I arrived here at the UC Transportation Center just nine months ago. A former lawyer and aspiring writer, I had only a layman's knowledge of transportation systems, mostly based on my personal experiences.  Growing up in Hilo, Hawaii, I thought traffic jams meant having to circle the parking...

This chapter forecasts transportation energy demand, for both the U.S. and California, for the next 20 years. Our guiding principle has been to concentrate our efforts on the most important segments of the market. We therefore provide detailed projections for gasoline (58 % of California...

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 teh...

It seems that transportation planners everywhere are looking for ways of reducing vehicle miles of travel (VMT) by automobile, even as citizens seem determined to drive more. The trend may be especially evident here in California where everyone seems to believe that use of cars is excessive,...

We have carefully reviewed "Evaluation of the California Smog Check Program and Recommendations for Program Improvements: Fourth Report to the Legislature." Overall, we find it a thorough and competent presentation of the basic facts, though we disagree with the conclusions. Our major concern is...

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.

Consider the urban transit "problem." In the 1960s the problem was declining transit patronage. Finances received little discussion because the industry was essentially self-supporting; operating costs were so low that passenger revenues covered costs. In the 1990s "problem" has a whole new...

The enormous jump in vehicle miles traveled (VMT) reported by the 1990 U.S. Nationwide Personal Transportation Survey (NPTS) caused a great deal of concern among planners and policy analysts. Such a jump seemed to portend an era of ever increasing travel, pollution and energy consumption. This...

In the Spring of 1993 California and the EPA faced-off over the EPA's new mandates for checking auto emissions. The California Senate asked the University of California Transportation Center to provide a "blue ribbon" evaluation of the issues. This article tells what we discovered. The final...