American Architectural Foundation

Location: Nationwide

arch Website: archfoundation.org

The American Architectural Foundation (AAF) is dedicated to the vibrant social, economic, and environmental future of cities. In the past decade alone, AAF has worked directly with local leaders through more than 500 city engagements. During this time, AAF has served every major metropolitan region and most second-tier cities in the United States. All told, it has provided design leadership training and technical assistance to hundreds of elected officials, public-private partnerships, education leaders, business leaders, and other key local decision makers in the design process.

These engagements are based on real-world challenges and opportunities from the participants’ cities, which provide the focus for intensive, collaborative design leadership programs. The overarching goal is to equip these leaders with the knowledge, inspiration, and resources that they need to lead their communities to transformative change through design.

To inform its efforts, AAF leverages its extensive network of city leaders and design innovators. Their collective experience and expertise is rich in depth and diversity, spanning such key sectors as building design and construction, urban planning, landscape, transportation, infrastructure, finance, and communications. Underlying all these concerns is a commitment to advancing the cause of sustainability.

The impact of AAF’s efforts is visible in the local design leadership behind hundreds of projects across the United States, ranging from brownfield remediation to waterfront redevelopment to downtown corridor revitalization.

Indego

Location: Philadelphia, PA

Website: www.rideindego.com

The City of Philadelphia launched Indego in 2015 as the newest form of public transportation. With more than 1000 self-service bikes and more than 105 stations, Indego offers 24/7 access to the City on your schedule. Indego is an initiative of the City of Philadelphia and sponsored by Independence Blue Cross.

Indego was launched with a strategic focus on making a bike share that is accessible and equitable to all Philadelphians, and is the lead partner of the Better Bike Share Partnership, a collaboration funded by The JPB Foundation to build equitable and replicable bike share systems.

The Better Bike Share partnership supported the City of Philadelphia’s equity goals for Indego when the system launched in April of 2015, including the placement of 19 Indego stations in underserved neighborhoods, the industry’s first integrated cash payment option, and outreach and education work in partnership with the Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia.

Earlier this year, the City of Philadelphia, with funding from the William Penn Foundation, added 30 additional stations to connect underserved communities with parks, waterways and resources throughout Philadelphia. This spring also marked the launch of the Indego30 Access pass.Since April, over 1,000 people have purchased an Access pass, taking more than 16,000 trips.

Divvy

Location: Chicago, IL

Website:

Divvy is a new bike sharing system featuring thousands of bikes at hundreds of stations from Andersonville to Hyde Park, available 24/7, 365 days a year. Each station has a touchscreen kiosk, station map, and a docking system that releases bikes using a member key or ride code. You must be 16 years or older to ride Divvy.

Divvy is perfect for your short trips (under 30 minutes by bike) around the city. From Union Station to work, from home to the store, from your hotel to a nearby restaurant. With hundreds of stations around the city, you’ll be able to find Divvy stations almost anywhere you go. Near home, work, school, or shops. In other cities, up to 50% of bike share trips are made to get to or from a public transit system. Divvy helps you get between stations and the places you go most often.

Ride together:

Chicago residents can use Divvy with their friends and in-town guests. Buy someone a 24-Hour Pass and show them around the city you love.

Bike share programs give people more choice in the way they get around Chicago. Divvy is not only an affordable alternative, it’s also a fun one. The word "Divvy" means “to divide and share.” This new bike system connects us all and helps build a stronger local community.

Divvy will be the second largest bike sharing system in the US. We’re building something new and big, and creating local jobs in the process.

theCityFix

Location: International

Website: www.thecityfix.com

TheCityFix is an online resource for learning about the latest in sustainable urban mobility and planning. Launched in 2007, the site connects a global network of writers, urban planners, designers, engineers, and citizens who work to make cities better places to live. The blog is produced by EMBARQ, a not-for-profit program of the World Resources Institute that works to catalyze and help implement environmentally, socially, and financially sustainable transport and urban planning solutions.

Since 2002, the EMBARQ network has grown to include six centers – based in Brazil, China, India, Mexico, and Turkey – that work together with local authorities, businesses and national governments to reduce pollution, improve public health, and create safe and accessible urban environments.

TheCityFix relies on this international community and other volunteer contributors to provide a global, multi-disciplinary perspective to its coverage of issues relating to urban sustainability.and policies that help advance sustainable urban mobility and planning, with a strong focus on scalable and replicable solutions for cities in the developing world. Launched in 2007, the site produced by EMBARQ connects a global network of writers, urban planners, designers, engineers, and citizens who work to make cities better places to live.

TheCityFix covers key happenings in sustainable transport and urban planning, with a focus on the following topics:

Integrated Transport – advanced bus systems, rail, metro, bicycling, walking, fuels and technology.

Urban Development + Accessibility – land use, urban design, infrastructure, public space

Climate Change– local pollution, air quality, global CO2 emissions, climate adaptation

Health + Road Safety – public health, quality of life,  active transport, non-communicable diseases

Communications – branding, mapping, visualization, user engagement, photography, video, trends.

CITE city

Location: New Mexico

Website: www.cite-city.com

Pegasus Global Holdings, LLC, a private international technology development firm, is creating CITE to be the largest scale testing and evaluation center in the world.

CITE will represent a 20th century American city with a population of approximately 35,000 people and be built on roughly 15 square miles. CITE’s test city will be unpopulated. This unique feature will allow for a true laboratory without the complication and safety issues associated with residents.

CITE will be a catalyst for the acceleration of research into applied, market-ready products by providing “end to end” testing and evaluation of emerging technologies and innovations from the world’s public laboratories, universities and the private sector.

These innovations, if brought forward to the point of manufacturing, are essential for the United States to regain manufacturing superiority and to train and put a highly experienced and well educated workforce back to work – while at the same time helping to change the environment for the better through commercialization of advanced innovations in energy, transportation, infrastructure, healthcare and the environment.

The planned initial core user application areas envisioned to be tested and evaluated within CITE include, but are not limited to:

Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS)

Green Energy: Alternative Energy Power Generation (e.g. Geothermal, Solar)

Smart Grid Technologies

Telecommunications

Resource Development (e.g. Desalinization)

Security

As a privately-owned, privately-operated test and evaluation center, CITE is open and accessible to a wide array of public and private customer segments – domestic and international. The structure and policies in place at CITE are specifically designed to remove legal, cultural and budgetary impediments as are currently prevalent in the process of moving beyond basic research and development activities.

At its core, CITE is about the establishment of developmental partnerships, bringing researchers from federal, university, commercial, international and other sources together to collaborate, forge relationships, and channel funded research and development into new products and partnerships.

CicLAvia

Location: Los Angeles, CA

Website: www.beta.ciclavia.org

CicLAvia catalyzes vibrant public spaces, active transportation and good health through car-free streets.

CicLAvia engages with people to transform our relationship with our communities and with each other.



CicLAvia makes the streets safe for people to walk, skate, play and ride a bike. There are activities along the route. Shop owners and restaurants are encouraged to open their doors to people along the CicLAvia
Ciclovías started in Bogotá, Colombia, over thirty years ago as a response to the congestion and pollution of city streets. Now they happen throughout Latin America and the United States.



Connecting communities and giving people a break from the stress of car traffic. The health benefits are immense. Ciclovías bring families outside of their homes to enjoy the streets, our largest public space. In Los Angeles we need CicLAvia more than ever. Our streets are congested with traffic, our air is polluted with toxic fumes, our children suffer from obesity and other health conditions caused by the scarcity of public space and safe, healthy transportation options. CicLAvia creates a temporary park for free, simply by removing cars from city streets. It creates a network of connections between our neighborhoods and businesses and parks with corridors filled with fun.

Break Shuttle

Location: Nationwide

Website: www.breakshuttle.com

BreakShuttle is the largest national provider of college and university break transportation services in the United States. We are committed to providing reliable, safe, and convenient transportation services that allow even the most remote colleges and universities to have a "pop up" transportation network around major school breaks.

This allows students to travel directly from campus to major surrounding cities. Such a service is vitally important to reduce the cost of attending college for many students and families. On average, students who have a BreakShuttle service at their school save over $1,000 a year.

Riding with BreakShuttle is incredibly easy. Students and parents can purchase tickets on our website using a credit card or a deferred payment plan. Then, BreakShuttle immediately sends an E-Ticket to the purchaser's inbox.

The student can then use the E-Ticket to check in at one of our pre-designated boarding points on campus and then be quickly and safely on their way home!

In addition to being the provider of choice for students, BreakShuttle is also the provider of choice for colleges and universities. BreakShuttle is the only provider of transportation services in the country that can provide fully integrated ticketing, operations, and transportation services to colleges and universities.

By offering direct service from our partner schools, colleges and universities can more easily retract and retain students who live quite a distance away. By partnering with us, colleges and universities decrease the costs of attendance for their students and increase the level of service provided. Most large schools pay nothing for our service. BreakShuttle is based out of offices in Philadelphia, PA, Burlington VT, and Boston MA. From these locations, we have a full time staff dedicated to coordinating travel arrangements for our students around the country.

BreakShuttle uses fully insured luxury motorcoaches and vans (often with WiFi, TVs and premium seating) which are driven by drivers who undergo constant training and testing making them the best in the industry.

Straphangers Campaign

Location: New York, NY

Website: www.straphangers.org

The campaign was founded in 1979 by the New York Public Interest Research Group at a critical time for New York City transit: By the late 1970s, the city's subways had become unreliable and decrepit. Graffiti covered every car and station. Transit fires and derailments hit record levels.

Crime steadily worsened.  Ridership plummeted to the lowest level in 80 years.  Businesses cited poor transit as a leading reason for moving out of New York.  The system had become a symbol of the decline of the city itself.

There's been great progress since then.  Today, trains are nearly ten times more reliable.  Ridership has bounced back.  Transit crimes, fires, derailments—all have been greatly reduced in the last two decades.

In 1997, the transit system started offering free transfers between subways and buses.  In 1998, riders received the first fare decrease in the history of the system in the form of unlimited-ride transit passes.  As a result, ridership has soared. By 2007, ridership was at its highest level since 1952!, These improvements didn’t happen by accident.

The Straphangers Campaign played a leading role in building a consensus for scores of billions of dollars in new investments in metropolitan transit—through our rider organizing, coalition building, research, reports, and media savvy.

At neighborhood forums, we ask whether people think the transit system has gotten better, worse, or stayed the same. The majority always respond "better." How many New Yorkers would say that about our other key institutions, from schools to health care?

Although much more remains to be done, the campaign is proud of our role in turning around transit. The campaign had many achievements in our advocacy for decent, safe, and affordable transit.

Transportation for America

Location: Nationwide

Website: www.t4america.org

Transportation for America is an alliance of elected, business and civic leaders from communities across the country, united to ensure that states and the federal government step up to invest in smart, homegrown, locally-driven transportation solutions. These are the investments that hold the key to our future economic prosperity.

Strong local economies are the foundation of a strong national economy. Across the country, business, civic and elected leaders understand that a strong transportation network drives the success of our local economies.

They know local employers need to be able to recruit and retain workers both within and from outside their home communities, and they need efficient ways to get their goods to market. Workers of all incomes need affordable, dependable access to jobs. And our cities, suburbs and towns must be able to attract talent and compete on a global scale.

In communities across the country, local leaders are responding to new economic challenges with innovative plans for their transportation networks. But alone, they lack the resources, and the control over them, to build and maintain the infrastructure their economies demand. At the same time, transportation funding at all levels of government is shrinking rather than growing, due to slackening gas tax receipts and budget cuts.

This situation threatens America’s ability to compete economically. Transportation for America is bringing people together to change it, in Congress and state houses across the nation.

Car-Free Day Vancouver

Location: Vancouver, BC

Website: www.carfreevancouver.org

Commercial Drive Festival launched the first community- driven Car-Free Festival in Vancouver as a response to the provincial government’s Gateway Program, also known as the Port Mann/Highway 1 Improvement Project. Organizers also wanted to create a community festival at a time when there were few such events in the city.

The Festival was wholly volunteer-organized and presented, involving over 30 core organizers and 300 volunteers. It was an enormous success, bringing over 25,000 people out to celebrate the community and party in the street.

After that, the Festival happened in 2006 and twice in the summer of 2007, snowballing in popularity and attracting up to 40,000 people per day. Clearly, car-free days were an idea whose time had come.

The first annual Car-Free Vancouver Day, on Sunday June 15, 2008 ushered in the next phase in this bold experiment that had been gradually happening in Vancouver for many years. It took the car-free meme to the whole city, and represented the next level in our evolution toward healthy communities, authentic cultural celebrations, and car-free streets.

On that day, FOUR communities presented their own Car-Free Festivals: Kitsilano, West End, Main Street, and Commercial Drive. Each Festival was envisioned and organized by the local core organizers, and each had a unique flavour.

Keep watching our website for more details on the individual Festivals. And then, choose your Festival and get involved! You can be an organizer, a pod-head, a spontaneous participant, or a day-of volunteer (for an hour or two, or for the whole day) — whatever turns you on. You don’t necessarily need to volunteer where you live — and of course, you are free to rove from Fest to Fest throughout the city, and get a taste of different neighbourhood celebrations. You will meet great people, have lots of fun, and become part of the future of our magical city.

The City of Vancouver, both staff and elected officials, has been enormously supportive of this initiative, and continues to encourage us to create the city of our dreams. We thank them for their vision and support.

CityPulse

Location: St. Louis, MO

Website: citypulsestl.org

CityPulse is citywide network of beacons that provides pedestrian lighting as interactive art, detects and reports street-level activity in real time, creates civic connections, and offers a new platform for human interactions and entrepreneurship.

Each beacon is a modified standard of an existing lighting product equipped with inexpensive infrared sensors and micro controllers. CityPulse gathers pedestrian motion data for display via the CityPulse Map, which can be viewed on any number of digital devices. Choose to overlay the Map with additional data from other open-API resources.

Because the Map is accessible through any web-capable device, it translates seamlessly into a mobile application or a touch-screen kiosk, making it an invaluable exploration resource for locals and tourists alike. Find a bus stop, see who’s playing at that venue, or just choose a new place to get coffee.

The beacons are available in two sizes: a planted 21-foot-tall Home Beacon and a wall-mounted 10-foot-tall Satellite Beacon. The two different options offer different levels of accessibility, accommodating everything from high-traffic hubs to off-the-beaten-path storefronts.

This variety of beacons creates a complete network of nodes into any neighborhood. Once the beacons are hardwired throughout a neighborhood, they will collect Beacon activation information to send in real-time to the interactive activity Map. When a Beacon is activated, it appears as a “blip” on the Map.

Other blips indicate geo-tagged social media activity. The Map interface can be accessed via any web browser, as well as smartphones and tablets. Due to its intuitive design and quick access to location-based data, the Map offers the ideal interface for a public kiosk (see next page), serving as an informational hub for those unfamiliar with the city, or someone simply looking to explore.

Overlaid with the Map are a variety of helpful options including:

- Venues including restaurants, bars, convenience stores, markets, and other amenities, as well as nearby beacons,

- Promotional sales or current coupons in your surrounding area,

- A calendar of events and showtimes to make correlations between crowds and activities,

- Transit routes and schedules, as well as road traffic reports,

- Applied gaming using CityPulse’s API that encourage exploration (i.e. scavenger hunts, check-ins, etc. and,

Interesting city tips, fun facts, architectural history, community art, etc.

People St

Location: Los Angeles, CA

Website: www.peoplest.org

People St offers communities within the City of Los Angeles the opportunity to transform underused areas of LA’s largest public asset – our 6,500 miles of city streets – into active, accessible public space.

Community organizations, business owners and other groups can apply for opportunities to enhance the quality of the public realm through installing three innovative design treatments, including plazas, parklets and bike corrals.

This website is your one stop shop for information, resources and materials on People St Plazas, Parklets, and Bike Corrals, and the process for applying to bring these projects to your neighborhood.

Building from lessons learned from the city’s first six pilot projects, LADOT has been working closely in an unprecedented collaboration with community members, elected officials, and other city staff to develop People St into a program that will expedite project development and implementation with a clear, consistent process.

People St facilitates partnerships between the community and the City of Los Angeles to implement projects that transform redundant or under-used areas of street into high-quality public space.

These cost-efficient conversion projects use simple elements like moveable tables, umbrellas and chairs; paint and plantings; and lively and entertaining programming to create relatively instant transformations to improve the life of a street.

Bringing a People St project to life requires the active participation of community partners to build neighborhood support for a project, identify an appropriate site, conduct outreach, raise the money required, and provide and fund long-term maintenance.

The goal is to create true public-private partnerships on projects that are initiated and driven by and for communities.

People St contributes to more active, livable streets, enhancing quality of life in the City of Los Angeles. Providing expanded public spaces can increase safety for people who walk, bike and take transit, encourage increased levels of walking and bicycling, and support economic vitality.

New local gathering spaces can foster a greater sense of community and social cohesion. Plazas, parklets, and other new types of public space can also become centerpieces of neighborhoods, providing venues for events and celebrations.

All this activity is shown to support local businesses as more pedestrians come to and spend time in neighborhoods.

Transportation Alternatives

Location: New York, NY

Website: www.transalt.org

Transportation Alternatives is New York City's leading transportation advocacy organization, with a citywide network of 100,000 active supporters committed to reclaiming New York City’s streets for people by ensuring that every New Yorker has safe space to walk and bike and access to public transportation.

Every day, all over the city, we're working to make New York City’s neighborhoods safer and restore a vibrant culture of street life.

Transportation Alternatives is involved in every aspect of traveling around New York City. From bike routes and bus lanes to pedestrian crossings and play streets, we’re fighting for safer, smarter transportation and a healthier city.

Since our founding in 1973 T.A. has helped New York City’s bicycling population grow exponentially and worked to dramatically reduce the number of pedestrians killed each year by dangerous drivers.

In the early 2000s, T.A. introduced New York’s policymakers to the idea of bus-only lanes, laying the foundation for the swift new Select Bus Service in 2007. With the help of our network of tens of thousands of supporters, Transportation Alternatives has won improvements all over the city.

Meeting of the Minds

Location: Nationwide

Website: www.cityminded.org

An invitation-only conference, Meeting of the Minds brings together 350 opinion-shapers, policy-makers, leading thinkers and innovators from every sector.

The conference is two-plus days of intensive exchange for leaders creating more sustainable cities using smarter design tools, sounder environmental practices, and cleaner energy systems.

Among the dozens of international leaders who speak at Meeting of the Minds are innovators scaling-up practical urban innovation in infrastructure, design, technology, energy, transport, water, finance – all are building more livable cities.

At Meeting of the Minds, leaders from multiple sectors and diverse geographies share ideas and shape a common agenda.

The City Fix

Location: International

Website: www.thecityfix.com

TheCityFix is an online resource for learning about the latest in sustainable urban mobility and planning. Launched in 2007, the site connects a global network of writers, urban planners, designers, engineers, and citizens who work to make cities better places to live.

EMBARQ, a not-for-profit program of the World Resources Institute that works to catalyze and help implement environmentally, socially, and financially sustainable transport and urban planning solutions.

Since 2002, the EMBARQ network has grown to include six centers – based in Brazil, China, India, Mexico, Turkey and the Andean region, that work together with local authorities, businesses and national governments to reduce pollution, improve public health, and create safe and accessible urban environments.

TheCityFix relies on this international community and other volunteer contributors to provide a global, multi-disciplinary perspective to its coverage of issues relating to urban sustainability.

Here at TheCityFix, we rely on members of our global community to share their stories and ideas relating to urban sustainability.

Walk Bike Transit

Location: Chicago, IL

Website: www.walkbiketransit.org

Walk Bike Transit is a non-partisan political action committee conceived as a means of engaging in political advocacy that is off-limits to 501c3 not-for-profit advocacy groups.

As a political organization, our mission is to influence elections and candidates on behalf of active transportation issues. As such, WBT has mobilized voters all across the city to engage and support local candidates on the importance of better biking, walking and transit options.

Our strategic approach has been built around district and ward-specific events organized by WBT and hosted for candidates around elections. These events have provided voters the opportunity to engage with candidates on the importance of bikeable, walkable and transit-friendly communities. In turn, candidates were given the chance to earn support by demonstrating an understanding and commitment to active transportation issues.

Perhaps most importantly, Walk Bike Transit events mark the beginning of an ongoing dialogue about ways in which communities and leaders can work together towards a practical vision for transforming transportation options.

BeyondDC

Location: Washington, DC region

Website: www.urbanresearch.org

BeyondDC is devoted to urbanism, transportation, and development in the Washington, DC region. It is the sole property of J. Daniel Malouff, and does not represent the views of his employer in any way.

Malouff is a professional transportation planner for the Arlington County Department of Transportation. He has a degree in Urban Planning from the University of Colorado, and lives a car-free lifestyle in Northwest Washington.

In addition to BeyondDC, Malouff’s writing is frequently featured at Greater Greater Washington.

The Washington Post Local Opinion Blog. His work has appeared in print publications such as the The Washington Post, Next American City, Washington Post Express, and the Colorado Daily.

Commute Seattle

Location: Seattle, WA

Website: www.urbanresearch.org

Commute Seattle is a not-for-profit Transportation Management Association (TMA) working to provide alternatives to drive-alone commute trips into Downtown Seattle’s 10 neighborhoods. We are a 501c(4) not-for-profit, public-private partnership commissioned, funded, and governed by an Advisory Board of executive leaders from the Downtown Seattle Association, King County Metro, and the City of Seattle.

We seek to reduce the drive-alone commute rate in Downtown Seattle to 30% by 2016, making Seattle a strong leader among peer cities in supporting alternatives to driving alone.

Commute Seattle is committed to delivering transportation services that not only reduce congestion and support increased commuter options, but also support business objectives in greater Downtown. These services include:

- Transportation consultations to support a property or small business’ assessment of its transportation benefit program elements,

- Offering a range of services and commute option products tailored to individual business needs,Education and marketing of transportation information to businesses and commuters; and

-Marketing and selling ORCA Business Passport to Downtown employers.

Transport for All

Location: London, England

Website: www.transportforall.org.uk

As an organisation of disabled and older people we have always been determined to ensure that the grass roots experiences and opinions of service users are always heard by those who commission and run the transport network.

We are and will always be run by older and disabled people – all our trustees are disabled or older transport users, or care for someone who is.

TfA was formerly known as Dial-A-Ride and Taxicard users (DaRT) and was formed through the amalgamation of the user groups of these two services. Over the years, our remit has widened to reflect the fact that more and more of London’s transport network is being ‘unlocked’ for disabled people to use.

There is no doubt that the tireless work of decades of disabled transport campaigners has yielded many victories – but much more has yet to be done to get the affordable, reliable, and accessible transport network that those early campaigners dreamed about.

Our work at TfA has grown over the years to encompass the changes that have been won. From an office in Brixton, our small team of staff and volunteers offer a unique pan-London service – funded by London Councils and supporter donations.

From Blue Badges to Freedom Passes, and from accessible buses to the DLR – we have been working hard to ensure that disabled and older Londoners have the information they need to get from A to B.

TfA’s work with the Community transport sector is an important milestone in our development. CT schemes are providing an important accessible transport service in many local communities – and we hope to work with the Community Transport sector in increasing its profile and working to make it more robust through a specialised training programme.

After the Olympics and Paralympic Games in 2012, we very much see our role as working with the capital’s disabled and older communities and accessible transport providers towards a legacy for the London transport network that meets the needs of all of its citizens.

Institute for Transportation and Development Policy

Location: International

Website: www.itdp.org

Transportation is at the heart of many of the most pressing issues facing the world today - from climate change to public health. Yet, many people regard transportation as little more than a means to an end. In fact, transport networks are the pulse of a city, defining livability and urban space. Decisions about whether to build highways or bus corridors or greenways have tremendous impact not only on the air we breathe and the price we way to get around, but also on the health of our planet.

Air pollution comes from many different sources such as factories, power plants, but one of the largest sources is from motor vehicles. The transportation sector is an enormous contributor of CO2 and greenhouse gas emissions. Sustainable transportation planning and policy is crucial in reducing emissions and avoiding catastrophic global warming. One key aspect of poverty alleviation is working to increase mobility for all residents. Access to safe and affordable transportation enables greater economic opportunities and quality of life.

Road accidents cause staggering numbers of deaths and injuries, especially in the developing world. Most of those affected are pedestrians and cyclists in incidents that could be avoided with improved planning and policy.

The proportion of the world population living in cities is increasing at an unprecedented rate. In order to avoid crippling congestion and emissions, cities must adapt with sustainable transportation and integrated urban planning.