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NCSG hiring Post-Doctoral researchers in transportation

One or more fully funded 12-month post-doctoral positions are available to work with a multidisciplinary team of researchers from the University of Maryland’s National Center for Smart Growth (NCSG) and Center for Geospatial Information Science (CGIS), as well as industry and local government partners. Apply for the position here, and contact nfinio@umd.edu with questions. One or more of the post-doctoral researcher(s) will have a key role in an ongoing project to model ridership across the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) system using survey data, smart card trip data, and an array of factors related to travel, transit ridership, land use, built environment, urban form, and transport infrastructure. A key task will be to enhance a previously developed ridership model using new data sources and through the application of geospatial analytical techniques.  The post-doctoral researcher(s) could also participate in other projects currently underway at NCSG and CGIS.
  • A primary task of the post-doctoral researcher(s) will be to lead model development and enhancement efforts within the UMD NCSG-CGIS team. Team members previously developed a ridership model in 2015 (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tra.2018.06.011). However, ridership trends have since evolved and the transit system has expanded. At the same time, new built environment and ridership-related variables have become available as well as new machine learning-based approaches for modeling space-time trends. As a result, roles of the postdoctoral researcher(s) on this project will include: (1) collecting and managing a database of diverse variables; (2) creating new variables based on the transportation network, points-of-interest, and neighborhood characteristics; (3) updating the currently existing model; (4) enhancing the ridership model with new variables and the incorporation of spatial dependence structures; (5) employing the ridership model to understand the factors responsible for generating ridership across different types of stations and forecasting future scenarios; and (6) drafting progress reports. The post-doctoral researcher(s) will work closely with the other project members and partnering organizations on model integration, scenario development and analysis, and testing. The project will provide a unique opportunity to work in a truly multi-disciplinary and multi-organizational team composed of transportation and urban planning researchers, geospatial information scientists, local planners, and technologists.
  • While some of the work is specific to the WMATA project, candidates will be considered for work on other projects as well.  These include projects funded by the Federal Transit Administration focused on transit-oriented development in an anticipated light rail corridor, a project funded by the Maryland Department of Transportation focused on travel behavior pre- and post-pandemic, and a project funded by the International Center for Local and Regional Development on commuting patterns in the Republic of Ireland.  Skills and experience in land market analysis, accessibility analysis, and survey methods are sought for work on these projects.
  • We seek highly motivated and self-driven candidates with good interpersonal skills and the ability to thrive in a diverse, multidisciplinary environment. The successful applicant will have a strong background and research experience in a transportation-related field.
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Nick FinioJul 19No Comments

Smart Growth @25 Webinar Series

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Smart Growth @25 Webinar Series

Professor and Director Gerrit Knaap and multiple NCSG alums will jointly host a series of webinars for the Smart Growth Network, sponsored by the Maryland Department of Planning and the US EPA Office of Sustainable Communities. Please find more details here and RSVP here. The first session is Tuesday July 13th at 1:00 p.m. EDT — see below.

The seeds of smart growth were planted in 1991 with the articulation of the Ahwahnee principles at a conference in central California. Over time, these evolved into 10 principles that have now become widely known. These Smart Growth Principles propose a development pattern that is compact, with mixed uses and sense of place, a range of transportation and housing options, dotted with public open spaces and surrounded by farms, forests, and natural resources. The benefits of such development patterns were purported to include less driving and improved physical health, more affordable housing in high quality neighborhoods, and cleaner air, water, and global atmosphere and more.

It has now been 30 years since the seeds of smart growth were first planted and 25 years since the APA published The Growing Smart Legislative Guidebook and Governor Glendening signed the Maryland Smart Growth Act. The years since have produced countless workshops, conferences, interactive websites, professional reports, and academic research. Yet it is difficult to find a source that answers basic questions such as:

  • How have the concepts of smart growth evolved over time?
  • What has the academic research revealed in terms of the validity of smart growth concepts?
  • To what extent have the principles of smart growth become embedded in the plans, regulations, and policies of state, local, and federal government agencies?
  • Have we made significant progress addressing the problems that the smart growth movement was created to address?
  • What new challenges have arisen that the original smart growth principles failed to address?

Toward that end, Professors Gerrit Knaap (University of Maryland), Rebecca Lewis (University of Oregon), and Arnab Chakraborty (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) commissioned leading scholars to write papers that address these questions. Those papers will soon be published by Edward Elgar in a forthcoming Handbook on Smart Growth.In advance of the publication of that book the Smart Growth Network will present four webinar sessions that address the history, principles, and implementation of smart growth, what we have learned about the original principles of smart growth, new salient issues that were not addressed by the original principles, and where smart growth needs to go from here.

Session 1

Session #1: Looking Forward, Looking Back
Tuesday, July 13 at 1:00 p.m. EDT
The book editors will introduce the webinar series and the challenges advocates for smart growth face today. They will review the history of the smart growth concept and provide an overview of its evolution over time. They will address governance issues and describe how smart growth has been pursued at the local, state, regional, and national levels.

The panel includes Gerrit Knaap of the University of Maryland, Rebecca Lewis of the University of Oregon, Arnab Chakraborty of the University of Illinois, and John Landis of the University of Pennsylvania.

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Nick FinioJul 08No Comments

Webinar: Planning for Rural Regeneration Post-COVID 19

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Webinar: Planning for Rural Regeneration Post-COVID 19

NCSG’s Irish research partner, the ICLRD, is hosting a webinar on planning for rural areas post-COVID 19. Please see below for details and registration

Wednesday, June 16, 2021 – 15:30 to 16:45
Online

The ICLRD Are delighted to invite you to the fourth webinar as part of its ‘Post-Pandemic Planning’ Series.

The COVID 19 “… crisis offers rural communities an opportunity to mobilise and strengthen their local networks and co-operative structures to face the economic shock. Rural areas tend to benefit from tight community networks able to self-organise to adapt to structural changes. Local initiatives that emerged temporarily to address the immediate economic and social effects of the pandemic can be useful mechanisms to promote well-being and cohesion in rural communities in the long term.” (OECD https://www.oecd.org/coronavirus/policy-responses/policy-implications-of-coronavirus-crisis-for-rural-development-6b9d189a/).

During the on-going COVID-19 pandemic we are continually learning about the resilience and vulnerabilities of rural communities and places. It has become apparent that many positives have emerged from the community-level response to the measures to suppress the virus. However, there have also been significant challenges and pressures in rural areas and on rural communities since restrictions on movement and interactions have been implemented. For example, the demographic characteristics of rural areas, with a higher proportion of older people and the potential for greater levels of isolation and lack of access to basic services, has the potential to leave certain cohorts particularly vulnerable. Positively, strategies such as Our Rural Future have identified the role rural areas can contribute to regional and national economies. In the longer term, if there are continued changes in consumption patterns and a move towards remote working, a basis for sustainable rural growth may emerge from this challenging time. This Webinar examines how rural areas have been impacted by our changed relationship with place during the pandemic, and the potential that rural towns and spaces can contribute to rural regeneration in a post-COVID world.

Event Programme

Moderator: Dr Karen Keaveney, Senior Research Associate ICLRD, and Assistant Professor of Rural Development, University College Dublin

Welcome from ICLRD Chair: Ms. Mary MacIntyre OBE

Prof. Ryan Gibson, Associate Professor (Libro Professor) in Regional Economic Development, University of Guelph, Ontario, Canada

Dr Philip Crowe, Assistant Professor in Climate Responsive Design, UCD School Architecture, Planning and Environmental Policy and UCD School Civil Engineering

Donall Mac An Bheatha, Senior Planner, Longford County Council

Register here

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Nick FinioJun 10No Comments