VIDEO: Jeff Speck's visit to Charlottesville

City of Charlottesville:

“City planner and urban designer Jeff Speck is a leading expert on how communities around the country can become more livable, walkable and economically viable.  Speck was the featured speaker at Charlottesville Tomorrow's 2014 Community Conversation held at the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center on Sept. 4.

About 210 people attended the event last Thursday including a large contingent of faculty and students from the University of Virginia School of Architecture.”

~Writes Brian Wheeler of Charlottesville Tomorrow

Click here to view a video of this talk

Save the Date - Arlington Bike/Ped Visit

Arlington County:

“TMPD has partnered with CO Location and Design to coordinate an exciting trip to Arlington County to experience innovative bicycle and pedestrian treatments.  The field visit will be held on Tuesday October 28th.

I would like to invite you (and/or your co-workers or staff) to join us for this educational trip, where you will see firsthand how some of their work implementing bicycle and pedestrian treatments on projects.  The meeting will start early in the morning and adjourn after 3pm, so plan on setting aside the entire day.  More details will be provided once you RSVP.

Arlington County has agreed to show us how they have implemented:

 •         Bicycle parking

•         Bicycle Fit-it stations

•         Curb extensions

•         Bicycle lanes

•         Road diets

•         Buffered bike lanes

•         Widened sidewalks and street furniture as a part of development projects

•         Use of green paint in bicycle lanes in conflict points

•         Capital Bikeshare

•         A continuous 24/7 count program for bicycles and pedestrians

This trip will be an educational experience geared towards VDOT and local government designers and planners. It will showcase design treatments and approaches discussed in the DRPT Multimodal Design Standards, the NACTO Urban Bike Design Guide and the NACTO Urban Street Design Guide. This is a timely opportunity to learn about these treatments and approaches.  If a picture is worth a 1000 words, then a site visit is that much better.

To RVSP for this event please sign up using the Google form, here… Sign up early to confirm your space, as VDOT may have to restrict attendance depending on the response. ”

~John Bolecek, VDOT

VDOT is Conducting a Statewide Transportation Survey

VDOT:

“VDOT has released a statewide transportation survey that will help shape the next Statewide Multimodal Transportation Plan, VTrans2040.  VTrans2040 represents a transportation vision for the future, and includes guiding principles that will influence transportation investment decisions. VDOT is seeking input from all types of travelers in the state.

The Survey is available at https://www.research.net/s/vtrans, and more information about VTrans can be found at www.vtrans.org. There will be three random drawings for survey participants, with winners receiving a $100 gift card.”

~TJPDC

Introduction to VDOT's TOATG v1.1

VDOT Event:

“BACKGROUND

The Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT), in an effort to improve the overall quality and consistency of traffic operational analysis undertook development of the Traffic Operations Analysis Tool Guidebook (TOATG) v 1.1. This document was the result of a 16 month collaborative effort between VDOT, the FHWA and the Virginia Center for Transportation Innovation and Research. This is the first in a series of four webinars detailing VDOT's TOATG v1.1. The remaining webinars are tentatively scheduled for the first Tuesday of each month beginning in September between 1:30 and 3:30 PM EST.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES for Webinar #1 Introduction to TOATG v1.1 - Overview and Project Scoping include:

1). Understand why the TOATG was developed

2). Become familiar with the material covered in the TOATG

3). Understand how the TOATG can be used in a scoping meeting

4). Understand how the TOATG relates to other VDOT documents that impact traffic analysis

TARGET AUDIENCE

The audience for this webinar includes project managers, engineers and traffic modeling staff in both the public and private sector whose responsibilities include VDOT project management and oversight as they relate to navigating the intricacies of operational level analyses including appropriate analysis tool selection, standard tool assumptions & requirements and acceptable VDOT output formats.

You are receiving this invitation as your name was included in one or more of VDOT’s training lists associated with project management and/or traffic engineering analysis.

Webinar size is limited to the first 200 invitees who register. For additional information, please email Mark Richards, Senior Traffic Engineer, at Mark.Richards@VDOT.Virginia.gov.”

~VDOT

Click here to learn more

To register, click here

House passed HR 5021, the Highway and Transportation Funding Act

National News:

“Today, the House passed HR 5021, the Highway and Transportation Funding Act of 2014 by a vote of 367 Yeas to 55 Nays.  HR 5021 extends through May 31, 2015, expenditure authority for the Highway Trust Fund (HTF), as well as, the authorization for MAP-21 programs.  The bill provides almost $11 billion dollars, transferred from the general fund and the LUST Fund, to pay for the extension.   Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR), a member of the Ways and Means Committee, offered a motion to recommit the bill to the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee and change the duration of the extension to the end of December, in order to keep the pressure on Congress to do a long-term bill in lame duck session after the elections in November.  The motion to recommit the bill failed by a vote of 193 Yeas to 227 Nays and was not adopted.

The President issued a statement in support of HR 5021, but maintained his commitment to working with Congress to passing a long-term bill.

The Senate Finance Committee approved a bill that also provides roughly $11 billion to extend the expenditure authority of the HTF.  However, Senator Boxer, Chairman of the Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee, would prefer that MAP-21 programs expire mid-December to maintain pressure on Congress to pass a long-term surface transportation bill.  The EPW Committee reported a six-year bill early this year.

The Senate has several legislative options, now that the House has passed an extension.  It could simply pass the House bill and send it to the President, or it could take up the House bill and strike the language, and replace it with some version of a Senate bill and send it back to the House.  Given the strong vote in the House for HR 5021, there will be great pressure on the Senate to send the House bill to the President.  However, nothing is easy in the Senate, so stay tuned.”

~American Association of Metropolitan Planning Organizations

Click here for aMPO’s website

2014 Bicycle Friendliness by State

League of American Bicyclists:

The League of American Bicyclists released their 2014 rankings for bikeability. Virginia dropped two spaces from last year’s rankings and is now listed as 18^th. “Every year, the League ranks all 50 states on their bikeability.  We do this based on a mutli-faceted Bicycle Friendly State℠ questionnaire that is answered by each state’s Bicycle Coordinator. We look at five categories: Legislation & Enforcement, Policies & Programs, Infrastructure & Funding, Education & Encouragement, and Evaluation & Planning.”

~ League of American Bicyclists

Click here to check out the rankings

Commonwealth Transportation Board calls for more project oversight after Route 460 problems

VDOT:

“The Commonwealth Transportation Board on Wednesday unanimously approved a resolution calling for better oversight, transparency and risk assessment on public-private partnership transportation projects in the state. Secretary of Transportation Aubrey Layne proposed the resolution as a way to prevent a repeat of problems associated with the troubled $1.5 billion Route 460 project.

The resolution directs the Office of Transportation Public-Private Partnerships and the Virginia Department of Transportation to review all processes, policies and guidelines used to solicit, negotiate and implement such partnerships, called P3s and to more directly involve the CTB in the process.”

~Writes Cathy Grimes of the Daily Press

Click here to read this column