Transportation Response Center Launched by NACTO, Bloomberg Philanthropies

The National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO) and the Bloomberg Philanthropies have announced a new online platform for transportation-focused strategies in response to the coronavirus pandemic. 

According to a press release from Bloomberg Philanthropies, the Transportation Response Center “[gives] mayors, city officials and other practitioners real-time information on the transportation strategies cities are deploying to adapt to the rapidly evolving international health emergency.”

“The Transportation Response Center is a clearing house for actionable, adaptable practices already implemented in many cities, such as: Seattle and Austin converting parking spaces into restaurant food pick-up zones; New York, Seattle, Detroit and other cities allowing rear-door bus boarding or waiving transit fares; and cities like Philadelphia and Minneapolis opening former vehicular traffic roads exclusively for pedestrians and bike riders in order to allow citizens to exercise outside while maintaining healthy social distancing.”

The online platform is the second such partnership for online collaboration enabled by Bloomberg Philanthropies. Previously, Bloomberg Philanthropies worked with the National League of Cities to create the Local Action Tracker. 

Planetizen has launched a new Coronavirus Tools tag to track efforts to collect resources and information online to help make sense of the wave of news and policies emerging in response to the Coronavirus.