Several members of the SUS section traveled to Washington DC in January 2018 to attend the Transportation Research Board (TRB) Annual Meeting. TRB was attended by some 14,000 people, reaching nearly every transportation community in the United States and in the World.
Sustainability has become an important component of TRB. Over the years, ADD40, the Transportation and Sustainability committee, has been incredibly active. The focus tends to be mostly put on climate mitigation, greenhouse gas emissions, alternative fuels, and air quality, although active transportation (walk and bike) are well represented. ABR10, the Critical Protection Infrastructure committee, focuses heavily on resilience and it includes staff and researchers from many relevant agencies and universities. Their focus is on cyber-security, physical security, and supply chain, and it strives to become more encompassing to include all matters of resilience.
Because TRB deals with only with transportation (although it includes ALL aspects of transportation), virtually no research included other aspects of urban systems, such as water, electricity, and building energy use to name a few, that are at the core of SUS. We most certainly live in a complex world, and we have a long way to go before we can reimagine how we plan, design, and operate sustainable cities.
Make sure to let us know if you plan to attend TRB in future years.
