Group to address transportation

Major transportation issues will be addressed in October as three Michigan universities — MSU, the University of Michigan and Wayne State University — plan to meet in Dearborn for a three-day conference called Transforming Transportation: Economies and Communities, a new transportation research consortium put on by the University Research Corridor, or URC.

The URC was created by the three universities’ current presidents to collaborate on research initiatives to better the state’s economy.

The universities will meet to frame questions that need to be answered in the next 20 years and work toward changing transportation industries in Michigan and across the world.

“We’re asking questions related to people everywhere,” said Hiram Fitzgerald, MSU associate provost for outreach and engagement.
“No one university has the expertise to solve these problems. We’re bringing together faculties to frame the kinds of research areas that take place around urban and rural transportation issues and everything in between.”

Fitzgerald said he identified nearly 30 people at MSU that are interested in the program.
“The whole system needs to be reinvented, and putting our heads together will help us frame the questions and answers to do that,” Fitzgerald said.