The list of Smart 50 award winners is out! We congratulate all of the communities selected for your transformative work in the smart city space.
Several community winners are also part of our network of Smart Gigabit Communitiesincluding: Austin, TX; Chattanooga, TN; Kansas City, MO; Lafayette, LA; Las Vegas, NV; Richardson, TX; San Diego, CA; and Washington, DC.
The Smart 50 Awards are conducted in partnership with Smart Cities Connect, Smart Cities Connect Foundation, and US Ignite. Complete descriptions of all of the winning community initiatives can be found on the Smart 50 Awards site.
Here’s a spotlight preview of the city of San Diego’s winning submission. Image below from the San Diego Climate Action Plan.
San Diego Mobility Modeling Tool: A Quick Response Tool to Estimate Mode Share
Description: The project is an innovative quick response, data driven tool that allows the user to test land use intensity, bicycle/pedestrian infrastructure investment, mobility policy, and travel demand management to predict commute mode share changes from driving to walking, bicycling, and taking transit.
The tool is user friendly and quickly and seamlessly allows the user to input land use, infrastructure (such as miles of bicycle lanes and completeness of sidewalk), and other variables to easily show how commute drive mode share will shift to other active transportation modes.
The project helps the City understand how land use choices, mobility policy, and infrastructure investments will affect travel choices. The City of San Diego Climate Action Plan (CAP), adopted in December 2015, identifies commute mode share targets. The CAP has a goal of reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and one of the methods to accomplish this goal is to reduce dependency on auto travel. The CAP goal is to achieve a 50% non-auto commute mode share for people living in Transit Priority Areas (TPAs) within the City’s Community Plan Areas.
Impact: The project/tool is part of every Community Plan Update process to help the public and decision makers easily see how land use and mobility are connected and illustrate how land use choices can work toward making each community more walk, bike, and transit supportive.