Podcast: enriched lives, less distance
Expert Lee Schipper describes transportation in the years ahead as "a gradual shift toward people and goods needing to go less distance to enable us to lead enriched lives."
Earthsky's Lindsay Patterson speaks with transportation expert Lee Schipper, Visiting Scholar at Berkley and former director of EMBARQ, the World Resources Institute Center for Sustainable Transport.
Schipper: "We will move less, but will still have the same amounts of access to food, friends, jobs, shopping, free time [and] parks (...). The number of miles we move is a bad measure of the quality of our lives. Maybe the word 'mobility' has to be replaced by the word 'access'. Access means connecting to places that have food, work, shopping, places where my friends live [and] where there is a park (...)."
According to Schipper, if the true costs of transportation - for any mode - would be reflected in the price people actually pay for each kilometre they travel, people will decide it's better to fulfill their needs within a closer range by making use of the most efficient mode available.
Listen to Schipper going into this and more in the recommended 8 minutes podcast right here:
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