Date: December 1, 2025
Author(s): Mark Garrett, Brian D. Taylor
Abstract
UCLA has been a leader in transportation research and education for better than a century. This history spans five distinct eras: (i) beginning the in 1920s with a focus on street traffic; (ii) expanding after World War II to encompass traffic safety, environmental issues, and transportation engineering; (iii) focusing on the social and behavioral aspects of travel in the 1970s and 1980s; (iv) establishing a new transportation research center focused on policy and planning from the early 1990s; (v) and finally becoming part of a multidisciplinary, multi-campus research consortium in the mid-2010s. This white paper documents that history and the key individuals who made it possible.