Transportation Policy & Planning – Page 10

Cars and Demographics

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.

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Redundancy: The Lesson from the Loma Prieta Earthquake

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.

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