CEE would like to congratulate Assistant Professor Atiyya Shaw for being awarded one of the new Catalyst grants from the Graham Institute. Shaw and her team are researching existing biases in transportation planning, many of which underrepresent communities of color and individuals with lower incomes — groups who are often significant users of sustainable transportation…
CEE would like to congratulate Assistant Professor Atiyya Shaw for being awarded one of the new Catalyst grants from the Graham Institute.
Shaw and her team are researching existing biases in transportation planning, many of which underrepresent communities of color and individuals with lower incomes — groups who are often significant users of sustainable transportation modes, such as walking, biking, and public transit. These biases can lead to misdirected investments, such as unnecessary road expansions, while reducing the resources available for improvement to public transit, walking, and cycling infrastructure.
In collaboration with the Southeast Michigan Council of Governments (SEMCOG) and the Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT), Shaw’s team will delve into these biases, specifically those in transportation survey data. Their research involves rigorous quantitative and qualitative explorations of national and state transportation household survey design, sampling methods, and post-processing corrections, with the Detroit metro area serving as a case study.
Through their work, they aim to enhance the representativeness of data used in infrastructure planning. The timeline for this work aligns with their hope that their findings can influence the state of Michigan’s next phase of survey data collection starting in 2024. Beyond this, they hope that this line of research will also contribute strategic insights to transportation agencies all over the country. We congratulate Assistant Professor Atiyya Shaw and her team members, Co-I Joe Grengs from the Urban and Regional Planning department, and Co-I Sunghee Lee from the Institute for Social Research. Their commitment and contribution towards engineering sustainable and equitable civil structures capture the essence of the phrase “Engineers in Service to Society.”
Marketing Communications Specialist
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering