Want to know what's happening in DC on the reauthorization effort? Here's the TEA-3.org website.
And here's a fun one: how
much space do 40 people take up if they're in cars? or in a bus?
or on bike?
Check the EPA's
Main Street web page for the answer.
The
UT Engineering Library provides a wonderful page of transportation
resources available in the library or on-line. This is the place
to start!
Search
the TRIS database online
to find articles and research reports on all kinds of transportation topics.
The best way there is to find current transportation research!
The
Intermodal
Transportation Data Base provides access to all kinds of data about
transportation.
The
official website for the Transportation
Equity Act of the 21st Century (TEA-21) provides just about everything
you wanted to know about TEA-21. The Fact
Sheets and the Summary
are especially helpful. The Authorization
Table lays out all of the spending for each year by category.
If
you want to access TEA-21 as it appears in the U.S.
Code itself, try this easy to use site.The
U.S. DOT's
Bureau of Transportation Statistics
homepage provides links to a number of useful pages. Several are
listed below:- National Transportation Statistics 2000
-National Transportation Library
-State and Local Information
-Transportation Studies
-Geographic Information Services
-American Travel Survey
-Databases
-Pocket Guide to Transportation (downloadable)
-State and Local Information
-Guide to Data Sources
-Transportation Highlights of G-7 Countries (downloadable report)
-North American Transportation Highlights (downloadable report)
The
Transportation Research Board, a branch of the National Academy of
Sciences, has been encouraging research and innovation in transportation
for 75 years:
- The National Cooperative Highway Research Program
- Publications and bibliographic database
- Bookstore and electronic catalog
- Links to other transportation sites ---- especially to other organizations
The
various research committees of the Transportation Research Board recently
published "Millennium
Papers," discussing key issues for that committee's topic area.
The website of the Transportation
Planning Division of the American Planning Association has information
on publications and useful links.
TransAct
is maintained by the Surface Transportation Project and provides links
to the websites of a wide variety of advocacy groups as well as reports
and information on current transportation issues.
The
Victoria Policy Insitute published a widely-cited study on the full
costs of transportation and promotes efficiency, equity and clarity in
transportation planning. See especially their links
to other transportation resources on topics including sustainability and
equity.
The
Brookings
Institute publishes research reports and policy papers on a variety
of transportation topics.
The
Sustainable
Mobility project is a member project of the World Business Council
for Sustainable Development. This site provides lots of information
on world-wide trends in transportation and promising ideas for enhancing
sustainability in transportation.
The
Texas
Transportation Institute's Urban Mobility Study provides data each
year on growing levels of travel and traffic in metropolitan areas around
the U.S. This study has been used to argue both for the need
for more road building and the futility of more road building. Here's
a story from U.S
News and World Report on congestion trends, with links to other related
sites.
An
article from the L.A. Times about the
shameful secret, that some people actually like comuting!
The
AAA has a quiz you can take to see how you respond to stressful situations
on the road. Are you an aggressive driver? See what the Aggressive
Driving Quiz has
to say.
The
American
Society of Civil Engineers rates the nation's highway infrastructure
a D+ in its 2001 Report Card
for America's Infrastructure.
The
Oakridge
National Laboratory, a branch of the U.S. Department of Energy, provides
a useful page on transportation
statistics, including a link to the annual Transportation
Energy Databook .
Here's
a draft report from the EPA on Future U.S.
Highway Energy Use: A Fifty Year Perspective.
The
Environmental
Protection Agency sets air quality standards and the rules on conformity
for metropolitan areas. These rules affect the kinds of transportation
projects and policies included in Regional Transportation Plans.
See especially these links:
- Plain English Guide to the Clean Air Act
- Office of Transportation and Air Quality
- Lists of nonattainment areas
- List of the NAAQSs
- Information about the status of the proposed new standards, held up by the courts
- EPA's Green Book, listing nonattainment areas and standards by pollutant
- The federal code for EPA's air quality efforts
- Home page for the Office of Air and Radiation
- "Improving Air Quality Through Land Use Activities" - methodologies for quantifying the impacts of infill and brownfield projects on VMT and emissions
- "Recognizing the Air Quality Benefits of Local and State and Land Use Policies and Projects in the Air Quality Planning Process"
The
Federal
Highway Administration (FHWA) also provides information about air quality
issues and they relate to transportation in a bi-monthly newsletter, "Air
Quality Update." See also FHWA's division of Planning,
Environment, and Real Estate Services for more information on a wide
variety of environmental issues.
The
Sierra
Club website contains many links organized under the subheadings: Transportation,
Induced Travel, Bicycling & Walking, Livable Communities, and Land
Use, Sprawl & Conservation:Hear
what the presidential candidates have to say about the federal
role in addressing sprawl.
In
their Driven
to Spend report, the Surface Transportation Policy Project calculated
what households in different metropolitan areas spend each year on transportation
and found a significant correlation between degree of sprawl and spending
levels. The International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives
(ICLEI) has a "commuter
calculator" that calculates what different modes cost you.
More
and more sites address the problem of sprawl and the role of transportation
policies in creating sprawl. For starters, try the Sprawl
Watch Clearinghouse and the Smart
Growth Network . Also try the Brookings Institution's Center
on Urban and Metropolitan Policy.
Here's
an on-line presentation from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte
on "Highway
Investment and Sprawl: Fact versus Fiction"
A
recent study out of USC says that LA is running out of room and is going
to have to find some other way to grow than continuing to sprawl - "Sprawl
Hits the Wall"
The
Planning Commissioner's Journal operates the plannersweb.com
site, with links to their Sprawl
Resource Guide and a report
on nine trends affecting communities.
Executive
Order 12898 of 1994 established federal policy on environmental justice.
FHWA's policies and procedures for complying with Executive Order 12898
are described in "FHWA
Actions to Address Environmental Justice in Minority Populations and Low-Income
Populations," published in 1998. See also Clinton's
memo to agencies about the order and FHWA's overview on environmental
justice.
The
Bus
Riders Union has led the fight for "a first-class, clean-fuel bus-centered
public transportation system in Los Angeles" and won a civil rights consent
decree against the Los Angeles MTA and its policies on rail investments.
Environmental Defense has been working with coalition of interest groups
to promote equity
in the transit system in LA.
The
increase in elderly drivers as the population ages will raise concerns
about safety and the environment, as well as quality of life for the elderly.
See what elderly drivers have to say at speakout.com
Different states have adopted different procedures
for renewing the licenses of elderly drivers.
For
everything you ever wanted to know about highway safety and then some,
go to the National Highway Traffic
Safety Administration, especially their pages on traffic
safety and occupant protection and the National
Center for Statistics and Analysis. See especially theTraffic
Safety Facts 2000 report. In addition, the
Turner-Fairbank
Highway Research Center, a branch of the FHWA, conducts all kinds of
research on safety, including
highway safety and pedestrian/bicycle safety.
The
Insurance
Institute for Highway Safety publishes lots of facts
about automobile safety, including vehicle
ratings and accident rates by vehicle model.
Here's a report on older
drivers that argues that they're more of a risk to themselves than
others.
The
Association
of Metropolitan Planning Organizations (AMPO) describes the role of
MPOs in the transportation planning process and provides links to MPOs
around the country and to useful transportation information. Check
out their "Best
Practices" reports. The University of Denver recently completed
an important study on MPOs, "Metropolitan
Planning Organizations: An Assessment of the Transportation Planning Process.
"
Take
a look at "A Guide to
Metropolitan Transportation Planning Under ISTEA - How the Pieces Fit Together"
for an overview of how planning works under ISTEA. Most of this is
still relevant under TEA-21, with the notable exception of the requirement
for Major Investment Studies; the planning factors have also been redefined.
See also FHWA's "A
Citizen's Guide to Transportatin Decision Making"
See
the US DOT's Fact
Sheet on Metropolitan Planning from the TEA-21 website for the new
TEA-21 planning factors.
The
rules for implementing the planning and environmental provisions of TEA-21
are still being developed by FHWA and FTA. To learn more about
how planning requirements may change, see FHWA's TEA-21
Planning and Environmental Provisions: Options for Discussion.
The
FHWA has developed a Toolbox
for Regional Analysis, including analytical methods for testing the
regional impacts of transportation and land use policies
The
FHWA's Transportation
Conformity Reference Guide is a 453-page resource for state and local
agencies working to integrate transportation and air quality planning .
For more on conformity requirements, see FHWA's various products
relating to conformity.
Public
involvement is one of the most important activities of Metropolitan Planning
Organizations, but most of them are still struggling to develop effective
public involvement programs. Here are several reports which suggest
ways that MPOs can do a better job on public involvement:
- Innovations in Public Involvement for Transportation Planning- Public Involvement Techniques for Transportation Planning
- Improving the Effectiveness of Public Meetings and Hearings
- FHWA/FTA Interim Policy on Public Involvement (from 1994)
- Interest-Based Convening: Toward Participatory Decision Making in Transportation Investment
The
Transportation
Model Improvement Program (TMIP) is an on-going effort funded by the
federal government to develop short and long-term improvements to the traditional
four-step transportation forecasting models. Check out the
TRANSIMS
page - this micro-simulation of transportation, developed at Los Alamos
National Lab, is being pitched as the next generation of transportation
forecasting models.
Here's a site with all kinds of useful references on Learning
More About Travel Models; includes descriptions and reviews of key
textbooks and other references on this topic. See also:
- Manual of Regional Transportation Modeling Practice for Air Quality Analysis
- A Transportation Modeling Primer
- An Introduction to Urban Travel Demand Forecasting: A Self Instructional Text
- Model Validation and Reasonableness Checking Manual
From
Environmental Defense, here's a Critique
of Transportation Planning Board Travel Demand and Air Emissions Models.
A
report
by two University of California researchers found that the traffic
model used to measure the need for the proposed Legacy Highway in Utah
is critically flawed and biased towards building the highway.
The
Environmental
Law and Policy Center promotes "sound transportation" in Illinois and
other midwestern states. See their discussion of the
1997 federal court order requiring further study of the controversial I-355
tollway extension. The decision requires an accurate land use forecast
for the "no-build" scenario, among other things. The ELPC is also
involved in the I-69 battle.
For
more on environmental planning in transportation, check out FHWA's
The
Environmental Guidebook. Under TEA-21 directives, the FHWA is
also putting efforts into "environmental
streamlining" to "reduce transportation project delays while enhancing
and protecting the environment."
Some
of the innovative financing techniques currently being developed and implemented
are described in FHWA's
Innovative Finance Guide. Recent developments are reported in
FHWA's Innovative
Finance Quarterly . See also TxDOT's page for its State
Infrastructure Bank.
For
data on public expenditures in transportation, see the report on Government
Transportation Financial Statistics Fiscal Years 1985-1995.
To
find out more about I-745, the ballot initiate in Washington State that
would require that 90% of all transportation funds, including local taxes
now dedicated to transit, be spent on road building and maintenance, visit
the Transportation Choices
site.
The
California
office of STPP provides information about transportation sales tax
intiatives on the ballot in California counties in November, 2000.
As reported by the Tri-State Transportation
Coalition, New Jersey voters will also decide on a ballot measure regarding
the dedication of state petroluem and auto sales tax to the Transportation
Trust Fund. A new campaign called Transit
Vote has formed to enourage transit riders to vote in upcoming transit
elections.
Here
are some examples of regional transportation plans from around the country:
- Portland Metro's 2020 Regional Transportation Plan; see also their webpage on the update of the TIP
- Here's a critique of Metro's 2020 Regional Transportation Plan
Follow
this link to read a report entitled, "Road
to Ruin: The 50 Most Wasteful Roads in America." Coauthored by Taxpayers
For Common Sense, a nonprofit organization "dedicated to cutting wasteful
government spending, subsidies and tax breaks through research and citizen
education."The
Surface Transportation Policy Project published a companion to the TTI
study on congestion, called "Easing
the Burden," that shows that the metropolitan areast that have invested
the most in roads have seen little impact on congestion.
For
the latest on Light Rail Transit (LRT), check the LRT News, published by
the Transportation Research Board:
- LRT News
- LRT News - Back issues (scroll down to the LRT News and Newsline sections)
- "This is Light Rail" Circular, published July 2001
Read
about the revival
of rail in the U.S., in a series of articles from the Utne Reader.
A survey by the National
Association of Realtors shows that 2/3 of americans are sick of congestion
and would be willing to ride rail.
The American Public Transit Association (APTA)
reports that transit
ridership increased 2.8% between the first quarters of 2000 and 2001.
For
more on land use strategies that support light rail and other forms of
transit, check out the Transit-Focused
Development website.
The
Reason
Foundation argues that buying cars is a better strategy for helping
the poor than investing in transit. See what the have to say in "Cars
as the life raft for the urban poor."
Here's
a site at the University of Washington on Innovative
Transportation Technologies - there are alternatives to light rail!
One option might be Personal Rapid Transit - take a look at this proposal
for PRT in Austin.
Here's
an idea for Cellular Transit for
Austin, which combines the flexibility of a taxi with the efficiency of
a bus system
ITS
America provides an international clearinghouse for research and current
projects in the area of Intelligent Transportation Systems.
California
PATH conducts cutting edge research on advanced transportation systems.
See especially their PATH
Fact Sheets on current demonstration projects, including vehicle platooning
and automated highways.
The
Natural
Resources Defense Council provides a transportation
links page with lots of useful links to sites on alternative fuels
and emerging vehicle technologies consistent with sustainability goals.
Here's
a series of articles from Wired magazine on the March 2002 decision
by congress not to increase fuel efficiency standards.
Here
are some sites on efforts to increase emissions standards for SUVs: a
story by CNN,
a
report from US PIRG, a
story by ABC news, and a
news release from the Automotive Service Association.
The
American
Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy publishes an environmental
guide to cars and trucks. Find out more about Ford Motor Co.'s
commitment to increase the fuel
economy of SUVs by 25%.
A
report from the National Research Council, "Effectiveness
and Impact of Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) Standards," released
in July 2001, argues for increased standards.
The Union of Concerned Scientists weighs in on the proposed
increased in the CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel Efficiency) standards.
The
Office
of Transportation Technology of the Department of Energy oversees the
Partnership
for a New Generation of Vehicles Program, which came out of a 1993
agreement between the federal government and the Big Three automakers to
improve fuel efficiency and emissions performance.
Read
about an air
powered car - runs on compressed air and produces cleaner air than
it starts with. Too good to be true? How about the Veggie
Van, which runs on "biodiesel" fuel made from new and used vegetable
oil - "it's exhaust also smells like french fries"! Here's an ABC
News story about a company selling cooking
oil from Nevada casino's as biodiesel.
Is
the RUF
the
vehicle technology of the future? A Danish idea that combines the
flexibility of the car and the efficiency of the train.
Find
out more about "slug lines," the
east-coast version of "casual carpooling" where drivers let strangers get
into their car for the purposes of qualifying as a carpool and thus taking
advantage of carpool lanes.
To
find out more about the federal Enhancements Program and what it funds,
check out the FHWA
Final Guidance, Transportation Enhancement Activities, 23 U.S.C.
and TEA-21.
Here's
a guide from the American Association of Retired People about how to build
livable
communities for the elderly.
The EPA has a comprehensive website on Smart
Growth.
"The Citizens' Tramsportation Guide to the Austin
Metropolitan Region" provides a
useful overview of how transportation planning works in the Austin region.
The
web page for the Capital Area
Metropolitan Planning Organization (CAMPO)provides meeting schedules
and agendas for the Policy Advisory Committee as well as reports on current
issues and links to traffic count data in the Austin region.
** See the Draft "CAMPO Peer Review Study of Transportation Planning" - an assessment of the quality of the regional transportation planning effort in the Austin region.
The
web page for the Capital Metropolitan
Transit Agency (Capital Metro) provides bus schedules, schedules and
agendas for Board meetings, and information about proposed projects, including
Light Rail Transit.
Check
the webpage of the Clean
Air Force of Central Texas for information about Austin-area air quality
problems and programs.
The
website of the Texas Department of
Transportation provides information on the agency's current highway
studies:
- I-35 Trade Corridor Study
- I-35 Major Investment Study
- SH-130 Major Investment Study
- MoPac Loop 1/US 183 Corridor Study
Learn
more about the Texas
Transportation Commission, the decision-making body for state transportation
planning, programming, and policy. See especially a description of
their Project
Selection Process.
The
Texas Department of Transportation has recently selected projects from
around the state for funding through the
Enhancements Program. (Here's a story from the Austin
Chronicle that talks about Bob Bullock's state cemetary project that
used enhancement funds.)
The
Austin/Travis
County Safe Communities website provides statistics about traffic related
injuries and the causes of traffic accidents in Travis County.
Find out what's going on in the State
Legislature this session.
S. Handy
University of California Davis
Last modified on November 12, 2002