Transit Orientation Possibility

Students who want to improve public transportation, seek other alternatives to single occupant autos, or improve the automobile-based transportation system in harmony with a more humane urban and regional environment will find sympathetic support in the MSP program. Our objective is to give such students the background knowledge and skills with which they can enter careers oriented to transportation system reform. We do not seek to romanticize auto alternatives, nor do we teach comforting but false explanations for the dominant role of single occupant autos. What we do wish to accomplish is find truthful explanations for the auto's dominance, painful as they might be, so that students may find better strategies to bring about reform. The program of study is rigorous, but it gives diligent students the tools they need to begin useful careers in transportation planning.

Transit planners had insufficient power to obtain crosswalk at this transit center in north Florida.

Faculty members Greg Thompson, Ivonne Audirac, and Harrison Higgins conduct transit-related research. Funded projects include:

  Gregory L. Thompson, "Planning Styles and the Evolution of the Light Rail Movement in North America." This potentially is a multi-year project, the purpose of which is to contribute to knowledge about how planning affects decisions for making major urban investments. A case study approach is used, relying on oral histories and analysis of documents. Summer 2002 research is financed by Florida State University's Committee on Faculty Research Support and will focus on the decision to adopt light rail in Edmonton (1973), the planning of the first national light rail conference (Philadelphia 1975), and the decision to build light rail in San Diego (1978).

  "Developing A Design Manual for Bus Transit Terminals." Ivonne Audirac, P.I. and Harrison Higgens, Planner is Residence in the Department of Urban and Regional Planning. For Public Transit Office of Florida Department of Transportation. On-going.

  "Documenting Current Practice of Development Review by Florida Transit Systems," Study by Marketing Institute for Florida Department of Transportation, Public Transit Office. Professor Thompson participating. On-going.”

  Transit Operations Study," Greg Thompson, P.I.. Florida Department of Transportation, Public Transit Office. 1998-1999 academic year. Final report: "Transit Operations Analysis of New Section 5307 Agencies."

  "Removing Economic and Political Barriers to Transit Oriented Development," working through Florida Institute for Marketing Alternative Transportation for the Public Transit Office of the Florida Department of Transportation, summer 1998. Professors Audirac and Thompson both participated in this study. Final report:  Ivonne Audirac, Dean Gatzlaff, Stacy Sirmans, Yan Song and Gregory L. Thompson. "Marketing Transit Oriented Design. Phase II Final Report. A description of Transit Oriented Design and Associated Finance Structures."

  Gregory L. Thompson, P.I. "Transit Accessibility and the Labor Force Participation Rate of At-Risk Groups: Dade County Florida." Final Report. NUTI3-FSU-2. Washington, D.C.: National Technical Information Service. June 1997.

San Diego, Hazard Station, from research by Audirac and Thompson