Last month, a public-private partnership led by the City of Minneapolis submitted a “vision” application for the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Smart City Challenge. If successful, the application could bring more than $50 million in federal and private money and in-kind contributions to MSP through 2018: $40 million in direct U.S. DOT grants, $10 million in private grants from Seattle-based Vulcan, Inc., and free bus safety technology from Amsterdam-based Mobileye.
The application encompasses a mile on either side of the Green Line, with a secondary focus on the U of M Transitway (which mostly sits within the application corridor anyway). The application’s intent is simple: to present innovative safety and efficiency in MSP’s most transit-rich neighborhoods.
“If what the feds are looking for is intergovernmental collaboration in order to use technology to produce safety outcomes, the Green Line is screaming for it, given the number of accidents that have occurred recently,” Metropolitan Council member Jennifer Munt told
Finance-Commerce recently.
Likewise, the Transitway area offers a rare opportunity to experiment in a rapidly developing area near the emerging
Prospect Park Innovation District.
According to a
Metropolitan Council presentation, Smart City Challenge proposals must serve three main goals: improve safety, enhance mobility and address climate change. Within this framework, they need to incorporate “specific vision elements reflecting existing U.S. DOT priorities,” including:
- Vehicles: electric, connected and autonomous
- Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS): data analytics, advanced sensors and information networks
- Sharing economy: “mobility on demand” concepts, including ridesharing and carsharing
- Efficient systems: interagency and public-private cooperation, smart land use, citizen participation, efficient freight movement and more
MSP’s Smart City Challenge application isn’t alone. U.S. DOT opened the challenge to all U.S. cities of 200,000 to 850,000. Nearly 80 cities responded to the call.
What’s next? At this month’s SXSW Festival in Austin, Texas, U.S. DOT will announce five Smart City Challenge winners. Each will receive $100,000 to expand their applications with concrete details. Given the competition, MSP may not make the cut, but local policymakers are betting that the region’s recent transit improvements and clear commitment to smarter, safer, more efficient urban environments will win favor with the feds.
The five finalists’ revised applications will be due in May, and the challenge winner will be announced in June. The winner’s funding runs from the second half of 2016 through 2018.
In addition to the city of Minneapolis, entities supporting MSP’s Smart City Challenge application include the city of St. Paul, Metro Transit, the Metropolitan Council, MnDOT, the U of M, Nice Ride Minnesota, Shared Use Mobility Center, Transit for Livable Communities and the
McKnight Foundation.