Background

Any university attempting to improve sustainability must confront the issue of transportation. Campuses contribute greatly to greenhouse gas emissions by the mass volume of daily travel to, from, and around campus. At the center of the sustainable transportation challenge is the reliance on the single-occupancy petroleum-powered vehicle as the predominant mode of travel throughout the U.S. Therefore, the goal of a sustainable transportation plan, as recommended by the IU Task Force on Sustainability, should be to decrease the sing-occupancy vehicle proportion of the modal split.

Universities are excellent places for establishing improvements in sustainable transportation, as students make travel choices in college that will affect how they make transportation choices throughout their lives. Further, sustainable transportation initiatives may improve the quality of life of the campus community as well as the quality of the environment. Indiana University is a campus community well-suited for Transportation Demand Management (TDM) strategies that improve mobility for alternative forms of transportation to the single-occupancy vehicle, such as riding transit, walking, biking, carpooling, ridesharing, and carsharing.

 

Strategic Plan | Back to Top

The IU Task Force on Sustainability (IUSTF) created the Transportation Working Group in 2007 to address transportation issues on the IUB campus and in the surrounding community.  With the establishment of the IU Office of Sustainability in 2009, the IUSTF transitioned into the Campus Sustainability Advisory Board (CSAB).  The Transportation Working Group continues its research and programming as one of seven CSAB working groups.  This section addresses the mission, strategic plan and membership of this group.

Mission

To promote a sustainable transportation system that will provide safe access and mobility for students, faculty, staff and visitors, and to ensure that individuals have a broad range of safe and convenient transportation options to walk, bicycle, carpool, or ride public transit to and around campus.

Strategic Plan

The IU Task Force on Sustainability proposed the following metrics for measuring sustainable transportation: the modal split; fuel efficiency of university vehicles; total intra-campus mileage of university vehicles; and, percentage of university vehicles that employ low emission energy sources. For information about the IUB modal split and analysis, see the internship report “Alternative Transportation Planning” (Steinhoff & Harpring 2008). Increased financial and educational support is needed for alternative transportation in order to provide the availability, convenience, and safety of sustainable transportation options that reduce the number of single-occupancy vehicles on campus.

Working Group Membership

Working Group Member	Title	Email (@indiana.edu)
David Good*	Co-Chair; Faculty (SPEA); Director (TRC)	good
Perry Maull	Co-Chair; Assistant Director (Transportation)	pjmaull
Rachel Abrahams	Campus Bike Intern (IUOS); Graduate Student (SPEA)	rlabraha
Rob Fischman	Faculty (Law)	rfischma
Paul Sullivan	Deputy Vice President for Capital Projects and Facilities (VPAD)	pasulliva

* Stepping down in fall of 2011.

Progress at IU | Back to Top

The following internship reports have helped to further sustainable transportation research and initiatives at Indiana University:

• Transportation Survey, Summer 2007: Justin Naab worked to quantify how people get to work and school and what constraints may limit individual transportations choices and/or desires. 
• Alternative Transportation Planning, Summer 2008: Julie Harpring and Mike Steinhoffworked on alternative transportation initiatives for IU students and staff, including the development of an online map of designated cycling routes in Bloomington and on Campus. 
• Bicycle and Pedestrian Infrastructure, Academic Year 2008-2009: Patrick Bourland worked to identify several deficiencies in the provision of cycling and pedestrian infrastructure on campus. 
• Transportation Demand Management, Academic Year 2008-2009: Wes Kocher researched policies enacted at peer institutions and explored options for implementation at IUB.
• Carsharing Implementation Study, Summer 2009: Sarah Germann evaluated the alternatives of the adoption and implementation of a University carsharing program. She also evaluated the variables and outcomes from other University’s carsharing programs. 
• Bike and Pedestrian Infrastructure, Academic Year 2009-2010:  Andy Davis is helping identify and evaluate ways to support IUB and the Bloomington community as they develop short and long term ways to implement alternative transportation projects.  
• Feasibility of Acquiring Alternatively Fueled Buses, Academic Year 2009-2010: Ashleigh Klingman is assessing the feasibility of purchasing alternatively-fueled buses for the IU fleet as well as the impact these buses could have on sustainability at IU. 

 

Resources | Back to Top

Research

• Society for College and University Planning
• Victoria Transport Policy Institute

Community Groups

• Bloomington Transportation Options for People (B-TOP)

General Transportation Resources

• Indiana University Division of Transportation Services
• Bloomington by Bike and by Bus

Campus bus, parking operations, parking enforcement, IU motor pool

• Sustainability Clearinghouse: Transportation

The purpose of this sustainability clearinghouse is to provide an avenue for experts, faculty, students, staff, and the local community to find information, instruction, collaboration, community links and networks, and direction in regards to issues relating to sustainability.

• BEQI Transportation

The Bloomington Environmental Quality Indicators website is a project of the Bloomington Environmental Commission. The goal of the site is to inform the public about trends in environmental quality indicators in and around Bloomington.

• City of Bloomington Transportation

Bloomington is a pedestrian- and bike-friendly community committed to the integration of alternative and sustainable forms of transportation.

• City of Bloomington Planning Department Transportation Plans

Read about short and long range transportation analysis and planning for the City of Bloomington.

Books, Articles & Reports of Interest:

• Transportation and Sustainable Campus Communities: Issues, Examples, Solutions (Toor & Havlick 2004)
• Millard-Ball, Adam (2009), “Cap and Trade: Five Implications for Transportation Planners,” Transportation Research Record, accepted for publication in 2009.
• Adam Millard-Ball, Patrick Siegman, and Jeffrey Tumlin. 2004. Solving Campus Parking Shortages: New Solutions for an Old Problem. Planning for Higher Education. 33(1): 30–43. http://www.scup.org
• Two Billion Cars: Transforming a Culture (Sperling & Gordon 2008)

Relevant Classes at IUB:

• GEOGRAPHY G302 - Introduction to Transportation Analysis (3 cr.) S & H Examination of movement of people, goods, and information over space using spatial analysis and planning techniques.
• GEOGRAPHY G502 - Introduction to Transportation Analysis (3 cr.) An examination of classical and contemporary approaches to the analysis of transport systems, spatial interaction, sustainable transport, and related environmental and economic aspects of transport at regional and national scales

 

Next Steps | Back to Top

The IU Sustainability Task Force recommends several opportunities to improve upon the sustainability of IU’s transportation:

• Collaborate with the City and County to develop better routes for pedestrians and bicyclists to get into campus.
• Encourage more car- or van-pooling for those that live outside the city, by using a combination of effective transit alternatives and pricing incentives.
• Look at expanding the bus system to cover some of the major population areas outside of the city.
• For those living closer to campus, there are significant opportunities to reduce single-automobile transport, through more attractive and safer access to campus by foot, bike, and public transit, in combination with pricing incentives through parking operations.

For further recommendations for Transportation Demand Management (TDM) strategies and how IUB can improve upon sustainable transportation initiatives, see the IUOS internship report “Transportation Demand Management” (Kocher 2009). Increasing transit services and accessibility, promoting ridesharing, creating new bike infrastructure, and making pedestrians safer are all steps towards strengthening and diversifying transportation options at IU.

 

Get Involved | Back to Top

Click here for opportunities to get involved on campus!