Online Webinar

Bus Rapid Transit – or BRT – is bus service that includes enhanced travel ways, stations and equipment. BRT offers passengers faster, more reliable service than traditional bus service. It does so by providing more frequent service and reducing traffic delays by giving BRT vehicles priority over general traffic. This type of service can be implemented faster less expensively than rail transit while still offering many of the same attributes and benefits as rail transit. Because the public is relatively unfamiliar with BRT, public education and marketing are very important to the success of this type of service. 

For decades, the waterfronts of our port cities were the drivers of regional economic development. But as markets changed in the mid-Twentieth Century, these areas in many cities became derelict eyesores, economic black holes that sucked the energy out of these once-thriving urban centers. Over the past few decades, however, new approaches to the function and utility of urban waterfronts have given these districts a new vitality and vibrancy. This webinar will present the waterfront redevelopment stories of three small cities: Portland, Maine; Portsmouth, New Hampshire; and Burlington, Vermont. It will highlight the economic, social, and environmental forces at play as these cities work to redefine themselves.

This session highlights many of the conditions (with emphasis on market analysis and urban design) that lead to viable town centers, primarily through case study of town centers across the country. Case studies of public/private partnerships will also be provided. The success of the town center strategy, which focuses on the creation of great places to create value premiums, has broad implications for planning, since it has provided market validation of a number of planning and urban design principles. That these successes have occurred, often in the absence of regional policies that support placemaking, could point to a broader cultural shift and future support for place-friendly policies.

 The purpose of this session is to present how many communities are rethinking their long-term development policies that may once have embraced low-density, suburban development to incorporate more new urbanism principles such as a focus on infill development over greenfield development; a desire to create walkable neighborhoods with access to local businesses; and an understanding that high-density development is not the “plague” on society that some of the public may once have believed. 

The National Capital Planning Commission, the federal government’s regional planning agency, in conjunction with federal and local partners is developing a bold new vision for Southwest Washington. Learn how NCPC and the city proposes to transform a staid mid-century federal office precinct - merely steps from the National Mall - into a vibrant livable community and showcase of sustainability.

The purpose of the webinar will be to orient planners to the issues of environmental justice as they relate specifically to freight operations and freight infrastructure, including air and sea ports, railroads, intermodal facilities, inland warehouse and distribution centers, and the roads and bridges that serve them. To help planners understand and address community concerns, presenters will discuss the origins and current status of federal environmental justice policy and offer infrastructure case studies from the Chicago area and Southern California.

This session will explore promising efforts to mobilize and innovate Federal solutions to aging issues cross-agency and intra-agency such as: creating a single agency entry point, providing a forum for dialogue or serving as a repository for policy and programs related to aging.