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The Texas A&M System Board of Regents on Monday approved a Texas Transportation Institute initiative that one top administrator said could rival the impact of the biocorridor.

Meanwhile, regents also removed the interim tag from two of A&M's top administrators who have prime ties to research programs at the university.

The Accelerate Texas Center will be housed within TTI and will serve as the state's incubator for autonomous vehicle technologies. The Texas Department of Transportation has pledged $1 million per year for two years to jump-start the center and administrators expect private funding and grants to sustain it after the state money dries up. It wasn't immediately clear what the long-term price tag will be on the program.

"It's a recognition that we can't just build more highways and build more transit -- that's not going to satisfy what we need to do," said TTI Director Dennis Christiansen. "We don't have money to do that. If we have money we don't have space. If we have space we can't get environmental clearance so we have got to do something else if we're going to grow by 15 million people. What you're going to do is combine transportation and traditional infrastructure with technology."