Center for Transportation Research: Highlights

A PBS examines electric cars and Austin, Texas. Electric vehicles like the Chevy Volt and Nissan Leaf are rolling into a handful of U.S. cities. Austin, Texas is one of them. It’s no coincidence General Motors (NYSE: GM) picked the city as a launch market for the Volt. It has an educated, eco-friendly workforce. Diane [...]

[Read more]

Interested in a user-friendly forecasting tool to examine the benefits (and costs) of new, congestion abating transportation projects and policies? Ready for a methodologically sound process to evaluate travel time, reliability, safety, and emissions impacts of large-scale projects? Planning staff are invited to join TxDOT’s Project 0-6235 user workshop on “Comprehensive Evaluation of Competing Projects: [...]

[Read more]

Responding to demand among its bicycle-riding fans, Google Maps today gave U.S. users the ability to get biking directions in addition to driving, public transportation and walking routes. Google’s Shannon Guymon said the project had been in the works for a while because “we knew that when we added the feature, we wanted to do [...]

[Read more]

Chandra Bhat received the S.S. Steinberg Award from the Research and Education Division of the American Road & Transportation Builders Association. Chandra accepted the award at the January Transportation Research Board (TRB) in January 2010. Read more: http://www.artba.org/article/university-of-texas-professor-honored-with-artbas-research–education-division-award-/

[Read more]

photo from http://www.utexas.edu/features/archive/2004/traffic.html According to a recent study by The Daily Beast and traffic services company INRIX, Austin has the fourth worst commute in the nation. They discovered that commuters experience most of this frustration on I-35 with the worst bottleneck being Northbound around Riverside Drive. Kara Kockelman, professor at the Cockrell School of Engineering [...]

[Read more]

View Video: http://www.kvue.com/v/?i=70265707 Austin’s new car sharing program, Car2Go, starts today. It is the first of its kind in the nation. During a six-month pilot program, city employees will have access to 200 Smart cars, which will be pre-positioned at parking spots around town. Austin city officials say it will offer a convenient, environmentally-friendly alternative [...]

[Read more]

David Bryne, author of Bicycle Diaries, and frontman for the band, Talking Heads, will be part of a panel discussion titled: “Bicycles, Cities, and Transportation in Austin.” The event takes place September 27, 2009, at 7 p.m. at the Paramount Theatre. The Paramount is located at 713 Congress Avenue. The event is free and open [...]

[Read more]

New Texas law bans drivers from using cell phones in school zones, but a proposed Austin city ordinance may ban texting while driving altogether. For the full story and video, visit: KVUE News, Austin

[Read more]