What Are the Challenges to Creating Sustainable Transportation? How Can Transportation Systems Become More Sustainable?

The author assesses how transportation planners, policy makers, and public officials can take actions that will move us along a path toward sustainable transportation. He poses several questions concerning sustainability and transportation. Among these questions are the following: Can progress toward sustainability in transportation be achieved in the United States primarily through technological changes in vehicles, power trains, and fuels? Is it cost-effective to rely primarily on technological approaches? Can changes in statewide and metropolitan planning contribute in a meaningful way to sustainability? Can American society, through education and marketing, achieve a sufficient shift to more sustainable modes of transportation, including walking, cycling, and public transit use, to warrant an increasing focus on such strategies in our approach to sustainability? Can American transportation policy adopt more direct approaches to regulating travel choices and behavior? He believes that the answers to these questions will be the key to the sustainability debate that will characterize American transportation policy for many years to come.

• Record URL:
  • http://onlinepubs.trb.org/onlinepubs/conf/CP37.pdf
• 
• Availability:
  • Find a library where document is available. Order URL: http://worldcat.org/isbn/0309094186
• Supplemental Notes:
  • Distribution, posting, or copying of this PDF is strictly prohibited without written permission of the Transportation Research Board of the National Academy of Sciences. Unless otherwise indicated, all materials in this PDF are copyrighted by the National Academy of Sciences. Copyright © National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved
• Authors:
  • Wachs, Martin
• Conference:
  • Conference on Introducing Sustainability into Surface Transportation Planning
  • Location: Baltimore Maryland, United States
  • Date: 2004-7-11 to 2004-7-13
• Publication Date: 2005

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Print
• Features: Figures; References;
• Pagination: pp 44-52
• Monograph Title: Integrating Sustainability into the Transportation Planning Process
• Serial:
  • Transportation Research Board Conference Proceedings
  • Issue Number: 37
  • Publisher: Transportation Research Board
  • ISSN: 1073-1652

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: City planning; Modal shift; Mode choice; Regional planning; Sustainable development; Sustainable transportation; Technological innovations; Transportation planning; Transportation policy; Travel behavior
• Subject Areas: Energy; Environment; Highways; Planning and Forecasting; Policy; Public Transportation; I15: Environment; I72: Traffic and Transport Planning;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01026099
• Record Type: Publication
• ISBN: 0309094186
• Files: TRIS, TRB
• Created Date: Jun 28 2006 8:24PM