A report from the Mineta Transportation Institute at the San José State University College of Business has been added to the Resource Center best practices database. "Lessons for Increasing Choice Ridership While Maintaining Transit Dependent Ridership" examines the Atlanta transit system in an effort to identify what types of policies would expand the use of transit by choice riders while at the least not hurting transit-dependent riders.

FTA will conduct informational webinars on February 29th and March 1st for applicants to the Fiscal Year 2012 State of Good Repair Initiative, Bus Livability Initiative and Clean Fuels Grant Program funding opportunities. The webinars will provide an introduction to the programs, information on applicant and project eligibility, and a review of the criteria that will be used to select projects. Participants will also receive step-by-step instructions for completing the required forms and submitting their application in www.grants.gov.

Bus advertisements are often seen as a way to generate revenue for struggling transit agency bottom lines.  Sometimes they are of interest but mostly the wraps are copies of ads that you would see in many different places.  Though some go the extra mile to be more entertaining and use pieces of the bus that helps get the point across.  Naphtali Knox who edits the Northern California APA newsletter forwarded along a number of entertaining images of bus advertisements around the world.  We are hoping folks can help us identify where they are from as well as enjoy the creativity that some of these ads bring.  Post in the coments if you know where they are from.  Enjoy!

Don't X Out Public Transportation rallies are being scheduled around the country for Sept. 20. At the rallies, public transit riders, advocates and employees will call on Congress to support public transportation by opposing proposed cuts of more than one third to federal transportation funding.

A report examining development opportunites along 64 miles of King County Metro Transit's future bus rapid transit corridors has been added to the Best Practices research articles.

While there are a lot of typologies created around rapid transit networks that only include rail in this country, that doesn't mean we can't plan land uses around frequent bus service.  In fact, in this video below CTOD Director Sam Zimbabwe discusses (go ahead and click!, it's less than a minute of your time) the need to focus not on the transit technology but the transit service frequency when thinking about how to change land uses. 

Transportation for America, the Reason Foundation and Taxpayers for Common Sense have teamed to produce a report that proposes cost-effective strategies to get the most for our transportation money.

Here at Reconnecting America we talk a lot about streetcars but not a lot about bus circulators.  However many cities see them as a way to move people around downtown without expending lots of capital dollars.  They are generally free and according to the most recent TCRP synthesis report 87 (loaded into the Resource Center), ridership can range between 600 riders on an average weekday to 1,500 riders on sundays.  Additional resources for downtowns looking at circulators include another report in the Resource Center from the National Center for Transit Research at the University of South Florida.