinising that deal.

The sharing trend is now seeping into another prominent area of transportation – the bicycles.  Many cities around the world, including London and Washington, DC,  are beginning to install innovative bike-sharing programs that offer a great advantage for those who prefer to check the city by biking than by driving.   Looks like the “sharing” trend is only going to intensity in the years ahead given the state of our poor economies and shrinking wallets! the societal, ecological and environmental benefits resulting from such sharing schemes are definitely a big plus for many more cities to consider implementing such schemes for car as well as bikes.   After all didn’t we  already know the saying  “Sharing is Caring”.

Click here to read the entire article.

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• Car-sharing: Wheels when you need them (economist.com)
• Zipcar to launch car-sharing service for under-21 drivers (green.autoblog.com)
• Zipcar IPO Update: Lawsuit Dismissed, Streetcar Still on Hold (earth2tech.com)
• Streetcar Acquisition Referred to Competition Commission (prnewswire.com)
• Zipcar Expands Harvard Cars Sharing Program (abcnews.go.com)
• Car-sharing becomes big business (theglobeandmail.com)
• City working to make car-sharing more popular (sfgate.com)

The Research and Innovative Technology Administration (RITA) seeks a Transportation Industry Analyst to join our team.  RITA coordinates the U.S. Department of Transportation‘s (DOT) research programs and is charged with advancing rigorous analysis and the deployment of cross-cutting technologies to improve our Nation’s transportation system.

This position is located within the Bureau of Transportation Statistics’ (BTS), Office of Airline Information which collects on-time performance, financial, and operational data from the airline industry.

BTS is responsible for leading the development of high quality transportation data and information.  As a federal statistical agency, BTS provides an objective source of statistical analysis for decision making at all levels.

RITA is looking for a motivated, self-reliant, dynamic professional who can apply their expertise in the collection, analysis, and dissemination of airline statistics. This includes managing large scale datasets, generating analysis, and applying the latest information technology to meet the Nation’s need for relevant, accurate, and timely airline statistics.

If you know someone interested this Washington, D.C. based position with relevant experience and proven results please encourage them to apply under the attached vacancy announcements.  We are looking for a diverse pool of qualified candidates.

The vacancy announcements can be found on:

http://jobview.usajobs.gov/GetJob.aspx?JobID=89882174 – All Sources

http://jobview.usajobs.gov/GetJob.aspx?JobID=89882141 – Merit Promotion

Open period:  Monday August 9, 2010 to Tuesday, August 24^th, 2010.

(Source: via the DC Department of Transportation Tweet)

As part of Mayor Adrian M. Fenty’s ongoing efforts to advance arts in the District of Columbia, the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities (DCCAH) selected tattoo artist Steed Taylor to paint a road tattoo entitled “Daughters and Sons Knot”. Mr. Taylor’s design highlights Washington DC’s relationship with war and loss by honoring metropolitan area soldiers recently killed while serving their country. The names of those soldiers’ children will be incorporated in the design. The design is a complex Celtic Knot with 6 loops, a symbolic number for harmony and alluding to the interdependence within a community as well as a family. The road tattoo is approximately 60 feet wide and 300 feet long and made with the help of local volunteers and neighbors.

Installation Begins Saturday July 24 through Sunday July 25 from 7AM – 7PM each day. A dedication ceremony will be held Sunday at 1pm after which the design’s outline will be painted by the community.

A road tattoo? If roads are considered the skin of a community, then a road has a similar relationship to the public body as skin does to the individual body, allowing roads to be marked as people mark their skin for commemoration, communication or ritual. View an example of how a road tattoo is created.  Gallery plan b is coordinating the installation with Mr. Taylor. Images and additional information can be found on their website.

VOLUNTEERS NEEDED TO HELP PAINT! Help make an incredibly meaningful public artwork for our city and be a part of DC history! For questions or more information e-mail Gallery Plan b, 202-234-2711, or Steed Taylor.

Note: The project will require traffic and parking restrictions along the 800 block of Vermont Avenue, NW, from Friday after rush hour to Sunday evening. Participants are encouraged to arrive via Metro (The McPherson Metro Station-Vermont Avenue exit). Limited on-street parking is nearby.

Yesterday (June 15, 2010), I had the chance to attend “Online Engagement for Sustainable Urban Mobility”, a panel discussion and roundtable organized by EMBARQ, the sustainable transportation arm of the World Resources Institute, at its headquarters in Washington, D.C. Part of a week-long citywide festival focused on technology and innovation, the event brought together citizen activists and representatives from government agencies and non-profits to discuss open data, online citizen engagement and collaboration – while looking at the nation’s capital as a case study.  The agenda, as seen on the invitation

How urban transportation can be made more sustainable through:

• Open Data
• Blogging and Citizen Journalism
• Government Transparency and Civic Engagement
• Citizen Collaboration

This was a great forum to share/listen best practices, lessons learned, failure stories and ideas of how to put theory into practice, as it relates to the following over-arching questions: What online tools exist in the D.C. area to make transportation more efficient, user-friendly and sustainable? What are some examples of Web-based innovation and collaboration in the D.C. transport sector? How can government, technology and civil society work together to improve the way we move around – by foot, by car, by bike, and by transit – in the nation’s capital?

The awesome panel consisted of the following individuals:

Moderator: Christian Madera (Columnist, Next American City)
Host: Erica Schlaikjer (Online Engagement Coordinator, EMBARQ)

Panelists:

• Bryan Sivak (Chief Technology Officer, District of Columbia)
• Lance Schine (Chief Information Officer, District Department of Transportation)
• David Alpert (Blogger, Greater Greater Washington)
• Justin Jouvenal (Web Editor, Postlocal.com)
• Nick Grossman (Director of Civic Works, OpenPlans)

Roundtable Discussion Leaders:

• Eric Gundersen (Development Seed)
• Harriet Tregoning (Office of Planning)
• Nat Bottigheimer (WMATA)
• Dan Silverman (Prince of Petworth)
• Zvi Band (FixMyCity DC)
• Philip Ashlock (OpenPlans)

Here are some  interesting observations worth sharing, courtesy of Moderator Christian Madera and fellow participant Kara Hadge, contributing author of New America Foundation’s Sustaining Democracy in a Digital Age blog,  who sat right next to me and offered great input to our discussion group.  For a detailed recap/summary, I seriously recommend you to check out Christian column on Next American City and Kara’s blog post titled Wired Cities .

• While the local city government has been at the forefront of releasing its municipal data for the public and developers to utilize, most of the region’s transportation falls under the jurisdiction of WMATA, the regional transit agency.
• DDOT is involved is now sharing an API for real-time location data for the city’s small fleet of circulator buses, and embarking on the use of QR codes on buses and shelters to assist both passengers and transit managers
• DC Circulator will shortly be launching an Open Data Challenge for developers, featuring three categories: Public Apps (Web and/or Mobile;), Visualization (currently there is no dashboard to monitor what’s happening on all lines), and an unknown internal app to be used by WMATA/DDOT.
• DC Capital Bikeshare #CaBi website  http://capital-bikeshare.appspot.com/ is expected to be launched soon
• DDOT is looking to add (someday) these MIT conceived futurisitic looking, networked, read again – networked, bus stops called Eyestop

In all, it was a great experience meeting and listing to some of the best minds in business about the use of social media tools and emerging opensource efforts in transportation.  Thanks to EMBARQ and the Digital Capital Week community for putting together this event.  I’ll certainly keep you informed of  other resources/products resulting from this event as they become available.