December 27, 2002

Dear INNOVATION BRIEFS Reader,

As we enter our fourteenth year of publication, we look forward to another eventful year of covering the surface transportation scene. The year 2003 will be of particular significance to our readers since it will mark the reauthorization of the federal Surface Transportation program - a process we intend to cover in depth.

Occasionally, we are asked about the Innovation Briefs’ audience. This annual letter seems like an opportune time to give our readers a brief status report. I am pleased to report that we have concluded another successful year of publication, a year in which we have seen our circulation increase and our reputation grow. Our subscribers include most of the state departments of transportation, 42 metropolitan planning organizations and over 400 local transit and transportation agencies. Copies of Innovation Briefs go to some 50 key congressional offices and to most senior officials in the U.S. Department of Transportation. Among our other subscribers we count newspaper editors, transportation industry and association executives, public interest groups, consulting firms, universities and libraries. Our series of commentaries, “A Transportation Agenda for the 21st Century” is being used as course material in several colleges and graduate schools The Briefs are often used as source material by the working press and they are increasingly being cited as an authoritative source of information and analysis in research reports and academic publications.

A latecomer to the Internet, we have tried to compensate for our neglect by revamping our website and making it more useful to our readers. We encourage you to visit the website (www.innobriefs.com) where you will find posted a complete index to the Briefs, their abstracts going back to 1997, and other materials not published in the Briefs.

We take this opportunity to renew our annual pledge not to contribute to your information overload. We think brevity is a virtue given our time-starved work lives, and we believe even complex issues can be treated intelligently in a two-page Brief. While we admit to having a point of view and are not shy about making it known, we try to be fair and balanced in our coverage. We think it is these qualities that have earned INNOVATION BRIEFS the respect of the professional community, the continued loyalty of our readers, and the accolade as “the most influential transportation publication of its kind.”

We wish you a Happy and Prosperous New Year.

Sincerely,

C. Kenneth Orski
Editor/Publisher

INNOVATION BRIEFS
A publication of the Urban Mobility Corporation
10200 Riverwood Drive, Potomac, MD 20854-1536
tel: 301.299.1996; Fax: 301.299.4425; e-mail: [email protected]