DOT Recognizes Excellence in Rural Transit

Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood blogs this morning about the Outstanding Rural Transit System awards, announced at this week's National Transportation Research Board Rural Public and Intercity Bus Transportation Conference. The Secretary specifically thanks our fellow TA center, the National Rural Transit Assistance Program (RTAP) program, for evaluating the award applications.

News from NTI

The National Transit Institute (NTI) announces a survey that explores alternative training approaches. NTI is looking to understand the needs of its trainees and identify alternative training methods most suitable for them. The survey is located at http://www.zoomerang.com/Survey/WEB22BCTUZ6YTZ.

NTI will also be presenting its Managing Community Mobility course. The course covers mobility management and coordination topics.
* December 15 - 16, 2010 - Chicago, IL
* April 27 - 28, 2011 - Phoenix, AZ

Rural Transit System Profiled

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Center to Prevent Childhood Obesity highlighted a new Montana transit system in its newsletter. Usually RWJF concentrates its efforts on safe routes to school and complete streets. The transit service profile demonstrates the importance of connectivity over great distances to services, jobs, education and stores. It discusses the needs of the community as well as the popularity of the service.

As a lesson in coordination, the profile shows how a large rural area can use outreach and partnering among organizations to plan and provide a valuable public service.

Mobility Management

The American Public Transportation Association (APTA) must be mentioned for its mobility management resource page. The page explains the topic to the transit audience and discusses the economic aspects of mobility management.

Mobility management resources can be obtained at the website of the Partnership for Mobility Management. National organization members include CTAA, APTA, the American Bus Association, AASHTO, TLPA and Easter Seals Project ACTION.

CTAA President Eloquent Word on Community Transit

If you missed CTAA's president speaking during a piece on National Public Radio recently, the wonders of video and the Internet bring you the extended interview of Charles Carr. In seven minutes, Carr discusses the need for transit and "right sizing" it to fit a community's circumstances. Carr discusses those who are transportation challenged and also the situation of so-called "choice riders."