Georgia Tech has been intensifying its smart cities initiative, including membership in the national MetroLab Network and the launch of a new faculty council with members from more than a dozen university units. Tech has long been working in the, but the now the Institute is organizing all the research that’s happening to have a bigger impact.

Shared lane markings. Bike lanes painted a bright color. Bike boxes at intersections. Cycle tracks that provide physical barriers between bikes and cars. Communities have built these and other flavors of infrastructure to try to make it safer for people to ride their bikes along roadways or through neighborhoods. But which ones work best?

Appearing on the GPB public radio program On Second Thought March 16, transportation research Michael Hunter said the jury remains out on whether autonomous vehicles will make our roads safer. Hunter said such questions are the focus of inquiry as cities and states move closer to allowing the driverless cars on their roadways.

Travel behavior scholar Patricia Mokhtarian has been named the Susan G. and Christopher D. Pappas Professor in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering. Mokhtarian serves as the first-ever Pappas Professor, an honor made available this summer when the Pappas family created the new named position.