Ben Pierce, who is the transportation technology lead for HDR Inc., helped the City of Columbus, Ohio, win the national Smart Cities Challenge — and $50 million in grants — last year. That was a U.S. Department of Transportation program that called for cities to use technology to improve transportation networks.
Pierce spoke to about 150 people attending the Heartland 2050 Summit on Tuesday at the new Omaha Marriott Downtown. The Metropolitan Area Planning Agency brought Pierce, who is based in Columbus, to Omaha for the summit.
In Columbus, people are seeking to use improved transportation technology to address a high infant mortality rate.
That focus helped the Ohio city win the Smart Cities challenge and raise $90 million more from private partners. Columbus’ plans include, among other things, universal fare cards, a fleet of autonomous vehicles to shuttle people to work and other technology to improve people’s connections to jobs and health care.
The people at the Omaha event included government and private urban planners, architects, engineers, entrepreneurs, real estate developers and nonprofit leaders.
Pierce led a workshop that included asking people to identify societal issues in Omaha that might be addressed by transportation technology.
The people at the Omaha event included government and private urban planners, architects, engineers, entrepreneurs, real estate developers and nonprofit leaders.
Pierce led a workshop that included asking people to identify societal issues in Omaha that might be addressed by transportation technology.
They came up with poverty, a shortage of affordable housing, chronic school absences, difficulty getting to jobs and the large percentage of some Omahans’ total income that is consumed by transportation costs.
He asked them to identify possible champions for solutions to those problems, and barriers to addressing them.
Afterward, Pierce said the Columbus projects are still ramping up and haven’t yet had an effect on infant mortality rates.
He said the idea of using transportation technology to address some of those problems is applicable in Omaha, as well as in other cities.
The Smart Cities Challenge is over. But Greg Youell, executive director of the Metropolitan Area Planning Agency, said he thinks people attending the summit will consider the concepts and could come up with ideas that help metropolitan Omaha.
