Madeline Wander (MURP ’12) has been selected by the Board of Regents of the Eno Center for Transportation to participate in the 20th annual Eno Leadership Development Conference in Washington, D.C. The conference, to be held June 3-7, will provide a first-hand look at how transportation policy is developed and implemented. Wander will meet with top government officials, leaders of associations, and members of Congress and their staff. “This is a prestigious program and I know that UCLA will be well represented by Madeline’s participation,” said Urban Planning Professor Brian Taylor. Students who complete the intensive program will be better equipped to understand the policy-making process that will become increasingly more important as they pursue careers in transportation, said Joshua Schank, Eno’s President and CEO. Wander is a 2008 graduate of Occidental College and majored in Urban and Environmental Policy. The second-year Master of Urban and Regional Planning student is focusing on transit equity, environmental justice, and travel behavior. She is[…]

Madeline Wander (MURP ’12) has been selected by the Board of Regents of the Eno Center for Transportation to participate in the 20th annual Eno Leadership Development Conference in Washington, D.C. The conference, to be held June 3-7, will provide a first-hand look at how transportation policy is developed and implemented. Wander will meet with top government officials, leaders of associations, and members of Congress and their staff. “This is a prestigious program and I know that UCLA will be well represented by Madeline’s participation,” said Urban Planning Professor Brian Taylor. Students who complete the intensive program will be better equipped to understand the policy-making process that will become increasingly more important as they pursue careers in transportation, said Joshua Schank, Eno’s President and CEO. Wander is a 2008 graduate of Occidental College and majored in Urban and Environmental Policy. The second-year Master of Urban and Regional Planning student is focusing on transit equity, environmental justice, and travel behavior. She is a research assistant for Professors Evelyn Blumenberg and Brian Taylor and a graduate researcher at USC’s program[…]

For an interpretation of the UCLA Lewis and UCLA Ziman Center Future of CA Redevelopment go to the CD&DR Site.  We look forward to your comments and thoughts.   To see the story click here

The Regional Studies Association (RSA), the leading international learned society in the field of regional studies, announces opening a new US Project Office in collaboration with the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA). Professor Lois Takahashi, Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies, Luskin School of Public Affairs, UCLA has been appointed to lead a team of two, Dr Beth Tamayose and Taner Osman in a project including the mapping regional studies and science in North America. Lois says “We are delighted to work with the RSA on this important project. Deliverables will include not only events and publications but also development of knowledge exchange between the worlds of academia, policy and practice. We hope it will also foster more cross Atlantic collaboration on key research questions.” The new Office expands on RSA’s long-standing ability to support the work of students, early career researchers, academics and practitioners in advancing the field of regional studies and regional science and in connecting evidence-based research to policy and practice. “The fast growing number[…]

The UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies is currently soliciting proposals to examine topics related to transportation and (1) environmental sustainability, (2) economic competitiveness, and/or (3) livability.  We will fund projects up to $120,000, though most awards are between $20,000 and $60,000.  Proposals are due March 15th, and the one-year projects will be conducted during the 2012-2013 academic year.  Details on applying for funding can be found in the links below:   UCTC Faculty RFP Overview (PDF) UCTC Faculty RFP Submission Instructions (DOCX) Summary Budget Spreadsheet (XLS) Line Item Spreadsheet (XLS) ALL FILES ZIPPED (ZIP)

The RSA has a long-standing record of supporting the work of academic researchers. Its key awards to this end include the Early Career Grant Scheme, the RSA Awards for outstanding research, support for the organization of one-off events, such as conferences and workshops (RSA Event Support Scheme), in addition to travel awards.   Please go to: http://lewis.ucla.edu/content/rsa

The Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Foundation recently awarded UCLA’s Complete Streets Initiative a $75,000 grant for research and implementation of the project “Parklets for Los Angeles.”  ‘Parklet’ is a term which describes a parking space, or spaces, that are re-purposed as public space for people to use rather than exclusively storing cars. These type of public spaces are appearing in cities such as San Francisco, Vancouver and Philadelphia. The need for this project lies in the lack of open space for recreation in many low-income communities, including downtown Los Angeles. Identifying large swaths of land in central and inner city neighborhoods and converting them to open space is both difficult and costly.  An alternative is to look to smaller-scale and lower-cost solutions, such as parklets. The Complete Streets Initiative will create a ‘Parklet Toolkit’ as the first phase of this Gilbert Foundation supported project. The toolkit will assist cities, including Los Angeles, interested in best practices and provide practical guidance for[…]

Come join us at our first UCLA ITS TRB reception in Washington DC! For larger image go to: http://bit.ly/sc04gR 

WASHINGTON, D.C.—Americans who use housing choice vouchers are increasingly choosing to live in the suburbs, and as that trend proceeds, metropolitan areas across the country need to work to make sure housing opportunities connect with employment, according to a new report co-authored by UCLA researchers and published by the Brookings Institution Metropolitan Policy Program. The new report, The Suburbanization of Housing Choice Voucher Recipients, analyzes data from the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the American Community Survey to show how this trend is proceeding and describe some of its implications. The housing choice voucher program assists very low-income families, the disabled, and the elderly with paying for housing.  The program provides payments to landlords to make up the difference between rents and what the renters can afford.  In certain circumstances, vouchers can be used to purchase a home. “Jobs moved to the suburbs, and people followed,” said Michael Stoll, a non-resident Senior Fellow at Brookings and chair of UCLA’s Department of Public[…]

Tool for Assessing Station Characteristics (TASC):  Identifying Service Quality Improvements at Transit Stops and Stations Researchers at UCLA have created a web-based analysis tool that is publicly available to transit agencies interested in identifying which service quality changes (e.g. amenities, information, lighting, etc.) to transit stops/stations are most important for improving levels of transit users’ satisfaction.  The technology showcase will demonstrate this tool, describe how agencies may access it, and highlight the various applications and functions.  We will guide participants through the process of downloading the survey forms, administering a user survey, uploading survey results, and downloading and interpreting results. This research-based program is groundbreaking in that it provides planners an analysis of the relative importance of various improvements, uses community-based input, and can be applied at the level of individual stops/stations (to provide an analysis unique to that stop), across a group of stops/stations, or across the transit system as a whole (to evaluate performance in aggregate).  The program provides a[…]