CTS at 40
By Kyle Shelton, CTS director
My family was making our way—slowly—from Madison to the Twin Cities along Interstate 94 as the first major snowfall of the season hit the Midwest. As we passed multiple snowplow teams from both Wisconsin counties and the Minnesota Department of Transportation diligently clearing the way, I once again found myself connecting the transportation work I saw in front of me to our work here at CTS. I couldn’t help but point out to our eye-rolling kids how the light patterns on the back of the plow are continually being improved based on human factors research studying reaction times and driver perception. I also found myself considering the decades-plus efforts that went into exploring the ways that autonomous technology and sensors helps keep our plow drivers, travelers, and shippers safe during snowstorms. As I cautiously overtook each driver and crew, I thought about the range of training and partnerships CTS has with local and state stakeholders to recruit and prepare one of the best transportation workforces in the world.
I’ve said repeatedly that when you start seeing the ways that transportation underpins our daily lives, you cannot unsee them. The pavement, the signage, the bike lanes and sidewalks, the flow of traffic and freight. The same is true when I reflect upon the ways that CTS and our many partners have plugged into that system. In 2026 we are commemorating the 40th year of CTS. We’ll be celebrating the work we’ve produced, and that yet to come, as we cross into our fifth decade of helping build a transportation system in which all Minnesotans thrive. Across those years we have collaborated, innovated, educated, and shared so much cutting-edge work!
In the year ahead you can expect to see many highlights of CTS’s history, as well as reflections on where we’re heading as a part of our thematic focus in 2026—CTS at 40: Driving Innovation, Accelerating Discovery, Fueling Talent. We’ll also be looking outward to our stakeholders and peers to dig deeper into the role that university-based transportation research and education does and should play in building our transportation systems. We aim to engage collaborators from home here in Minnesota and across the country in this conversation.
To launch our theme, I invite you to watch a conversation that our Deputy Director Gina Baas facilitated with a trio of CTS directors: Bob Johns, Laurie McGinnis, and myself. We just scratch the surface of many of the Center’s origins and projects, but it’s a solid foundation to support the launch of our theme. And it was a great opportunity for me to learn even more from my predecessors. I hope you’ll enjoy the discussion.
Finally, getting to 40 years has only been possible because of the exceptional team and partners that have touched every aspect of our work. Thank you to everyone who has ever asked us a question that has sent us down a research path. Thank you to those who have attended an event or training. We deeply value the trust and confidence you put in CTS and the University of Minnesota. We are excited to continue this work together in the decades to come.