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T h e W o r l d
i n M o t i o n
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Norman
Y. Mineta
International Institute for
Surface Transportation
Policy Studies
Created by Congress in 1991
IISTPS
College of Business
San José State University
San José, CA 95192-0219
Tel 408/924-7560
Fax 408/924-7565
e-mail:
iistps@iistps.cob.sjsu.edu
http://transweb.sjsu.edu |
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Honorary Co-Chairs
Congressman Bud Shuster
Congressman James L. Oberstar
Honorary Chair (Emeritus)
Hon. Norman Y. Mineta
Chair
Lawrence D. Dahms
Vice chair
Paul Toliver
Executive Director
Hon. Rod Diridon
Sharon D. Banks
Marshall J. Burak
Donald H. Camph
Don Deer
Shirley A. DeLibero
Hank Dittmar
Francis B. Francois
Thomas D. Larson
Walter B. McCormick, Jr.
William Millar
Hon. Louis H. Parsons
Hans Rat
Lawrence Reuter
Vicki Shaffer
Peter Stangl
Michael S. Townes
David L. Turney
George Warrington
Edward Wytkind
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William W. Millar is President
of the American Public Transit Association
(APTA), North America's foremost organization dedicated to the advancement
of public transit. As Chief Executive Officer of APTA since 1996, Mr. Millar
is credited with re-energizing the organization. Membership is at an all-time
high and attendance at APTA meetings is at record levels.
Prior to joining APTA, Mr. Millar was Executive
Director of the Port
Authority of Allegheny County (PAT) in Pittsburgh for 13 years. As
head of PAT, one of the Country's largest public transit providers, he
directed a system that operates bus, light rail, exclusive busway, demand-response,
and inclined plane transit service.
After completing his BA degree at Northwestern
University and his MA degree at the University of Iowa, Mr. Millar began
his career as the transportation planner for Lancaster County, PA. This
was followed by his position at the Pennsylvania
Department of Transportation to develop and manage Pennsylvania's Free
Transit Program for Senior Citizens as well other transit aid programs.
Mr. Millar's philosophy has been to build partnerships
by working together with organizations traditionally associated with transportation
as well as those typically not connected with transit. Mr. Millar led the
APTA organization in working with this broad coalition of interests to
vigorously make the case for transit to Congress and the Administration.
These efforts paid-off in June 1998 with the enactment of the Transportation
Equity Act for the 21st Century (TEA 21), the largest public
transit funding legislation ever.
Mr. Millar is a nationally recognized expert in
public transit. He has traveled and spoken extensively throughout North
America and internationally promoting public transit. He is the recipient
of many awards and citations, including the prestigious Jesse L. Haugh
award for Transit Manager of the Year.
Transportation research is of special interest
to Mr. Millar. He is the founder of the Transit Cooperative Research program
and is active in the Intelligent Technology
Society of America (ITS America), the Transportation
Research Board and the Transportation Technology Center, Inc. He has
written numerous articles and serves on advisory boards of university transportation
programs in various states, including California, Colorado, New Jersey,
North Carolina and Pennsylvania.
Bill and his family live in Falls Church, Virginia.
He commutes on Washington's Metrorail system. |
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Research
Update
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| Fall Symposia:
A one-day national symposium entitled, "Our Transportation
Crisis: Who Will Pay?," was held by the Mineta Institute in the SJSU
Student Union on November 17, co-sponsored by the Silicon Valley Forum
of the Commonwealth Club of California, the Silicon Valley Manufacturing
Group, and the Metropolitan Transportation Commission. |
The symposium featured four expert panelists:
Jim Cunneen, a member of the California Assembly representing the Silicon
Valley; Charlotte Powers, Chair of the Valley Transportation Authority
and a San Jose City Councilperson; Carl Guardino, President and CEO of
the Silicon Valley Manufacturing Group; and Paul Toliver, Director of the
King County (Seattle) Department of Transportation. The panel discussion
was moderated by Gary Richards, "Mr. Roadshow" of the San Jose Mercury
News.
The major objectives of the symposium were:
To address methods by which transportation improvements
can and should be financed;
To focus on various tax approaches to funding
transportation improvements, including sales tax, gas tax, and toll roads,
among others;
To discuss how transportation taxes should be
spent and who should ultimately make those decisions; and,
To evaluate methods by which transportation funding
propositions ought to be packaged to enhance the likelihood of success.
The event was attended by over 60 people, and
included a lively question and answer session. The proceedings of the symposium
will be published by the Institute in mid-January and will be made available
for distribution and purchase.
The Institute also co-sponsored a symposium entitled,
"Driving
Into the Twenty-First Century: Technology Solutions to Transportation Problems,"
with the Silicon Valley Manufacturing Group on November 16. This event,
held at Hewlett Packard's facility in Palo Alto, featured exhibits on innovative
transportation technology, including electric vehicles. |
WELCOME — JEANNE DITTMAN,
WEB ADMINISTRATOR
Jeanne Dittman has been named the new Web Administrator
for the Mineta Institute, and will be responsible for upgrading and maintaining
the Institute's web site, TransWeb. She will be taking over responsibilities
that had been carried out by Dr. Stephen Kwan on a part-time basis since
the inception of TransWeb, and will enable the Institute to enlarge the
capabilities of the web site to make it an even more effective resource
for use by the Institute's Research Associates, students, and other transportation
officials. Jeanne will also help coordinate activities relating to the
Institute's transportation library, and will assist with grant-writing
and public information activities.
Jeanne comes to the Institute following an 18-year
career with Wells Fargo Bank, during which she served as a Project Manager
and Call Center Operations Manager. She brings extensive experience in
customer service, desktop publishing and web page design, and was responsible
for the design and development of a product information intranet site for
Wells Fargo.
Jeanne started work at the Institute on November
18, and has already made major progress in updating the information in
TransWeb. She has also begun the process of redesigning the web site to
better fulfill its mission.
Jeanne may be reached at the Institute by e-mail
at "dittman@iistps.cob.sjsu.edu, or at webmaster@transweb.sjsu.edu |
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Speakers at the symposium included Kent Harris,
Director of Advanced Vehicle Programs at Pacific Gas and Electric Company;
Victoria Nerenberg, Manager of Technology for the Bay Area Rapid Transit
District; and Jim DeStefano, Business Development Manager with the Electronics
Instrument Group at Hewlett Packard. Dr. Russ Hancock, Vice President of
the Bay Area Council, served as moderator for the panel discussion. The
Mineta Institute will publish the proceedings of this symposium, which
will be available in mid-January. Contact IISTPS Research Director Bill
Derrick at 408-924-7562 for further information.
Research Projects:
The Institute is preparing to publish two research project reports in early
January in time for the Board of Trustees meeting. The first is a report
entitled, "Continued Development of the IISTPS Transportation Information
System, TransWeb", which documents the Institute's ongoing efforts
to enhance it's information sharing activities. The report was authored
by Sandra Belanger and Dr. Stephen Kwan, and includes the results of a
survey of transportation professionals regarding their use of the World
Wide Web in general, and TransWeb specifically.
The second report is the final report on the Institute's
research project entitled, "Impacts of the North American Free Trade
Agreement on Transportation in the Border Areas of the U.S., with Emphasis
on the California Border with Mexico". This report, authored by Research
Associates George Gray and Arthur Bauer, evaluates the impacts of NAFTA
on the transportation infrastructure in the border areas, evaluates a broad
range of policy and planning issues, and provides a comprehensive action
plan. Both reports will be available for distribution and purchase by mid-January.
For more information, contact IISTPS Research Director Bill Derrick at
408-924-7562.
Work is continuing on two other major research
projects. The first, "Analysis of Policy Issues Relating to Public Investment
in Private Freight Infrastructure", is being led by Research Associate
Daniel Evans. The second, entitled, "Development of Surface Transportation
Community Coalitions", is being conducted by a team led by Dr. Peter
Haas of the SJSU Political Science Department. Both projects are expected
to be completed during 1999.
Terrorism Phase II Grant Application Submitted:
The Mineta Institute has submitted a proposal to the Federal Transit Administration
(FTA) under it's "Joint Partnership Program", for funding to carry out
the next phase of our ongoing anti-terrorism work. The first phase resulted
in the 1998 publication of the Institute's report, "Protecting Surface
Transportation Systems and Patrons from Terrorist Activities". The
next phase builds on that landmark study through the development of a Best
Security Practices Handbook for use by transit agencies, based on analysis
of several case studies. We then proposed to conduct a series of regional
workshops to disseminate the information to selected transportation agency
security personnel. The work will be led by Brian Jenkins, one of the world's
foremost authorities on terrorism and international crime, who also headed
the team that carried out the earlier research project.
The proposal was developed in partnership with
the California Department of Transportation, Science Application International
Corporation (SAIC), the American Public Transit Association (APTA), the
Bay Area Rapid Transit District (BART), and the New York Metropolitan Transportation
Authority (NYMTA). |
EDUCATION
UPDATE By Rob Vitale, Education Director
| We are pleased to announce the addition of Heather
Miksch to our staff as Education Program Assistant. Heather comes
to us with a B.A. from the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg,
VA and an M.A. from the University of York, in York, England. Heather describes
her language skills as "fluent in French, proficient in Spanish, knowledge
of Italian, Latin, Setswana, and Ikalanga"-probably all helpful with her
stints as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Botswana and as a human rights observer
in Guatemala. Heather will assume primary responsibility for day-to-day
education program administration as we take over these tasks from the College
of Business Graduate Programs Office. As the primary contact for potential
and current students, Heather will be in a position to streamline our administrative
interface with different university stakeholders. Heather will also participate
in the marketing and development of the program as these activities get
up to speed.
Related to marketing, we plan to be at Partner's
facilities in California and Virginia this spring to enroll interested
students in the Fall 1999 semester. We sure would like to add visits to
partner sites in Washington, D.C., Nevada, Arizona, Washington state,...
any takers?
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| New Project Solicitation: As
noted in the Institute's Fall 1998 newsletter, staff has developed a procedure
for soliciting new research project proposals. Pending approval
of the process by the Board of Trustees in January, we anticipate that
the Call for Proposals will be issued in February 1999. The solicitation
will be sent to all current Institute Research Associates, the Board of
Trustees, and to other interested parties upon request. Because of the
major increase in funding now available to the Institute due to the passage
of the TEA-21 legislation, we expect to initiate a large number of research
projects through this first cycle. For more information or to receive a
copy of the Call for Proposals, contact Bill Derrick at 408-924-7562. |
Directions
What a year! 1998, the Mineta Institute's sixth
full year of authorization, was filled with landmark successes beginning
with our Board of Trustees meeting in January and the Board meeting and
Annual Scholarship Banquet in August. Reauthorization in TEA-21 at three
times our prior funding level, in August was matched 100% by a remarkable
last-minute budget augmentation by the California legislature.
Our new Research Director, Bill Derrick's first
year was very successful in publishing two studies, and conducting two
national symposia and two jointly-sponsored regional forums. Bill will
cover those more thoroughly in his article.
Education Director, Rob Vitale, continued his
successful videoconferenced Master of Science in Transportation Management
(MSTM) degree and Certificate in Transportation Management (CTM) programs.
The first four CTMs were presented at the August Banquet by Dean Burak,
University President Caret, Caltrans Director van Loben Sels, US DOT General
Council McFadden, and two of the Institute's two honorary Co-Chairs, Congressmember
Oberstar and Congressmember (ret.) Mineta. Rob will provide details in
his article.
The Institute's core staff, with
the consulting assistance of Susan Fitts, has just completed an arduous
strategic planning review process. The new plan was provided to the US
DOT Research and Special Programs Administration at the beginning of this
month. That plan included the new $1.9 million annual budget, up from $500,000
last year. While most of that increase is invested in the research, education
and information transfer programs, two new staff members (a Web Administrator,
Jeanne Dittman, and an Education Program Assistant, Heather Miksch) have
been retained.
Administrative Director, Teresa Battisti is developing
a program-based accounting system to augment the fund-based system maintained
for the Institute by the University Foundation. In addition, formalized
operating procedures are being developed, with consulting assistance, to
support the expanded program.
Indeed, the Mineta Institute is very busy adjusting
to the new level of public trust and responsibility. With the leadership
and support of our 25 Trustees, 87 Research
Associates, students, professors and fine staff, we look forward to
a very productive TEA-21 authorization period. Enjoy the new year!
Norman Y. Mineta
International Institute for Surface
Transportation Policy Studies
College of Business
San Jose Staté University
San José, CA 95192-0219 |
Trans Web
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For more information about IISTPS,
call (408) 924-7560 or e-mail us at
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