MTC Asset Newsletter Summer 2004

Iowa State University Offers Summer Transportation Courses in Rome

Throughout the year, the Iowa State University College of Design offers courses for its students at a studio it maintains in Rome, Italy. In the past, courses in Rome have tended to involve subjects such as art history, architecture, and landscape architecture. This summer, two courses were offered by the Department of Community and Regional Planning. One was a course on sustainable communities and economies. The other was a four-week course on urban transportation and transportation planning taught by David Plazak, director of the MTC and an adjunct faculty member in Community and Regional Planning. (Funding for this activity came from the ISU College of Design and student fees.)

Students lived in apartments in a very dense and historic portion of Rome during their stay. Ten students from four departments (planning, architecture, civil engineering, and history) took part in the transportation planning course this summer.

Students attended traditional lectures on such topics as the four-step transportation planning process, trip generation, traffic impact, transportation and land use, transportation capacity, urban goods movement, transportation level of service, and transportation and sustainability. However, offering the course in Rome allowed for much more focus to be given to non-highway modes, urban freight delivery, context-sensitive design, noise and air pollution, and especially the impact of development density on transportation. Students were given daily assignments such as estimating the residential density and daily trip production for their neighborhood.

In addition to their regular class work, students were also given the opportunity to participate in a variety of field trips and other extras:

• Briefings by the City of Rome’s Mobility Agency (STA) on their electronically-enforced auto limitation zone, intelligent transportation systems deployment, and planning and design for Rome’s third metro line (“Linea C”). STA also graciously gave the students and faculty a tour of their state-of-the-art traffic control center.
• A visit to the Rome architectural firm that is designing the new Roma Tibertina high speed rail station.
• A field trip to Ostia Antica, the port city for imperial Rome. This field trip was geared toward showing the students the historical importance of transportation and how ancient Romans lived their everyday lives.
• A lecture on the history of Rome and its various city plans through maps from different points in time.
• An extended field trip to the region of Tuscany, including the towns of Pienza and Siena, to look at rural transportation, the Italian highway and intercity rail systems, and agriculture.

Besides the transportation planning course, students were also able to participate in a transportation-flavored design studio offered by the Department of Architecture. Students are creating design concepts for a new Linea C subway station to be located under the Tiber River (yes, you read that right) very near the Vatican. The new San Pietro (St. Peters) stop will have an exit on each bank of the Tiber. One will be next to Emperor Hadrian’s Tomb. The studio students also received considerable assistance from the City of Rome STA for this effort.