Opportunities for Communities - Funding, Health, Coordination

Federal Transit Administration
FTA rolls out a new webpage devoted to MAP-21 information, including illustrative apportionment data for several programs. 

National Transit Institute
Get some chocolates, coffee and a cushy pillow because NTI is putting courses online and posting archived webinars. These audio and video offerings include understanding the FTA and its programs, livability in transportation, and the National Transit Database 2010 Census updates, among others. NTI is currently maintains a webpage with all online offerings.

[Notice for a community bus in the Cotswolds area of England. The bus goes to supermarkets and the notice assures shoppers there will be "enough time to do your shopping."]

National Conference of State Legislatures
NCSL issues its quarterly Transportation Coordination Quarterly Newsletter with news about new statutory mandates and lapsing ones regarding state coordinating councils, and state laws relating to transportation for welfare recipients and older adults. "A task force was established in Connecticut to study how the state can encourage aging in place, which includes an examination of infrastructure and transportation improvements."

Community Transportation Association of America
CTAA's Joblinks program is accepting applications for the Job Access Mobility Institute, a multi-month, team-based research, design, and implementation process in which teams will develop and test a transportation service that solves a key challenge of their constituents. This opportunity will bring together community participants from the transportation, employment and training, and business sectors to solve mobility challenges. Applications are due by Aug. 24, 2012.

[Train decked out in Union Jack flag motif in London's Paddington Station.]

Health Impact Project
The Health Impact Project, which promotes the use of Health Impacts Assessments (HIAs) in public decision making has a funding opportunity "to support two types of health impact assessment (HIA) initiatives: 1) HIA demonstration projects that inform a specific decision ...; and 2) HIA program grants to enable organizations with previous HIA experience to conduct HIAs and develop sustainable, self-supporting HIA programs at the local, state, or tribal level." According to the Project, "HIA uses a practical approach that brings together scientific data, health expertise and public input to identify the potential health effects of a new proposal and to build in recommendations that minimize risks and capitalize on opportunities to improve health." The Health Impact Project is a collaboration of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Pew Charitable Trusts. Proposals are due Sept. 28. 2012.

HIAs in transportation include coordinated transportation (Madison County, NY), expansion of bus routes (Indiana), and employer-sponsored transit subsidies (Tennessee). A map of HIAs across the U.S. has many more. You can view all projects or restrict the map to projects relating only to particular sectors, such as transportation or the built environment, among others.