The U.S. Department of Transportation has chosen Johns Hopkins University to lead a new University Transportation Center, the school announced Thursday.
According to officials, the new center, the Center for Climate-Smart Transportation, will focus on transportation solutions to preserve the environment and will be funded through a $10 million grant awarded over the next five years. The Center will collaborate with experts to research ways to mitigate climate change in the transportation sector.
The consortium of experts includes representatives of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Texas Austin, the University of Utah, Morgan State University, and Diné College, a public tribal land-grant college serving the Navajo Nation.
“Climate change should be at the center of transportation decisions at all levels,” said Shima Hamidi, Ph.D., the center’s principal investigator and director, and Bloomberg Assistant Professor of American Health in the Department of Environmental Health and Engineering. “Without comprehensive mitigation and resiliency strategies implemented at all levels of government, greenhouse gas emissions from transportation—and the associated health and quality-of-life impacts of climate change—will only increase in the next two decades.”
The Center’s initial focus will explore alternative fuels, how they can be used in transportation, and ways to achieve net-zero emissions. Hamidi said current electric vehicle (EV) technology is not a path to net-zero emissions since 60 percent of electricity generated to fuel EVs comes from nonrenewable fossil resources. The center will also study ways to advance other net-zero emissions policies like reducing per-capita miles traveled and promoting transit investment.