How can community members become more engaged in transportation decision making? Individuals and groups can learn to effect powerful change, but success requires some familiarity with how civic processes work. Community Transportation Academies, or CTAs, provide a basic technical understanding of how a city or region’s transportation system operates, along with the decision makers and decision-making processes that determine how the system is shaped. Supported by the National Institute… Read More

Traditionally, travel is considered a disutility to be minimized, and travel demand is derived from activity demand. Recently, scholars have questioned these axioms, noting that some people may like to travel, use travel time productively, find other benefits in traveling, or travel for non-utilitarian reasons. These are instances of “the positive utility of travel” (PUT). In this dissertation, I conceptually and empirically investigate PUT, its determinants, and its impacts on travel behavior… Read More