Last month, I had the pleasure of attending a 3 day romp in Jacksonville and while the weather was a little soggy, the experience was great. The conference called, “ITS 5C” included 5 state chapters from Intelligent Transportation Society of America. These include representatives from the States Florida, Georgia, North & South Carolina, Tennessee, Alabama, […]
What I learned about Smart Communities
What I learned about Smart Communities (from ITE members) Background This post is to help share this journey as a backdrop from what the recommendations for the organization should be for the rest of 2017 and beyond. Over the past 4 months, I have had the opportunity to go and meet with different Institute of Transportation […]
Smart Communities Idea No. 1 – Coordinate Transit with Medical Services
This is first post in what (I hope) to be a series of posts focused on actionable ideas cities, counties, and their partners can take. The Smart Communities movement, as chronicled by the ITE International President, Shawn Leight can be summed up like this: “At its core, Smart Communities gather, integrate, and analyze data to enable […]
Beware the Horse Dung Folly
As I get back in from the cold, I am thankful for my personal automobile. I am thankful that I do not have to brave the cold like those shmucks slumming it on transit because they want to “save the environment.” I am thankful that I don’t ride a bicycle and freeze my face off. Those […]
Bicycle Russian Roulette
Soon, I, a red-blooded, car-loving, sport car owning American will be without a vehicle in a city with poor public transit. This is strange, I know, especially for me. Cars are a right of passage in the American culture. Ever since I was a young teen, I had dreams of owning my own car, pressing the […]
Why a millenial picked a taxi over Uber
Now I understand that the title might be a little “click-bait,” I would like to share a view that has not been shared recently: the takeover by Uber of the transportation sector is very worrisome. To my limited understanding, transportation has been a public good. After the streetcar fiasco in the 1930s (where transportation was more private), […]
The deck is stacked against smart cities
The Deck is Stacked Against Smart Cities In the past month, I have been working with the ITE TSM&O committee on a white-paper to talk about Smart Cities. I had inadvertently forgotten that I had signed up for this task, and, after clumsily leaving an important teleconference, realized I had agenda items. Whoops! I then […]
Autonomous Vehicles Impact v2.0
I woke up this morning, as I do every weekend morning: before everyone else, fed the cat & dog, grabbed my computer and headed down the street to the local coffee shop. As I was strolling along, I decided to pull up my blog reel to see which of my favorite authors had posted an update. (This […]
Is a civil engineering master degree worth it?
One of my goals in life is to get a master’s degree. Now, I know this puts me in the majority of Millenials who stay in college forever then move back into their parents basements until they turn 40. This – I know all too well – is the stigma that my young generation is […]
4 things USDOT smart cities need to succeed
USDOT recently announced the 7 finalists in the smart city challenge. In looking at the finalists, I consider all of these “cool cities.” Denver, Austin, Portland, Pittsburgh, San Fran. These are all locations where myself and my peers would want to live. Big tech crowd. Start-up culture. It seems that this is where the DOT’s […]