Over 180 attendees filled the halls and event center of New York Law School in TriBeCa this morning for TransportationCamp East.  Early birds got right to work, proposing sessions using the big orange post-it notes.

The morning started with warm welcomes from NYLS’s Beth Noveck and OpenPlans Director Nick Grossman.

Group introductions were the standard “unconference” model:  name, affiliation, three words that describe why you are here. Some examples that demonstrate the range of interests and expertise in the room:

  • Sarah Goodyear = “journalism, bicycles, new york”

  • Omar Peters = “I, love, cities”

  • Adam Greenfield = “open, public, objects”

  • Mike Arrow = “subways, buses, engineer”

  • Stuart Strickland = “anything, but, cars”

  • Liz Paul MTA = “open, payments, transit”

  • Darren Levy = “free, open, data”

Giovanni Carnaroli, Senior Accountable Official for Open Gov, USDOT opened the morning keynotes.  Carnaroli expressed his office’s openness to suggestions from the TransportationCamp audience:  “I’m here to listen to you guys, to find out what other data sets you want and need.”

Peter Appel, Research and Innovative Technology Administration, USDOT, was next and urged the audience to get involved, participate in the nation’s challenges around our running out of fuel, space and money.  “Think about how your ideas can be applied to entire transit system of US. We’re going to need your help.”

Charles Monheim, Chief Operating Officer of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority warmed the crowd with his proud declaration of being a carless New Yorker.  Monheim also stressed participation in his talk,  envisioning cities “in which change is not done to us, but is done with each other and for each other.”

Morning keynotes finished up then with a great rush to the Session Board, where short people needed either elbows or tippy-toes to get a good look at the competing session ideas. Nine rooms filled up with conversations, Q&As and presentations.

Conversation and live coverage continues on Twitter – hashtag #transpo.  Keep up to date on the Session lineup on the schedule page.