For those with an interest in transportation (including rail and transit) research, note that the "sunset" of ALL TRB committees occurred abruptly in May. It's not clear how this may affect ongoing research, but if TRB is treated like other parts of the govt (about 90% of its funding is federal) most of it is probably cancelled unless it has to do with roads and did not use any of the banned words in title or any other text. Anyway, the new committee and management structure has now been announced. All committees are now led by TRB staff, rather than being supported by them primarily for administrative details. The committee chair and all committee members must be vetted by the staff officer. Note also that there are no longer ANY committees related to Environmental or Social issues, though a limited amount of environmental and/or legal work may be included in some of the remaining major categories.

I suspect that they will have difficulty filling the roster of new committee members rapidly. They've also delayed the start of paper reviews for the annual conference by at least a month; all review criteria to be used by peer reviewers have not yet been published, and all previous committee "friends" and reviewers appear to have been cancelled requiring new signups under the new structure. The number and quality of papers at the next conference could be limited by the lack of review time (and potential lack of qualified reviewers).

Elections have consequences...