Experts discuss climate-smart transportation solutions at roundtable

Officials from the U.S. Department of Transportation and local elected officials from the state of Maryland met with Johns Hopkins University experts on June 17 for a roundtable talk about sustainable transportation solutions.

The event, which was held at the Bloomberg School of Public Health and hosted by the Center for Climate-Smart Transportation, focused on how communities and government agencies can center transportation decisions around environmental justice, climate change mitigation, and safety for all road users based on multi-modal transportation models. The panelists' expertise included climate-smart transportation strategies such as electronic vehicle technology, urban planning concepts that favor multimodal transportation, and 15-minute cities.

The U.S. transportation sector is responsible for roughly 28.5% of the country's greenhouse gas emissions, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Experts agree that rapid innovation and systemic change are essential to address climate change and the risk it poses to public health.

The USDOT-funded Center for Climate-Smart Transportation, launched in 2023 at JHU, focuses on identifying and advancing evidence-based, practice-ready solutions that put climate change at the center of transportation decisions. It is a consortium that includes experts from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Texas Austin, the University of Utah, Morgan State University, and Diné College. It is part of the USDOT's larger network of University Transportation Centers.

Panelists from Johns Hopkins included:

• Ebrahim Azimi, Associate Director, Center for Climate-Smart Transportation, and Assistant Scientist, Department of Environmental Health and Engineering, Whiting School of Engineering and Bloomberg School of Public Health
• Peter DeCarlo, Associate Professor, Environmental Health and Engineering, Whiting School of Engineering
• Yury Dvorkin, Associate Professor, Departments of Civil and Systems Engineering and Electrical and Computer Engineering, Whiting School of Engineering
• Shima Hamidi, Bloomberg Assistant Professor of American Health, and Director, Center for Climate-Smart Transportation, Department of Environmental Health and Engineering, Whiting School of Engineering and Bloomberg School of Public Health
• Megan Latshaw, Associate Scientist, Department of Environmental Health and Engineering, Whiting School of Engineering and Bloomberg School of Public Health
• Melisa Lindamood, Assistant Vice President, Office of Federal Strategy
• Jeffrey Michael, Leon S. Robertson Faculty Development Chair, Injury Prevention, Bloomberg School of Public Health
• Keshia Pollack-Porter, Bloomberg Centennial Chair and Professor, Department of Health Policy and Management, Bloomberg School of Public Health
• Kristen Reek, Director, Office of Federal Strategy
• Ed Schlesinger, Dean and Professor, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Whiting School of Engineering
• Michelle Spencer, Associate Director, Bloomberg American Health Initiative
• Marsha Wills-Karp, Chair, Department of Environmental Health and Engineering, and Anna M. Baetjer Professorship in Environmental Health, Whiting School of Engineering and Bloomberg School of Public Health
• Denis Wirtz, Vice Provost for Research; Theophilus Halley Smoot Professor of Engineering Science, Whiting School of Engineering
• Benjamin Zaitchik, Professor, Morton K. Blaustein Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Krieger School of Arts and Sciences