As of October 1, 2016, the SWUTC concluded its 28 years of operation and is no longer an active center of the Texas A&M Transportation Institute. The archived SWUTC website remains available here.

161229

SWUTC Education Initiative Description

Support for Community and Regional Planning Class Development

University: University of Texas at Austin

Principal Investigator:
Talia McCray
University of Texas at Austin
(512)471-2708

Funding Source: State of Texas General Revenue Funds

Total Project Cost: $10,010

Project Number: 161229

Date Started: 5/1/12

Estimated Completion Date: 4/30/13

Initiative Summary

Abstract:
The development of the megaregion planning concept requires not only regional integration of planning organizations and modes, but also the simultaneous development of multiple land uses, including integrating residential and industrial demands.  Incompatibility between land uses and transportation projects is a growing challenge in planning for a sustainable and equitable American urban form.  In many areas, heavily trafficked freight routes lie adjacent to land uses, including urban, quiet exurban, and rural communities that are often noise, light, and vibration sensitive.  This project will develop a new six hour course, a practicum, in the Community and Regional Planning Program focused on freight planning.  The freight component is often ignored in the development of city and regional comprehensive plans.  Transportation planning courses across the country lack curricula that educate students on the conflicts and barriers between freight and other land uses. By exposing students to a series of readings, discussions, interviews, and a research/design project at the megaregional scale, students will gain a real world application of designing freight compatible communities.

Project Objectives:
Develop a Freight Planning Course

  • Develop a Resource Guide
  • Develop a Syllabus

Visit two Freight/Rail Companies – field work to prepare for the Course

  • Center for Neighborhood Technology, a non-profit organization headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, under the direction of Mr. Scott Bernstein.
  • Central Texas Region like BNSF, Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway, in Fort Worth, TX.

Develop a quantitative modeling project for students to address some incompatibility issue between land uses and freight projects.


Implementation of Initiative Outcomes:
Incompatibility between land uses and transportation projects is a growing challenge in planning for a sustainable and equitable American urban form. In many areas, heavily trafficked freight routes lie adjacent to land uses, including dense urban, quiet exurban, and rural communities, that are often noise, light, and vibration sensitive. There has been a historic lack of communication between planners, transportation planners and the freight industry. This has led to flawed policies including poor planning choices that have shifted the balance between industrial and residential development.

The purpose of this initiative was to develop a master’s level freight planning course in the Community and Regional Planning Program in the School of Architecture at the University of Texas at Austin.  The intent is to offer this new course in the spring of 2014.

Impacts/Benefits of Implementation:
In a review of transportation planning courses from across the country, researchers found that there is a lack of curricula that educates students on the conflicts and barriers between freight and other land uses.  With this effort, researchers hope to set a new direction in community regional planning programs at the University of Texas at Austin where students are educated about the conflicts and barriers between freight and other land uses, and mitigation techniques.

Web Links:
Course development documentation and tentative course outline