If there is one thing Ann Arbor knows its research. And if there's one thing Metro Detroit knows its transportation. The two areas are combining these two strengths to create Transforming Transportation: Economies & Communities.

The University Research Corridor's new program promotes multidisciplinary, multi-institutional research that supports industry, community and government policy-making and planning. The University of Michigan and Wayne State University will lead the charge with this new effort that hopes to serve as a nerve center for transportation innovation in the regional, state, national and global economies.

"It's an idea who's time has come," says Allen Batteau, an anthropologist who heads Wayne State's Institute for Information Technology and Culture.

Both U-M and Wayne State (along with Michigan State University) are holding meetings to help organize the program's first transportation summit in Detroit in October. The idea is to leverage the region's location and assets, along with creating synergies between university, community, government and business when it comes to moving people and goods from Point A to Point B.

Batteau believes the new program will help spearhead innovation in the sprawling transportation sector and create economic opportunity locally. In fact he sees this as a once-in-a-generation opportunity to rethink fundamental assumptions through a unique collaboration of regional leaders.

"Every time we make a leap ahead in transportation infrastructure, whether it's the Transcontinental Railroad or the Erie Canal or the expressway system, it is what kicked economic development into overdrive. In other words, transportation investment is vital."

Source: University of Michigan and Allen Batteau, an anthropologist who heads Wayne State's Institute for Information Technology and Culture
Writer: Jon Zemke