CTPP September 2003

ctpp@listserv.transportation.org

16 participants
27 discussions

by Chuck Purvis

To: Elaine or Nanda or Ed cc: CTPP-News I received my copy of the FINAL "CTPP Guidebook" CD in yesterday's mail. Thanks! We will make copies for our internal use. Question #1: Is there an "audio track" on the CD that requires a sound card and speakers, or is this a "silent movie"? Question #2: Are you planning to have a "web form" for ordering extra copies of the CTPP Guidebook CD, or do you want everyone to call (or e-mail) Nanda, or do you want *us* to make copies for everybody in our region? Thanks in advance! Chuck ************************************************************** Charles L. Purvis, AICP Principal Transportation Planner/Analyst Metropolitan Transportation Commission 101 Eighth Street Oakland, CA 94607-4700 (510) 464-7731 (office) (510) 464-7848 (fax) www: http://www.mtc.ca.gov/ Census WWW: http://www.bayareacensus.ca.gov/ **************************************************************

21 years, 10 months

[CTPP] Census News Brief 12

by ed christopher

Subject: Census News Brief #12 From: Terriann2K(a)aol.com September 15, 2003 Senate Appropriators Mum on Reason For Cuts in Census Funding The committee report (S. Rept. 108-144) accompanying the Senate Fiscal Year 2004 funding bill for the Census Bureau reveals additional detail on how proposed budget cuts would be distributed among agency programs, but sheds no light on why appropriators failed to meet the Administrations funding request. The report also leaves it up to the Census Bureau to decide how to apply a $45 million reduction in the request for 2010 census planning. The Senate Fiscal Year 2004 Commerce, Justice, and State, The Judiciary and Related Agencies Appropriations bill (S.1585) allocates $550.878 million for the Census Bureau, $111.083 million less than President Bush requested. Roughly $72 million of the funding cut would affect the Periodic Censuses and Programs account, which includes the decennial census. More than half of that amount -- $45 million would come out of 2010 census planning. An anticipated carry-over of $12.2 million from the current fiscal year would offset part of the cut in Periodics funding. The Bureaus Salaries and Expenses account, which covers ongoing statistical programs, received $181.8 million, $39.1 million below the Presidents request. The appropriations panel proposed $215.5 million for 2010 census activities. The Administration requested $260.2 million for the three main components of its 2010 planning strategy. Significant activities planned for next year include launching the American Community Survey nationwide in July 2004; census field tests in portions of Queens, New York, and two rural counties in Georgia; an overseas enumeration test in Kuwait, Mexico, and France; and continued updating of the TIGER map database, with a goal of fixing misaligned features in an additional 600 counties. The committee report does not specify which 2010 activities the proposed lower funding level might affect. Most of the remaining funding cut would affect the quinquennial (thats every five years, folks!) Economic Census, which is taken in the years ending in 2 and 7. Activities planned for FY04 include continued tabulation and publication of data collected from businesses in early 2003. S. 1585 allocates $61.3 million for the Economic Census, compared to the full funding request of $73.8 million contained in the House bill (H.R. 2799). The full Senate must consider the bill before the measure is sent to a House-Senate conference committee to work out differences between the two versions of the funding bill. Traditionally, all members of the House and Senate Appropriations Commerce, Justice, State and The Judiciary Subcommittees are appointed to the conference committee. (See the April 7, 2003, Census News Brief for information on appropriations and authorizing committee members.) Speaking late last week at a meeting of the National Research Councils Panel on Research on Future Census Methods, Census Bureau Director C. Louis Kincannon said he expects conferees to partially, but not fully, restore the money cut from the Administrations funding request by Senate appropriators. Census News Briefs are prepared by Terri Ann Lowenthal, an independent consultant in Washington, DC. Please direct questions about the information in this News Brief to Ms. Lowenthal at 202/484-3067 or by e-mail at terriann2k(a)aol.com. Thank you to the Communications Consortium Media Center for posting the News Briefs on the Census 2000 Initiative web site, at http://www.census2000.org. Please feel free to circulate this information to colleagues and other interested individuals. -- Ed Christopher Planning Activities Resource Center Federal Highway Administration 19900 Governors Drive Olympia Fields, Illinois 60461 708-283-3534 (V) 708-574-8131 (cell) 708-283-3501 (F)

21 years, 10 months

[CTPP] Virus emails...

by Chris Parrinello

Yesterday, the ctpp-news listserv was hit by the SoBig virus. Basically this virus works by sending itself to everybody in the infected machine's Outlook address book. It also confuses where the virus came from by masquerading as somebody else in the same Outlook address book. The ctpp-news listserv is somewhat immune to this virus because the only people who can post to the listserv are people who subscribe. So a SoBig virus email that says it comes from billg(a)microsoft.com wouldn't go to the list because billg(a)microsoft.com isn't a subscriber to ctpp-news. Unfortunately, if the virus tries enough random email addresses from somebody who subscribes to the ctpp-news listserv, it will eventually hit the combination of email address that will allow it to post to the listserv which in this case is sending from somebody who subscribes to ctpp-news and to ctpp-news(a)chrispy.net. Also unfortunately, it seems that more people who subscribe to the list have been hit by the virus because I stopped a few more virus emails from getting distributed to the bulk of the list. To protect the list, I took the step of preventing emails to the ctpp-news listserv from posting without my direct approval. So there will be delays to post to the list until I read my email and approve incoming email. I am working on a long term solution that will strip "bad attachments" to email before they get distributed to the list but I don't have a timeframe when it could be completed. Thank you for your patience and understanding. Chris Parrinello

21 years, 10 months

[CTPP] Falsely sent e-mails

by Srinivasan

Phil Salopek, and I were notified today morning about a couple of e-mails that went out bearing our e-mail addresses to the listserve yesterday night. The subjects could be "Re: your application" or "Re: Approved". Please note that both of us did not send any e-mails on September 9, 2003, so please delete anything that came from us on that day. These e-mails may contain harmful attachments, so please don't open any attachments. We've informed our system administrators, but there is nothing they can do, because the e-mails did not originate on our machines. Apparently this virus has a way of "masquerading" other people's e-mail addresses. Nanda Srinivasan 202-366-5021 -----Original Message----- From: Srinivasan, Nanda [mailto:Nanda.Srinivasan(a)fhwa.dot.gov] Sent: Wednesday, September 10, 2003 10:49 AM To: Rob Hammons Subject: RE That was a virus masquerading under my e-mail address. Thankfully your e-mail was blocked! -----Original Message----- From: RHammons(a)lfucg.com [mailto:RHammons(a)lfucg.com] Sent: Wednesday, September 10, 2003 10:44 AM To: Srinivasan, Nanda Subject: RE: [CTPP] Re: Your application is there another way to get the attachment -- It was blocked Rob Hammons, AICP -- Senior Planner LFUCG Division of Planning: Transportation Planning Section 200 E. Main St. Lexington, KY 40507 Phone: 859-258-3165 Fax: 859-258-3163 e-mail: rhammons(a)lfucg.com -----Original Message----- From: Nanda.Srinivasan(a)fhwa.dot.gov [mailto:Nanda.Srinivasan(a)fhwa.dot.gov] Sent: Tuesday, September 09, 2003 6:26 PM To: ctpp-news(a)chrispy.net Subject: [CTPP] Re: Your application See the attached file for details

21 years, 10 months

[CTPP] Census News Brief #11

by ed christopher

Subject: Census News Brief #11 From: Terriann2K(a)aol.com Senate Appropriators Cut Census 2010 Funding By A Quarter; Bureau of Economic Analysis funding up in Senate, American Community Survey plans continue to evolve. On Thursday, the Senate Appropriations Committee approved a Fiscal Year 2004 (FY04) funding bill that cuts $111.1 million from the Administrations $662 million budget request for the Census Bureau. The House version of the Commerce, Justice, and State, The Judiciary and Related Agencies Appropriations bill (H.R. 2799), approved in late July, includes the full amount requested. The Senate bill allocates $181.8 million for the Census Bureaus Salaries and Expenses account, $39 million less than the House allocation of $220.9 million. The Periodic Censuses and Programs account, which includes the decennial census, received $369.1 million, $72 million less than the President requested. The House bill appropriates $441.1 million for periodic programs. Details of the Senate committee action will be available within several days. Preliminary information suggests that appropriators cut funds mainly from 2010 census planning activities. The Presidents budget requested $260.2 million for the three main components of the plan: launching the American Community Survey to replace the census long form ($64.8 million); designing a short form-only census in 2010 ($112.1 million); and improving the accuracy of the TIGER geographic database and the Master Address File ($83.3 million). Bureau of Economic Analysis funding up in Senate: The Senate FY04 Commerce spending bill includes $84.8 million for the departments Economic and Statistics Administration (ESA), the full amount requested by the Bush Administration. Roughly 92 percent of ESAs funding pays for activities of the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA). The Census Bureau is also part of the ESA. The Senate allocation would fund three proposed new BEA initiatives, to improve the accuracy and timeliness of key economic indicators, retail data incorporated into national accounts, and measures of international trade. The House Commerce appropriations bill allocated $75 million for the ESA. American Community Survey plans continue to evolve: The Census Bureau continues to refine its operational plan for the American Community Survey in light of the delay in launching the survey nationwide. Budget constraints prevented the bureau from fully implementing the survey in 2003 as originally planned. With adequate funding, the bureau will start the ACS in July 2004 (the last quarter of Fiscal Year 2004) by mailing questionnaires to a sample of 250,000 households each month. Follow-up visits to unresponsive households, however, will not start until after September 2004, when the next fiscal year begins. The ACS will start to cover group quarters in 2005; college dorms, nursing homes, and other group quarters are not part of current ACS testing. The bureaus Associate Director for Demographic Programs, Nancy Gordon, told members of the Decennial Census Advisory Committee last spring that the delayed ACS start was a gift of time that would allow the agency to train the large field workforce needed to carry out the survey. The Census Bureau also plans to test questionnaires in languages other than English, and is exploring whether a computer-assisted response option for Spanish-speakers (called reverse CATI, or computer assisted telephone interview) can be expanded to other languages. The Census Bureau will soon issue results from tests of how making the ACS a voluntary survey would affect cost and data quality. Since the May advisory committee meetings, the Census Bureau has shifted responsibility for the ACS to the Decennial Census directorate, which is headed by Associate Director J. Preston Jay Waite. Census News Briefs are prepared by Terri Ann Lowenthal, an independent consultant in Washington, DC. Please direct questions about the information in this News Brief to Ms. Lowenthal at 202/484-3067 or by e-mail at terriann2k(a)aol.com. Thank you to the Communications Consortium Media Center for posting the News Briefs on the Census 2000 Initiative web site, at www.census2000.org. Please feel free to circulate this information to colleagues and other interested individuals. -------------- Ed Christopher Planning Specialist Resource Center Federal Highway Administration 19900 Governors Drive Olympia Fields, Illinois 60461 708-283-3534 (V) 708-574-8131 (cell)

21 years, 10 months

Re: [CTPP] CTPP issues

by Andrew PICKARD

I also did comparisons of CTPP Part 1 vs. SF1 population for our region. On a locality basis, the differences were +/-2 persons, as I was told to expect. On a TAZ basis, the differences were greater. The differences ranged from +377 (3800 CTPP vs 3423 SF1, or +11%) to - 443 (210 CTPP vs 653 SF1, or -68%). A scatter plot of TAZ population from CTPP vs from SF1 resulted in an equation of [CTPP = 0.9998*SF1 + 0.6], with an R-square of 0.9983. I don't have a full understanding (as I guarantee few people do) of how the Census takes sampled data and converts that to estimates of the full population, and why that results in SF3 pop being different from SF1 pop. It would seem that they could be consistent, even at smaller geography. It would certainly make life easier for the users of the data. But given that they are not, this data (like all data) has its caveats, and so we just need to use the data appropriately. Andrew Pickard, P.E. Senior Transportation Engineer Hampton Roads Planning District Commission 723 Woodlake Drive Chesapeake, VA 23320 Phone: (757) 420-8300 Fax: (757) 523-4881 E-mail: apickard(a)hrpdc.org Web: www.hrpdc.org >>> <ZhongzeWang(a)thempc.org> 09/08/03 02:18PM >>> Hi all, Our MPO is currently checking the newly-released 2000 CTPP data. We have found some discrepancies between CTPP and other sources. According to Census, "CTPP Part 1 data will not agree with SF 1 or Redistricting (Full count data). The CTPP data are based on the census long form, and are subject to weighting, just like other sample surveys. The SF1 and Redistricting data are full counts, and are more accurate. The best source to do spot-checks on the CTPP data is SF3". Even keeping this in mind, we still found the comparision result alarming. For the population data, we aggregated census block population from the redistricting file into each TAZ, hoping the aggregation result is not significantly different from the CTPP data. We have 602 TAZs in our area, of which 511 have somebody living in them according to the redistricting file. However, according to CTPP, only 474 TAZ have population. The population in the 37 zones that CTPP ommited varies from 1 to 40, which we were told are not significant. We do have some zones that have significant differences in population (at least we consider "significant"). We have a zone that has a population of 1277 in the redistricting file. The CTPP says that this zone has a population of 455. The difference between these two data sources are 822. We are not sure how to deal with this problem. Do any of the other MPOs have the same kind of problems? We know we need to use the CTPP information with care, but we assume that no matter what sampling method and what weighting factors the Census is using, a difference of almost 200% is still too much. We would like to pose this question to all of the CTPP users. If any of you can give us a good explanation or how your agency is addressing the data issue, please drop me a note so that we all learn from it. Thanks. Sincerely Zhongze (Wykoda) Wang Associate Transportation Planner Chatham County - Savannah Metropolitan Planning Commission P. O. Box 8246, 110 East State Street Savannah, GA 31412-8246 Phone: (912) - 651-1452 Fax: (912) - 651- 1480 Email: wangz(a)thempc.org

21 years, 10 months

[CTPP] Differences when comparing short form to long form data

by Chuck Purvis

To: CTPP-News per Phil Salopek's request, I cobbled together some July 2002 threads from the State Data Center Listserv. This is useful in showing the magnitude of differences when comparing short form (SF1) and long form (SF3, CTPP) data. Especially useful is the analysis produced by John Blodgett of the University of Missouri. See link below. My comments: 1. Compare CTPP to SF3, not SF1. 2. Given the rounding scheme implemented in the CTPP it will be difficult to match the geographic summary from a finer-grained geography, say, travel analysis zones or census tracts, to the data reported at a higher-level geography, say, county. That is, the "whole" is not necessarily the "sum of the parts." 3. Discussions on how folks are "unrounding" the CTPP data to match SF1 or SF3 or PUMS would be useful to share on this CTPP listserv. Chuck Purvis, MTC ********************************************************************************************************* I wonder if this a result of the Bureau's use of Counties as the primary sampling unit to determine the weights for population and housing counts on the sample data. In 1990, they used areas (counties, MCDs, places, and census tracts) over a relatively small population threshold (I think 2,500). Leonard M. Gaines, Ph.D. Research Specialist Empire State Development e-mail: lgaines(a)empire.state.ny.us Empire State Development & NY State Data Center Web Sites: http://www.empire.state.ny.us Voice: (518) 292-5300 Fax: (518) 292-5806 > -----Original Message----- > From: Wu, Sen-Yuan [mailto:Sywu(a)DOL.STATE.NJ.US] > Sent: Tuesday, July 30, 2002 7:02 AM > To: FSCPE(a)LISTSERV.LOUISVILLE.EDU > Subject: Re: Demographic Profile Errors > > > In New Jersey, most discrepancies between SF1 and SF3 were found in CDPs. > The differences between the 100% and sample population counts were as high > as 38.1% in Diamond Beach CDP (218 vs. 135) and 31.4% in Vista Center CDP > (541 vs. 711). > > Other than the CDPs, only 7 (out of 566) municipalities had 5% or more > differences in population or housing unit counts. Pine Valley Borough had > the largest discrepancies (20% in population, 66.7% in housing units). > All > except one are tiny municipalities with less than 600 residents. > > Sen-Yuan Wu > New Jersey Department of Labor > Division of Labor Market & Demographic Research > Tel. 609-292-0077, Fax 609-984-6833 > <http://www.state.nj.us/labor/lra> John - Thank you for the work on this. I am going to forward to the FSCPE listserve as well. It is interesting in that even a smaller community down the road from which is even smaller looks numerically better. If anyone wants to see the article that came out on Searchlight and a lesson on dealing with the press check http://www.lvrj.com/lvrj_home/2002/Jul-29-Mon-2002/news/19282077.html "Blodgett, John G." wrote: > There appear to be some problems with this. We ran a test with our DP datasets, comparing the 100% and sample counts for all places. The summary report can be viewed at http://mcdc2.missouri.edu/pub/data/sf3prof/check_totpops.pdf . The biggest problem, in terms of pct difference in the counts, is definitely in the very small places. There are 593 places in the country where the difference was 25% or more and 566 of these were for places with 500 people or less. > The report also includes a listing of these 593 places, sorted by state and descending Pct Difference. The winner of the worst sample estimate award is Blacksville CDP, Ga. They had a 100% count of 4 people, but the sample estimate was 52. > > John Blodgett > OSEDA - Office of Social & Economic Data Analysis > U. of Missouri Outreach and Extension > 626 Clark Hall - UMC > Columbia, MO 65211 > (573) 884-2727 > blodgettj(a)umsystem.edu > URL: http://oseda.missouri.edu/jgb/ > > -----Original Message----- > From: jeff hardcastle [mailto:jhardcas(a)UNR.EDU] > Sent: Friday, July 26, 2002 11:30 AM > To: FSCPE(a)LISTSERV.LOUISVILLE.EDU > Subject: Demographic Profile Errors > > I am not sure if this has happened to states for the Demographic > Profiles that include SF1 and SF3 data but in Nevada's case there are > serious problems that suggest that the whole set of profiles needs to be > reviewed for errors. These errors appear to be more than standard > sampling and response errors. During a quick review counties look > better than places however it appears that there may be geocoding > errores in the sample data. There also appears to be differences in > what the sample data is weighted against. > > The place that brought this to my attention was Searchlight NV where tge > DP-1 pop is 576 and the housing unit count is 444. On DP-2 through 4 > the pop is 768 and the unit count is 595. A 33% and a 34% difference > respectively. The way I tumbled to this was that a reporter had seen > that Searchlight had no native Nevadans living there. He went to > Searchlight and interviewed people and found that most of them if not > all were natives. (Searchlight is an old mining down south of Las Vegas > and in the middle of very open country.) > > Is this kind of error being found elsewhere? > > -- > peace, > > Jeff Hardcastle > (775) 784-6353 Phone > (775) 784-4337 Fax > jhardcas(a)unr.edu e-mail > "shifts happen" http://publicconversations.org/

21 years, 10 months

[CTPP] problems with listserv...

by Chris Parrinello

There was a small problem with the listserv over the last day that caused emails to the listserv to be bounced back. Please resend any posting to the listserv that were bounced. Thanks, Chris

21 years, 10 months

Re: [CTPP] CTPP issues

by Andrew PICKARD

21 years, 10 months

[CTPP] Census News Brief #11

by ed christopher

Subject: Census News Brief #11 From: Terriann2K(a)aol.com Senate Appropriators Cut Census 2010 Funding By A Quarter; Bureau of Economic Analysis funding up in Senate, American Community Survey plans continue to evolve. On Thursday, the Senate Appropriations Committee approved a Fiscal Year 2004 (FY04) funding bill that cuts $111.1 million from the Administrations $662 million budget request for the Census Bureau. The House version of the Commerce, Justice, and State, The Judiciary and Related Agencies Appropriations bill (H.R. 2799), approved in late July, includes the full amount requested. The Senate bill allocates $181.8 million for the Census Bureaus Salaries and Expenses account, $39 million less than the House allocation of $220.9 million. The Periodic Censuses and Programs account, which includes the decennial census, received $369.1 million, $72 million less than the President requested. The House bill appropriates $441.1 million for periodic programs. Details of the Senate committee action will be available within several days. Preliminary information suggests that appropriators cut funds mainly from 2010 census planning activities. The Presidents budget requested $260.2 million for the three main components of the plan: launching the American Community Survey to replace the census long form ($64.8 million); designing a short form-only census in 2010 ($112.1 million); and improving the accuracy of the TIGER geographic database and the Master Address File ($83.3 million). Bureau of Economic Analysis funding up in Senate: The Senate FY04 Commerce spending bill includes $84.8 million for the departments Economic and Statistics Administration (ESA), the full amount requested by the Bush Administration. Roughly 92 percent of ESAs funding pays for activities of the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA). The Census Bureau is also part of the ESA. The Senate allocation would fund three proposed new BEA initiatives, to improve the accuracy and timeliness of key economic indicators, retail data incorporated into national accounts, and measures of international trade. The House Commerce appropriations bill allocated $75 million for the ESA. American Community Survey plans continue to evolve: The Census Bureau continues to refine its operational plan for the American Community Survey in light of the delay in launching the survey nationwide. Budget constraints prevented the bureau from fully implementing the survey in 2003 as originally planned. With adequate funding, the bureau will start the ACS in July 2004 (the last quarter of Fiscal Year 2004) by mailing questionnaires to a sample of 250,000 households each month. Follow-up visits to unresponsive households, however, will not start until after September 2004, when the next fiscal year begins. The ACS will start to cover group quarters in 2005; college dorms, nursing homes, and other group quarters are not part of current ACS testing. The bureaus Associate Director for Demographic Programs, Nancy Gordon, told members of the Decennial Census Advisory Committee last spring that the delayed ACS start was a gift of time that would allow the agency to train the large field workforce needed to carry out the survey. The Census Bureau also plans to test questionnaires in languages other than English, and is exploring whether a computer-assisted response option for Spanish-speakers (called reverse CATI, or computer assisted telephone interview) can be expanded to other languages. The Census Bureau will soon issue results from tests of how making the ACS a voluntary survey would affect cost and data quality. Since the May advisory committee meetings, the Census Bureau has shifted responsibility for the ACS to the Decennial Census directorate, which is headed by Associate Director J. Preston Jay Waite. Census News Briefs are prepared by Terri Ann Lowenthal, an independent consultant in Washington, DC. Please direct questions about the information in this News Brief to Ms. Lowenthal at 202/484-3067 or by e-mail at terriann2k(a)aol.com. Thank you to the Communications Consortium Media Center for posting the News Briefs on the Census 2000 Initiative web site, at www.census2000.org. Please feel free to circulate this information to colleagues and other interested individuals. ------------ Ed Christopher Planning Specialist Resource Center Federal Highway Administration 19900 Governors Drive Olympia Fields, Illinois 60461 708-283-3534 (V) 708-574-8131 (cell)

21 years, 10 months

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CTPP September 2003