In the world of highway construction, where myriad factors can upend even the most meticulously planned project, there are no sweeter words than “on time and on budget.” That’s the refrain being sung by a chorus of community partners in Waco, Texas, where the massive Interstate 35 reconstruction effort achieved its latest milestone — a […]
editorial
The Last Stop with Greg Winfree: Mobility, Up Close and Personal
It was Tip O’Neill, a former speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, who was famously known to say in the 1980s, “All politics is local.” Countless candidates for office decades later routinely rely upon door knocking and town hall gatherings, attesting to both the durability and relevance of O’Neill’s philosophy. His words concisely captured […]
The Last Stop with Greg Winfree: Can’t You Read the Sign?
In 1971, the Five Man Electrical Band, a crew of Canadian rockers, released the song “Signs,” which vented the songwriter’s disdain for certain examples of visual forewarning that he encountered. In the chorus, the singer belts out, “Do this, don’t do that! Can’t you read the sign?” My colleagues and I at the Texas A&M […]
The Last Stop with Greg Winfree: Transition Takes Time — Internal Combustion Engines Aren’t Dinosaurs Just Yet
In this issue of the Texas Transportation Researcher, we’ve featured TTI experts conducting cutting-edge research designed to preserve and protect our environment. That includes helping pave the way for alternative-fueled vehicles, like electric cars. Electrified and fuel-celled propulsion are gaining significant momentum, but internal combustion engines (ICEs) aren’t an extinct species yet. It’s easy to […]
The Last Stop with Greg Winfree: More Reliable, More Resilient — A Supply Chain Is Only as Strong as Its Weakest (Data) Link
We’re in the middle of a global supply chain crisis. A shortage of supplies and workers, especially truck drivers, has combined with a post-pandemic surge in demand to create bottlenecks. Add to that the impact of COVID-19 mitigation strategies (some of which are still in force) on goods movement, particularly across national borders. According to […]
The Last Stop with Greg Winfree: Making Transportation Personal — The Return on Investment in Our Shared System
When I was a kid in 1970s Long Island, N.Y., I’d regularly ride along the Southern State Parkway with my parents. Running east to west for 25-plus miles required a 10-cent toll in both directions. Even to my pre-teen mind that seemed a bit onerous, having to dig a dime out each way. I joined […]
The Last Stop with Greg Winfree: National Strategies, Local Expertise — The Evolution of the UTC Program Benefits Everyone
When the Texas Highway Department formed in 1917, its engineers recognized the value of university-based facilities like those at the then-Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas (later Texas A&M University) for conducting transportation research. Fast forward to 1950 and the birth of the Texas A&M Transportation Institute (TTI) and its charter to apply Texas A&M’s […]
The Last Stop with Greg Winfree: Harsher Weather? Build Better. Resiliency Should Be a Priority for Infrastructure Funding
In February, Texas suffered a brutal storm that made international news — an arctic blast knocked most of the state’s power grid offline and plunged millions of residents into darkness. The luckier folks only suffered rolling blackouts and had plenty of water. Others slept in their cars with the motor — and heater — running. […]
The Last Stop with Greg Winfree: The Human Factor in the Tech Transfer Equation — Effective Communication Requires Personal Connection
I’m a people person. I draw energy from interacting with other folks. I’ll take an in-person conversation over a phone call every time. But lately, traditional face-to-face contact has been supplanted by the virtual kind. COVID-19 has transformed how we interact. Worldwide, nearly 1.5 million folks have perished as I write this. For mutual protection, […]
The Last Stop with Greg Winfree: Partners in Problem-Solving — TTI and TxDOT Celebrate 70 Years of Teamwork
Seventy years! That’s how long TTI and the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) have partnered to solve transportation problems for Texans. In 1950, the then-Texas Highway Department approached Texas A&M College to leverage the best and brightest academic minds to meet the most pressing challenges of the day: potholes, traffic snarls and threats to driver […]
The Last Stop with Greg Winfree: More than Meets the Eye — Expanding How We See Transportation Safety in a World with Pandemics
Historically, transportation research has focused on avoiding dangers we can see. The first traffic light troubleshot human errors in judgment by better regulating traffic flow. As the 20th century unfolded, our focus shifted to innovations like seat belts and air bags to help us survive crashes we couldn’t avoid. Nowadays, sensors and cameras — high-tech […]
The Last Stop with Greg Winfree — Transportation as a Disease Vector: Our Research Must Focus on Mitigating the Spread of Infectious Diseases
In engineering, the term vector generally identifies a quantity that has magnitude and direction commonly represented by a directed line segment (i.e., an element of a vector space). Traditionally in medicine, however, a vector is an organism that doesn’t cause disease itself but spreads infection by conveying pathogens from one host to another. Inanimate objects […]
The Last Stop with Greg Winfree: Learning Is Knowledge Reborn and Refined — TTI Celebrates the TRB Centennial
I’ve always thought of learning as an evolutionary process. It’s not about achieving a certain level of education, but about sharing knowledge with others to achieve something greater than what could be accomplished alone. Fostered by teamwork, it’s a cycle of professional development that’s constantly evolving, always rewarding and never completed. Learning, then, is about […]
The Last Stop with Greg Winfree — Choice, Convenience and Customer Service: What Mobility Means in a Data-Driven Marketplace
Our definition of mobility is changing. At its most practical in transportation, mobility describes the safe and efficient movement of people and goods. But today that’s only part of the story — an artifact of last-century thinking. Today, we’re linked through the Internet of Things, creating opportunities for efficiencies never dreamed of a mere generation […]
The Last Stop with Greg Winfree: What Goes Around Comes Around
Convenience Culture? How About Compassion Culture? I’m a big fan of science fiction (SF) — old standards like The Twilight Zone and Star Wars, and newer classics-to-be like the Marvel movies. One reason I enjoy SF so much is that the genre often uses its fantastic landscapes and far-out circumstances to present, in stark relief, […]
The Last Stop with Greg Winfree: Convenience. Accessibility. Equity. Smart Dirt Roads Can Take Us to Texas’ Future
Ever looked at a NASA photo of Texas at night? The state is a starry spider’s web of lights, with the biggest clusters where you’d expect to find them — across the Texas Triangle of Dallas, Houston and San Antonio. Look at that same view across a few decades, and you’ll see those cities growing […]
The Last Stop with Greg Winfree: Research Team of Rivals
Competing Ideas Yield the Best Interdisciplinary Findings Following his first inauguration as president, Abraham Lincoln famously peopled his cabinet with what historian Doris Kearns Goodwin terms a “team of rivals” in her Pulitzer-Prize-winning book of the same name. Lincoln brought together opponents — some of whom had run against him for the presidency — for […]
The Last Stop with Greg Winfree: Accelerated Construction Is a Team Sport
In 2018, the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) published Accelerated Construction: A Path Forward. The document lays out a vision for implementing the principles of accelerated construction statewide. TxDOT emphasizes the need to educate and train personnel, but also recognizes that accelerated construction is about a lot more than just working faster and cheaper — […]
The Last Stop with Greg Winfree: Getting Centered on the Big Picture
When I was assistant secretary for research and technology at the U.S. Department of Transportation, part of my job was to review proposals for the federal University Transportation Center grant program. What I learned in that process is that a university-based center brings a number of unique strengths to the table: fresh ideas from the […]
The Last Stop with Greg Winfree: Investing Intellectual Capital Today in Tomorrow’s Transportation System
One of the most important assets we have in transportation research is intellectual capital. In the last century, the power of pioneering minds overcame seemingly insurmountable challenges to improve mobility, safety and infrastructure longevity. Without that systematic application of innovative thinking, roads would have crumbled faster, more system users would have died or been injured, […]
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