Melvin M. Webber
Despite huge reductions of noxious emissions from factories and cars, Southern California's air is still terrible. It's so bad that the state is requiring that two percent of new cars sold in 1998 be zero polluters and ten percent by 2003. Many researchers here have become preoccupied with the foul air, and so are searching for ways of making cars less obnoxious and hence better servants.
Melvin M. Webber
The first issue of ACCESS seems to have been well received, so we're pleased to continue these summaries of our research. Paralleling the spurt of work on new transportation technology, there's been renewed attention to institutional means for improving the nation's transport system. We focus here on several such fiscal and organizational tools for decreasing solo driving, increasing transit riding, and thereby reducing highway congestion, air pollution, and energy consumption.
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.
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.