I believe that the ability to choose, and by extension the variation in choices based on changing circumstances, is a fundamental advantage. Transportation researchers, policy‐makers, and human resources administrators shape the way people make these choices. They make assumptions in the samples their models are based on, their policies, and their benefits packages about how we do behave, and how we should behave. These assumptions describe and affect the way we travel. Many of these assumptions are good, right and true, but one in particular is egregiously wrong. Many people in cities do not travel to work the same way every day. That is a myth. And the belief in this myth—as a simplifying assumption for modelers, and as a basis for government and employer transportation policies and subsidies—leads to inequitable outcomes and misguided policy choices. Decisions made based on this myth remove choices from citizens, and therefore make cities function less efficiently.
In urban areas many people have a choice of modes available for their activities on any given day. This includes their commute to work. These choices are manifest in the stories we tell each other…
An antescript to the subsequent post.