HighLight Heading
January 2006
McKnight Foundation awards grant for Access to Destinations Study outreach
The board of The McKnight Foundation has awarded CTS a three-year grant of $225,000 to develop and conduct outreach programs that make available research findings from the Access to Destinations Study.
McKnight is a private, Minnesota-based philanthropic organization. The foundation's diverse programs include support for strategies to increase alternative transportation options in the Twin Cities region.
The purpose of these outreach activities will be to provide useful research-based information to groups investigating closer linkages between transportation and land use, says Robert Johns, CTS director, and to serve as a catalyst for reframing current planning efforts and policy discussions.
"The McKnight Foundation is pleased to invest in CTS's work," says Peg Birk, McKnight's interim president. "The Center's increased outreach will help build alliances and make valuable transportation research available to key organizations, policymakers, and the public."
The grant is also intended to foster relationships between University researchers and other organizations, such as Transit for Livable Communities and the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy (MCEA). Representatives from these organizations will serve on the advisory panel for the study.
The interdisciplinary Access to Destinations research program began last fall with the initiation of five projects:
- Development of Accessibility Measures, David Levinson, Civil Engineering (CE). Sponsor: Mn/DOT.
- Refining Methods for Calculating Non-Auto Travel Times, Kevin Krizek, Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs. Sponsors: Hennepin County and Mn/DOT.
- Estimation of Arterial Travel Times, Gary Davis, CE. Sponsor: Mn/DOT.
- Generation of Travel-Time Data for the Metro Freeway Network, Taek Kwon, University of Minnesota Duluth (UMD), and Eil Kwon, Mn/DOT. Sponsor: Mn/DOT.
- Twin Cities Metrowide Traffic Microsimulation: Feasibility Investigation, Panos Michalopoulos, CE. Sponsors: Mn/DOT and Hennepin County.
With the McKnight grant, CTS will disseminate results of these and other research projects through workshops, policy summaries, an electronic newsletter, a Web site, and other means.
The study follows the national "Access to Destinations" conference (view conference proceedings) that CTS sponsored in November 2004. The conference was part of University of Minnesota President Robert Bruininks's 21st Century Interdisciplinary Conference Series.