Almost $12-million worth of federal grant money matched by state funds will pay for a new transportation research center at the University of Rhode Island.
The money will allow faculty and students to step up their work with the Rhode Island Department of Transportation in tackling the state’s most pressing transportation needs, said Daniel Urish, a professor of environmental engineering who was recently named the center’s director. It will also pay for fellowships to graduates in environmental and civil engineering and establish a multi-disciplinary master’s degree program in transportation management, he said.
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The URI Transportation Research Center will focus “on advanced infrastructure, operations and the development of new materials,” Urish said. “We’ll cover the whole range of intermodal transportation from highways to seaways to railways, even to bike paths.”
“It brings us into the state-of-the-art for the 21st Century,” Urish said.
The program will be housed in the existing College of Engineering, or Bliss Hall, for the time being. However, Urish is hoping voters tomorrow (Nov. 3) will approve an almost $21-million higher education facilities bond referendum that would include almost $5 million for renovations to Lippitt Hall. The center’s headquarters would then be moved to that largely administrative space, he said.
The U.S. Department of Transportation money awarded the university is part of the $209-billion Transportation Equity Act of the 21st Century. The law, passed last June, established funding for 23 such centers across the country, adding to 10 existing ones. The matching funds will come from the state Department of Transportation. The university will receive $4-million installments of the $24 million over six years starting next year, Urish said. Faculty and advisers are using a $200,000 advance to come up with a strategic plan for the center by December, he said, adding “we anticipate starting research and some of the new course offerings in the spring.”
URI will work with state and federal transportation officials over the next two months to come up with a curriculum, Urish said. Students enrolled in the program will focus on one of three areas: technology transfer and outreach; transportation education and training; or research.
URI and DOT have a long-standing relationship, having collaborated on transportation research projects in the past, Urish said. For the past decade, the agency has given the school about $200,000 a year in return for its services, he said. This latest infusion of federal and state funds will help pay for a
transportation operations center in Kingston, Urish said. From that location, faculty and students will be able to provide traffic and environmental data from South County to the DOT’s satellite operation center in Providence, he said.
“Ours would be focused on research and education, where there is strictly operational,” Urish explained.
Thomas J. Kim, dean of URI’s College of Engineering, in a statement announcing the award, said the university is “excited to be developing such a dynamic center which will work hand-in-hand with national, state and local transportation professionals. Our laboratories will be alive with the work of top scientists as they work on transportation solutions for today and the future.”
URI was one of six schools to be awarded the maximum grant amount for a transportation center. Urish credited that to the need for such a center in the northeast and also U.S. Sen. John H. Chafee. “Having Chafee as our champion was certainly a strong point,” he said, noting that the Republican senator chairs the Environment and Public Works Committee that authored a bill to bring $155.9 million worth of federal highway funding to the state over six years.
