Beginning next year, nearly 900 federal employees in Boulder will no longer have access to a popular bus-transit program, in a move that has drawn the ire of city and congressional officials alike.
A legal interpretation handed down last month by attorneys for the U.S. Department of Commerce concludes that the Regional Transportation District's popular Eco Pass program -- which provides deep discounts to businesses or neighborhoods that purchase annual bus passes in bulk -- is a form of a "transit subsidy benefit" and cannot be distributed universally to federal workers.
The federal transit subsidy program has strict limitations on who is eligible to participate, including restrictions on how often employees may drive themselves to work without losing the benefits.
RTD guidelines for the Eco Pass program, meanwhile, require businesses that participate to make the passes available to any worker who wants one. That helps keep the cost of the passes down while encouraging new riders, officials say.
The changes affect 863 workers at the Boulder offices of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration.
NOAA campus director Don Mock said the Eco Pass program has been a popular benefit for many employees over the years.
"The type of employees we have are very environmentally aware and they appreciate the aspects of the Eco Pass program -- which really encouraged people to try the bus," he said.
He said that losing the program has been a "shock to the system for our staff," and called the Eco Pass a "tremendous deal for the government" that is simple to administer.
Of the labs' collective 863 employees, a total of 654 workers accepted Eco Passes this year, at a cost of $126,000, said Daria Serna, a spokeswoman for RTD.
She said RTD has not been notified by the Commerce Department about plans to stop purchasing Eco Passes. A spokesperson for the Department of Commerce did not return calls on Friday.
Workers at the three labs will remain eligible to apply for a monthly RTD pass through the federal transit subsidy program, but they must meet strict guidelines that require users to take the bus to work almost every day. The subsidy will provide up to $120 per month toward the price of transit -- which is not enough to cover the $176 monthly price tag of a regional RTD pass for people who commute from Denver to Boulder.
John Augustine, a longtime meteorologist based at the Boulder NOAA office, said that he's already applied for whatever subsidy he can get. But he remains concerned about others who either don't qualify or won't follow through with the paperwork.
He said he's also concerned because the federal complex was intentionally constructed with a fewer number of parking spaces than employees.
"If this impacts a lot of people where they don't follow through and begin driving, we're going to have a huge problem and it's going to start affecting the surrounding neighborhoods," he said.
Jim Burrus, the public information and outreach coordinator at the Boulder NIST office, said he rides the bus from Longmont to Boulder up to four times a week and uses his Eco Pass "extensively."
"If it's taken away and not replaced, it will cost me literally thousands of dollars a year in extra gas, oil, maintenance and brain damage, not to mention parking," he said, adding that parking is not a reimbursed expense at the lab. "Sitting in traffic sucks if you're not on a bus."
Officials with the city of Boulder also expressed concerns.
"We are dismayed at the guidance from the federal level," said Martha Roskowski, program manager for Go Boulder.
She said the decision to eliminate Eco Passes from the federal labs "doesn't make any sense at all" from a financial perspective.
Records with RTD and NOAA show that the Department of Commerce spent $146 per Boulder employee last year to purchase Eco Passes. Under the federal transit subsidy program, the government could end up paying up to $1,440 per employee for the same level of service.
"The Eco Pass program is a really cost-effective way to provide transit services," Roskowski said. "It also encourages new people to try transit."
U.S. Rep. Jared Polis, D-Boulder, highlighted those same points in a Sept. 28 letter to Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke.
"The city of Boulder and I share serious concerns about this decision as the transit benefits currently being provided at the Boulder campus are extremely cost-effective and very important for both employees and the city in its goal and need to increase transit ridership," Polis wrote.
The congressman went on to say that the decision to do away with Eco Passes "would seem likely to lead to an unnecessary greater expense of taxpayer dollars."
Transportation officials have agreed to work on behalf of the three Boulder labs to determine whether continued participation in the Eco Pass program is in the government's best interest, according to an internal memo sent to all NIST employees late last month.
But even if the decision were made to continue purchasing Eco Passes, only workers who qualify for the broader federal transit subsidy would be eligible, according to the memo.
In the meantime, workers are being encouraged to continue to ride the bus.
"While we appreciate that this will be a significant change, we hope you will consider using mass transit and apply for the transit benefit," the memo reads.
2011年10月11日星期二
Molasses used in cleanup of polluted sites
For more than half a century, International Molasses Corp. has sold its product to bakeries and manufacturers that use the sticky syrup in cookies and candy.
But recently, the Saddle Brook company found a new and unexpected market — at contaminated industrial sites, where the molasses literally gets pumped into the soil.
A 6,000-gallon tanker truck filled with diluted molasses recently pulled into the parking lot of the 25-acre campus of Kearfott Guidance and Navigation Corp. in Woodland Park. Workers attached hoses from the truck to several injection wells, and the molasses flowed silently into the ground under the facility's parking lot to help rid groundwater of high levels of contamination that seeped into the soil decades ago.
In a relatively new process called enhanced anaerobic bioremediation, the diluted molasses provides a food source for microbes that occur naturally in the soil. The microbes multiply, then use the solvents the way humans use oxygen, breaking them down into non-toxic byproducts, such as carbon dioxide.
International Molasses now ships its syrup to cleanup sites in New Jersey and several other states.
"A few years ago we started seeing a lot of growth in this area," said Eric Lushing, vice president of Malt Products Corp. and its subsidiary, International Molasses Corp., which supplies molasses to the Kearfott site.
"The molasses we produce is food grade, which is not true of a lot of refineries, which make it below food grade," Lushing said. That makes their product more appealing to cleanup experts, since food grade molasses does not contain other chemicals that might exacerbate a contaminated site's issues, he said.
The companies' molasses and malt products are more typically sold to food manufacturers that make cookies, snack foods, breakfast cereals, candy and peanut butter.
International Molasses Corp. began in 1957 as a regional supplier of malts and has grown internationally. It has manufacturing plants in Maywood as well as in Canada, Great Britain and the Netherlands. The company also has a product called Eco-Molasses, a byproduct of sugar refining that is sold to golf courses and other facilities for lawn maintenance. Eco-Molasses is touted as a product that improves leaf color and plant health, decreases thatch, and increases microbial activity in the soil.
"We're hoping that within two years this process will bring the contaminants down to an acceptable standard," said Mo Mohiuddin, project manager with Arcadis, the contractor hired to clean up the Kearfott site. "We won't get every molecule of contamination but we should be able to hit 99 percent of the mess."
Anaerobic bioremediation is a growing strategy for contamination cleanup experts. It has been used at hundreds of sites nationwide, including Air Force bases from Oklahoma to California.
Mohiuddin said Arcadis has used it successfully at dozens of sites, including a 3M plant in upstate New York and a Johnson & Johnson facility in New Jersey.
DuPont is conducting a pilot study to determine how well bioremediation would work to clean up groundwater contaminated with solvents beneath homes in Pompton Lakes. Instead of molasses to spur microbe activity, however, DuPont plans to inject the soil with soybean oil.
The concept is the same, but whether vegetable oil or molasses is used depends on factors specific to each site, said Dan Pope, a consultant affiliated with the federal Environmental Protection Agency.
"It's mainly dependent on the practical problems of making it work at the site. How long do you need or want the product to last in the subsurface — a few days, months or years?" Pope said. "Molasses is more readily broken down — it's pretty soluble, and you can push it out farther and more quickly into the subsurface. Oil globs on to the subsurface particles more. But in the end, basically they are both food for the microorganisms in the soil."
Arcadis' Mohiuddin agreed. "Oil stays a much longer time in the soil, and the remediation rate is slower," he said. "The molasses solution degrades very quickly." Molasses is also cheaper."
In the Kearfott cleanup, the molasses gets hauled in by tanker truck each month, Mohiuddin said. Workers attach hoses from the tanker individually to each injection well.
Because bioremediation is still relatively new, little data exists to measure success. Most sites using the process are still undergoing remediation and are not fully cleaned.
The Kearfott plant on McBride Avenue is bordered by the Passaic and Peckman rivers. The facility was built in 1950, and the company makes navigation and guidance systems, gyroscopes and other electro-mechanical products for the aerospace industry.
Before the early 1960s, chemical waste at the site, including solvents, was disposed of in dry wells, most likely unlined holes dug about five feet deep, according to documents filed with the Department of Environmental Protection. Later, waste solvent return lines from degreasing tanks were fed into 55-gallon drums for disposal.
In the 1980s and early 1990s, several underground storage tanks that had been leaking were removed from the site. They had been used to store solvents, gasoline and fuel oil. Several hundred yards of contaminated soil was excavated and disposed offsite in 1993.
Testing of the soil and groundwater indicated extensive contamination by six volatile organic compounds, including the solvents PCE and TCE, which have been linked in lab studies to cancer. Most of the contamination was detected near the site of the underground tanks.
Worried the contaminated groundwater could flow into the bordering rivers, an earlier contractor proposed installing a slurry wall in the ground to block the contamination and a pump and treat system to strip the contaminants out of the groundwater.
But Arcadis said the molasses treatment would be faster.
A six-month pilot test in 2005 to inject the molasses near the rivers worked well enough for Arcadis to propose widening the scope of the injections to the rest of the site. But the DEP case manager for the site left, Mohiuddin said, and it took the state until 2009 to issue the permits to restart molasses injections.
Arcadis recently won approval to add 14 more injection wells, which were drilled a few months ago. Arcadis now pumps about 6,000 gallons of molasses each month into 24 wells extending 16 to 17 feet deep.
Cleanup costs between 1986 and 2010 totaled an estimated $2.4 million, and cleanup through 2015 is expected to cost another $1.3 million, DEP records indicate.
Groundwater will be monitored quarterly until there are significant declines in contamination, officials said.
But recently, the Saddle Brook company found a new and unexpected market — at contaminated industrial sites, where the molasses literally gets pumped into the soil.
A 6,000-gallon tanker truck filled with diluted molasses recently pulled into the parking lot of the 25-acre campus of Kearfott Guidance and Navigation Corp. in Woodland Park. Workers attached hoses from the truck to several injection wells, and the molasses flowed silently into the ground under the facility's parking lot to help rid groundwater of high levels of contamination that seeped into the soil decades ago.
In a relatively new process called enhanced anaerobic bioremediation, the diluted molasses provides a food source for microbes that occur naturally in the soil. The microbes multiply, then use the solvents the way humans use oxygen, breaking them down into non-toxic byproducts, such as carbon dioxide.
International Molasses now ships its syrup to cleanup sites in New Jersey and several other states.
"A few years ago we started seeing a lot of growth in this area," said Eric Lushing, vice president of Malt Products Corp. and its subsidiary, International Molasses Corp., which supplies molasses to the Kearfott site.
"The molasses we produce is food grade, which is not true of a lot of refineries, which make it below food grade," Lushing said. That makes their product more appealing to cleanup experts, since food grade molasses does not contain other chemicals that might exacerbate a contaminated site's issues, he said.
The companies' molasses and malt products are more typically sold to food manufacturers that make cookies, snack foods, breakfast cereals, candy and peanut butter.
International Molasses Corp. began in 1957 as a regional supplier of malts and has grown internationally. It has manufacturing plants in Maywood as well as in Canada, Great Britain and the Netherlands. The company also has a product called Eco-Molasses, a byproduct of sugar refining that is sold to golf courses and other facilities for lawn maintenance. Eco-Molasses is touted as a product that improves leaf color and plant health, decreases thatch, and increases microbial activity in the soil.
"We're hoping that within two years this process will bring the contaminants down to an acceptable standard," said Mo Mohiuddin, project manager with Arcadis, the contractor hired to clean up the Kearfott site. "We won't get every molecule of contamination but we should be able to hit 99 percent of the mess."
Anaerobic bioremediation is a growing strategy for contamination cleanup experts. It has been used at hundreds of sites nationwide, including Air Force bases from Oklahoma to California.
Mohiuddin said Arcadis has used it successfully at dozens of sites, including a 3M plant in upstate New York and a Johnson & Johnson facility in New Jersey.
DuPont is conducting a pilot study to determine how well bioremediation would work to clean up groundwater contaminated with solvents beneath homes in Pompton Lakes. Instead of molasses to spur microbe activity, however, DuPont plans to inject the soil with soybean oil.
The concept is the same, but whether vegetable oil or molasses is used depends on factors specific to each site, said Dan Pope, a consultant affiliated with the federal Environmental Protection Agency.
"It's mainly dependent on the practical problems of making it work at the site. How long do you need or want the product to last in the subsurface — a few days, months or years?" Pope said. "Molasses is more readily broken down — it's pretty soluble, and you can push it out farther and more quickly into the subsurface. Oil globs on to the subsurface particles more. But in the end, basically they are both food for the microorganisms in the soil."
Arcadis' Mohiuddin agreed. "Oil stays a much longer time in the soil, and the remediation rate is slower," he said. "The molasses solution degrades very quickly." Molasses is also cheaper."
In the Kearfott cleanup, the molasses gets hauled in by tanker truck each month, Mohiuddin said. Workers attach hoses from the tanker individually to each injection well.
Because bioremediation is still relatively new, little data exists to measure success. Most sites using the process are still undergoing remediation and are not fully cleaned.
The Kearfott plant on McBride Avenue is bordered by the Passaic and Peckman rivers. The facility was built in 1950, and the company makes navigation and guidance systems, gyroscopes and other electro-mechanical products for the aerospace industry.
Before the early 1960s, chemical waste at the site, including solvents, was disposed of in dry wells, most likely unlined holes dug about five feet deep, according to documents filed with the Department of Environmental Protection. Later, waste solvent return lines from degreasing tanks were fed into 55-gallon drums for disposal.
In the 1980s and early 1990s, several underground storage tanks that had been leaking were removed from the site. They had been used to store solvents, gasoline and fuel oil. Several hundred yards of contaminated soil was excavated and disposed offsite in 1993.
Testing of the soil and groundwater indicated extensive contamination by six volatile organic compounds, including the solvents PCE and TCE, which have been linked in lab studies to cancer. Most of the contamination was detected near the site of the underground tanks.
Worried the contaminated groundwater could flow into the bordering rivers, an earlier contractor proposed installing a slurry wall in the ground to block the contamination and a pump and treat system to strip the contaminants out of the groundwater.
But Arcadis said the molasses treatment would be faster.
A six-month pilot test in 2005 to inject the molasses near the rivers worked well enough for Arcadis to propose widening the scope of the injections to the rest of the site. But the DEP case manager for the site left, Mohiuddin said, and it took the state until 2009 to issue the permits to restart molasses injections.
Arcadis recently won approval to add 14 more injection wells, which were drilled a few months ago. Arcadis now pumps about 6,000 gallons of molasses each month into 24 wells extending 16 to 17 feet deep.
Cleanup costs between 1986 and 2010 totaled an estimated $2.4 million, and cleanup through 2015 is expected to cost another $1.3 million, DEP records indicate.
Groundwater will be monitored quarterly until there are significant declines in contamination, officials said.
2011年6月15日星期三
Parking guidance system
A NEW master plan has been devised for the construction and renovation of Mayo Hospitals’ historical buildings. New constructions will be made by replacing old dilapidated buildings in line with the existing and futuristic needs of the hospital. The historical background and architectural values will be conserved during the new construction of these buildings whereas buildings in good conditions will be rehabilitated and renovated accordingly.
This was disclosed during a meeting of the steering committee of Mayo Hospital headed by Secretary Health Jehanzeb Khan on Wednesday. Besides, Special Secretary Health Wasim Mukhtar, Deputy Secretary Admin Ms. Saleha Saeed, MS Dr. Zahid Pervez and members of the steering committee attended the meeting.
Dr. Zahid Pervez briefed the Secretary Health about the ongoing development works and completed projects. He said that the upgrade and modernisation of Accident and Emergency Department was near completion and the civil works at a cost of Rs. 35.950 million had been completed and the progress on the construction of ICUs was going headway. He further said that two new tube-wells had been installed at a cost of Rs. 6.281 million to provide clean drinking water to the patients at the hospital. Restoration of sewerage system around OPD block has also been completed and Rs. 2.20 million have been spent on this development work. Furthermore, pavement around OPD block (tuff tiling) is also near to be completed at a cost of Rs. 5.032 million.
He said that landscaping in Mayo Hospital to create a breathing space in its congested atmosphere and to improve its aesthetic value was also under progress and a green park on two acre piece of land was being developed and by now Rs. 3.768 million had been spent. He said that the creation of car parking area for the consultants was also near completion and Rs. 3.6 million had been spent on it.
The meeting was also informed that different development projects were being completed through donations of philanthropists which included renovation of central ICU, construction of HUB for the parking of wheelchairs and stretchers near A&E Department, construction of roads and pathways from A&E Department to Orthopaedic workshop and renovation of OPD Department and laboratory. These development works will be completed within next few weeks. He informed the Secretary Health that a PC-1 had been prepared for improvement of road network in the hospital, provision of main gate in Mayo Hospital at Nila Gumbad side and purchase of a 64-slice CT scanner machine. The total expenditure of these three items will be estimated Rs. 147.933 million.
The committee agreed to this proposal. The meeting was also informed that construction of five-storey nursing school building, extension and upgrade of Accidental & Emergency Department and development of Green Park will be completed within few weeks.
Chief Minister Punjab Mian Shahbaz Sharif will be requested to inaugurate the newly completed development projects in the 3rd week of July 2012. Secretary Health, expressing satisfaction over the progress of development work, said that steering committee should also monitor the performance of hospital. TORs will be amended for this purpose. He directed that facility of Information Technology would be fully utilised for providing maximum assistance and guidance to the patients in their treatment.
This was disclosed during a meeting of the steering committee of Mayo Hospital headed by Secretary Health Jehanzeb Khan on Wednesday. Besides, Special Secretary Health Wasim Mukhtar, Deputy Secretary Admin Ms. Saleha Saeed, MS Dr. Zahid Pervez and members of the steering committee attended the meeting.
Dr. Zahid Pervez briefed the Secretary Health about the ongoing development works and completed projects. He said that the upgrade and modernisation of Accident and Emergency Department was near completion and the civil works at a cost of Rs. 35.950 million had been completed and the progress on the construction of ICUs was going headway. He further said that two new tube-wells had been installed at a cost of Rs. 6.281 million to provide clean drinking water to the patients at the hospital. Restoration of sewerage system around OPD block has also been completed and Rs. 2.20 million have been spent on this development work. Furthermore, pavement around OPD block (tuff tiling) is also near to be completed at a cost of Rs. 5.032 million.
He said that landscaping in Mayo Hospital to create a breathing space in its congested atmosphere and to improve its aesthetic value was also under progress and a green park on two acre piece of land was being developed and by now Rs. 3.768 million had been spent. He said that the creation of car parking area for the consultants was also near completion and Rs. 3.6 million had been spent on it.
The meeting was also informed that different development projects were being completed through donations of philanthropists which included renovation of central ICU, construction of HUB for the parking of wheelchairs and stretchers near A&E Department, construction of roads and pathways from A&E Department to Orthopaedic workshop and renovation of OPD Department and laboratory. These development works will be completed within next few weeks. He informed the Secretary Health that a PC-1 had been prepared for improvement of road network in the hospital, provision of main gate in Mayo Hospital at Nila Gumbad side and purchase of a 64-slice CT scanner machine. The total expenditure of these three items will be estimated Rs. 147.933 million.
The committee agreed to this proposal. The meeting was also informed that construction of five-storey nursing school building, extension and upgrade of Accidental & Emergency Department and development of Green Park will be completed within few weeks.
Chief Minister Punjab Mian Shahbaz Sharif will be requested to inaugurate the newly completed development projects in the 3rd week of July 2012. Secretary Health, expressing satisfaction over the progress of development work, said that steering committee should also monitor the performance of hospital. TORs will be amended for this purpose. He directed that facility of Information Technology would be fully utilised for providing maximum assistance and guidance to the patients in their treatment.
2011年4月20日星期三
Toyota's "Ideas For Good" Finalists Announced
Much of the technology used in modern automobiles, or in the development of modern automobiles, can be repurposed for the betterment of society. That was the concept behind Toyota’s “Ideas For Good” challenge, which gave entrants the ability to use five Toyota-developed technologies to create non-automotive applications benefiting the population. Some 4,000 entries were received and evaluated by a panel of judges, who ultimately narrowed down the finalists to five per category:
Total HUman Model for Safety (T.H.U.M.S.)
Toyota’s advanced injury simulation software utilizes a state-of-the-art “crash test dummy” to collect and analyze over two million data points. Category finalists are:
* Active Brace to Prevent Anterior Cruciate Ligament Rupture, submitted by Aureliu P.
* T.H.U.M.S. for EMTs, submitted by Dawit B.
* T.H.U.M.S. Rehabilitation, submitted by Hoyt J.
* Protecting the Elderly from Injuries Due to Falling, submitted by Roberta S.
* Build a Better Bicycle Helmet, submitted by Stu S.
Solar Powered Ventilation System
Using a sliding moonroof in conjunction with solar panels, this system allows vehicles to ventilate the interior on hot days. Category finalists are:
* Crop Drying with Solar Powered Ventilation System submitted by Andy W.
* Self-contained Mobile Water Purification Unit submitted by Stephen B.
* Solar Powered Ventilation for Safer, Greener Aerobic Landfills submitted by Steven C.
* Pure Air submitted by Tim W.
* Solar Ventilation of Sewage Pipelines Zahid K.
Hybrid Synergy Drive (HSD)
Toyota’s HSD uses a combination of regenerative braking and kinetic energy captured when coasting to recharge onboard storage batteries. Category finalists are:
* Power Plant Gym submitted by Birken S.
* Medical Ventilators for Disaster Use submitted by Joel S.
* Windmill Braking submitted by Mena E.
* Kinetically Powered Prostheses submitted by Michael C.
* HSD to Assist Wheelchair Bound Persons submitted by Rodney Q.
Advanced Parking Guidance System
Utilizing a combination of hands-free steering, ultrasonic sensors, an onboard CPU and a reverse camera, Toyota’s system aids drivers in parking their vehicles. Category finalists are:
* Self Regulated Shopping Cart submitted by Brian T.
* Automated Firefighting Extension Ladder Guidance System submitted by Fran O.
* Door Assist System for Power Wheelchairs submitted by Jeremy B.
* AHTS: Advanced Hospital Transportation System submitted by John C.
* Guidance System for the Disabled submitted by Vernie R.
Touch Tracer Display
Via sensors embedded in the steering wheel, this system allows users to adjust the climate control, audio settings and driver information display settings without taking their eyes from the road. Category finalists are:
* Musical Touch: A Learning Tool submitted by Bruce L.
* Touch Tracer Computer Mouse, Keyboard and Monitor submitted by David C.
* Surgical Robot/Laparoscopic Touch Tracer Display submitted by David H.
* Firefighters Critical Status Display submitted by Justin E.
* Walking Again Through Touch Tracer submitted by Sheila B.
You can cast your vote for your favorite idea in each category by visiting the Ideas For Good website. The top ideas will be determined by both public votes and judge’s scoring, and winners will be announced on May 9. Category winners will get prototyping assistance with their idea, bringing it one step closer to reality, but they’ll also get to choose a new Toyota Highlander Hybrid, Prius, or Venza.
Total HUman Model for Safety (T.H.U.M.S.)
Toyota’s advanced injury simulation software utilizes a state-of-the-art “crash test dummy” to collect and analyze over two million data points. Category finalists are:
* Active Brace to Prevent Anterior Cruciate Ligament Rupture, submitted by Aureliu P.
* T.H.U.M.S. for EMTs, submitted by Dawit B.
* T.H.U.M.S. Rehabilitation, submitted by Hoyt J.
* Protecting the Elderly from Injuries Due to Falling, submitted by Roberta S.
* Build a Better Bicycle Helmet, submitted by Stu S.
Solar Powered Ventilation System
Using a sliding moonroof in conjunction with solar panels, this system allows vehicles to ventilate the interior on hot days. Category finalists are:
* Crop Drying with Solar Powered Ventilation System submitted by Andy W.
* Self-contained Mobile Water Purification Unit submitted by Stephen B.
* Solar Powered Ventilation for Safer, Greener Aerobic Landfills submitted by Steven C.
* Pure Air submitted by Tim W.
* Solar Ventilation of Sewage Pipelines Zahid K.
Hybrid Synergy Drive (HSD)
Toyota’s HSD uses a combination of regenerative braking and kinetic energy captured when coasting to recharge onboard storage batteries. Category finalists are:
* Power Plant Gym submitted by Birken S.
* Medical Ventilators for Disaster Use submitted by Joel S.
* Windmill Braking submitted by Mena E.
* Kinetically Powered Prostheses submitted by Michael C.
* HSD to Assist Wheelchair Bound Persons submitted by Rodney Q.
Advanced Parking Guidance System
Utilizing a combination of hands-free steering, ultrasonic sensors, an onboard CPU and a reverse camera, Toyota’s system aids drivers in parking their vehicles. Category finalists are:
* Self Regulated Shopping Cart submitted by Brian T.
* Automated Firefighting Extension Ladder Guidance System submitted by Fran O.
* Door Assist System for Power Wheelchairs submitted by Jeremy B.
* AHTS: Advanced Hospital Transportation System submitted by John C.
* Guidance System for the Disabled submitted by Vernie R.
Touch Tracer Display
Via sensors embedded in the steering wheel, this system allows users to adjust the climate control, audio settings and driver information display settings without taking their eyes from the road. Category finalists are:
* Musical Touch: A Learning Tool submitted by Bruce L.
* Touch Tracer Computer Mouse, Keyboard and Monitor submitted by David C.
* Surgical Robot/Laparoscopic Touch Tracer Display submitted by David H.
* Firefighters Critical Status Display submitted by Justin E.
* Walking Again Through Touch Tracer submitted by Sheila B.
You can cast your vote for your favorite idea in each category by visiting the Ideas For Good website. The top ideas will be determined by both public votes and judge’s scoring, and winners will be announced on May 9. Category winners will get prototyping assistance with their idea, bringing it one step closer to reality, but they’ll also get to choose a new Toyota Highlander Hybrid, Prius, or Venza.
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