State DOT's are grappling with how to meet federal mandates that they engage in multimodal transportation planning with metropolitan planning organizations and other governmental agencies. The experience of one state, California, shows that the recent round of soul-searching is nothing new....

The first thing to understand about transportation in California is how grave the problems really are. In terms of both traffic congestion and air pollution, California’s problems are the worst in the nation. Traffic congestion is difficult to comparea mongci ties, but one attempt to rank...

Since the passage of the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act (ISTEA) of 1991, federal surface transportation legislation has mandated that state departments of transportation (DOTs) engage in increasingly collaborative and multi-modal transportation planning. Over the past decade...

Universities and public transit agencies in the United States have together invented an arrangement – called Unlimited Access – that provides fare-free transit service for all students (and, on some campuses, faculty and staff as well). Unlimited Access is not free transit, but is...

“Unlimited Access†is the name that several universities have given to programs where their student identification cards serve as transit passes. University transit pass programs increase mobility and reduce vehicle trips. They increase mobility by giving students free access to all...

For sixty years, engineers and planners have debated the freeway’s role in the city. Engineers have tended to view freeways strictly in traffic service terms. Planners, on the other hand, have long viewed freeways not only as a means of facilitating automobile transportation but also as a...