About Patricia Mokhtarian (Edit profile)

Patricia Mokhtarian is Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Chair of the Interdisciplinary Transportation Technology and Policy graduate program at the University of California, Davis (plmokhtarian@ucdavis.edu).

The First Big-Box Store in Davis

Susan L. Handy, Kristin Lovejoy, Gian-Claudia Sciara, Deborah Salon, and Patricia Mokhtarian

Davis, California, is well-known in transportation circles for having the highest share of bicycle commuters in the US, due in large part to pioneering efforts starting in the 1960s that created an extensive bicycling network. Less well-known is the substantial effort Davis has made to avert the kind of sprawl found in most US cities. Multi-family housing is distributed throughout the city, neighborhood shopping centers are within a short bike ride for most residents, and the city has improved sidewalks, landscaping, and public spaces to promote its traditional downtown. Davis restricts development beyond the current urban boundary while at the same time encouraging infill development within the boundary. As a result, Davis is the sixth densest urbanized area in the US and an exemplar of what small cities can achieve with coordinated policies and careful planning.

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Which Comes First: The Neighborhood or the Walking?

Susan Handy and Patricia Mokhtarian

These days it's hard to miss the story that Americans spend more time stuck in traffic than ever, that they’re fatter than ever, and that the suburbs are to blame—or at least so goes the talk in the public media and in city planning and public health circles. The logic is simple: suburbs were designed for driving rather than walking, leading people to drive more and walk less, thereby contributing to increased traffic congestion and vehicle emissions, declining physical activity, and increasing waistlines. Recent studies show significant connections between suburban sprawl and traffic congestion, air pollution, and obesity. The solution as proposed is simple: redesign suburbs for walking rather than driving, so that people will walk more and drive less, traffic levels will decrease, and physical activity will increase. Problem solved.

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Travel for the Fun of It

Patricia Mokhtarian and Ilan Salomon

A seeming truism, repeated countless times in university transportation courses, holds that “travel is a derived demand.” That is, travel occurs because someone wants to do something somewhere else. This basic proposition underlies most policies designed to reduce motorized travel and thereby reduce congestion, increase safety, improve air quality, or reduce consumption of nonrenewable energy resources.

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2017-05-31T21:35:39+00:00Categories: ACCESS 15, Fall 1999|Tags: |

Why Don’t You Telecommute?

Ilan Salomon and Patricia Mokhtarian

Telecommuting promises to benefit everyone. Employees can avoid time-consuming trips to work, permitting a more flexible, family- and community-oriented lifestyle. Employers can reduce their costs of expensive office space, while drawing on a larger and more diverse labor pool. Air quality may improve with reduced automobile trips.

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2017-05-31T22:39:41+00:00Categories: ACCESS 10, Spring 1997|Tags: |

Telecommuting: What’s the Payoff?

William S. McCullough

Science fiction writers and high-tech enthusiasts may envision a world without commuting. Already, modern telecommunications technology allows people separated by hundreds of miles to work together as if they had adjacent desks. By simply lifting a phone, or switching on a computer modem, we can do our office work from anywhere- even from home. But the convenience telecommuting offers is not problem free.

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2018-02-09T22:51:28+00:00Categories: ACCESS 02, Spring 1993|Tags: |
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