Awards

2006 Award Winners

Outstanding Professional Achievement in Metropolitan Transportation Planning
Recipient: Kuo-Ann Chiao, New York Metropolitan Transportation Council (New York, NY)

The AMPO national award for outstanding individual leadership in metropolitan transportation planning is presented to Kuo-Ann Chiao, Technical Group Director of the New York Metropolitan Transportation Council in New York, NY.

Kuo-Ann has been personally involved with many aspects of the transportation planning process in the NY metropolitan region. Mr. Chiao oversees NYMTC’s efforts to provide data and web databases on traffic, socioeconomics, and demographics. He also manages NYMTC’s activities in the areas of Intelligent Transportation Systems and Geographic Information Systems and its modeling for socio-economic and demographic, land use, transportation, freight, and air quality. He provides technical support in all of these areas to government agencies, consultants, academia, and interest groups.

One of Ku-Ann’s notable achievements were his efforts in designing, developing, calibrating, and applying the New York Best Practice Model. This activity based model overcomes the limits of the traditional travel demand model and has been successfully applied in the NY region, which has a complicated transportation system, population structure and land use patterns.

Ku-Ann also started NYMTC’s ITS Program from its inception to its current accomplishments, including a fully functional ITS Working Group, a ITS Regional Integration Strategy, three sub-regional Architectures, ITS data archiving, and ITS workshops on TMC, Security, Wireless Technology, and Archived Data.

Outstanding Achievement in Metropolitan Transportation Planning as an Elected Official
Recipient: John Ladenburg, Puget Sound Regional Council (Seattle, WA)

The Honorable Mention AMPO national award for outstanding elected official leadership goes to John Ladenburg, Pierce County Executive and chairman of the three regional agencies in the Seattle region. As the co-chair of the Prosperity Partnership, a coalition dedicated to implementing a shared regional economic strategy, County Executive Ladenburg has become a well-known steward of the region.

County Executive Ladenburg has gone above and beyond in his role as an elected official, embracing creative regional approaches for addressing major challenges. Throughout all his work, he promotes the idea that the region’s future economic prosperity directly depends on maintaining a world-class quality of life, healthy environment, and efficient transportation system.

John has had a primary role in growing the Prosperity Partnership and developing the first ever Regional Economic Strategy, which has been embraced by a growing coalition of over 200 organizations. One of the Partnerships early successes has been the investment of $8.5 billion statewide into a transportation package that funds safety, freight, efficiency, and capacity projects throughout the central Puget Sound region, significantly implementing transportation plans developed by the Puget Sound Regional Council.

Outstanding Achievement in Metropolitan Transportation Planning as an Elected Official
Recipient: Richard Kaplan, Broward County MPO (Fort Lauderdale, FL)

AMPO is proud to announce that the recipient of the award for Outstanding Elected Official Leadership is Mayor Richard Kaplan of the City of Lauderhill, FL. Mayor Kaplan began serving on the Broward County MPO policy board in the 1990s and by March of 2000 he was elected chair.  For those of you familiar with the Florida MPO Advisory Council (MPOAC), Mayor Kaplan has been a true leader for the MPOAC and has served as chair since 2001.  Mayor Kaplan concludes his service on the AMPO Board this year; having begun in 2001 and served as AMPO President from 2003-2004.

Perhaps most remarkable is Mayor Kaplan's drive for innovation in the field of transportation planning. In partnership with the MPO Chairs of Miami-Dade and Palm Beach Counties, the Southeast Florida Transportation Council (SEFTC) was formed in 2005 in order to formally coordinate transportation-planning activities across county lines and on a regional basis. The composition of the Council is simply the three Chairs and the quarterly meetings are well attended by local, county, and state officials who watch on as the three members deliberate with efficiency and insight. Activities of SEFTC include long range planning, short-range programming, and regional public involvement and outreach opportunities.

National Award for Outstanding Technical Merit in Metropolitan Transportation Planning - MPOs Under 200,000
Recipient: Binghamton Metropolitan Transportation Study (Binghamton, NY)

Transportation Tomorrow 2030 ~ Placemaking for Prosperity is the long-range transportation plan of the Binghamton Metropolitan Transportation Study, the MPO in Binghamton NY. It was adopted in September 2005. Rather than the traditional approach, this plan is based on a scenario planning process. Through a series of public workshops on community visioning and scenario development, and guided by a Community Vision Team, the planning process focused on reaching consensus on a preferred scenario for the future of Greater Binghamton. That scenario was then modeled for land use and travel forecasts. The result was a plan that makes both programmatic and project recommendations.

One of BMTS' guiding principles is "We plan best when we plan WITH the community, not FOR the community." As a long-range transportation plan, the true success of PLACEMAKlNG FOR PROSPERITY will only be measured in the next decade or more, as recommended projects and strategies are implemented. The greatest success in the short term is a commitment by the local elected officials who serve on the BMTS Policy Committee to the recommended scenario of revitalizing the urban core communities. This plan makes a clear statement that BMTS will focus its investments in the core, and will not spend Federal transportation funds on projects that facilitate suburban sprawl.

National Award for Outstanding Achievement in Metropolitan Transportation Planning - MPOs Under 200,000
Recipient: Cheyenne MPO (WY)

For the second year in a row, Plan Cheyenne, the flagship project of the Metropolitan Planning Organization in Cheyenne, Wyoming, has won the Award for Outstanding Achievement in Metropolitan Transportation Planning for MPOs under 200,000 people.  Innovation has been a calling card for Plan Cheyenne since the project was first envisioned in 2003, with the express goal of creating a functional document for the community that goes far beyond typical planning efforts.  Plan Cheyenne includes a unique structure and online RFP process, extensive use of interactive technology and the internet, and incorporation of cutting edge public participation strategies.  What’s more, Plan Cheyenne stands as proof that small communities can create innovative plans.

The advances made with Plan Cheyenne are likely to impact the transportation and land use planning fields for many years to come.  The coordination and cooperation among a diverse group of interests, including city, county, state, and community organizations creates a renewed strength for the Cheyenne region.  It is not just the usual suspects at the table.  Plan Cheyenne has brought together school districts, utilities, fire protection agencies, and others in order to create a comprehensive transportation and land use plan for the Cheyenne Region.  The plan focuses on land use and transportation, in order to alleviate future traffic headaches early on through more balanced land use.  This kind of plan, whereby the MPO markets its ideas to the community at large, represents a different kind of thinking and we are proud to recognize the Cheyenne Metropolitan Planning Organizations for its continued work the strategies established in Plan Cheyenne.

National Award for Outstanding Technical Merit in Metropolitan Transportation Planning - MPOs Over 200,000
Recipient: Berkeley-Charleston-Dorchester Council of Governments (SC)

This year’s recipient of the National Award for Outstanding Technical Merit in Metropolitan Transportation Planning for MPOs over 200,000 people goes to the Berkeley-Charleston-Dorchester Council of Governments (BCD COG) in North Charleston, South Carolina.  The project, entitled Lowcountry Connections, focuses on active living, whereby physical activity is easily integrated into the daily routine of the region’s residents.  In 2003, BCD COG was the only MPO selected as one of 25 grant recipients of a five-year, $200,000 Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Active Living by Design Grant.  The purpose of the grant was to examine how community design and transportation impact human health, specifically as human health relates to physical activity.  The BCD COG Lowcountry Connections program established and evaluated innovative approaches to increase physical activity through community design, public policies, and communications strategies.  After forming a partnership, the BCD COG worked with the Toole Design Group for nearly 18 months to complete the Regional Bicycle and Pedestrian Action Plan.  This plan serves as the guide for promoting healthy and active living with specific strategies and responsible parties for implementing Safe Routes to School programs, Complete Streets policies, and Community Interventions.

The immediate impact of the project is the provision of a model MPO Bike/Ped Action Plan that is designed to promote public/private entity collaboration.  The Lowcountry Connections project also provides a forum for discussion on how MPOs can work with the public health sector, developers, the Department of Transportation, advocacy groups, and others to promote policies that include healthy and active living.  One of the longer-term effects of the project is that the BCD MPO staff is now the go-to contact in the region for bike-ped issues and Complete Streets activities.

These active living strategies have resulted in the completion of a Regional Greenway Plan and the completion of a new Regional Long Range Transportation Plan that allocates over $30 million to new Complete Streets funding.  Staff has been hired by towns in the region to rewrite subdivision regulations to require connectivity to surrounding neighborhoods and that allow for new urbanist street design.