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Foxx Visits Smart City Challenge Finalists; DOT Secretary Conducts Tour to Mark National Infrastructure Week

As part of DOT’s observance of Infrastructure Week, Secretary Anthony Foxx met with public transit officials, mayors and other local leaders in the seven finalist cities for the Smart City Challenge to discuss their proposals.

As required by DOT, the finalist cities—Pittsburgh; Columbus, OH; Austin, TX; Denver; San Francisco; Portland, OR; and Kansas City, MO—submitted their completed proposals on May 24. Each city received a $100,000 grant.The winner of the Smart City Challenge, which will be announced in June, will receive up to $40 million from DOT, along with additional support from its partners, to help create an integrated city.

DOT said the selection of the winning city depends on its ability to think big and provide a detailed roadmap on how it will integrate new technologies. Cities are also required to demonstrate how their plans will ensure that people from all areas, levels of income and physical abilities will benefit from living in a “Smart City.”

Officials in Portland, OR, hosted Foxx at Portland Community College’s Southeast Campus, located in a proposed BRT corridor that is also a priority area in the city’s Smart City Challenge proposal. In advance of the secretary’s visit, city officials also reached out to middle school students planning a city as a class project—and incorporating Smart City technologies—and to a fifth-grade class whose members brainstormed Smart City solutions that would improve their lives.

Partners include Paul G. Allen’s Vulcan Inc., offering an additional $10 million to the winning city to help transform its transportation system into one that is electrified and low-carbon; Mobileye, providing its collision avoidance system to all buses in the city’s fleet; Autodesk, offering training and access to a modeling platform that uses 3-D visualizations and real-world data; NXP, introducing its wireless communication modules for vehicles; Amazon Web Services, providing solution architecture and best practices guidance as well as $1 million of credits to the winner; and Alphabet’s Side Walk Labs, helping the finalists design a platform that can shape transportation outcomes using analytics and citizen engagement.

Foxx, center, greets David Genova, chief executive officer/general manager, Regional Transportation District (RTD), during the secretary’s meeting in Denver. At left is RTD Board Chair Tom Tobiassen. RTD and Colorado DOT are members of the Denver partnership, which has proposed ways to help a unified multimodal system operate with less time, energy and funding while reducing reliance on personal vehicles.

Representatives of the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) joined other civic leaders to meet with Foxx, seated left at end of table. In the city’s application, SFMTA’s new Office of Innovation will work with companies to integrate ride-hailing services with existing public transit.

During his meeting in Kansas City, MO, Foxx, center, spoke with Robbie Makinen, left, chief executive officer, Kansas City Area Transportation Authority, and Kansas City Mayor Sly James. Elements of the Kansas City plan include providing Wi-Fi and other digital support for a future BRT line, using data to enhance transportation safety and efficiency and creating infrastructure to support electric and driverless vehicles.

 
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