ACCESS Magazine, Spring 1994

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, having conspired to foul the air, congest the highways, provoke traffic accidents, and erode the quality of people's lives. In response, a lot of creative remedies have been invented - schemes to entice travelers into carpools and public transit and schemes to induce them to stay home.  ACCESS has been reporting on several of these, including the economists' pet formula for reducing VMT by pricing travel at closer to its true cost. Congestion pricing and parking pricing have been gaining considerable attention of late. So have proposals for raising gas taxes to levels that Europeans find tolerable. So have proposals for telecommuting. So have proposals for inter- and intra-metropolitan rail lines.