MWCOG = the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments. The Transportation Planning Board of the COG is the "metropolitan planning organization" for the purposes of federal transporation planning and regional coordination.

WMATA = the Washington Metropolitan Area Transportation Authority. It runs the metropolitan area subway system and bus services.

The closest organization in the region to this kind of job description is Arlington Transportation Partners, the contracting organization that handles most of Arlington County's transportation management functions, in association with various agencies and people who do work directly for Arlington County and are "government employees."

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DIRECTOR OF INNOVATION

Salary Range: $136,941 to $171,176

Metrolinx, an agency of the Government of Ontario, is realizing its vision to bring about an integrated, traveller-focused, multi-modal transportation system that enhances prosperity, sustainability and quality of life for the GTHA region.

To support this, Metrolinx has identified innovation as a core corporate value and is looking for a unique and experienced individual to work with a team of diverse professionals in the transportation, planning, finance and sustainable development disciplines to identify, develop, incubate and champion innovative ideas, concepts and best practices needed to meet Metrolinx’s short and long-term goals. Reporting to the Vice President of Policy and Planning, this management executive will work collaboratively with all Metrolinx business areas, including GO Transit, an operating division, and public and private sector transportation leadership to identify future lines of business at both the strategic and tactical levels.

As the Director of Innovation, you will be responsible for:

• Researching, evaluating, and filtering ideas and concepts including those from senior management, and working closely with all business areas to use new and existing customer insights to advance the corporate value of innovation.
• Identifying policies, internal processes, and external services for improved modal integration, efficiency and alignment with The Big Move and overall corporate mission, vision, goals and values
• Developing and directing research focused on transportation innovation and making improvements to the traveler experience.
• Developing the business case model to support innovative ideas from incubation to independence
• Overseeing senior stakeholder forums made up of diverse public and private sector interests to remain current and ahead of the curve.
• Bringing a diverse perspective to the field of transportation, to grasp issues, opportunities and roadblocks and subsequently utilizing your range of knowledge and political acuity to minimize barriers and to maximize opportunities.
• Integrating potential innovations with Metrolinx’s “The Big Move” plan, the GO 2020 strategic plan and the overall needs of travellers throughout the GTHA.

Qualifications: Completion of a post-graduate university degree in Planning, Engineering, Business Administration or Public Policy or any combination of education, training, and experience deemed equivalent. Minimum ten (10) years experience in the development of corporate strategy or project management in the transportation and/or urban planning fields that includes direct exposure to, or demonstrated working knowledge of;

· Developing and fostering innovation in policy, procedures and services.

· Managing / Directing high profile and highly complex projects that are organic and require the ability to adapt to changing goals and direction.

· Directing and managing cross-functional corporate teams, and multi-disciplinary consultant contracts.

· Integrating a diverse portfolio of issues into actionable directives.

· Generating and testing hypotheses, and incubating ideas.

· Leading by empowering others to innovate and continuously improve.

· Superior interpersonal communication skills (written, oral, and listening) and extremely strong presentation skills for public audiences and senior public officials.

· Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area planning and socio-political issues (rural, suburban, and urban) that have the potential to impact the success of Metrolinx and its operating division GO Transit.

· Diplomatic personal conduct in highly sensitive and / or political environments, with the ability to negotiate and foster a climate of openness and transparency.

Resumes must be received by the Human Resources Office, Metrolinx, 20 Bay Street, Suite 600, Toronto, M5J 2W3, email: humanresources@metrolinx.com no later than September 15, 2010, quoting File Number 10-220.

From "Beall's Outlet takes advantage of open retail space to continue aggressive expansion" in the St. Petersburg Times:

Colliers International estimates ... a staggering 300 million square feet of empty big-box retail space nationally. The 120 million square feet vacated just since 2008 by the likes of Circuit City, Linens n' Things and supermarkets equals all the shopping center space in Baltimore, Cincinnati and Kansas City combined.

Just came across this group, the National Association for Interpretation. From their website:

... a professional association for those involved in the interpretation of natural and cultural heritage resources in settings such as parks, zoos, museums, nature centers, aquaria, botanical gardens, and historical sites. For more than 50 years. NAI and its parent organizations have encouraged networking, training, and collaboration among members and partners in support of our mission: inspiring leadership and excellence to advance heritage interpretation as a profession.

They sponsor a national conference and publish a journal as well as a magazine, which has many thematic issues, publish and sell books about the field, etc.

RIco skateboarding on 1st (First) Street NE, Washington, DC
Originally uploaded by rllayman

I asked him if I could take his photo. Afterwards we had a conversation about biking, skateboarding, local organizing on sustainable transportation, the city's expansion of bike lanes, and then "where can you go and meet up with other people who want to bicycle." As regards to that question, while they aren't quite ready yet, I suggested BicycleSPACE, the new bike shop at 5th and I Street NW, which I think is gonna work to do stuff like that.

(In active transportation planning, generally you also deal with skateboarding and inline skating in terms of the space required in the context of trail and bikeway planning and other users.)

A "temporary" parking lot on a site where the development plans fell through, with a city govt. sign heralding their involvement with the project
Originally uploaded by rllayman

Frankly, I've wondered why the city govt. (I wrote about this years before with regard to the DC Dept. of Housing and Community Development) wants to put up a sign on failed projects or decrepit empty buildings and lots. It's not the best marketing tool, at least for citizens, who live with these empty or underutilized facilities for years and years if not decades.

Last week, the On Site magazine supplement of the Washington Business Journal had a piece about how great the local supermarket chains are at integrating their big stores into the urban fabric ("Changing demographics usher in a new golden age for D.C. supermarkets").

While it is great that these companies are opening new stores in the center city, for the most part they aren't doing it much differently than how they do stores in the suburbs. So I wrote a letter about it, which the WBJ ran, "Urban Safeway design misses the mark."

They were kind enough to unlock the story--normally letters to the editor are not part of the content they normally make available to non-subscribers (and hey, we should all subscribe now, shouldn't we?)--for the blogosphere and especially the readers of this blog.

This is paragraph 2:

I have been critical for years about how supermarkets, especially in D.C., are reintegrated into the urban fabric. It’s not just about the size of the facility, it’s also about how the supermarket connects to the street and extends the quality of the urban experience, by bringing the store outside and the street inside. (Think about the excitement of the crowds walking on M Street NW in Georgetown and how to continue that experience inside the store.)

They did add a word in one paragraph which changes the meaning, but you probably won't notice:

The grocery retailers in D.C. design and merchandise their stores for the most part just like their suburban counterparts, making proximity the only factor with some power for differentiation.

The second word, grocery, should be excised. I was referring to all retailers, not just supermarkets. That then makes the comparison of Carytown, Hampden in Baltimore, and Downtown Frederick more relevant.

Produce at Night, Astoria, Queens. Flickr photo by Joey in Vermont.

Amount of space required to transport the user the same number of passengers by car, bus, or bicycle
Originally uploaded by rllayman

Image: Amount of space required to transport the user the same number of passengers by car, bus, or bicycle, Urban Ambassadors, Des Moines, IA

In a previous entry I said this poster was one of the best versions of this concept, which has been done by many organizations and in many places over the years.

The idea that is expressed is that you can move people more efficiently by transit, on foot, or by bicycle.

Efficiency is defined by the amount of space required to move the same number of people according to the specific mode.

In this poster, the bicyclists are spread out along the same distance as the space taken by cars. I think that's misleading. 40 bicycles, in traffic, don't take up the same amount of space, linearly--I guess you could look at this as two bike lanes versus four lanes of motor vehicles--as the cars.

In any case, I am not sure the way this is expressed graphically hits people over the head strongly enough, in terms of the point.

What do you think?

Politics at the state level in Virginia is relatively wacked, when all is said and done, as there is a rabid conservative streak that is beyond explanation, such as the various spurious politically-motivated lawsuits by the State Attorney General, Ken Cuccinelli ("Va. Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli: The rise of the confounding conservative" from the Post).

The Greater Richmond area though is more focused on its revitalization and is engaging in a regional planning effort. See "Get Together on a Greater Richmond" from the Richmond Times-Dispatch. (For budget regions, the T-D is no longer distributed in hard copy form in the Washington area, so I don't read it much anymore...)

They will be having a public workshop, called the Capital Region Collaborative Feedback Meeting, a cooperative effort between the Richmond Regional Planning District Commission (RRPDC) and the Greater Richmond Chamber of Commerce, which is also supported by the Partnership for Smarter Growth.

Thursday, September 16, 2010 from 5:30 PM - 8:30 PM (ET)
Location:
St. John's Church Parish Hall
2401 East Broad Street
Richmond, VA

The draft of regional priorities can be viewed by visiting the RRPDC web site at Richmond Regional Planning District Commission website.