The Frank Blackmore Award was created in 2009 to honor professionals in the roundabout community who have done much in their careers to promote the use of roundabouts, frequently overcoming opposition and making substantial contributions to educating colleagues, policy makers, and the driving public on the benefits and characteristics of roundabouts.
Frank Blackmore was a pioneer in the development of roundabouts and in promoting their use. A brief biographical narrative of Mr. Blackmore can be found here.
Awarded and Sponsored by the TRB Committee on Roundabouts
Annual Nomination Deadline: March 1.
To submit a nomination, a brief statement of how the person fits each of the criteria below is required. Criterion #1 was suggested by Frank Blackmore’s son and daughter and is considered to have more weight:
Nominees must be people with innovative ideas that were sometimes considered radical or not readily accepted at the time, or who were having trouble getting the attention they merited (or their ideas accepted).
Nominees must be retired. This means their lifetime contribution is basically complete (probably since the mid to upper 90’s in the U.S.) and can be considered in its entirety.
Nominees promoted the use and application of roundabouts to a significant extent (e.g., designing, leading, other promotional activities).
Nominees influenced others to do the same (e.g., publishing, speaking, demonstrating, or encouraging).
Nominees identified scientific principles relating to roundabouts or guidelines relating to the growth and acceptance of roundabouts (e.g., field statistical analyses; published research; convinced, guided, or led others).
Nominees trained, educated, or helped others understand scientific or promotional principles (e.g., formal or informal instruction or guidance).
Nominees invented and promoted new concepts/ideas in design, application, or application of roundabouts.
The number of awards given each year will depend on the number and qualifications of nominees received. This is an ongoing award with nominations being solicited annually, but the award will not necessarily be given every year (i.e., a given year may have no award recipients depending on the number of nominees who fit the criteria and the results of Committee voting). Similarly, more than one award may be given in a single year, if there are multiple worthy candidates who receive sufficient votes. Therefore, this is not a competition to determine which nominee is “best”; members are urged to vote for all nominees they feel are worthy of the award. Any nominee who receives votes from a majority of Committee members (currently 15 votes from 29 members) will be an award winner.
The award winner(s) will be invited to the Committee’s Annual Meeting in conjunction with the TRB Annual Meeting in Washington, DC in January. During the meeting, the award winner(s) will be presented with an award certificate and offered the opportunity to deliver a short presentation or address on their experiences.
2013 — Bernard Guichet
*2011 — Ken Todd (acceptance video on behalf of Ken: http://youtu.be/u3fkg766kyA)
*2009 — Leif Ourston
* Awarded by the Task Force on Roundabouts