Announcing a first-of-its-kind connected corridor

On this week’s edition of the Talking Michigan Transportation podcast, a recap of Thursday’s connected corridor announcement.

https://www.michiganbusiness.org/press-releases/2020/08/michigan-cavnue-creating-road-of-future-between-ann-arbor-and-detroit/

Guests: Trevor Pawl, State of Michigan chief mobility officer, and Collin Castle, manager of the Michigan Department of Transportation's (MDOT) Intelligent Transportation Systems program.

https://www.michiganbusiness.org/press-releases/2020/07/michigans-office-of-future-mobility-and-electrification-formally-launches-sets-course-for-economic-growth-job-creation/

https://www.automotive-iq.com/events-automotivecybersecurity/speakers/collin-castle

Thursday, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer announced that the State of Michigan has entered into a contract with Sidewalk Infrastructure Partners (SIP), the urban innovation business of Alphabet (Google’s parent company), to build a first-of-its-kind automated vehicle-only corridor that stretches from downtown Detroit to Ann Arbor. SIP has established a new entity, Cavnue, to work with MDOT, Ford and the University of Michigan to develop the corridor.

https://cavnue.com/

Joining the governor for the announcement were Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist; MDOT Director Paul Ajegba; Michigan Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity (LEO) Director Jeff Donofrio; Bill Ford, executive chairman of Ford Motor Co.; U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow; U.S. Reps. Debbie Dingell, Brenda Lawrence and Rashida Tlaib; and Khalil Rahal, assistant Wayne County executive.

Speakers focused on the economic opportunities and why it makes sense to continue mobility pioneering where the auto industry was born.

As Bloomberg NEF analyst Alejandro Zamorano-Cadavid said in a Bloomberg story, "Given the auto-tech cluster already in Michigan, it makes sense for the state to provide a corridor that will help its biggest industry adapt to a world with less cars and increasingly more shared autonomous vehicles."

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-08-13/michigan-cavnue-are-developing-40-mile-driverless-car-corridor