APA Transportation Planning Division

 

M  I  N  U  T  E  S

of the

B U S I N E S S   M E E T I N G  at NATIONAL

 

 

April 24, 2006

San Antonio Marriott RiverCenter, Conference Room 15

30 in attendance*

 

 

 

After a half-hour of refreshments and socialization, Chair Larry Lennon opened the meeting at 6:25pm, welcoming attendees and leading a round of introductions.

 

1.   Lennon reported that the 2006 Work Program was approved at the January meeting at TRB and is posted on the website. He continued that the Division has organized two sessions at National, and that the Student Paper Competition has been held.

 

2.   Brigid Hynes-Cherin of the FTA gave a  report on SAFETEA-LU, including the New Starts and Small Starts. Comments on the latter are in review, and proposed new rules should be published in late summer. Funding under this new program should begin in October of 2007. Details are available on the FTA's website. There is $1 million for the Center for Transit-Oriented Development to develop performance measures and provide best practices, including affordable housing elements with HUD funds, from Boston, Denver, Portland (OR), Charlotte, and Minneapolis. There is also a $1m/year program for best practices in public participation. The New Freedom program seeks to extend responses to mobility challenges “beyond ADA”. Application procedures have been published for the new $25-million program for National Parks/Public Lands, to be administered with the Dept. of the Interior.

 

3.   An unidentified student asked why only students at accredited planning schools were eligible to compete in the Student Paper program. TPD will rveiw this requirement with the Divisions Council.

 

4.   Past Chair Whit Blanton reported on activities of the Divisions Council, to which he has been elected chair. Many new leaders have emerged, creating a sense of enthusiasm. Training for all division officers is planned. Susan Turner is the APA staff contact. Whit commented that it is good that TPD has retained an independent website. Each division will be asked what its best practices are, giving as example one division that has established three vice chair positions to share the work load. Another offers fellowships to students who then must perform tasks for that division.  APA has been approached by ITE to collaborate on transportation planning certification. Questions on whether this would involve an exam (yes) and how it relates to airport issues were fielded. The unique role of planners, subject of past TPD discussions, was mentioned.  APA director Farmer will be involved, and there will be opportunities for volunteers to work on this.

 

5.   Vice Chair Hilary Perkins described the two TPD sessions. She organized the first one on safety issues and proposed that Mike Briggs, a TPD member, replace her on the Safety Conscious Planning Working Group. The second session was organized by Chair Larry Lennon on sustainability issues.

 

6.   Treasurer Todd Ashby reported that TPD's current balance is about $12,000 and that we are on budget to finish the fiscal year with a slight surplus.

 

7.   Larry Lennon reported for newsletter editor Ruth Fitzgerald that 2nd issue of the year has been published, including a major article on parking management by Todd Litman, and stressed that submissions for future publications are always welcome.

 

8.  Larry Lennon reported for Student Competition coordinator Ruth Steiner, who will be on leave so that the Committee needs to be reconstituted. Volunteers are needed. The undergraduate winner was Daniel Peters of the University of Kansas, who gave an overview of his winning submission on legislation affecting Dallas Love Field (airport) and Southwest Airlines, entitled on “The Wright Amendment: Right or Wrong”. It generated considerable discussion, including a comment that, given TPD's Airports-in-the-Region (AIR) initiative, it was good to have an aviation topic. The graduate award went to Eric Morris of UCLA on the privatization of British Rail. Both papers will be published in the TPD newsletter.

 

9.   Copies of the new TPD brochure were distributed.

 

10.   AIR chair Dan Wong reported that the airport-focused initiative is drawing significant attention from the FAA, the Airports Council International, and others. He pointed to the attendence of the FAA's Ashraf Jan and his session on airport land use compatibility. Past chair Mike Callahan represented TPD at a working group meeting in March. AIR has proposed in wiritng that the FAA organize regional meetings to build bridges between airport officials and city and regional planners. Wong will speak at the 6th National Aviation Systems Planning Symposium in May. Through the Divisions Council, work will proceed on a position paper, to be in draft form by November.

 

11.   New Business: 

            (a) Dan Wong raised the issue of high registration fees for APA conferences with no discounts for speakers and many additional costs, eg. Mobile workshops. After much discussion, a consensus emerged that TPD should write a letter to APA leadership expressing these concerns and the negative impact on the ability of planners, especially for small communities, to attend;

            (b) Pat Nicoson spoke of the need for attention to “mega-regions” and “macropolitan” issues; and

            (c)  Mike Callahan expressed concern over the lack of continuing responsiveness within APA towards Hurricane Katrina and the issue of alternatives  to oil and suggested that a newsletter survey address these issues.

 

The meeting was adjourned at 7:50pm.  

 

 

 

*  Sign-in sheets on file.