ACCESS 15, Fall 1999
Melvin M. Webber
In this time of occupational specialization, we expect each profession to focus on the narrowly specific tasks it’s responsible for, letting others worry about everything else. Engineers, economists, accountants, land use planners, lawyers—each professional group is expected to mind its own business. But, at the same time, we know that’s not good enough, if only because we know everything really is connected to everything else.
Carl Monismith
On the surface, pavement must seem beneath consideration. No reason to think about it—you just drive on it, park on it, watch out of the corner of your eye to make sure your car is following the lines painted on it. Until, that is, until you hit a pothole. Then you’re suddenly aware of the pavement, or at least of its flaws. You may swerve, you may curse, you may write a letter to the mayor—a pothole can have that kind of power.
Donald Shoup
We Americans first learn about free parking when we play Monopoly. Players pay rent, buy houses, build hotels, or go to jail after a toss of the dice, and one toss out of forty lands us on “Free Parking.” The odds of landing on free parking increase dramatically when we begin to drive cars because—notwithstanding the experience of commuters in some large cities—American motorists park free on 99 percent of all trips.
Eugene Bardach,
Timothy Deal, and
Mary Walther
North Richmond, located in west Contra Costa County adjacent to San Francisco Bay, is one of the most distressed communities in California. It’s plagued by poverty and high unemployment, like many other places. It differs from other high-poverty minority communities principally in being somewhat isolated geographically, and therefore in need of creative transportation solutions.
Susan Shaheen
Worldwide growth in automobile ownership has triggered many ideas for reducing car use. Most popular of course are plans to expand and improve public transit. The array of alternatives is far wider, however. One that I find potentially plausible and promising is the idea of pooling cars.
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.