Transportation Equity Network and Gamaliel will hold a webinar Aug. 25 at 4pm EDT entitled "The Truth About Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs)." This the second in a series of free monthly seminars. This webinar will cover the importance of MPOs, the ways in which current legislation shapes MPOs, and stories of actual engagement with MPOs from TEN leaders and organizers. Register here.

Yesterday, the Brookings Institution released a new report focusing on access to public transportation among those who do not own a vehicle. The report, “Transit Access and Zero-Vehicle Households,” reveals that approximately 700,000 American households don’t own a car and also don’t have access to public transportation in their neighborhood. Over 7.5 million households do not own a car in the largest 100 metro areas, representing 10% of all households in these metro areas. To reach these and other findings, Brookings collected data from the American Community Survey and 371 transit providers that serve the 100 largest metropolitan areas in the United States. The report is a follow-up to Brookings’ report on access to jobs via transit, “Missed…

The U.S. Department of Transportation will continue its webinar series next week. On Monday, Aug. 22, the webinar will discuss the expectations for project readiness and NEPA. On Wednesday, Aug. 24, the webinar discuss the application process, public private partnerships and credit assistance through TIFIA challenge grants in the next round of TIGER Discretionary Grants.

The American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) has this new resource guide on Healthy & Livable Communities. It’s a good compendium of links, research studies, case studies, etc.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Office of Sustainable Housing and Communities (OSHC) recently issued two Notices of Funding Availability (NOFA) for their FY 2011 Community Challenge Grants Program ($95 million in grants available) and FY 2011 Sustainable Communities Regional Planning Grant Program ($28 million available). In order to help applicants, a pair of webinars have been scheduled:

The Mineta Transportation Institute has completed an analysis of the dos and don'ts of running ballot campaigns for rail transit projects. "Revisiting Factors Associated with the Success of Ballot Initiatives with a Substantial Rail Transit Component" continues previous work that reviewed transit tax elections in 11 urban areas and developed 17 community-level factors that influence the success or failure of the ballot measures.

The U.S. Department of Transportation's next webinar on the TIGER Grant process will discuss the expectations for the Benefit-Cost Analysis requirement in the next round of TIGER Discretionary Grant applications. The on-line webinar will be held from 1pm to 2:30 pm EST. There is no charge to attend, but advance registration is required. Register here.

We've added another piece of research to the Best Practices' growing archive of research articles showing the link between jobs and transit. "Understanding the Impacts of Transitways: How Light-Rail Transit Improves Job Access for Low-Wage Workers" is a 2010 two-page summary of research performed by Yingling Fan for the Transitway Impacts Research Program at the Center for Transportation Studies at the University of Minnesota.