I assume we’ll want to sustain any mode of transport only if we judge it to be effective and desirable, and of course, only if we think we can afford to sustain it. Over time, we’ve abandoned any number of modes that failed those tests — horsecars, trolleycars, and pullmancars, among others; and we’ve kept those that passed the tests — most notably motorcars, airplanes, and ships. In retrospect, it seems we’ve been pretty draconian in rejecting transport modes that have failed in the market place of public favor.

Now the test for sustainability is being pressed most vociferously against the automobile, because cars pollute a lot, use a lot of land, injure and kill a lot of people, and consume a lot of petroleum. More than that, and perhaps most important of all, automobiles have accumulated a growing circle of critics who regard cars as instruments of evil, deserving to be rejected into the dustbin where the world’s sinful and dangerous instruments are consigned.

Back in 1 948, when Jack Kent opened the door at DCRP, its context and mission were pretty clear. World War II was over. Infrastructure backlogs were huge, following nearly twenty depression-and-war years of deferred construction. Cities everywhere were attempting to replan and rebuild, creating new fervor for city planning. With the hard years behind and bright horizons ahead, the new department was being organized to lead the way by bringing planning to California's cities. At about the same time David Riesman was reminding his readers·that city planning was the last stronghold of utopianism. The optimistic new Berkeley department set out to prove it.

Increasing ease of interaction and transaction across geographic space is reducing the constraints of distance and fostering social and economic integration across wider territories - globally and locally. Metropolitan areas are dispersing into their surrounding territories, creating the characteristic spread-city pattern. The worldwide incidence of ‘urban sprawl’ suggests that powerful forces are moulding it and that some highly valued outcomes are being generated as well. So long as groups and places are accessible to each other, and so long as metropolitan settlements satisfy valued operating criteria, the shape of a metropolitan settlement is of minor importance. Spread-cities are proving to be highly successful, and they seem to be the form of the future metropolis everywhere.

All over the world, public officials and informed publics are alarmed about the growing numbers of automobiles. Some see the situation as akin to a conflagration that's out of control, made all the more menacing because automobiles are proving to be such powerful agents of change. To be sure, there is less anxiety in the United States than elsewhere, and less still in the western United States, because the major cities there grew up in the automobile era and have street systems that are much better suited for automobile use.

The big news from the Bay Area's 1989 earthquake was that the transportation disruptions were only inconvenient, not dreadful. Structural failures on the Bay Bridge and several elevated concrete freeways cut major metropolitan commuting routes. Nevertheless, the regional transportation system didn't crash at the time. It was resilient because it was redundant - the parallel links took up the burden. Commuters got to work without intolerable hardship. Trucks got their freight delivered, nearly on time. Some businesses suffered in the short-term, but only a few failed. 

Estimates place direct losses from the Loma Prieta quake at over $8 billion dollars, making it the costliest natural disaster in American history at the time. In addition, some costs must be assigned to the secondary losses resulting from the breakdown in accessibility. The surprise is that the losses were so low. Our studies into the effects of breaks in the metropolitan transportation network reveal three major reasons why traffic disaster did not follow the earthquake disaster. 

The Bay Area Rapid Transit system (BART) has many characteristics of a huge social experiment—in vivo, as it were. Key element in a bold scheme to structure the future of the San Francisco region, BART was to stem the much-feared decline of the older metropolitan centers, while helping to give coherent order to the exploding suburbs. By offering a superior alternative to the automobile, BART was to make for congestion-free commuting. If successful, it would provide a model for rationalizing transportation and metropolitan development elsewhere.