Spring 2010 Director's Message from Robert Cervero

UCTC starts 2010 with a new look, some uncertainties, and a number of important events on the horizon. Part of the new look is UCTC’s nicely revamped and updated Web site, courtesy of our Webmaster, Phyllis Orrick. What remains uncertain is the status of the next federal transportation bill, which funds university research organizations like UCTC. To date there have been two extensions of the previous bill, and the best guess is we’ll be living in an environment of short-term extensions—and all the uncertainties this entails—for some time. Roughly two-thirds of the funds that UCTC receives go to support our students—in the form of financial aid, research appointments, dissertation grants, and the like. Continued funding is vital to educating a new generation of transportation professionals who can take on the many challenges the future holds for our field. 

Among the upcoming events of note is the UCTC Student Conference, to be held at UC Irvine on April 1-2.  If you wish to speak or present a poster at the conference, abstracts are due March 1. Soon thereafter will be the Martin Wachs Distinguished Lecture, given on April 8 at UCLA by Harvard Professor (and former Massachusetts DOT director) Alan Altshuler. Other UCTC-supported gatherings slated for the spring include conferences on “TOD and Social Equity” at UC Berkeley, “Transportation Finance” hosted by UCLA, and a speaker series on cutting-edge policy topics to be held at Caltrans with participation by faculty-researchers throughout California.

The Fall 2009 issue of ACCESS magazine just came out under the editorship of Donald Shoup. Don and his associates at UCLA put together a fine issue, the first of many more to come. Complementing ACCESS as an “accessible medium” for communicating faculty research is the new UCTC POLICY BRIEFS series. The first one on “Are TOD’s Overparked?” came out in the Fall, and several new briefs should be available in the next month. 

If you’re eligible and want UCTC research support for the coming year, the important dates to keep in mind this spring are: March 1, when UCTC Faculty Research Grant proposals for FY 2010-2011 are due; and April 1, when UCTC Dissertation Research Grants need to be submitted.

Visit our Web site frequently to find out more about all things UCTC-related. Be sure to become a fan on Facebook. And contact me if you have any suggestions about how to make what we do at UCTC even better. Your thoughts are always welcome.

Robert Cervero, UCTC Director
January 2010