KTVZ: OHA’s new transportation data dashboard finds motorcycle, cyclist, pedestrian fatalities on the rise. “Oregon Health Authority has unveiled another interactive data dashboard to help people more easily track state, county and demographic trends in deaths and hospital visits related to a range of transportation-related injuries.”
Bureau of Transportation Statistics: BTS Updates Datasets to National Transportation Atlas Database 07/28/2023. “The U.S. Department of Transportation’s (USDOT) Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) today released its summer 2023 update to the National Transportation Atlas Database (NTAD), a set of nationwide geographic databases of transportation facilities, networks, and associated infrastructure.”
The Conversation: Transportation apps can help people with disabilities navigate public transit but accessibility lags behind. “Many people with disabilities rely on public transit as many do not have a driver’s licence. Planning trips, getting to and from transit stops successfully and navigating transit systems is important. My research has shown that smartphone app technology can encourage inclusion by helping people with disabilities better navigate transport systems.”
School Transportation News: WRI Releases Comprehensive Electric School Bus Dashboard. “WRI’s Electric School Bus Initiative is collecting and electric school bus or ESB data for school districts, policymakers and communities to track and accelerate toward an equitable transition. Its new Electric School Bus Dashboard, published June 22, offers data on various topics relating to ESBs, such as state adoption, school district adoption, equity, and funding.”
Route Fifty: New Map Shows How Common Train Derailments Are. “With Congress considering legislation to improve rail safety, the National League of Cities published a map showing how common derailments are in communities across the country. The map gives the location and other information about more than 12,000 incidents between 2013 and 2022.”
People for Bikes: A New Tool for Equitable Bike Planning. “This interactive web application helps identify historically underserved communities based on a variety of factors…The tool also assesses climate, disaster, and environmental burdens, providing decision-makers with the necessary information to construct resilient bike infrastructure in the face of climate change and natural disasters.”
Associated Press: NYC transit agency ends Twitter alerts, says it’s unreliable. “New York City’s Metropolitan Transit Agency, which for 14 years has provided real-time information on service outages, delays and other important transit updates for its 1.3 million Twitter followers, will no longer do so.”
Rail Advent: Stockton and Darlington Railway archive available to the public online. “The National Railway Museum has acquired and digitised a newly-discovered archive from Leonard Raisbeck, a largely forgotten early railway pioneer. Raisbeck was an influential figure in the Stockton and Darlington Railway, the world’s first public railway. He suggested that the new venture should be a railway, a new technology at the time, rather than a canal. Born in Stockton-on-Tees in 1773, solicitor Leonard Raisbeck played an important role in planning and organising the new railway.”
Casper Star-Tribune: WYDOT plans to delete 8 Twitter accounts after company creates cap. “The Wyoming Department of Transportation is planning to delete eight of its Twitter accounts after the social media giant announced it would heavily cap automated tweets for non-subscribers. WYDOT will still be using 511 Notify to send out alerts, but with Twitter out of the picture, they’ll only be available over text message or email.” I wonder how difficult it would be to make a tool for these agencies to automatically distribute alerts via RSS? I mean, it’s just text formatted in a certain way.
Local 3 News: TDOT launches new tool making transportation data more accessible. “The Tennessee Department of Transportation (TDOT) has launched a new County Profile Tool you can use to see a variety of transportation-related information in your area.” Been a great week for state government transportation infrastructure projects.
Wisconsin Department of Transportation: Explore transportation history with WisDOT’s online highway map archive. “The Wisconsin Department of Transportation (WisDOT) today released an online archive of Wisconsin’s Official State Highway Map over the past 100 years. The first edition of the state highway map was printed in 1918 for public distribution. Since then, Wisconsin residents and visitors reference the highway maps to reach their destination or simply explore the wonders across the state.”
Minnesota Department of Transportation: MnDOT Library launches digital library. “The MnDOT Digital Library is a public repository of publications produced by MnDOT, including documents originally created in a digital format and those that have been digitized. It features 12 collections that include research reports, State Aid publications, annual reports, photographs, state highways maps, photographs and historical publications.” Currently over 2200 items are available in the library with plans to add more.
National Transportation Safety Board: NTSB Releases Data Visualization Tool for General Aviation Accidents. “The General Aviation Accident Dashboard provides summary statistics, investigative findings and safety recommendations for general aviation accidents from 2012 through 2021. The Dashboard allows users to more intuitively display accident information, reports and statistics by selecting one or more filters for year, location, phase of flight and defining event.”
StreetsBlog Cal: New Tool Helps Planners and Public Visualize Vehicle Miles Traveled. “Fehr & Peers has developed a new tool to help planner and the public ‘see’ how much driving people do, both locally and regionally, in California. This is useful for planning, for grant applications, for estimating traffic impacts from projects, and for estimating greenhouse gases from transportation.”
Bureau of Transportation Statistics: BTS Updates Datasets to National Transportation Atlas Database. “The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics today released its fall 2022 update to the National Transportation Atlas Database (NTAD), a set of nationwide geographic databases of transportation facilities, networks, and associated infrastructure.”
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