Outreach Components

The outreach components of the Access to Destinations Study address two main audiences:

1. Transportation professionals, including transportation agency staff, consultants, and non-profit organizations; and,
2. Policymakers, including elected and appointed government officials, the business community, and the media.  

Outreach to Transportation Professionals
CTS and research sponsors will use existing outreach methods to accelerate the transfer of knowledge to transportation agency staff, the consultant community, and non-profit organization professionals.

1. Technical advisory panels. Teams of transportation experts and other professionals for each research project, or each set of projects, will interact with researchers, review findings, and look for opportunities to accelerate transfer of the knowledge gained to their organizations and to the profession.
2. Events and Information. Research results will be presented in seminars and at the annual CTS Research Conference. Basic study information will be accessible on the CTS Web site.
   
   

Policy Outreach
The McKnight Foundation is sponsoring a broad set of outreach efforts to make research results available to elected officials, business leaders, the media, and the public in order to advance the dialogue about our future transportation and land use systems. These efforts include:

1. Partner Activities. It takes time to conduct, complete, and publish results of University research. Intermediate findings, however, could accelerate the impact of the research if organizations are involved frequently to access these findings, connect them to other initiatives, and use them in their advocacy and other efforts. For this effort, CTS will partner with several regional groups to expedite the transfer of knowledge.
2. Information Activities. CTS disseminates information through many channels, including newsletters, web sites, and published reports. This effort will create new communication vehicles, with particular emphasis on electronic communication technologies, which will house all research and outreach information related to the study and include links to related developments around the world that focus on coordinating land use, transportation, and accessibility.
3. Engagement Activities. An important CTS outreach goal is to provide ways for people to interact with each other to discuss research findings and their implications for practice and policy. The 2004 Access to Destinations conference, held at the University as part of the President’s 21st Century Interdisciplinary Conferences series, represents an early success in this area.
4. Policy Summaries. The publication by CTS of the TRG summary, Market Choices and Fair Prices, was a dramatic change from CTS’s traditional means of disseminating information through newsletters and events aimed primarily at transportation professionals. This publication, targeted to the media and public, led to an editorial in the Star Tribune and has been used by many non-transportation groups and by policy leaders.