Charrette Outcome

As a result of the charrette, an initial framework has been developed for the freight and the environment course. This framework will prove to be extremely useful as FHWA moves forward in the development of the course.

By focusing at first on a vision for the course and then narrowing down the focus to specific course needs, the charrette successfully helped identify a useful list of learning needs, resources, and learning objectives. In the prioritization of the issues/learning needs, it is apparent that air quality is a significant topic and should definitely be covered in the course. It was noted that there are currently a number of air quality resources that have already been prepared, and it will be important that the course does not duplicate these efforts. The other issue that stood out at the top of the list is the need to understand the cumulative and secondary impacts of land use/consumption, reducing VMT, mode shift, congestion management, and how to mitigate these impacts. This issue was deemed to be equally important to the air quality issue and should also be considered for inclusion in the course.

It was noted that it is difficult to have a course on the environment without saying something about water, i.e., wetlands and storm water. This was not a topic of focus during the charrette, but it was agreed that it is important for inclusion in the course. As there are other courses that do address this issue, the freight and the environment course may not need to focus a whole lesson on this topic, but it should point students to the other available environment courses as potential resources.

FHWA very much appreciates the assistance of the charrette attendees in helping to shape this course and will continue to look to these professionals for assistance as the course moves through the development stages. FHWA plans on reviewing other NHI course offerings to determine if any of the topics discussed are already being covered in other courses and then will begin work on the development of the freight and the environment course.

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