Has TRB Bent the Knee?

 

Sadly there is reason to believe that TRB – the Transportation Research Board – has bent the knee to Trump and has backed away from research that offends MAGA’s ideological purity.

By way of background, TRB is an arm of the National Academy of Science and is the leading sponsor of research in the U. S. in all aspects of transportation.  Its signature Annual Meeting in January in Washington draws up to 15,000 academics, public sector professionals, and consultants in the field to share the latest research results and best practices in every transportation topic from the arcane mysteries of asphalt mixtures to the latest designs in high-speed rail stations. 

In recent years the TRB Annual Meeting had begun to be effervescent with the work of scholars and practitioners confronting  how to reformulate transportation policy and programs to promote a sustainable future in an age of climate crisis and  how to reckon with years of negligent treatment of communities of color and begin to repair the urban fabric rent by destructive highway projects.

This year – quickly and silently – that changed.  The Annual Meeting proceeded as if the topics of climate change and racial justice had never been raised.

What exactly happened?  The events at TRB are recounted in stark detail by Alex Karner,  Dana Rowangould, and Jesus M. Barajas, respected scholars in the fields of planning, engineering, and environmental science, in their recent article entitled “U.S. Transportation Research at a Crossroads” in the journal Transportation Policy (link here but with a paywall; the preprint version is available here without a paywall).  According to the authors, the landscape in academia is grim.  “Ideologically driven directives from the federal government are rapidly remaking the landscape, reducing the total amount of research funding available, controlling the topics eligible for funding, subjecting institutions of higher education to increasingly draconian controls over hiring, curriculum, and financing, and erasing key sources of scientific data.”  TRB has apparently succumbed to this pressure, having “canceled over 20 research contracts in response to presidential executive orders that target so-called diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.”  TRB also “ implemented major institutional and procedural changes, undertaking a dramatic restructuring behind closed doors nominally to adhere to federal directives” and then “signaled their intent to prohibit research presentations that do not align with federal priorities at the 2026 TRB Annual Meeting.”

I have been involved in TRB for 40 years: attending Annual Meetings, serving on committees, presenting papers, participating in special conferences, and peer reviewing submitted papers.  These changes are completely out of character with the TRB I have known.

Personally, I find ignoring our responsibility for mitigating the transportation sector’s impact on greenhouse gas emissions and climate change to be professionally irresponsible and turning our backs on racial justice to be morally repugnant.

Now this is not to say that there was absolutely no content on these topics at TRB.  There were some informative papers – if you knew where to look.  By the time of the 2027 Annual Meeting perhaps the watchdogs will be more thorough in cleansing the program of content they dislike.  Or perhaps the pendulum will have swung back toward more academic freedom.

What can be done?  Karner et al. suggest various tactics, including working from the inside to urge TRB to change course, seeking other national organizations to pick up the slack in sponsorship, and building “new, more resilient networks for research, collaboration, and public impact.”

In the meantime, scholars and practitioners have already begun to hold “fringe” events around the Annual Meeting, where forbidden topics can be discussed.  Smart Growth America’s Transportation Camp (details here) has actually been going on for several years.  One of the newest fringe events is Crossroads: A Transportation and Equity Convening (details here).  Perhaps publishing by samizdat is in our future.