Transportation Safety in a Second-Best Environment
University of Minnesota Center for Transportation Studies Future of Mobility Series (2023)
7 Pages Posted: 30 Jan 2023 Last revised: 6 Feb 2023
Date Written: January 30, 2023
Abstract
Transportation policy has not been short on big ideas. One persistent constraint, however, is that most good ideas are not designed to pass through the eye of the relevant needle at scale. Rather, they tend to provoke a fatal reaction from key veto holders—municipal governments, transportation regulators, legislatures, courts—that are structurally biased against changes to the status quo. This bias is a major obstacle to effective mitigation of the byproducts of the automobile. At the same time, a major increase in roadway deaths since 2010, especially among pedestrians, has injected new urgency. Taking that imperative seriously requires ideas that can succeed not only by overcoming embedded constraints, but by sidestepping them.
This piece, published by the University of Minnesota Center for Transportation Studies as part of its Future of Mobility Series, develops the concept of solving for roadway safety in a less-than-optimal ("second-best") policy environment. It also offers some specific solutions that are designed to work despite entrenched legal and institutional constraints.
Keywords: transportation, safety, driving, pedestrian, municipal, vehicle, second-best
JEL Classification: K23, K13, R41, R48
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation