(Source: The Brookings Institute)

To help improve the energy efficiency and overall environmental sustainability of the U.S. transportation system, we will need to adopt policies that foster changes in the way Americans travel. A new Brookings report “Making Transportation Sustainable: Insights from Germany” finds that Germany may offer valuable lessons. Like the United States, Germany is a federal republic but it has taken impressive steps to improve transportation options, link transportation planning to land use, and advance other reforms – all while empowering metropolitan action.

Lessons for the United States:

Public policy can play a major role in reshaping America’s transportation system. The German experience offers five lessons to the United States for improving transportation sustainability through changes in travel behavior:

Get the Price Right in order to encourage the use of less polluting cars, driving at non-peak hours and more use of public transportation
Integrate Transit, Cycling, and Walking as Viable Alternatives to the Car, as a necessary measure to make any sort of car-restrictive measures publicly and politically feasible
Fully Coordinate and Integrate Planning for Land Use and Transportation to discourage car-dependent sprawl and promote transit-oriented development
Public Information and Education to Make Changes Feasible are essential in conveying the benefits of more sustainable policies and enforcing their results over the long term
Implement Policies in Stages with a Long Term Perspective because it takes considerable time to gather the necessary public and political support and to develop appropriate measures.

Click here to download the report.  Here is the read-only version of the report.

New initiative to pioneer 21st century solutions via greater coordination and interdisciplinary collaboration

(Source: MIT News)

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology today launchedTransportation@MIT, a coordinated effort to address one of civilization’s most pressing challenges: the environmental impact of the world’s ever-increasing demand for transportation. Building on MIT’s rich tradition of engineering research and interdisciplinary collaboration, the new initiative will knit together the wide-ranging, robust research already under way at the Institute and create new opportunities for education and innovation.

The program’s creation comes as the global movement of people and things becomes increasingly unsustainable — a problem that cannot be pinned on any one mode of transport. Two-thirds of the world’s petroleum consumption is taken up by transportation-related needs. Projections indicate that demand for petroleum, if unchecked, may outstrip supply within a few decades, while carbon dioxide output across the globe could triple by 2050.

“The global transportation challenge is as multi-faceted as a problem could be, and it is hard to think of an institution better equipped to tackle it than MIT,” said Dean of Engineering Subra Suresh. “By coordinating our own efforts and leveraging connections among faculty across our schools — from researchers exploring efficient new fuels to those studying transportation as a system to those rethinking how our cities are organized — we can make important and innovative contributions and encourage the rapid development of new ideas in sustainability, technology, business practices, and public policy related to all modes of transportation.