TY - JOUR
T1 - A justice-theoretic approach to the distribution of transportation benefits
T2 - Implications for transportation planning practice in the United States
AU - Martens, Karel
AU - Golub, Aaron
AU - Robinson, Glenn
N1 - Funding Information:
The ideas developed in this paper are partly the result of two separate research projects on equity and transportation, one funded by the Volvo Research and Educational Foundations, and the other by the Federal Transit Administration, Transportation Equity Research Program Phase II Work Plan, Cooperative Agreement MD-26-8001-00. The authors would like to thank the anonymous reviewers as well as the journal editor for valuable comments, which have helped to considerably improve the paper.
PY - 2012/5
Y1 - 2012/5
N2 - Transportation improvements inevitably lead to an uneven distribution of user benefits, in space and by network type (private and public transport). This paper makes a moral argument for what would be a fair distribution of these benefits. The argument follows Walzer's " Spheres of Justice" approach to define the benefits of transportation, access, as a sphere deserving a separate, non-market driven, distribution. That distribution, we propose, is one where the maximum gap between the lowest and highest accessibility, both by mode and in space, should be limited, while attempting to maximize average access. We then review transportation planning practice for a priori distributional goals and find little explicit guidance in conventional and even justice-oriented transportation planning and analyses. We end with a discussion of the implications for practice.
AB - Transportation improvements inevitably lead to an uneven distribution of user benefits, in space and by network type (private and public transport). This paper makes a moral argument for what would be a fair distribution of these benefits. The argument follows Walzer's " Spheres of Justice" approach to define the benefits of transportation, access, as a sphere deserving a separate, non-market driven, distribution. That distribution, we propose, is one where the maximum gap between the lowest and highest accessibility, both by mode and in space, should be limited, while attempting to maximize average access. We then review transportation planning practice for a priori distributional goals and find little explicit guidance in conventional and even justice-oriented transportation planning and analyses. We end with a discussion of the implications for practice.
KW - Access
KW - Equity
KW - Justice
KW - Rawls
KW - Walzer
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U2 - 10.1016/j.tra.2012.01.004
DO - 10.1016/j.tra.2012.01.004
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84856575919
SN - 0965-8564
VL - 46
SP - 684
EP - 695
JO - Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice
JF - Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice
IS - 4
ER -