At our Fall 2022 Review Board Meeting, National RTAP honored Review Board members who are transitioning off the Board for their dedicated service and valuable reviews and guidance.

Above, National RTAP Executive Director Robin Phillips (left) and Assistant Director Liz Taylor (right) presented a plaque to Laura Corff, United Community Action Program, Inc./Cimarron Transit, Transit Director.

TACL, the Transportation Technical Assistance Coordination Library, helps rural and tribal transit agencies access information about public transportation coordination, coordinate among federally funded transit programs, and share resources across agencies to improve transit in their communities.

Nine new resources were added to TACL this quarter, including National RTAP's Charter Service, FTA's Coordination with Human Services Organizations and National Transit Database Reporting, and NADTC's Travel Training Instruction using FTA Section 5310.

Learn about TACL, the Transportation Technical Assistance Coordination Library, on February 28, 2022 from 2:00-3:00 PM ET. This session will include a Resource Feature by National RTAP Executive Director Robin Phillips on the Writing a Coordinated Public Transit Human Services Transportation Plan technical brief.

TACL also extends a warm welcome to its newest Task Force member: Shayna Gleason, Research Associate, Transit Workforce Center (TWC).

U.S. DOT published a Notice of Funding Opportunity to Establish Cooperative Agreements With Technical Assistance Providers for the Fiscal Year 2022 Thriving Communities Program. The program will ensure disadvantaged communities affected by environmental, climate, and health policy outcomes have the technical tools and organizational capacity to plan for and deliver projects that enable their communities to thrive. The application deadline is November 22, 2022.

The FTA FY22 Notice of Funding Opportunity for the Strengthening Mobility and Revolutionizing Transportation (SMART) Grant was amended to include corrections. See pages 4, 12, 16, 23, and 25. The new text is underlined and bolded. The application deadline is November 18, 2022.

On August 18, 2022, FTA announced project selections for the FY 2022 Low or No Emission (Low-No) Vehicle Program. They published a Notice with corrections to eight project descriptions on October 13, 2022.

FTA published its Fiscal Year 2022 Tribal Transit Project Selections. $8,635,124 was allocated to 25 Tribal governments for projects that support transit services for American Indian Tribes and Alaska Native Villages, communities, or groups in rural areas. Projects include establishing new Tribal transit systems, building new transit facilities, and more.

The FTA Drug and Alcohol Newsletter for October 2022 has been published. The issue includes information that FTA has resumed its in-person Drug and Alcohol Compliance Auditing Program after a postponement due to COVID-19 and that Management Information System (MIS) Reporting MIS reporting for 2022 drug and alcohol testing results begins January 1, 2023.

Free FTA-sponsored drug and alcohol training sessions provide essential information to facilitate covered employers’ compliance with the drug and alcohol testing regulations (49 CFR Part 655 and Part 40). FTA provides these one-day trainings at a host site, and they are open to the public. Agencies interested in hosting a training session can contact the FTA Drug and Alcohol Project Office at [email protected] or 617-494-6336.

The deadline to provide feedback to U.S. DOT on enhancing intersection safety for pedestrians, bicyclists, and other vulnerable road users has been extended to November 15, 2022.

Working Effectively with American Indian and Alaska Native Tribal Governments is an online training course that provides users with a better understanding and greater knowledge of Native American issues. The course was updated in 2022 by the ACHP Office of Native American Affairs, DOJ National Indian Country Training Initiative, and the DOI BIA Office of Justice Services, and hosted by OPM USALearning.

Upcoming Tribal transit-focused conferences and meetings include:

NCHRP's Integrating Effective Transportation Performance, Risk, and Asset Management Practices includes transportation asset management plan (TAMP) procedures that can be implemented by transit agencies to integrate performance, risk, and asset management practices into long-term transportation planning programs.

Creating a Transportation Committee that Reflects All Community Voices is a guidebook published by the National Aging and Disability Transportation Center (NADTC) that is designed to be useful to many types of committees. It contains general guidelines that can be modified depending on any local, statutory, or capacity the committee was created to serve. It includes a sample agenda from the Western Arizona Council of Governments and steps in reaching a consensus when disagreements occur.

RHIhub's Rural Hunger and Access to Health Food topic guide includes information on the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on rural food security and access. There is a case study on Charlevoix County Transit in northern Michigan that began home delivery of groceries, food pantry packages, and meals provided by senior centers, to older adults and at-risk people who needed to remain at home during the pandemic.

Travel Behavior of Transportation-Disadvantaged Populations: Trends and Geographic Disparities by the Small Urban and Rural Center on Mobility (SURCOM) examined travel behavior and mobility of transportation-disadvantaged groups, including trip rates, miles driven, mode shares, and other behaviors. Researchers found that those in rural areas are more reliant on automobiles, and while they drive more miles, they take fewer trips per day on average.

FHWA's HEPGIS is an interactive, web-based geographic map server that enables users to navigate, view and print geospatial maps. Users can also locate and zoom to a geographic area of interest, and create maps showing various geographic features and themes. Maps include crashes, air quality, and alternative fuel corridors.

Transitland is an open data platform that collects GTFS, GTFS Realtime, and other open data feeds from transit providers around the world. Transitland aggregates feeds from over 2,500 operators in over 55 countries. The map shows routes, departures, and stop-to-stop geometries.

TinyWow is a free online tool portal for working with files. Users can accomplish tasks like increasing image resolution, compressing PDFs, extracting audio from a video, and many other tools.

The Volpe Center built a prototype geospatial tool, Transportation for Social Equity (TransportSE), which enables users to visualize, interact with, understand, and interpret national data from the U.S. Census on demographic metrics, multimodal transportation burdens, and social vulnerability.

National Center for Mobility Management (NCMM) announced its 2023 Ready-to-Launch Grants. These FTA-funded grants of up to $75,000 will allow communities to pilot a promising mobility solution, the development of which was inspired and informed by the results of community research. The application deadline is November 23, 2022.

The Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Energy are providing grants for the creation of several Environmental Justice Thriving Communities Technical Assistance Centers to support underserved communities, including rural and remote communities. The deadline is November 1, 2022.

H.R. 4877, the One Stop Shop for Small Business Compliance Act of 2021 was signed into law on October 10, 2022. This act requires the Small Business Administration’s Office of the National Ombudsman to create a centralized website for small entity compliance guides.

H.R. 5641, the Small Project Efficient and Effective Disaster Recovery Act was also signed into law that day, increasing the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s small project threshold and allowing more projects to proceed under simplified procedures for response and recovery grant programs.

October 25-27

Albany, NY, October 25-27

October 26, 1:00-4:30 PM

October 27, 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM

October 27, 1:00 PM

October 27, 1:00-4:30 PM

November 1, 1:00-2:30 PM

November 1, 2:00-3:00 PM

Greenwood Village, CO, November 1-3

November 2, 2:00-3:00 PM

November 3, 1:00-2:00 PM

November 3, 2:00-4:00 PM

November 3, 4:30-6:00 PM

Washington, DC, November 3-4

November 8, 1:00-4:00 PM; November 9, 11:00 AM-4:00 PM; November 10, 10:00 AM-12:00 PM

November 9, 1:00-2:00 PM

November 9, 1:00-2:30 PM

Interagency NEPA & Permitting Collaboration Tool (INPCT) Webinar

November 9, 1:00-2:30 PM

To register, contact David Williams

November 9, 1:00-4:30 PM

November 9-10

San Francisco, CA, November 9-10

Fleet Forward Conference / Fleet Safety Conference

Santa Clara, CA, November 9 - 11

November 10, 1:00-4:30 PM

November 10, 3:00-4:30 PM

November 15, 12:00-1:00 PM

November 15, 1:00-2:00 PM

St. Petersburg, FL, November 15-16

November 16, 12:00-1:00 PM

Memphis, TN, November 16-17

Columbus, GA, November 30 - December 2

Las Vegas, NV, December 6-8

December 9, 12:00-1:00 PM

December 9, 2:00 PM

Washington, D.C., December 13-14

December 14, 2:00-3:00 PM

For a listing of all National RTAP and other national events, view our Calendar. Also, see the FTA Events Calendar. To submit an event, email [email protected].