APA Transportation Planning Division

 

 

 

 

M  I  N  U  T  E  S

of the

B U S I N E S S   M E E T I N G  at  TRB

 

 

January 9, 2006

Washington Hilton, Caucus Room

25 in attendance (see below)

 

 

 

Chair Whit Blanton opened the meeting at 5:40pm, welcoming attendees and leading a round of introductions.

 

  1. Whit explained that an election of new officers is underway under the direction of Sara Forelle and Noel Comeaux. Email ballots will go out soon. Paper ballots will be mailed to those members without email addresses or whose email bounces. Elected candidates will take office at National in March.

 

  1. Ruth Steiner hopes to get 15+ submissions for student paper awards – both undergraduate and graduate. The deadline is Feb. 7th. Ruth plans to use the same panel of judges from last year’s competition, but asked for volunteers to help review submissions if more papers are received. Contact her at rsteiner@ufl.edu. $1000 is budgeted, with a $600 award for the best graduate paper, and $400 for the best undergraduate. Later discussion led to a decision to budget an additional $200 for Honorable Mentions. The desirability of outreach to minority students was mentioned.

 

  1. Whit described the emerging Airports-in-the-Region and passed out a communication from chair Dan Wong. The Committee is a group of 20-40 interested members. Whit coordinates Airports-in-the-Region activities with the Divisions Council. Larry Fabian has scoped out issues and recommended desirable areas for research. Whit hopes to do a survey of best practices, led by the Airports Committee. $1000 is in the 2005 budget is to kick-start the process. Articles are to be produced for the TPD newsletter.

 

  1. There was a handout and extensive discussion of APA’s Education Initiative aimed at strengthening APA’s mission as a professional development organization, and improving communications about what planning is and what planners do.   APA is focusing on two “supertopics” every two years; current topics include “safe growth” and “housing choice and affordability.” Whit asked for feedback on how the division would like to support APA’s efforts. Doubts about the meaning of “safe growth” were aired. A survey of practitioners’ educational needs and experiences was suggested, but consensus emerged that this requires focused discussion of an expert core group. Linda Howe-Steiger, Lucie Ayer and David Kuehn from FHWA volunteered to help work on this with Whit. It was clear from the discussion that “practitioner-focused” education should be the priority.

 

  1. The 2005 Work Program was distributed, discussed and approved as amended. A membership growth goal was adopted, with the slogan “2,006 in 2006.” As amendment to the draft Budget, it was approved that the stipend for the newsletter editor be increased from $1000 to $1100 per issue. See also (2) above.

 

  1. There was impassioned discussion of the FHWA’s Transportation Planning Excellence Awards. Don Steiger’s pro bono contributions were recognized. He recommended the TPD and APA to get ready for the next round by establishing a task force to determine how it will approach the process in the future.

 

  1. Bill Klein of APA gave an overview of a tribal transportation research project awarded by TRB to APA, and solicited ideas for contacts. There is no transportation planner on APA’s research staff, which Klein hopes to remedy in the future. In the meantime, he said that TPD can be a great service. Interest in the research project can be communicated to Stuart Meck at smeck@planning.org.

 

  1. Whit described the two TPD sessions for National in March dealing with Bus Rapid Transit and District Parking Management. He also mentioned there is a large number of local host committee sessions dealing with transportation.

 

  1. Larry Fabian explained that TPD has three very qualified candidates for website management. A set of performance objectives and decision are expected soon.

 

  1.  Whit explained newsletter editor Ruth Fitzgerald’s communication that TPD published four issues last year, and that henceforth distribution will be electronic. Ruth seeks feedback and recommendations of potential author-contributors. A desire for news from MPOs (direct or via AMPO) and from state DOTs was expressed.

 

  1.  A quick report on Congressional TEA-21 reauthorization was given by Jason Jordan, of APA’s Government Affairs.

 

The meeting was adjourned at 7:50pm.

 

 

 

In Attendance

 

L. Ayer                                   Hillsborough County (Tampa) MPO

T. Ashby                                                Mid-America Regional Council

W. Blanton                              TPD Chair

E. Brighton                              Maglev IG

M. Burger                               Cabitaxi

O. Elrahman                            NYSDOT

J. Evans                                   JEC

L. Fabian                                 Treasurer

D. Frey                                   EWU

J. Fuller                                   U of Iowa

L. Howe-Steiger                      UC Berkeley

R. Jammel                               UMass

J. Jordan                                  APA

B. Klein                                   APA

R. Klein                                   Montgomery Co. PWT

D. Kuehn                                                FHWA

N. Marshall                             Smart Mobility

D. Moreno                              Alaska TTAP

R. Roland                                EWU

R. Schiffer                               Cambridge Systematics

L. Schoenecker                        Intergovernmental Affairs Division

D. Steiger

R. Steiner                                                University of Florida

D. Vomacka                            CH2M Hill