Post Tagged with: "Sustainable Future"

MIT takes on global transportation challenge

March 4, 2009 at 8:51 pm

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.Modern Gate

“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.

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Strengthening Our Infrastructure for a Sustainable Future

February 24, 2009 at 1:46 pm

(Source: Brookings Institution)

Bruce Katz, Vice President and Director, Metropolitan Policy Program

National Governors Association Winter Meeting

FEBRUARY 22, 2009 —

Good afternoon everyone.   

I want to commend NGA and Governor Rendell for dedicating such a substantial portion of your winter meeting to the topic of infrastructure. This is a topic that is routinely relegated to specialists in the field – whether they are civil engineers, or heads of your state DOT’s, or advocates.

As national leaders like Governor Rendell and his co-chairs at the Building America’s Future coalition—Governor Schwarzenegger and Mayor Bloomberg—so eloquently and effectively point out is that infrastructure needs to be moved to the front burner of our national policy conversations. Not just as a problem that needs to be dealt with, but also as a key solution to the economic, energy, and environmental challenges we face and it’s a principle driver of our nation’s prosperity.    

It turns out that hard times are the right time to focus on infrastructure. 

Now there are those who naturally see the current situation and want to spend more to repair our deficient infrastructure, to address our major gateways and corridors, to make transit more the norm than the exception. 

But this is not just about more spending. First and foremost we need reform, then we need to invest.

So let me begin with my first point: after years and years of benign neglect, infrastructure is truly getting public hearing.

First, as we all know, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act that the President signed into law last Tuesday provides a lot of money for infrastructure.

Click here to read the entire speech.
Power Point Presentations from this event are listed below:
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