for those tracking the ACS, there is a newly released GAO report "The
American Community Survey: Accuracy and Timeliness Issues, GAO-02-956R,
September 30" posted at http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d02956r.pdf
--
Ed Christopher
Metropolitan Activities
Midwest Resource Center
Federal Highway Administration
19900 Governors Drive
Olympia Fields, Illinois 60461
708-283-3534 (V)
708-283-3501 (F)
TO: CTPP-News
This is a snippet from today's ACS alert from the Census Bureau. Of interest to transportation planners is the first bullet item on the appropriateness of using ACS data on small-area commute flows for emergency planning efforts. Something to keep in mind....
Chuck Purvis, MTC
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THE AMERICAN COMMUNITY SURVEY AND EMERGENCY PLANNING
How can information from the American Community Survey help emergency
response providers? What is the role that current information can play in
developing plans for recovery from natural disasters or other catastrophic
events, or in assessing the long-term impact of these events on the
economy, health, housing, and physical infrastructure, including roads,
public buildings, and utilities? Whether it's a chemical spill,
earthquake, fire, hurricane, or other event, current information on the
affected population is critical for emergency planners involved in
emergency response, disaster relief, or long-term recovery.
When fully implemented, the American Community Survey will provide federal,
state, local, and tribal government officials with up-to-date population
and housing information to help them respond to events and determine
whether such events are limited in scope or have catastrophic consequences
for an area, state, or region.
Current information on the numbers and characteristics of the population
are essential to develop emergency evacuation plans and identify what kinds
of medical assistance and other services are needed.
Here are some examples of how the American Community Survey contributes to
emergency planning.
* The American Community Survey's small-area data on commuting patterns
and schooling can provide critical information about the physical location
of the population during the day. Knowledge of daytime populations can
help planners develop appropriate strategies and procedures to route people
through and out of a city in the event of a catastrophic event, identify
the best locations for emergency shelters, or assess the need to stockpile
vital food and medical supplies.
* Information on the languages spoken in an area provides guidance on
whether flyers, electronic broadcasts, or other means of disseminating
emergency information are needed in languages other than English.
* Areas affected by catastrophic events can lose their populations
quickly. Measuring the effect of population and job losses requires an
ongoing, current source of statistics on households, housing, and
characteristics such as the availability of public utilities. As affected
areas recover, knowledge of the rate at which the local population
rebounds, if and how their characteristics have changed, and the effects of
the rebound, can help policy-makers gauge the new needs and resources, as
well as any lasting impact of the event on the local economy.
Current, accurate information is a first step in planning for and
responding to emergencies. The American Community Survey can help.
_______________________________________
INNOVATION BRIEFS Advisory
November/December 2002
==========================================
Abstracts of the latest issue of Innovation Briefs are now
available on our website at:
http://www.innobriefs.com/abstracts/2002/nov02.html
+ The Reauthorization Campaign Shifts Gears
+ Expediting Environmental Reviews and Project Delivery
+ Mass Transit Debate Continues
Commentary by Wendell Cox
+ The New Suburban Frontier
Commentary by David Brooks
+ The Condition and Performance of the Nation's Highways
It is Time for National Highway Performance Standards
Commentary by David T. Hartgen
Also new on the web site ("From the Editor")
+ Transit Share of the Journey-to-Work Market in Major
Metropolitan Areas, 1990-2000
+ "Market-Based Approaches to Transportation," Presentation
at the Symposium on Market-Based Approaches to Congestion
Control, October 7, 2000
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INNOVATION BRIEFS
Tel: 301.299.1996; Fax: 301.299.4425
Email: korski(a)erols.com
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Note: this message is for staff of State Departments of Transportation and
Metropolitan Planning Organizations. Other recipients may disregard and
delete this
message.
Thanks you to the State DOTs and MPOs that have already responded to our
previous request. As of 3:00pm on 10/28, we have received 64% of the forms
back from the State DOTs and MPOs. However, we still need to get forms from
the agencies that have not responded.
If you have not returned your geography definition forms to us yet, please
fill them out and send them back to us by e-email
(clara.reschovsky(a)census.gov) or by fax (301)-457-2481 as soon as possible.
We would like to receive a response from every State DOT and every MPO in
the Nation.
If it is not clear to you what to include in your MPO region, select the
counties that most closely approximate the MPO planning area boundary.
This definition of MPO region does not restrict your access to small area
data for other counties. The CTPP2000 Access Tool (CAT) will allow you to
have access to detailed data even for counties that are not contained in
your MPO region.
Please fill out and return the Geography Definition Form soon as possible.
If you have any questions, call Fabian Sanchez, Clara Reschovsky, or Phil
Salopek at 301-457-2454
Thanks for your cooperation!
Fabian Sanchez
US Census Bureau
Washington, DC
PS. I have not received any forms from the Post Office. I hope no one
mailed the forms back. If you mailed the forms using the post office,
please resubmit your information by e-mail or fax.
I'm not sure if this is the right place to mail this. I've lost most of
my email addresses so I'm sending this request here for lack of any
other place to send it. Could you please add the following email to the
mailing list:
jhoffpauer(a)metroplan.org
Thanks
A. Skaggs
I know that this may not be terribly pertinent to those doing single metro areas but at the state and national levels there is this bit of weirdness in the data in which we have multiple central cities in an msa - so a trip from one of these (Rockville Md. ) to another (Arlington or Fredericksburg) is tabbed as a central city to central city trip. For Commuting in America purposes we had to retabulate the files so that there would be comparable data from 80 to 90 - thus ending the central city renaissance of 1990. Now 2000 has a similar attribute. Question: Is there a list of the central cities in each msa/pmsa/cmsa? Wash DC had five last time I think. The message is or ought to be that Some central cities are more central than others!
AEP
My apologies for cross-postings!
Below, please find the web address for a series of case studies of the administrative, policy, and technical development of a metropolitan transportation planning practice, as experienced by 10 (only 8 are posted so far) active Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs) that were designated subsequent to the 1990 Census.
Bonneville, ID
Cache Metropolitan Planning Organization, Utah
Dover/Kent, DE
Flagstaff, AZ
Fredricksburg, VA
Hernando County, FL
Ithaca-Thompkins, NY
San Luis Obispo Council of Governments , CA
www.mcb.fhwa.dot.gov/technical.html
These materials may be especially helpful to those areas which have now been designated Urbanized Areas based on the Census 2000 results.
This effort was completed under contract to the Federal Transit Administration. Questions may be addressed to Robin Mayhew at 202-366-1454 or robin.mayhew(a)fta.dot.gov
Yours truly, for better information dissemination,
Elaine Murakami, Federal Highway Administration
Note: this message is for staff of State Departments of Transportation and
Metropolitan
Planning Organizations. Other recipients may disregard and delete this
message.
Just over a week ago, this office sent email messages to the people on our
contact
list representing each State Department of Transportation and each
metropolitan planning
organization. We had spoken on the phone with most of the State DOTs
before sending the
email, but did not attempt to contact the approximately 340 MPOs. The
purpose of the
message was to gather information we need to produce Part 1 of CTPP 2000,
the place of
residence tables.
>From the State DOTs, we need to find out which detailed level of geography
they want us
to tabulate in Part 1 for each county in their state. From the MPOs, we
need to find out
which counties (minor civil divisions in the six New England states) they
want us to
tabulate in Part 1 as part of their MPO region. We then also need to have
the MPOs tell
us which detailed level of geography they want us to tabulate in each of
the counties
making up their area.
We would like to point out that we will tabulate at least one level of
detailed geography
for every county. Therefore an MPO will have access to detailed data even
for counties that are not contained in their MPO region. This is a change
from the 1990 CTPP, when only counties that were part of an MPO had data
tabulated at the tract or TAZ level. We are creating data for the MPO
region as a convenience, so you won't have to sum up the individual
counties yourself. However, the CTPP Access Tool software will allow you
to browse or manipulate data for whatever collection of geography you want.
So if you want to add to or subtract from the counties in your MPO region
you will be able to do so with the
software, and the data for all the counties will be available for your use.
Note that this information is for CTPP 2000 Part 1 tables, i.e., data by
place of residence. We are not asking about tabulating origin-destination
flows in Part 3 of CTPP 2000. We will cross that bridge later.
So, if you are in a State DOT and involved with CTPP 2000, you should have
received a
message about this topic from this office. If not, please call us at
301-763-2454 and
ask to talk to Fabian Sanchez, Clara Reschovsky, or Phil Salopek.
If you are in an MPO and involved with CTPP 2000 you may also have received
a message on
this topic from our office. However, some State DOTs are coordinating this
activity, so
not every MPO was sent an email. We ask any MPOs that have not heard
anything about this
issue to first contact their State DOT, to see if the State DOT is taking
care of it. If
the State is not handling it and the MPO has not been contacted by us, it
may be because
our contact list is out of date. In this case we ask the MPO to call
301-763-2454 and
talk with Fabian Sanchez, Clara Reschovsky, or Phil Salopek. Thank You.
Phil Salopek
Chief, Journey-to-Work and Migration Statistics Branch
Population Division
U.S. Census Bureau
Census 2000
Summary File 1 (SF1) Final National File: Same as SF1 advance national
file released nearly one year ago except that the final national file
also
contains urban/rural data. (Tentatively scheduled for release in two
weeks.)
A question was directed to me yesterday for which I had no answer.
Since I usually have an answer for everything (right or wrong), it left
me feeling incomplete. So I'm posting it here in the hopes that someone
may help me out.
We were wondering what we will get from the Census Bureau in the form
of the CTPP as it relates to the TAZ system in our region. We defined
TAZs for not only our 7-county jurisdictional area but for an additional
13 contiguous counties in the hopes that we can receive a bit more
information on commutes in the whole Minneapolis-St. Paul region.
Adjacent to us is the St. Cloud, MN MSA, a metro area of over 200,000.
They also defined a TAZ system that included a portion of Sherburne
County. Since the Census Bureau only allows one TAZ definition, we
created TAZs for only the remaining portion of Sherburne Co. Upon
submitting our TAZ definition using the TAZUP process to the Census
Bureau, that part of Sherburne Co. NOT defined by us was given a "ZZZZZZ
" label.
Now. When the CTPP is released, will we receive ONLY that area we
defined? OR... will we receive our defined area PLUS that segment
defined by St. Cloud? If we receive the whole package, can we also
obtain both metro areas as an interconnected TAZ system?
Anyone care to comment? There must be someone out there full of enough
bull like me to say a few words!!