Road Ecology Center

The pending reauthorization of the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century (TEA-21) offers significant opportunities for the transportation and ecology communities to seek substantial amounts of Federal transportation funding for ecological research to meet transportation environmental stewardship challenges. Recently, the Surface Transportation Cooperative Research Advisory Board and the Future Strategic Highway Research Program Task Force independently recommended ecological and other environmental research for funding in the TEA-21 reauthorization. By pro-actively participating in the TEA-21 reauthorization deliberations, transportation and ecological professionals can inform Congress of the benefits of substantially increasing the funding levels for ecological research to enhance transportation program delivery and environmental stewardship. The presenter points out the ecological research funding opportunities offered by the TEA-21 reauthorization and actions to take to pursue them. Also, he recommends that a transportation and ecology research strategy be developed and adopted at the 2005 ICOET.