The Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission (DVRPC) has
held its annual Board Retreat and, as usual, has given us some provocative
thoughts and thinkers.
The meeting focused on changing technology and its effect on
transportation. Some nuggets from
the speakers will give a sense of the sessions:
Andrew Bata of MTA in New York showed us some cutting edge
technology in transit, including realtime multimodal information, automated
transit, and no-catenary light rail.
Daniel Lee of Penn impressed upon us how rapidly new
transportation technology, such as driverless cars, is arriving (and
entertained the group with a video of robotic soccer!).
Sabrina Sussman of ITS America said we are entering the “my
transportation” era, when people can use their smartphones and other devices to
move around in a wide variety of modes.
Just ahead are integrated payments systems, multimodal navigation and
trip planning, smarter cities, and connected and semi-autonomous vehicles.
John Gartner of Navigant talked about the future of electric
vehicles. He believes the EV
industry is “vibrant and healthy” and expects the German manufacturers
(stimulated by the success of Tesla) to be the key growth market in the next
couple of years.
Jim Hughes, dean of Rutgers’ Bloustein Planning School, gave
a fascinating account of the growth of New Jersey’s “autocentric office
corridors” and their relation to the advent of personal computers and a style
of office-based knowledge work based on them. That day has now passed, he argued, as we enter an
“untethered era” based on a mobile internet technology. Both the new technology and the
Millenials who have grown up with it are more oriented to dispersed work and
“interactive team spaces” than to the old world of office parks and cubicles. This shift has left New Jersey with an
obsolete suburban office infrastructure that is “oversupplied and
underdemolished” with “stranded assets” sitting in “seas of asphalt.” He suggested that “densification” is no
longer just a planning concept: it is being pursued by private sector
executives who find the old model expensive and inefficient.
Deron Lovaas of the National Resources Defense Council
pointed out the interconnection between new technology and climate change
preparedness.
Tom Glendening of E3THINK described new developments in
urban mobility, including new bikeshare technology and a new bike-boat-bike
trans-Hudson intermodal system under development in New York and New Jersey.
How do all these ideas link up? See the board below!
On a nontechnical note, Jim Simpson, New Jersey Commissioner
of Transportation (and DVRPC Board Chair) recounted some of the frustrations he
has experienced in New York/New Jersey relations and said he intends to use the
example of Pennsylvania/New Jersey cooperation (facilitated by DVRPC) as a
model for improving bistate problems to the east.
DVRPC also presented its Regional Excellence awards
(described here), including one of my favorites, the new Pennsauken Transit
Center, which provides a connection between NJ Transit’s Atlantic City Line and
River Line (story here). Networks
are good!
Congratulations to Barry Seymour and company for another outstanding
program in cutting-edge transportation planning!
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