The Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) and The Grainger College of Engineering at Illinois hosted a visit July 31, 2023, by Pete Buttigieg, Secretary of the U.S. Department of Transportation; U.S. Representative Nikki Budzinski; and U.S. Senator Dick Durbin.
The group was in Central Illinois to highlight a $22.6 million grant to redesign a problematic railroad crossing in Savoy, Ill. Afterwards, they visited CEE to learn about the latest transportation-related research as CEE faculty and students gathered on the Kavita and Lalit Bahl Smart Bridge to present their projects.
“It was a true honor to welcome Secretary Buttigieg, Representative Budzinski and Senator Durbin,” said CEE Department Head Ana Barros. “This department has a long history of leadership in transportation engineering research, teaching and public service. From its earliest days, Illinois engineers designed and built the nation’s transportation infrastructure – from the very first roadway designs developed in the early 20th century to today’s pioneering research in physics-informed neural networks for transportation.”
The visitors then participated in a panel discussion, moderated by The Grainger College of Engineering Dean Rashid Bashir in the M.T. Geoffrey Yeh Student Center, with an audience of 150 faculty, staff, students, and state and local officials. Topics included disruptions in the supply chain from COVID-19, the opportunities provided by President Biden’s $1 trillion 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, and the rewards of public service.
“This University and this department, rightly, are proud of the contributions they have made in U.S. infrastructure and to our economy in so many ways,” Buttigieg said. “We are going to look for more; having seen some of the demonstrations on the walk over I can see extraordinary things are around the corner – the brainpower that is emanating from this institution.
"Due to the infrastructure bill, we are now marshalling in resources that represent the greatest infusion of federal dollars into U.S. transportation infrastructure in my lifetime – to maximum effect. What that means is not only do we have to choose good projects, we have to make better use of every dollar of infrastructure spending and every square foot of pavement and every inch of rail … because we may not get another moment like this for a while.”
Durbin and Budzinski, who both have strong ties to the University of Illinois, echoed these sentiments.
“It’s exciting to come to this campus, always exciting,” Durbin said, “mainly because of the people on this campus and what they mean to our nation and to the world.”
“I got involved in public service actually at Quad Day at the University of Illinois,” said Budzinski, an alumna of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. “I hope we all leave today inspired by the transformational moment that we are all experiencing from infrastructure to the CHIPS Act and the raised investment to addressing climate change. These are all very real efforts that will transform our communities.”
CEE’s roots in transportation engineering go back to the founding of the University of Illinois; Railway Engineering and Civil Engineering were both among the original course offerings in 1867. Today, CEE at Illinois hosts a 110-year-old conference for transportation engineers and is home to three major transportation research centers, all of which were represented during the visit:
The Transportation Infrastructure Precast Innovation Center (TRANS-IPIC)
Established in February 2023 and supported by a $2 million grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation, TRANS-IPIC works to improve the durability of transportation infrastructure by advancing new technology and materials, particularly in precast concrete systems. The new center is a consortium of five universities, including the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Purdue University, Louisiana State University, SUNY University at Buffalo and the University of Texas San Antonio. CEE Professor Bassem Andrawes leads the center.
“In light of new challenges facing our nation and the world, we need, now more than ever, to invest in research that will take our infrastructure into the future,” Andrawes said. “TRANS-IPIC will help our nation meet this challenge through performing groundbreaking transformative research. The support we’ve received from the U.S. DOT grant established this effort. And to be housed within Grainger Engineering means we can attract the best engineering students and researchers in the world to help innovate within this effort.”
The Illinois Center for Transportation (ICT)
Led by CEE Professor Imad L. Al-Qadi, ICT serves the Illinois Department of Transportation, the state of Illinois and the nation’s needs through research, education and outreach. ICT promotes the timely implementation of cost-effective technologies that improve safety and reliability as well as reduce congestion for the state of Illinois and the nation.
“It was a great and exciting honor to present the accomplishments of CEE transportation students, staff and faculty at the state, national and international levels – especially those of the Illinois Center for Transportation – to Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Representative Nikki Budzinski, Senator Dick Durbin, and [Illinois Department of Transportation] Secretary Omer Osman,” Al-Qadi said. “Secretary Buttigieg was really impressed with the inclusiveness and interdisciplinary approach that ICT uses to tackle transportation challenges in the state and the nation. He was especially interested in the use of various technologies to advance mobility, such as artificial intelligence, autonomy, computer vision, renewable energy, logistics, infrastructure assessment, wireless sensors, materials science, battery technology, quantum communication, supply chain, platoons and security, across local and network-wide scales.
“Secretary Buttigieg was excited about the vision of the Illinois Autonomous and Connected Track, especially the inclusiveness of the various aspects of mobility, incorporation of advanced technologies and cybersecurity techniques, and its ability to test under all-weather conditions.”
The Rail Transportation and Engineering Center (RailTEC)
RailTEC offers the most extensive curriculum in railway engineering and transportation in North America and is a global leader in practical and theoretical research advancing the field in a broad range of important and timely railroad and rail transit engineering and transportation topics. RailTEC has strong ties to industry and government and serves as a source for continuing education of rail professionals.
RailTEC is led by Professor Christopher P.L. Barkan, who said that conversations between railroad engineering faculty and students with the visitors focused on rail safety, an important topic for RailTEC researchers.
“This was a great opportunity for RailTEC and all the faculty and students in Transportation Engineering,” Barkan said. “They were interested in rail safety and several in RailTEC are engaged in research pertinent to this topic. Assistant Professor J. Riley Edwards’s work on the track system will help prevent derailments, and my research on optimizing tank car safety design reduces the likelihood of a hazardous materials spill if a derailment does occur. Although rail safety has dramatically improved in the past two decades, the derailment and hazardous materials release in Ohio early this year reminded us that accidents can still happen.”
The visit from Buttigieg, Budzinski and Durbin was motivating to researchers and students at the University, said Dean Rashid Bashir.
“When solving problems, Grainger Engineers do not wait to innovate,” Bashir said. “Our commitment to this type of collaborative and creative work comes from the complete confidence we have in our dedicated researchers and energized students. Seeing Secretary Buttigieg, Congresswoman Budzinski and Senator Durbin here honoring this commitment galvanizes us all around the idea that Grainger Engineering and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign can change the world we live in for the better.”
Reporting by Aaron Seidlitz contributed to this story.