Transportation Policy and Environmental Limits

Calendar

week #	TOPICS	discussions	key dates
1	Introduction and Overview
2	The Role of Government in Managing a Sustainable Transportation System: The Tragedy of the Concrete Commons	How are common or pooled resources, such as transport infrastructure and the environment, governed in a free market?
3	Managed Conflict: Transportation and Environmental Politics	Class will develop positions and policy justifications for action on Connecticut’s building of the Super 7 highway - is growth and community/regional integrity possible? What are the constraints on government action? Is transport-environmental policy innovation possible or is progress a process of ‘muddling through’?	Policy problem 1 assigned: Building the Super 7 Highway
4	Energy and Clean Air Policy: Who to Regulate? Car, Driver or Mandate Technological Innovation	What are the trade-offs, practical, economic and political feasibility of regulating individual behavior or mandating technological standards? How does government determine who or what to target when implementing a policy solution - and, what difference does it make?
5	Taxing for Change: Is Pricing a Policy Alternative or Political Suicide	Can a price be placed on the environment? How much is the individual willing to pay?
6	Building the Super 7 Highway Class Simulation		Policy problem 1 due Policy problem 2 assigned: Unocal Corp.’s SCRAP: Crushing Old Cars for Credit Class Simulation
7	Transportation at the Eye of the Storm	Infrastructure investment; highways, VMT and congestion; transit ridership; bicycle and walking. How does the policy process balance and integrate energy, vehicle and infrastructure to achieve a ‘sustainable’ outcome?
8	Public Participation and Entrepreneurship: Policy Innovation in Managing Transportation and the Environment	How does policy change occur - Interest group mobilization or entrepreneurship? Contrasting experiences of Boston and Curitiba, Brazil	Policy problem 2 due: Unocal Corp.’s SCRAP: Crushing Old Cars for Credit Class Simulation Policy problem 3 assigned: CAFE Standards, ZEV; ULEV and Hydrogen Cars
9	Noise, NIMBY and NOPE: Airport Expansion and its Alternatives	KSG Case Study, Regulating Airport Noise
10	Environmental Justice: The Equitable Distribution of Transportation Costs and Benefits	How does transportation policymaking affect the distribution of environmental costs across race, class and communities - and can such costs be equitably distributed?	Policy problem 3 due: CAFE Standards, ZEV; ULEV and Hydrogen Cars Final paper assigned: Logan Runway Expansion
11	Discuss Paper 3: CAFE, ZEV and Hydrogen Cars	Class will discuss the appropriate role and responsibility of industry in environmental protection. Can private markets introduce innovations to address environmental costs and fairly distribute them between firms, groups and individuals?
12	Global Climate Change and Global Equity Class Simulation	How do nations craft a global policy regime that balances transportation-related growth with the threat of climate change - while remaining responsive to the equity issues that separate developed and developing economies?
13	Sustainable Transportation in the 21st Century	What might the range of technically and politically viable mobility strategies include in a world with environmental limits?	Final paper due: Logan Runway Expansion