Curb the Chaos and Cue the Fireworks

As we kick off July with barbecues, parades, and fireworks, Cityfi is also excited to celebrate and share recent wins for the public on behalf of our work with our clients. For example, the District Department of Energy and Environment just awarded the DC Mobility Innovation District (The MID) a grant to pilot an e-bike library. Accessibility to e-bikes has the potential to spur safety, environmental, equity, and economic gains for communities—outcomes and an initiative we are proud to support.

During this historic time for national transportation investment, leadership, both vision and action, from all sectors are critical. The Ray, which is empowered to catalyze an interstate corridor and its surrounding acreage into a global model for regenerative transportation, continues to reimagine transportation, building climate positive infrastructure and deploying technologies and ideas that can be scaled for safer, cleaner, and more resilient transportation systems. Cityfi looks forward to partnering with this bold, forward-thinking nonprofit in the months ahead to accelerate its impact and mission.

Whether facilitating a creative and engaging convening about curb space, serving on the mayoral transition committee in Denver, or being immersed in the worlds of civic tech, electrification, and the circular economy, Team Cityfi is at the forefront of dialogue and transformation that is and will continue to shape our cities and communities. If we have not already, we would love to connect with you at info@cityfi.co to explore strategies, action, and implementation to propel your organization or city forward in the second half of the year and beyond. Have a great

E-Bike Library Coming to The MID

By Kyle Ragan

The DC Mobility Innovation District (The MID) was awarded a grant from the District Department of Energy and Environment to pilot a new e-bike library which will be hosted at the Dent House in Southwest DC. This project is in partnership with Living Classrooms and EFO Ventures. Living Classrooms provides access to more equitable education, workforce, health, and wellness opportunities that enable individuals to achieve their goals and build safer, stronger, and healthier communities for all.

Currently, transportation is a major barrier for trainees to access both workforce training and job placement opportunities, in addition to meeting regular day-to-day needs such as access to grocery stores and healthcare. E-bikes are a promising tool not only to close this equity gap in safe and sustainable transportation options, but also to help the District achieve its goals of reducing carbon emissions from the transportation sector. Critically, an easily accessible e-bike library program would eliminate the cost-prohibitive need for bike maintenance and allow participants to test different types of e-bikes before making any significant financial commitment. The bikes will be available for trainees and alumni of Living Classrooms to check out for a designated period of time. The e-bikes and operations of the library will be provided through a partnership with EFO Ventures and its portfolio companies that bring deep expertise and knowledge of operating bike libraries.

Curb the Chaos: Solutions for Cities at the Curb

By Sarah Saltz

Earlier this month, Cityfi facilitated Open Plans’ Convening on Curb Management in New York City. The convening was aligned with the release of Open Plans’ newest report, Curb the Chaos: Solutions for Cities at the Curb. Practitioners, technology providers, and curb users of all kinds from across the country met to share knowledge, experience, best practices, and new ideas for reforming how cities use their curb lanes. While Cityfi facilitates many workshops and in-person convenings, this convening was particularly unique, so we wanted to share four takeaways:

Lean in. The programming focused on active brainstorming and conversation, in which participants workshopped ideas, negotiated with each other, and were encouraged to leverage their creativity and collaboration skills. Rather than the standard series of panels and presentations, the ability to have new conversations in a low-stakes, less formal environment creates a more memorable, meaningful experience.
Less is more. While Cityfi always plans jam-packed workshops and convenings, we are always prepared to adapt the schedule on the spot to accommodate important but unanticipated questions and conversations. We identify several priority conversations, decisions, or ideas that we 100% need to cover and then lean on our facilitation skills to focus on the quality, not the quantity, of conversations.
Who is in the room? As urban planners, we prioritize inclusivity and often try to include those who are not “at the table,” particularly those who are already vulnerable, underserved, or most affected by the session's topics. Taking this a step further is even more impactful: "Who isn’t present because they're unaware of or uninterested in the discussion?" Encouraging diverse perspectives may not always result in full consensus, but it fosters meaningful dialogues and shared understanding, essential steps towards solving these complex problems.
Details matter. For in-person sessions, the setup, including elements like room arrangement, seating layout, food, and the blend of attendees, is crucial, particularly post-COVID. A well-orchestrated event both enhances engagement and outcomes and also leaves a meaningful, lasting impression on participants. For instance, with our Curb the Chaos convening, we emphasized intimate roundtable discussions through our activity design, room layout, and conversation framing.

If you have an upcoming in person or virtual workshop, offsite, or strategic planning effort and are thinking about ways to maximize engagement and outcomes, Cityfi can help! We love designing cross-sector, fun, and meaningful experiences to drive innovation and shared understanding, and we have deep expertise in doing just that. Reach out to Story (story@cityfi.co), Sarah (sarah@cityfi.co), or Caro (carolina@cityfi.co) to start discussing ideas!

Cityfi and The Ray Announce Collaboration

By Karla Peralta

Cityfi is pleased to announce its new collaboration with The Ray, a nonprofit organization that is leading the way in advancing net-zero transportation and energy infrastructure in collaboration with public agencies. This exciting engagement aims to expand The Ray's project execution and drive national growth through innovative policy and public affairs. As part of Cityfi's role, we will provide guidance to The Ray, assisting in accelerating the progress and growth of their signature programs. These programs involve utilizing transportation "rights-of-way" for solar arrays and the electrical grid; supporting connected and autonomous vehicle deployment through roadway sensors, radios, and data management systems; and expanding the re-usage of scrap tire material in sustainable pavements, stormwater management, and infiltration galleries. Additionally, The Ray is currently hiring for four leadership positions. Visit the jobs section of our newsletter below to discover more, and reach out if you want to learn more about this engagement.

Kyle Ragan Selected for Denver Mayor-Elect’s Transition Committee

Cityfi is thrilled to share that Kyle Ragan was chosen by Denver Mayor-Elect Mike Johnston to serve on his transition committee. Recognized as a proven leader in Denver, Kyle joins the Mayor-Elect’s General Services committee, bringing firsthand expertise from previously acting as a Program Manager with the U.S. General Services Administration. In addition to continuing to support clients as a Senior Associate at Cityfi, he will help lead the development of potential priorities for Denver’s incoming administration and guide recruitment efforts for key roles. Team Cityfi is cheering Kyle on and knows that he will have a valuable impact on the mayoral transition in July and the City of Denver beyond!

A Real Civic Tech OG Reunion

By Story Bellows

If you’re a civic tech nerd like I am, you probably already know about Jen Pahlka’s new and first (!) book, Recoding America: Why Government Is Failing in the Digital Age and How We Can Do Better. I was privileged to join friends, mentors, and longstanding leaders from the civic tech world at Bloomberg Philanthropies’ headquarters last week to celebrate the book launch. I’ve long admired Jen as a professional and as a person, so it was a real pleasure to reconnect with her and many of the individuals whose work is highlighted in the book.

As I think back to the early days of Code for America, the amazing projects and momentum that catalyzed a movement, and the maturation of that movement through the development of the U.S. Digital Service and other innovation offices that have stood the test of time, I’m reminded that this movement has so greatly matured over the past decade. So many of us who were the excited kids leading the charge a decade ago have matured, too. We’re, individually and collectively, better at separating shiny objects from transformational solutions and building capacity to scale meaningful innovations, and we recognize that the work is slow and hard, but still fun. It takes time and real dedication to have the kind of longstanding public sector impact that our cities and states so desperately need.

As Jen said at Bloomberg last week and in the inscription in her book to all of the public servants, “Don’t give up.” In an age where public sector capacity feels so constrained, those words have never rung more true.

Behind the Curtain of Electrification

By Andrew Wishnia

As the electrification world is now aware, news continues to drip out that first Ford and GM and now Rivian, Volvo, ChargePoint, and ABB (to name a few), as well as the States of Texas and Washington, intend to use Tesla’s charging connector. SAE has also now announced that it intends to standardize what Tesla calls the “North American Charging Standard.” News reports and beltway punditry suggest this shift has been somewhat startling to industry and the broader public. That sentiment is beyond fair for a public–and even sector–that hasn’t hung on every last bit of legislative minutiae.

However, to name it, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) requires that federal dollars are obligated only on charging infrastructure that is “publicly accessible” and “interoperable” in legislative language that has been in the base bill for electric vehicle (EV) charging infrastructure of what became the BIL since 2018. Moreover, Tesla made clear over the years that it is moving toward public charging infrastructure on their terms. That finality, and the details of these terms, is certainly worth the ink, but it’s merely worth recalling how this movie started to reconcile what we as a community will continue to resolve: what it means to have infrastructure that is publicly accessible and convenient for all, to mirror and surpass the experience of current customers on our national highway system.

As we wrote in our last newsletter, the announcement was also an opportunity to clear up misinformation regarding the Federal Highway Administration’s (FHWA) minimum standards rulemaking for charging infrastructure. One lingering perception was that the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) program may only fund the “Combined Charging System,” or CCS standard. In fact, as we stated, eligible entities can do more. We wrote then that, “The final rule was amended to specifically allow for this announcement scenario to play out if industry decided to move in a direction beyond CCS. Those entities will need guidance as to what this means for them and how to build for the future.” Recently, FHWA included new Q&As on this very point.

Cityfi and our CleanTech and Zero-Emission Transition practice continues to help EV service providers and others involved and engaged in the EV ecosystem and supply chain understand how to navigate local, State, and federal landscapes to build a convenient, accessible, reliable, and equitable charging network.

Breaking Ground on America’s First MHP Facility

By Andrew Wishnia

A circular economy at its ideal is an economy with zero waste. U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Buttigieg was perspicacious to use this principle of circularity to augment traditional priorities surrounding climate and sustainability, including it for example in the Department’s mitigation policy statement. At Cityfi, we'll help take this principle to scale. Zero waste means reusing the components of a product, like the black mass of ground battery in the above picture on the right, to the purified nickel and cobalt (nickel MHP is the term of art) on the left, whose critical minerals help constitute the vast majority of current battery technology.

Earlier this week, I traveled as a guest to Fairfield, Ohio for a groundbreaking of the first ever MHP facility in the United States, at a company called Nth Cycle, which epitomizes the promise of circularity. Nth Cycle has developed a technology and a proposition that effectively electrifies chemicals to reduce, reuse, and recycle critical minerals, which will make our transition from combustion fuels to electrification cleaner and more sustainable than ever. The President’s team last year articulated an industrial strategy to solve in large part for a hollowing out of industry–of our middle class–and circular economy principles, like reusing these critical minerals, are an essential part of the potential and hope of on-shoring and reshoring jobs and creating an industrial economy built to last.

Circularity isn’t just better for the environment, and the wins aren’t just restricted to good paying jobs here at home or even to promoting a more humanitarian supply chain. Circularity is better for our energy security as well, and as such, it’s better for our national security. We don’t just get to dramatically reduce our reliance on critical minerals from current or potential adversaries. We get to onshore energy from those same adversaries–and use less of it. It’s a game changer.

Circular strategies like the advances that Nth Cycle has made with the first MHP facility in the United States represent the new economy and need to be lifted up. The flasks with ground battery and nickel MHP displayed in Ohio yesterday are understated yet could catapult an economy that is better for our climate, for the American workforce, for energy security, for our national security, and, yes, for humanity. Hope has a reason.