ACCESS 01, Fall 1992
Melvin M. Webber
With this first issue of Access, we at the University of California Transportation Center Seek to introduce our research to a diverse, community of readers. By presenting our findings in a nontechnical format, we hope to make them accessible to professionals in various fields and to citizens who might find them useful or perhaps merely interesting.
Charles Lave
Imagine that it’s January 1993. Our environmentalist coalition has swept all the national elections and is ready to declare war on the automobile. We shall make urban life in America as civilized as urban life in Europe. Our major legislative program is put forth, and passed:
We triple the price of gasoline – to $4 per gallon.
We build thousands of miles of rail transit.
We radically increase the cost of downtown parking.
We effectively restrict land use so that most of the suburban population moves back into the cities.
Martin Wachs and
Genevieve Giuliano
Americans often look to South California as a place where lifestyle trends are born. Now, ironically, the land that has long glorified the car culture is galvanizing commuting behavior and encouraging abstinence from the once respectable custom of solo diving. The catalyst for this behavioral change is Regulation XV, adopted by the South Coast Air Quality Management District in 1987. Also known “The Commuter Program,” Regulation XV requires all public and private employers (firms, government agencies, schools, hospitals, etc.) with at least 100 employees at any work site to devise commute alternatives for employees and to reduce the number of people driving alone to work.
Melvin Webber
The big news from the Bay Area's 1989 earthquake was that Redundancy Image 1the transportation disruptions were only inconvenient, not dreadful. Structural failures on the Bay Bridge and several elevated concrete freeways cut major metropolitan commuting routes. Nevertheless, the regional transportation system didn't crash at the time. It was resilient because it was redundant - the parallel links took up the burden. Commuters got to work without intolerable hardship. Trucks got their freight delivered, nearly on time. Some businesses suffered in the short term, but only a few failed.
Daniel Sperling,
Lee Schipper,
Mark Delucchi, and
Quanlu Wang
His dream has come true. There's now more than one vehicle for every licensed driver in the United States, and other developed countries are not far behind.
But has the car's success created the conditions for its own demise? Conventional wisdom of market researchers, consultants, and other experts is that the automobile and its petroleum-powered internal combustion engine will be with us for a long time and that any energy and environmental problems can be readily solved.
The automotive industry would very much like to believe that cheery prognosis - and perhaps it's correct.
Martin Wachs,
Martin Wachs, and
Martin Wachs
Our roads are crumbling under the weight of buses and heavy truck loads. Although early researchers attributed the pavement damage to a fixed “static” factor – the vehicle’s weight and design – we now know that much of the blame is owed to “dynamic” variables – the interaction between the vehicle’s suspension and the road surface. Recent studies show that dynamic force can double, even quadruple, pavement damage. But by equipping trucks and buses with advanced, “semi-active” suspensions, the problem of road wear can be effectively addressed.
Raymond W. Novaco
Everyone knows that being stuck in traffic is stressful, and few look forward to long commutes on congested roadways. But the negative effects of traffic congestion go beyond frustration and fatigue. Our research at UC Irvine since the late 1970s has discovered adverse health impacts of what we call “high impedance” commuting.