March 15, 2013 - Issue 10
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Greetings!
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Mobility Lab has three major tenets as foundations to our work: Research, Communication, and Collaboration. Through our collaborative endeavors, we realize great things are possible when working with good partners to share knowledge, labor, and creativity. For example, we love to collaborate on public events and programs. As you can see by reading this week's Express or perusing our website at MobilityLab.org, we have a lot of exciting collaborative events on the horizon.
In just the next month, we are presenting three events that are now open to registration. A keynote speech by acclaimed Walkable City author Jeff Speck (4/18), a symposium about providing transportation options for senior citizens (4/11), and one of our regular technology hack days focusing on open-data map visualizations (3/23). Check your calendar, hopefully you can join us at one or more of these events!
Cool stuff, so please, read on and consider ways that we might collaborate with you!
Paul Mackie, Mobility Lab Director of Communications
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Quick Links |
Hot Stat
Trips in 2012 on U.S. subways, commuter trains, light rail, trolleys, and buses beat the previous year by 1.5% - or about 154.3 million rides. That despite damage from one of the worst East Coast storms in decades (Sandy) that shut down some of America's largest transit systems. - American Public Transportation Association
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Mobility Lab Presents Author Jeff Speck
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Arlington County, Virginia is Booming,
And Traffic Remains at 1970s Levels
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Arlington's population and employment have jumped nearly 40 percent over the past 30 years. Meanwhile, traffic on major roads has increased at a much lower rate or even declined.
According to our latest research, most executives and business managers based in Arlington don't think the county will meet its goal of capping rush-hour traffic at 2005 levels over the next two decades. Of course, first these leaders had to learn that Arlington County even has this target. Only 11 percent surveyed knew that the county actually intends to keep rush-hour trips and rush-hour vehicle-miles-traveled (VMT) at or below 5 percent growth of their respective 2005 levels by 2030.
Once business leaders heard about the cap, a majority (61 percent) agreed that keeping traffic near 2005 levels is important to achieve. Arlington joins a select group of localities with such ambitious goals. San Jose, California, California, for one, wants to reduce the VMT within its borders by 40 percent from its 2009 level by 2040.
Read the full story and the Business Leaders Study here.
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Sign Up Now for Data Visualization Hack Day on March 23
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Open data gives us the power to better understand the world we live in. But how do we turn that data into a useful tool? We have created bikeshare maps for Washington D.C., Boston, the Twin Cities, and Montreal so far.
Mobility Lab's next Hack Day aims to turn mobility-related data into useful content. Our focus will be on visualizing data in the D.C. region, so if you're in the area, please register here.
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Register Now:
Transportation Solutions for Aging in Auto-centric America
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During the next 20 years, Baby Boomers will double the ranks of Americans age 65 and older from 35 million to more than 70 million. The realities of aging and the inevitable decreasing ability to drive a car - coupled with our automobile-centric transportation system in America - will challenge the ease of mobility that Boomers have come to know and expect. Today's growing senior population needs transportation solutions that work for them!
Local nonprofit groups are increasingly providing volunteer-based senior transportation, yet there is too little coordination to take advantage of the strengths of different service providers, compensate for their limitations, and attain greater efficiencies. Collaborative planning and coordination among transportation service providers is critical, so that the burgeoning population of older adults can be served economically and effectively. Mobility Lab's symposium will strengthen the vision to fill this vital need.
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London Shows That Every City Could Use an Olympics
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"War Against D.C. Drivers" is Much Ado About Nothing
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A recent headline in Washington D.C.'s Examiner newspaper raged, "D.C. Waging War Against Drivers." The article's content was, in the end, to paraphrase Shakespeare, much ado about nothing.
It is true that urban-design philosophies currently favor walkable places over those designed around the automobile.
But the move towards walkability is not an agenda being pushed by policy makers down the throats of an unwilling populace, as the Examiner seems to suggest, but is in fact a response to market demand. Chris Leinberger of the George Washington University School of Business has described in his report The WalkUP Wake-Up Call that consumer demand for walkability was a trend that began 20 years ago, and is only gaining momentum today.
Given this free market-based lens through which to view our region, the District's initiatives can be viewed as good for the environment, public health, and even housing affordability. They can also be viewed as an attempt to give the market what it demands: more livable, walkable neighborhoods that are not simply designed as places to drive through.
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Mobility Lab's Partner Spotlight |
John Martin, director of both the Southeastern Institute of Research (SIR) and the Boomer Project, will speak at Mobility Lab's upcoming symposium, Transportation Solutions for Aging in Auto-centric America.
And we're honored to have John because he has partnered with Mobility Lab and Arlington County Commuter Services (ACCS) for years to perform some of the best available research on mobility management. Founded 48 years ago, SIR follows the vision that "marketing research must be actionable! It should not be academic or theoretical."
SIR helps build and strengthen ACCS's research, performing studies and taking surveys on issues ranging from bikeshare ridership to Arlingtonians' perceptions of their public-transportation systems. Through SIR's detailed analyses, Mobility Lab is able to better communicate the full impact of the county government's vision and commitment towards advancing a more balanced transportation system. In addition, SIR's research helps quantify the impact of Arlington County's mobility options. In 2012, the county's programs removed 45,000 cars from the roads in Arlington each work day.
The Boomer Project is another avenue of John Martin's and SIR's expertise. It has helped Walmart, Lowe's Home Improvement, General Mills, Hershey's, Verizon and even Google better understand the opportunities with Boomers now and in the future as they ultimately double the number of seniors in America.
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Please Send Us Your Feedback
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We hope Mobility Lab Express, our events, and the research and case studies at our website will be go-to resources for you. In fact, we invite you to share your stories of how mobility improvements have been made in your communities. We'll publish your feedback, and together we'll strengthen the conversation on mobility for all!
Simply respond to this email or click here with any thoughts or suggestions.
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