Transportation vs. access-ation


By Steve Price

"Transportation" is a misnomer. When getting into a car or bus, most people are usually not transporting stuff. They travel in order to get themself to a destination: medical appointment, haircut, job, entertainment, meet friends, meetings . . . or to buy something. More often than not, their purchases are small, less than what you’d call “cargo.” The primary reason we travel is not "transport"-ation, it's for "access"-ation. 

Transit planner Jarrett Walker explains in his book, Human Transit, that a primary purpose of transit is to provide people "access to opportunity." “Access is turning out to be a remarkably good predictor of ridership,” Walker says. We build transit systems not just to physically move people, but to deliver people to the things they want or need for living. They work best when transit goes in straight lines, not making lots of circuitous jogs. That way riders get to destinations directly and quickly, much as buses on San Pablo Avenue work. It's something to think about when we advocate for multimobility via buses, bicycles, scooters, mopeds. They should give us efficient access to chosen destinations. ECRA Walk & Roll's tagline is "Low-carbon access to the fruits of the city." That is a worthy goal.

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