Presentations
Norm King's Presentation at UCLA February 13, 2007
THE FINANCIAL, DECISION-MAKING AND POLITICAL DIMENSIONS OF FINANCING AND LOCATING GOODS MOVEMENT TRANSPORTATION FACILITIES IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
The late Mel Weber, Professor at the University of California at Berkeley and “Dean” of California transportation planners and faculty once said, “One can’t fully understand the problem until you know the solution.”
My task today is to convince you that there is a solution – both to the mitigation of goods movement impacts such as pollution and congestion and to most of our other pollution and congestion issues. According to Mel, if we know the solution we also know the problem. According to me the problem is the inability of our society, its culture, ethics and laws, to hold the user (consumer) accountable for the costs of what we inflict on others.
I will discuss first why I believe our present approach to dealing with externalities is ineffective and that unless we commit to the ethic of holding the user (consumer) more directly accountable for the consequences of one’s use, we have no chance in the long term – maybe in the short term – to solve and mitigate some of our region’s, country’s and earth’s most challenging issues and dangers.
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May 4, 2007 Transportation Forum