The City of Lone Tree announced today it has been selected to join Transportation for America’s (T4A) new smart cities collaborative, supported by Alphabet’s Sidewalk Labs, to explore how technology can improve urban mobility. Over the coming year, the City of Lone Tree will work with the collaborative’s other fifteen cities to tackle the challenges related to implementing smart city policies and projects – sharing best practices and technical assistance, and piloting new programs. Lone Tree was selected from the nearly 60 cities that applied to be a part of the collaborative, which will hold its first meeting in Minneapolis on Nov. 9-10, 2016.

“From very early on, Lone Tree has been purposeful in its goal to be a national model for its next generation transportation network,” said Jacqueline A. Millet, Mayor of the City of Lone Tree. “The Smart Cities Collaborative is a unique opportunity to continue these efforts and team up with the nation’s brightest minds in transportation and mobility.”
 
“We’re in the midst of the most transformational shift in urban transportation since the start of the interstate era more than 50 years ago. And just like that era, cities have enormous potential to help or harm their residents with the decisions they make,” said James Corless, Director of T4America. “It’s incredibly encouraging to see this long list of cities proactively shaping the future to ensure that this monumental shift in transportation doesn’t shape their cities without their input and produce a new generation of transportation haves and have-nots.”
 
“We have spent the past several months speaking directly with cities across the country, and what we’ve heard is mobility is a major issue across the board. There is a desire to do something to solve these challenges, but it is not always clear how emerging technology can be helpful,” said Sidewalk Labs Chief Policy Officer Rit Aggarwala. “Cities understand that they need to work together, but the question has always been how best to band these municipalities in partnership. This collaborative will be an unprecedented step in unifying these urban areas and hopefully accelerate solutions that provide affordable, efficient ways to get around.” 

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