Wachs Lecture Series

Berkeley hosted the 5th annual Martin Wachs Distinguished Lecture where Genevieve Giuliano, faculty at the University of Southern California, examined outcomes of four decades of transit policy. Using two examples, mobility for the disadvantaged and transit impacts on land use, Giuliano showed that little progress is being made in achieving transit’s objectives. Yet, as she demonstrated, public transit continues to receive strong public support, and subsidies continue to grow. Investment and service decisions have created major barriers to achieving public transit’s urban planning objectives.

UCLA hosted the 6th annual Martin Wachs Distinguished Lecture featuring Mei-Po Kwan, now Professor of Geography and Geographic Information Systems at the University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign. Transportation researchers have long recognized the role of time in influencing activity-travel behavior. Kwan examined a different notion of time and its implications for transportation and health research, revisiting some fundamental concepts like distance, accessibility, and geographic context, while exploring new conceptualizations that take time into account.

The 7th annual Martin Wachs Distinguished Lecture, hosted at Berkeley, featured Edward Glaeser, Professor of Economics at Harvard Kennedy School. He studies the economics of cities, and has written scores of urban issues, including the growth of cities, segregation, crime, and housing markets. He has been particularly interested in the role that geographic proximity can play in creating knowledge and innovation. His work focuses on the determinants of city growth and the role of cities as centers of idea transmission.

UCLA hosted the 8th annual Martin Wachs Distinguished Lecture where Patricia Mokhtarian, faculty at Georgia Tech, lamented that travel is now viewed primarily as a “derived demand” : travel occurs only so that people can enjoy the goods and experiences attained at their destination but not because the journey in and of itself brings enjoyment. Her aim is to restore balance to how we conceive of travel by placing travel into the category of behaviors that have a dual nature: those that have on the one hand a utilitarian (functional) aspect, yet also bring a hedonic (pleasing) dimension.

The 9th annual Martin Wachs Distinguished Lecture, hosted at Berkeley, featured Catherine Ross, Professor of City and Regional Planning at Georgia Tech, who spoke about the challenges in maintaining and growing economic well-being in an era of new transportation modes. With increased transportation capacity and greater mobility comes congestion, air pollution, and urban sprawl as well as other issues. This current dilemma and hypermobility demands a transport agenda for this global era to be set.

UCLA hosted the 10th annual ‘Martin Wachs Distinguished Lecture”, where invitee lecturer, Joe Schofer, Faculty at Northwestern University, provided a wide-ranging view about forecasting – a prominent feature of transportation planning. He explains that learning to accept the inherent limitations of the forecasting process is a necessary first step in helping planners improve their predictions of cost, utilization, performance and impact, and that systematic learning from experience is vital when predicting the outcome of major infrastructure projects

The 11th annual Martin Wachs Distinguished Lecture, hosted at Berkeley, featured a panel of transportation and planning experts: Jeff Morales, Ryan Russo, Tom Maguire, Maria Mehranian, and Susan Shaheen. The talk addressed the fact that with increased capacity and greater mobility undergirding economic viability and quality of life comes congestion, increased energy consumption, air pollution, and urban sprawl. This current dilemma and hypermobility demands a transport agenda for this global era to be set.