Economic Impacts Of Transportation: Normative Considerations
Advanced Search
Select up to three search categories and corresponding keywords using the fields to the right. Refer to the Help section for more detailed instructions.

Search our Collections & Repository

For very narrow results

When looking for a specific result

Best used for discovery & interchangable words

Recommended to be used in conjunction with other fields

Dates

to

Document Data
Library
People
Clear All
Clear All

For additional assistance using the Custom Query please check out our Help Page

i

Economic Impacts Of Transportation: Normative Considerations

Filetype[PDF-1012.66 KB]


English
Details You May Also Like

Details:

  • Alternative Title:
    Transportation: The Employment and Land Use Implications
  • Creators:
    Lee, Douglass B.
  • Corporate Creators:
    John A. Volpe National Transportation Systems Center (U.S.)
  • Subject/TRT Terms:
  • Resource Type:
    Research Paper
  • Geographical Coverage:
    United States
  • Corporate Publisher:
    John A. Volpe National Transportation Systems Center (U.S.)
  • NTL Classification:
    NTL-ECONOMICS AND FINANCE-Economic Impacts;NTL-ECONOMICS AND FINANCE-ECONOMICS AND FINANCE;
  • Abstract:
    Ideally, transportation planning and operating policy is carried out by considering a number of alternatives, estimating what difference it made whether we chose one alternative or another, and then attempting to place values on the differences so as to select the most satisfactory alternative. In practice, we do a poor job of separating the second of these (esti­mating the impacts) from the third (evaluation). Because transportation has economic and development impacts, it is (implicitly) thought to be good; more transportation would be better, except by those who believe that more transportation is always bad. Laying out the consequences of alternatives is a descriptive task; how to evaluate those consequences is a normative task. These two topics can be differentiated as "economic impacts" (the positive questions) and "benefit-cost analysis" (the normative question).1 These terms are set forth as preliminary definitions of the dichotomy emphasized in this paper. If transportation were costless -- consumed no resources, such as concrete and clean air - - then more transportation would always be better than less. If there is a cost, this means that something else has to be given up in order to get more transportation. If something has to be given up, it is possible that the least valuable thing given up is still more valuable than the transportation services produced by giving it up. Therefore, it is just as possible to have too much transportation as too little, having too much is just as bad as having too little, and having transportation that is too cheap (to the user) is no better than having transportation that is too expensive. Too much transportation means that the resources used to produce the last increment of transportation would have produced more value had they been used for something else.
  • Format:
    PDF
  • Collection(s):
  • Main Document Checksum:
  • Download URL:
  • File Type:

Supporting Files

  • No Additional Files
More +

You May Also Like

Checkout today's featured content at rosap.ntl.bts.gov