ICOET 2009 was held September 13-17 at the Duluth Entertainment Convention Center in Duluth, Minnesota.  Both successful and well-attended, the conference welcomed an estimated 400 participants representing more than 16 countries and tribal nations.  Over 120 presentations were included in the program, which also featured the Federal Highway Administration Environmental Excellence Awards ceremony on Monday, September 14 and two field trips hosted by Minnesota DOT.  Visit the ICOET Web site for more details, with event photos, video clips of sessions, and final proceedings coming soon!

Photo courtesy David Larson, Mn/DOT

In an article published in the May-June 2009 issue of TR News, James Martin, associate director of the Center for Transportation and the Environment (CTE) discusses how the partnership between CTE, North Carolina State University, and the North Carolina Department of Transportation provides students with experiential learning opportunities in context sensitive solutions. The article, "Introducing Context-Sensitive Solutions to the Next Generation of Transportation Professionals," gives an overview of the programs for graduate and undergraduate engineering students; citing examples of the various components of the programs as well as noting benefits for the participants. For information about CSS Summer Academy activities and presentations, see the Context Sensitive Solutions Summer Academy page.

TR News, May-June 2009, p. 30. Copyright, Transportation Research Board, National Research Council, Washington, D.C. Cover reproduced with permission of TRB.

CTE selected Daniel Findley as the recipient of its Student of the Year award for 2008.  He was recognized at the annual awards banquet for the Council for University Transportation Centers (CUTC) held January 2009 in Washington, DC.

Findley, a PhD candidate in civil engineering at North Carolina State University, has research interests that include the economic impacts of transportation, safety, and the implementation of innovative solutions to transportation issues.  His current research focuses on the economic impacts of access management; the primary goal being to complete a before and after study of the installation of access management techniques using business data.

Findley recently completed his master’s degree in civil engineering at NC State University. His thesis, Economic Impact of Publicly-Owned General Aviation Airports in North Carolina, applied a methodology for calculating the county-level economic impacts of general aviation airports that serve private business and personal aircraft. The research also examined the relationship between the economic impact and various parameters of the airport and the local county economy and included land use and other types of environmental impacts. The results of the analysis of these aspects provided information for decision makers who have the difficult task of awarding grants for airport projects.

A native of Robbinsville, NC, Findley developed an interest in transportation while doing internships with the North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDOT).  “Transportation is an appealing field to work in because it touches all of our lives in a significant way,” said Findley.  “Transportation is such a large factor in just about everything we have and do, but most people don’t realize how much of an impact it really has.”

In addition to his research, Findley is an instructor in the Fundamental Engineering Principles program and the Highway Engineering Concepts course at the Institute for Transportation Research and Education (ITRE).   He has also been involved in some NCDOT training for level of service and economic impact software and has presented at several conferences.

Findley has also been the recipient of the Roy D. Williams Memorial Scholarship/NCSITE, the SASHTO/Department of Transportation Scholarship, and the Transportation Founder's Fund Scholarship.  He is a member of the Institute of Transportation Engineers and Chi Epsilon, the national civil engineering honor society.

This report, requested by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO), identifies existing and emerging community and social impact assessment measures that can be used as indicators of the quality of a community's life.  The report provides an in-depth, cross-disciplinary literature review and interviews with scholars both outside and within the transportation profession to build on current Community Impact Assessment practice.  It lays the foundation for understanding measures of community wellbeing and organizes them into a framework of three domains that reflect the inter-relationships that define community wellbeing:  physical health,  economic wellbeing, and social capital, defined as the social networks through which norms of reciprocity and trustworthiness develop.

In addition to improved measures, three categories of improvements to current methodology and analysis are described:  analyzing traditional data sources in new ways, adopting data used by other disciplines, and utilizing new data sources available from non-traditional sources The report demonstrates the utility of the framework and measures by applying the approach to a case study to understand how well a community is functioning and identify areas where a major transportation project could be expected to have major effects.

The report is primarily targeted towards the transportation practitioner charged with understanding and assessing community effects.  However, the concepts and methods will also be of interest to long-range planners and management personnel as their work requires understanding how transportation systems, projects, and programs relate to community quality of life.

The full report is available at StatewidePlanning.org