Transportation Research Centers Lose Key Federal Funding

The Department of Transportation’s recent funding cuts include little-known but crucial research programs housed at University Transportation Centers. As Kea Wilson explains in Streetsblog USA, the UTC program was created by an act of Congress in 1987 “as a way for the federal government to invest directly in research and workforce development to make the nation's transportation system better — and critically, for academics and federal policymakers to co-create what that ‘better’ future might look like.”

The 35 centers (actually clusters of three to 10 schools) created by the Surface Transportation and Uniform Relocation Assistance Act in 1987 have access to special grants and resources. Although the centers are tasked with focusing on federally identified priorities, no other administration has pulled funding for the program altogether. Now, even researchers working on ongoing projects that were close to completion have had to stop work. “Because their grant was terminated effective immediately — itself a rarity in federal circles — the consortium had few options to fill a sudden hole that represented more than 40 percent of their budget.”