Berkeley Planning Journal

Transportation planning, perhaps more than other areas of planning practice, suffers from a split identity. On the one hand it is an area in which engineering considerations frequently dominate, and many of its practitioners are in fact professional transportation engineers. On the other hand, it is a particularly politicized arena in which planners work, at least on the local level; virtually no planning issue can rally a neighborhood to political action as readily as a proposed freeway bisecting it. Even less controversial questions such as changes in bus service regularly elicit heated debate.