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Appendix A. Key Personnel

Cities21

Drawing only a small annual budget, Cities21 produces more innovation than many large for-profit consulting firms. Cities21's points of differentiation: a) outside-of-the-box problem solving methodology utilizing an international brainstorming network, b) broad, cross-disciplinary approach encompassing marketing, management, software, and planning disciplines, c) social entrepreneurs' energy level, passion, and persistence.

"I am especially impressed with the comprehensive approach to implementing an innovative transportation system that has been devised by Cities21 people and think it represents a model that should be emulated by others around the country who wish to participate in our needed transportation revolution. More and more cars, however green, are not the answer we need to ward off a growing dependency on foreign oil and to help limit, perhaps reverse somewhat, the degradation that has been imposed on our cities by the automobile. We can do much better but we have to form large coalitions of like-minded people in order to overcome the tremendous vested interests that wish only to maintain the status quo. Cities21 has shown us how this can be done. One can hope it will be emulated across the land." - Jerry Schneider, Professor Emeritus, University of Washington.

The "power of ideas" allows Cities21 to lead high-profile projects with influential teaming partners:

  • Principal Investigator, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's "Transforming Office Parks into Transit Villages Study," teamed with U.S. EPA, Oracle, MTC (Bay Area Metropolitan Transit Commission), Bay Area Council, Cambridge Systematics (a large transportation consulting firm), City of Pleasanton, California Center for Land Recycling, Alameda County Congestion Management Agency, and East Bay Community Foundation.
  • Project Lead, "Walk to Work Housing and Upward Mobility Project," teamed with U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Urban Land Institute, Fannie Mae Foundation, California State Department of Housing & Community Development, California State Senate Transportation and Housing Committee, Silicon Valley Leadership Group, National Association of Realtors, AIA Housing Policy Committee, National Housing Law Project, Sierra Club Transportation & Land Use Committee, and Reconnecting America.
  • Project Manager, BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit District) Group Rapid Transit Investigative Study, teamed with BART, Port of Oakland, City of Alameda, Kimley-Horn transportation consulting, and PGH Wong transportation consulting.

"Our current transportation policy path in the U. S. is clearly unsustainable. Traffic, its environmental impacts and its impact on quality of life continue to get worse virtually everywhere in the country. Innovative new ideas and new approaches are badly needed. We need a portfolio of innovative approaches spread across the United States, with each one pushing the envelope towards a more sustainable future transportation system. Cities21 and its Suburban Silver Bullet should be in this portfolio. It is innovative; it is forward-looking; it addresses many key transportation challenges; and the potential benefits - if widely disseminated - are large." - Stephen Offutt, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Cities21 delivers high quality results in the following areas:

  • Policy development and economic analysis for transportation, land use, housing, and environmental sustainability
  • Market research and customer-centered new product design
  • Geographic Information Systems (GIS)
  • 3D animation & transit simulation, with specialty in real-time, interactive virtual worlds
  • Travel Demand Forecasting
  • “New mobility” system design
  • Advanced transit system design and alignments
  • Transportation Demand Management (TDM) / automobile trip reduction
  • Intelligent Transportation Systems Design, with specialty in train control systems, smart parking, location tracking, RFID, fare box interface
  • Social networking design
  • Physical model design with specialty in lightweight, portable, full size replicas

Steve Raney is founder of Cities21.org, researching advanced smart growth for suburban edge cities including Palo Alto, Emeryville, Pleasanton, and Redmond. He holds three masters: business, software, and transportation from Columbia, RPI, and Berkeley. He is the Principal Investigator on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s “Transforming Office Parks into Transit Villages” study of Pleasanton’s HaciendaBusinessPark. He has led product and project efforts at Microsoft, Citigroup, and Silicon Valley start-ups. He was project manager for BART's Group Rapid Transit study. He designed a version of Cybertran's Group Rapid Transit train control system. His "wireless carpool assistant," TrakRide, is patent pending. He served as Training Coordinator for Habitat for Humanity for East Palo Alto projects. He first described LMC in his 2002 transportation masters thesis.

He is also researching a workforce housing plan for Silicon Valley Leadership Group in CoyoteValley. The plan will reduce carbon dioxide production by 100 million pounds per year for the new 25,000 home development. The plan includes an affirmative jobs/housing program for low-income Latino families.

RESOLVE

RESOLVE is a novel, cross-disciplinary research collaboration between four separate groups in the University of Surrey: the Centre for Environmental Strategy, the Environmental Psychology Research Group, the Surrey Energy Economics Centre and the Department of Sociology.

The overall aim of RESOLVE is to develop a robust understanding of the links between lifestyle, societal values and environment. In particular, RESOLVE will work to provide robust, evidence-based advice to policy-makers in the UK and elsewhere who are seeking to understand and to influence the behaviors and practices of 'energy consumers'.

Tim Jackson is Professor of Sustainable Development at the University of Surrey and Director of RESOLVE. RESOLVE is funded under the TSEC (Towards a Sustainable Energy Economy) program. Tim sits on the UK Sustainable Development Commission and chairs their Economics Steering Group. In addition to his academic work he is a professional playwright with numerous radio-writing credits for the BBC.

Tim read Mathematics at Cambridge, and has postgraduate degrees in Philosophy and in Physics. He joined the University of Surrey in January 1995, after five years working as a senior researcher on energy and environmental issues at the Stockholm Environment Institute. In April 2000, he was appointed Professor of Sustainable Development at Surrey, the first such chair to be created in the UK. Between January 2003 and April 2005, Tim was awarded a professorial research fellowship on the social psychology of sustainable consumption, supported by the ESRC's Sustainable Technologies Program. Tim's recent research interests have focused on the relationship between lifestyle, wellbeing and the environment. He has a particular interest in the energy and carbon impacts of lifestyle and has explored both quantitative and qualitative dimensions of this relationship. Tim has also pioneered the development of 'adjusted' national accounts ('green GDP') and written extensively on the conceptual and empirical dimensions of the relationship between wellbeing and sustainability.

In March 2004, Tim was appointed to the UK Sustainable Development Commission as chair of the Economics Steering Group. In November 2004, he was appointed as the sole academic representative on the UK Sustainable Consumption Round Table. He also sits on the Whitehall Wellbeing Working Group, Defra's Sustainable Consumption and Production Evidence Base Advisory Group and Defra's Behaviour Change Forum. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society for the Arts, an Associate of the New Economics Foundation and sits on the advisory board of the Sustainable Development Research Network.

Selected publications:

(2006) Earthscan Reader in Sustainable Consumption, London: Earthscan.

(2005) Motivating Sustainable Consumption: a review of the evidence on consumer behaviour and behavioural change. A report to the Sustainable Development Research Network. London: Policy Studies Institute.

(2004) Consuming Paradise? Unsustainable Consumption in Cultural and Social-Psychological Context, in Hubacek, K, A Inaba and S Stagl (eds) Driving Forces of and Barriers to Sustainable Consumption, Proceedings of an International Conference, University of Leeds, 5 th -6 th March 2004.

Center for Urban Transportation Research (CUTR)

Established in the University of South Florida College of Engineering in 1988 by the Florida Legislature and the Florida Board of Regents, CUTR has become recognized nationally and serves as an important resource for policymakers, transportation professionals, the education system, and the public. With emphasis on developing innovative, implementable solutions to transportation problems, CUTR provides high quality, objective transportation expertise in the form of technical support, policy analysis, and research support that translates directly into benefits for its project sponsors.

A significant factor in CUTR’s success and a unique aspect of the Center is the responsiveness resulting from its faculty of full-time employees dedicated to conducting research. The multidisciplinary research staff includes experts in economics, planning, engineering, public policy, and geography who develop comprehensive solutions for all modes of transportation while combining academic and “real world” experience.

CUTR conducts nearly $8 million in research annually for a variety of public and private sector sponsors in Florida and the United States, including federal, state and local governments, agencies, and organizations. Areas of research include public transportation, transportation planning, mobility policy, intelligent transportation systems (ITS), transportation demand management (TDM), transportation economics and finance, corridor planning, and ethnography and transportation systems, among others.

Transportation Demand Management (TDM) Program

Philip L. Winters, Program Director

CUTR’s multidisciplinary TDM team is unique in its integration of technical skills and TDM knowledge, blending transportation and land use planning education, analytical skills, and training. The team applies its knowledge to address local or regional TDM needs, including operations, policies, and procedures. Specialties include TDM strategic planning, carpool/vanpool program design, high occupancy vehicle facilities, teleworking, TDM program evaluation, transportation management associations/organizations, bicycle and pedestrian issues, and TDM training.

Relevant Research

Automating the Collection and Processing of Household Travel Patterns to Deliver Personalized Feedback to Change Travel Behavior

The foundation of this current research effort was a 1999 study conducted by CUTR for the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT), “Reducing Vehicle Trips and Vehicle Miles of Travel through Customized Travel Options.” The study collected household travel data using paper activity diary and patterned the behavior of each household. The study analyzed these patterns and provided personalized advice to participants to influence household travel habits and thus reduce vehicle trips and vehicle miles of travel. An analysis of covariance conducted on the average contributed vehicle miles of travel and vehicle trips used the post-advice period’s travel patterns as the dependent variable. The provision of suggestions had a statistically significant effect on vehicle miles and trips contributed. Overall, this experiment showed that the provision of travel information would reduce vehicle miles of travel. However, the labor and time-intensive post-processing costs hampered widespread application.

The expanded capabilities and falling prices of Personal Digital Assistants (PDA) and cellular phones when coupled with Global Positioning Systems (GPS) offer an opportunity to improve the quality of collected data while reducing associated collection and processing costs and errors. CUTR’s current research is based on the development and testing of a system, TRAC-IT, which provides tailored travel feedback based on actual household patterns to affect change in travel behavior for commuting and non-commuting purposes. Based on the hypothesis that such technology applications will improve the accuracy and costs of data collected, TRAC-IT was developed as an electronic travel diary with capabilities to automatically return suggestions that can modify travel behavior.

The research also focuses on a personalized feedback system that provides suggestions encouraging participants to utilize other modes than the drive-alone option. These suggestions were sent to participants after the trip data has been transferred from the TRAC-IT unit into a database developed to pattern travel behavior and generate appropriate feedback to participants. Tasks involved in the creation of the TRAC-IT system included developing user-interface software, designing databases to hold the collected data, creating algorithms to process and analyze the data in order to provide advice.

Participating CUTR Faculty

Christopher Hagelin is a Research Associate at the Center for Urban Transportation Research at the University of South Florida and a Ph.D. candidate in applied anthropology. As part of the Transportation Demand Management (TDM) Team at CUTR, he has worked on a variety of research topics, from welfare-to-work vanpool systems to county-level long-range TDM projects. His primary research interests are transportation demand management planning and evaluation, alternative transportation, and bicycle and pedestrian issues. He also has work extensively with the EPA’s COMMUTER Model to measure the impacts of TDM programs and strategies.

Nevine Labib Georggi is a Research Associate at the Center for Urban Transportation Research at the University of South Florida. She received her M.S. in Civil Engineering from the University of South Florida in 2000. Employed at CUTR since 1993 conducting research in a variety of areas, she is currently developing a methodology for measuring the impacts of employer-based transportation demand management (TDM) programs on transit system ridership and transportation system performance, in particular from the management and operations perspective. She is involved in researching the impacts of employing new technologies in advanced public transportation systems, advanced traveler information systems, and transportation safety and security.

Sean Barbeau is a Research Associate at the Center for Urban Transportation Research and Ph.D. student in the Department of Computer Science & Engineering at the University of South Florida. He graduated summa cum laude with a B.S. in Computer Science from USF in 2003. His research interests are in the area of artificial intelligence with a focus in mobile intelligent software systems and applications utilizing Global Positioning Systems (GPS) for Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) and cell phones.

Julie Bond is the Director of the New North Transportation Alliance and a Senior Research Associate for the Center for Urban Transportation Research in Tampa. Her background includes nine years of creating and establishing alternative transportation programs for private and public sectors while working as a Marketing/Rideshare Manager for the Utah Transit Authority. During this post, she was appointed to serve on the Salt Lake Mayor’s Transportation Advisory Committee and was a board member of the Rio Grande Community Council. Her leadership includes serving as President of the Rocky Mountain Association for Commuter Transportation and the Utah International Telework Association and as a Regional Director for the Association for Commuter Transportation. She received a B.S. in Business Administration from Southern Utah University (1993).

Appendix B. Community Theory

This appendix delves into some of the theory behind communities and what makes them work well. It covers ten supporting theories that contribute to Low Milesage Community (LMC) success. A summary table follows:

Community theory appendix / Unique to LMC? 'r' for rare / LMC success characteristic
B1. Tipping Point / y / Forces 100% participation, a cultural/behavioral tipping point
B2. eBay Philosophy / Self-supporting, add meaning to lives, unleash goodness
B3. Community Bldg on the Web / r / Dual communities (on & off line) are uniquely powerful
B4. Textual Poachers / Unexpected creativity flows from single purpose communities
B5. Communities of Practice (COP) / r / Focused on a domain of knowledge. Builds up expertise.
B6. Different Drum / Inclusivity, commitment, safety, experimentation, etc.
B7. Social Marketing Persuasion / y / Uniquely strong combination of reciprocation, commitment, consistency, social proof, liking, authoritative source, scarcity, and norms
r / Friendly competition between LMCs will be fostered
B8. Augmented Social Network / Motivator: pride in contributing to an important idea
The expanding networks of LMCs will exhibit high trust
Smart Mobs / Reeds's law: Unbounded creativity & problem solving
B9. Social entrepreneurship / Act local, think global: viral spread with mutation
B10. Tragedy of Commons / r / LMC cultural sub-world overcomes the tragedy
B1, B3, B5, B7 combined / y / LMC dual community is COP with tipping point and uses social marketing persuasion

Compared to past efforts to apply community theory in an attempt to have a large, practical impact on human behavior to address major world problems, LMCs have important advantages. LMCs represent a unique combination of dual community, community of practice, Tipping Point, and social marketing persuasion theories.

B1) The Tipping Point

In The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell describes how, all of a sudden, sufficient momentum builds up behind an idea to make it very popular. LMC goes one step further, by “forcing” a tipping point to occur, by having all incoming residents in new housing development embrace green principles. Gladwell’s basic theory works well for Cabbage Patch Dolls and toothpaste, but to change auto-centric suburban culture in a restrictive public policy context, the tipping point needs a push. LMCs will create positive, reinforcing peer pressure because all residents know that all other residents have made the same commitment to reduce solo driving. With such a shared purpose and with more available spare time because of reduced commute time, LMCs will be very different from typical suburban residential communities, and should experience very high demand as other like-minded people seek to join this unique problem-solving community.

Reference:

B2) eBay philosophy – adding meaning to people’s lives

You're talking about changing travel behavior in an auto-centric culture. This is very, very hard to achieve. The one thing that does work to change behavior is to create a great community. At eBay, we added meaning to people's lives. Some individuals previously had few friends, but, due to their participation in eBay on-line communities, they developed many friends. The Low Milesage Community has to become “real.” It should be very active. People working together should create a community that is rewarding to participate in. At eBay we rely on the goodness in people, and their latent desire to help others. Within the housing development, there should be community activities (potlucks twice per year, etc.) that people can voluntarily attend. The electronic chat board should become a repository of solutions. People will develop expertise and contribute their knowledge and experiences for the common good. At eBay, our communities become self-running. That's important. It's important to start the community with strong leadership, but the training wheels eventually need to come off. At eBay, it's very inexpensive to host thriving communities. Obviously, to make this work, there must be significant benefits granted to real-estate developers to ensure their going along with this community concept. - Janis Hom, eBay Product Manager and wife of Cities21’s Steve Raney.