Before participating in a Zócalo Public Square panel on the future of the 710 Freeway in May, Lewis Center Director Brian Taylor was interviewed in the green room about what it’s like for a transportation expert to be stuck in traffic. Here’s what he had to say…. […]

Lewis Center Faculty Fellow and Distinguished Professor of Urban Planning Donald Shoup was featured recently in a Los Angeles Times story on how the City of Los Angeles should manage its parking meters. Read on for the full story and Professor Shoup’s comments.

The Lewis Center is proud to announce the winners of its annual GIS contest. The three winning projects successfully applied research methods and spatial analysis to produce descriptive and analytical insights into distinct policy questions. The 1st place winner will receive $500, the 2nd place winner $300, and the 3rd place winner $200.  In addition, the first place winner’s poster will be featured in the Lewis Center during the 2014-2015 academic year. The contest was judged by Complete Streets Program Manager Madeline Brozen and GIS Program Manager Norman Wong. 1st Place: Neighborhood Change Along the Orange Line by Anne Brown 2nd Place: Transportation and Climate Change Adaptation: A Geospatial Investigation of Vulnerability and Resilience in Los Angeles County by Chelsea Richer 3rd Place: Does the LA Bike Plan 2010 Serve the Right Areas? – Spatial Analysis of Bicycle and Pedestrian Host Spots and LA Bike Plan 2010 by Hyeran Lee Honorable Mention: Grading Garcetti’s Great Streets: A Spatial Analysis of Mayor Garcetti’s Great Streets Initiative by Steven[…]

On Thursday, June 12, APA LA held its annual Awards Gala at the Los Angeles Theatre in downtown Los Angeles. The Lewis Center was well-represented at the ceremony, with its researchers walking away with two awards. Madeline Brozen, Herbie Huff, and Norman Wong won a Communications Initiative Award of Excellence for their Bike Count Data Clearinghouse project, which is co-sponsored by the Southern California Association of Governments and the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Kittelson & Associates, Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition, and Ryan Snyder Associates also participated in the project. The second Lewis Center award went to Distinguished Professor of Urban Planning and Lewis Center Faculty Fellow Donald Shoup, who won a Planning Pioneer Award of Excellence. View a complete list of award winners and event pictures here.

The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Highway Administration has awarded  Dwight David Eisenhower Transportation Fellowships to Transportation Policy and Planning Ph.D. students Jaimee Lederman and Kelcie Ralph and second-year Master of Urban and Regional Planning student Anne Brown. The award, established as part of the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991, recognizes students pursuing transportation-related degrees and aims to attract the brightest minds in the field to the transportation workforce.  

Earlier this spring, ACCESS Magazine won APA’s “National Planning Excellence Award for a Communications Initiative”. Each year APA honors the best planning efforts and individuals that create communities of lasting value with National Planning Excellence and Achievement Awards. The 2014 award recipients were honored at a special luncheon held during APA’s National Planning Conference. For more on the award, view the video embedded above. ACCESS Magazine reports on research at the University of California Transportation Center and presents it in a readable format so it useful for policy makers and planning practitioners. ACCESS was started in 1993 by University of California Berkeley planning professor Mel Webber to bridge the gap between transportation research and policy. Authors of academic research published in a professional journal may write an abridged version for publication in ACCESS. The magazine’s editors work with authors to translate academic, technical jargon into understandable, reader-friendly prose. The biannual publication has more than 8,500 subscribers from around the world and attracts more than 1,000 website[…]

By Adeney Zo, UCLA Luskin Student Writer Urban Planning professor Michael Lens recently received awards from the Journal of the American Planning Association (JAPA) and Housing Policy Debate for his research in housing policy. Though Lens was aware that his Housing Policy Debate submission was part of a paper competition, the JAPA award came as a surprise. “I’ve been working on the paper that was eventually accepted for publication by JAPA – going back to my dissertation…I had such an elated feeling that my work had finally paid off,” says Lens. “And with the two awards, it was like I had won the lottery twice in the span of one week.” Lens’ JAPA submission, selected as one of the journal’s two “Best Papers of 2013,” focuses on the relationship between crime and subsidized housing in New York City. Though the crime rate in the city has decreased over the years, Lens found that the cause could not be directly attributed[…]

The Lewis Center’s Madeline Brozen was recently quoted in a Los Angeles Register story on beautification efforts taking place on a stretch of Pico Boulevard in West Los Angeles. Click here for the full story and Ms. Brozen’s comments.    

Lewis Center Director Brian Taylor recently participated in a panel discussion on the future of the 710 freeway. The event, Figuring Out the 710 Freeway’s Future, was hosted by Zocalo Public Square. To find out more about what the panelists suggested should be done, read Zocalo’s event recap and view a video of the event.

UCLA Professor and Chair of Urban Planning and Lewis CenterFaculty Fellow Evelyn Blumenberg was recently honored by the White House as a “Champion of Change” for transportation. The White House is honoring eleven local heroes who are “Champions of Change” for their exemplary leadership to ensure that transportation facilities, services, and jobs help individuals and their communities connect to 21st century opportunities. These individuals are leading the charge across the country building connectivity, strengthening transportation career pathways, and making connections between transportation and economic growth. To read more, click here.