Category: Archived News

Center Director Jonathan Gifford was asked to become a mentor for 1776 in the transportation arena. “In cities around the world, commuters spend hours each day driving to and from work. Meanwhile, new modes of transportation and new technologies are making it easier and cleaner to get from place to place. 1776 works with startups to identify how we can use technology to make the ways we travel across town and around the world faster, safer, more efficient, and more affordable.” (http://www.1776.vc/)

Gifford has already completed a few monthly mentoring sessions and is excited to continue mentoring the 1776 startups as they work to address current transportation problems through new ideas, technologies and business models.

Center Graduate Research Associates Nobuhiko Daito and Jeong Yun (“JK”) Kweun have been selected as the inaugural Fellows under a new partnership between the Northern Virginia Transportation Commission (NVTC) and the Center for Transportation P3 Policy.

Under the partnership, which will focus on transit issues, NVTC will initially fund operational support for up to two Fellows annually.  According to the NVTC/GMU agreement, “these Fellows will conduct ongoing research on the impact of public transit in urban areas on local economies and quality of life.”

The Fellows’ first task was assistance with the NVTC/Center “P3s in Transit Roundtable” in November, 2015.

The Center is pleased to welcome Graduate Research Associate Lauren N. McCarthy to our team! Lauren is a doctoral student at George Mason University School of Policy, Government, and International Affairs. Her research interests include the sharing economy, particularly shared-use transportation companies, social entrepreneurship and small business development. She received her B.S. in Business Administration and M.A. in Geography from the State University of New York at Buffalo. We know she will be a valuable asset to the Center.

Recent Research: GRA Nobuhiko Daito has written a research note entitled “Infrastructure Public Private Partnerships in Cuba:An Overview.” Click here to read it!

The Center is pleased to welcome Dr. Zeng Zhihong who has just begun a year-long visit to SPGIA to study rural governance modernization. Dr. Zeng, who goes by Merissa, is an associate professor at the School of Political Science and Public Administration and Southwest University in Chongqing, China, where she teaches administrative ethics, introduction to business management, frontier theory of public administration, and marketing. Before teaching at Southwest University, she was the editor at Reform Magazine at Chongqing Municipal Academy of Social Sciences.

During her visit to SPGIA, Dr. Zeng will be studying modernization of rural governance. After studying America’s experience with rural government modernization and reviewing previous studies on the topic she hopes to develop a model for the modernization of Chinese rural governance and also to apply what she’s learned to the process of Chinese urbanization.

Jonathan Gifford (SPGIA), Director of the P3 Transportation Center, accompanied by Kerry Bolognese (Director of Federal Relations), visited seven Virginia Congressional offices in July.  With the Surface Transportation bill being debated in Congress, Gifford explained the value of P3s in meeting the nation’s transportation infrastructure needs and the potential role of the P3 Center in assessing the quality of proposed P3 projects.  The Center was launched with funding from the Commonwealth of Virginia and advances objective consideration of P3s through research, education, and outreach.  Gifford shared some of the Center’s accomplishments, including 20 case studies of P3 projects focusing on risk allocation, financial impacts, barriers, and other aspects.  Gifford also highlighted the educational component of the Center – training dozens of experts in P3s to fill the workforce.  Gifford talked about a new initiative, the P3 Evidence Program, to bring together best practices from academia and the public and private sectors to build evidence for evaluating the efficacy of the P3 approach.  This effort is geared specifically toward policymakers who have to make decisions on the value and quality of P3s. P3 contracts may last 50-75 years and valued in the tens of billions of dollars.  In the past, the Center has conducted briefings for the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, participated in a roundtable conducted by the House P3 Caucus, and Gifford has testified before the House Small Business Committee.