THE ECOLOGY OF TRANSPORTATION
Remarks to American Road Builders Association National Convention
Los Angeles, California
February 22, 1971
Jacob Dekema
District Engineer, District 11
California Division of Highways
San Diego
I
t is always a pleasure to speak to people who are actively engaged in building a better
America, particularly today when the prophets of doom are swaying masses of wellmeaning citizens into emotional and irrational efforts with questionable results in attempts to
improve our environment. Our transportation system has come under virulent attack by these
Jeremiahs who seem totally unable to comprehend that, in the words of General Billy
Mitchell, "Transportation is the essence of civilization."
Four hundred years ago Lord Bacon told Queen Elizabeth I that there are three things that
make a nation great: fertile soil, busy workshops, and the easy conveyance of men and
goods from place to place. It is in this “easy conveyance of men and goods from place to
place” that America has excelled, and far surpassed the rest of the world.
We are today engaged in modernizing and improving an already magnificent transportation
system that some seem to take for granted as a natural phenomenon. Our task is quite
similar to that of Baron Hausman who was instructed by Emperor Napoleon III one hundred
years ago to modernize the City of Paris. The transformation of the medieval town into
today's great modern city was accomplished in the face of the same public attack that
accompanies our struggle today.
Hausman carved the great boulevards through the heart of Paris, “uprooting people,
removing valuable property from the tax rolls, splitting communities, separating families and
dividing the city into isolated islands”. Compared to Hausman's meat-axe approach, we are
using the patience and precision of a neurosurgeon in restoring adequate flow through our
urban arterial system.
The average person's resistance to change makes the task of modernizing a great city
exceedingly difficult. In a study of the so-called “New Town” of Columbia, Maryland, it
became evident that transportation must be considered at a very early stage in the planning
and in particular prior to the completion of the land use plan. The reverse process now being
performed in our more viable and progressive cities naturally produces vast resistance and
demands for maintenance of the status quo or a return to an obsolete system of a previous
century. These difficulties are compounded by a growing segment of the population that
wants to preserve the past at all costs. Professor Arthur Lewis of Princeton University
comments, “Only decadent peoples, on the way down, feel an urgent need to mythologize
and live in the past. A vigorous people, on the way up, have visions of its future....”
Because the problems sometimes seem to be insurmountable, we frequently receive
suggestions to apply “systems engineering”. In the Harvard University Press publication,
“Run, Computer, Run” the authors point out that “The present tools of formal systems
analysis work best on well-defined, simple, concrete models, involving quantifiable concepts,
measurable data, and above all, thoroughly understood theoretical structures which
adequately reflect reality”.
Simon Ramo, one of the prophets of the Systems Approach says, “Surround the problem too
broadly, try too hard to be absolutely complete and you will not only get nowhere in the
solution of the problem, but you will be doing a terribly poor job of systems engineering”.
In other words, systems engineering stops short of taking into critical consideration the whole
of society, economy, environment or the human condition. Human values cannot be
measured or predicted, therefore cannot be quantified and included in systems engineering.
Highly successful in a simple project of putting a man on the moon, it is doomed to failure in
the complexities of getting a man to work.
Boris Pushkarev of the Regional Plan Association of New York has pointed out that the
parkways and expressways in New York City have made the city's two greatest visual assets,
its skyline and its water, accessible to public view. “They have linked together hitherto
isolated open spaces into a continuous, interconnected system, eminently fitted to both the
natural topography and to the man-made order of the street grid. They have articulated a
previously incomprehensible urban mass into visually distinctive chunks and provided a set of
magnificent gateways and landmarks in the form of new bridges”
The same transformation is taking place In San Diego and has been proposed in San
Francisco. It is indeed ironic that the nearly identical programs should be so lavishly praised
in New York and so roundly condemned in San Francisco. Humphrey Neill in “The Art of
Contrary Thinking” gives us a clue. “So long as human nature remains inconstant and
changeable - and unpredictable - socioeconomic trends will likewise remain unpredictable
and subject to unexpected shifts”.
As Edmund Burke pointed out, “Those who would carry on the great public schemes must be
proof against the most fatiguing delays, the most mortifying disappointments, the most
shocking insults, and worst of all, the presumptuous judgment of the ignorant upon their
design”.
These “ignorant” gloatingly quote statistics proving that the area devoted to transportation in
downtown Los Angeles is over half the total ground area. Little do they know that our own
downtown San Diego, laid out before the automobile was even a dream, had 42% devoted to
city streets. Pierre L'Enfant in laying out Washington, D.C. proposed 59% of the total area in
streets. The Los Angeles and San Diego freeway systems will occupy about 2% of the land
and carry about 60% of the traffic.
The only really meaningful statistic would be comparison of total floor space with
transportation space. The truly astounding fact is that the astronomical increase in floor area
by the construction of multi-story buildings has required only a relatively small increase in the
ground area devoted to transportation and terminal facilities.
A caustic Boston critic wrote, “The necessities of transportation have forced new uses upon
the streets for which they were never designed and to which they are not adapted at all.
Boston's primitive lanes were traced by cows and worn by foot passengers and an
occasional cart. They are now traversed by monsters which would have astonished our
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ancestors, and which now render the old-time ways almost impassable by their
descendants”.
The year was 1892. The "monster" was the streetcar. The first automobile had not yet been
built in the United States.
An additional benefit caused by our conversion to high-speed mechanized transportation has
been the elimination of the need for 90 million acres of pastureland to feed all the horses and
mules that were necessary to serve our transport needs of the early 20th Century. This is
twice the total area of all the right of way of all the public roads in the United States including
all the 3 million miles of roads that existed before World War I. The additional area occupied
by the 700,000 miles added to the public road system since then is insignificant compared to
the immense area that has been freed to grow food for people. Incidentally, the increase of
about 25% in road mileage was accompanied by a 100% increase in population. Even today,
less than half the mileage is paved and, of course, nowhere near the total width of right of
way is paved. In addition, over 1.5 million trees and seedlings are being set out along
highway rights of way each year. Look down from the high-rise office buildings in Los
Angeles and San Diego. The wide green belts of open space that you see are the freeways.
With modern high-speed transportation it has become possible for agriculture to concentrate
on specialized crops instead of the diversified agriculture of earlier times. By so doing,
agricultural productivity has increased astonishingly. San Diego County agriculture, though it
rates fourth among the county's major industries, reported total production during 1969
valued at $146.5 million, the highest ever recorded here, in spite of the continued
urbanization of the area.
Lately there has been a great hue and cry concerning smog damage to agriculture. Let us all
realize that if it weren't for modern transportation, there wouldn't be any modern agriculture
with its vast productivity in which one farm worker feeds 30 to 40 people compared to more
backward areas where a one-to-one relation is more common.
As economic consultant Robinson Newcomb has pointed out, the 5% annual increase in
agricultural productivity is adding the equivalent of 17.5 million acres per year to our farm
area. Urbanization and greater food production for an increasing population will absorb about
6.5 million acres per year and we are therefore adding about 11 million acres a year to our
surplus farm acreage. Little wonder that an Interior Department official a few years ago
proposed converting 5 million acres of farm land to recreational use and a recent Iowa State
University report recommended converting 50-60 million acres of cropland to trees and grass.
Recent magazine articles have pointed out that the latest studies of the United Nations Food
& Agriculture Organization show that the great problem of the future will not be starvation but
the management of huge surpluses. The dire predictions of the extinction of the human race
through starvation have been met by the development of miracle strains of wheat and rice
combined with modern agricultural methods so that food output is increasing faster than
population. The problem will be one of distribution, rather than production.
Much of the solution is already visible. An article in the December 15, 1970 issue of Forbes
points to “The most efficient form of distribution yet devised, the Supermarket”. This
phenomenon, of course, depends entirely on modern transportation for its success. As Mark
Twain once pointed out, “I spent half my life worrying about things that never happened”.
Our concern with the environment is nothing new. In 1300 English noblemen petitioned King
Edward I to do something about the pollution of air in London and in 1306 he issued a
proclamation prohibiting the pollution of air. As Edward may have discovered, and as we are
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well aware today, improvement of the environment comes about through economic growth,
not through edict. Economic welfare in turn is largely based on efficiency in transportation, as
Billy Mitchell and Lord Bacon so ably stated.
In 1400 Henry V established a Commission of nobles to restrict and control the movement of
coal into London in recognition of the fact that smoke was due to coal burning. The
corrective technology was not available and London suffered a number of “killer smogs” over
the centuries, the last but not the greatest being in 1952. By this time, however, technology
had progressed sufficiently to take corrective action and since 1960 the burning of coal in
London has been virtually eliminated and the air is relatively clean, after 700 years of
attempts at correction.
Edward I was also concerned with transportation and in 1285 a statute required an open
space of 200 feet on each side of the highway, a precept we might well follow.
The greatness of the Roman Empire was based largely on its magnificent system of roads,
53,000 miles of super-highway connecting all the borders of the far-flung empire.
Nevertheless, they too had their problems and because of urban congestion Julius Caesar
prohibited wheeled carts from coming into downtown Rome. The chariot drivers were both
male and female and were licensed just as we are today. One day Roman authorities
became so fed up with women chariot drivers that they revoked all female drivers’ licenses.
History does not record, but I wonder if this marked the beginning of the fall of the Roman
Empire.
In 1635 Charles I issued a proclamation pointing out the exceedingly high cost of living in
London caused by extreme congestion and the costly delays in bringing hay and provender
into the city. He did not live to see the day, but in 1666 The Great Fire of London solved the
problem. Today our fire departments are too efficient to permit this instant form of urban
renewal and many of our urban problems are caused by slow deterioration that can be
reversed only by economic growth and profits that will spin off such fringe benefits as parks,
museums, literature and education. The economic growth that has already occurred has
obviously resulted in vastly improved conditions over those described by the renowned urban
planner, Jane Jacobs: “Consider the great cities of the last century without electricity, with
their high infant-death rates and their tremendous numbers of young orphans, with their
immense number of dray animals, their stinking stables, their flies, their streets running with
horse urine and manure...”. Obviously we have come far in reducing pollution, but the battle
is not yet won. Certainly the reduction in deaths due to fly-borne diseases far exceeds the
price we are paying in deaths in transportation.
But even here the picture is far more cheerful than is generally recognized. In 1909 about 26
million horses traveled some 13 billion miles and 3850 people were killed in accidents
involving horse-drawn vehicles. This gives a mileage death rate of over 30 per 100 million
vehicle miles, more than ten times as high as the rate on California's freeways and further
improvements are on the way.
A study by the American Medical Association in a rural county in Illinois showed that 16
physicians take better medical care of more people than 42 doctors could 40 years ago. The
reason, of course, faster, safer, more convenient transportation enabling patients to come to
the doctor or hospital in a matter of minutes and at frequent intervals. The savings in lives
due to better medical care brought about by modern transportation far exceeds the number of
lives lost in the process of moving people and goods.
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A similar transformation has occurred in the field of education. Better transportation has
made it possible to consolidate tiny schools and upgrade teaching and physical facilities. The
success of the smaller state colleges to supplement the major universities depends entirely
on placing these schools within commuting distance of most areas, giving an opportunity for
higher education to all those who desire it.
In addition to providing access to medical, educational and recreational sites, transportation
itself is a source of outdoor recreation. The Outdoor Recreation Resources Review
Commission reports that, as outdoor recreation, driving for pleasure is nearly as popular as
swimming and walking. Public Health Service scientists report that recreational travel tends
to reduce tension and thereby improves mental health.
Southern California is climatically a desert. It has been transformed into the garden of today
by simultaneous development of irrigation and transportation. Hundreds of golf courses have
created more green open space than the area occupied by the irrigation and transportation
facilities that have made them possible. The transformation of the barren Imperial Valley into
a lush agricultural paradise of 600,000 acres also was made possible only by this
combination of irrigation and modern transportation. The life-giving, oxygen-producing open
green space created far exceeds the few acres required to make them possible.
A return to the horse and the mule is obviously out of the question. Already we have a
problem of disposing of 2.3 billion tons of steer manure a year, out of a total solid waste of
4.4 billion tons. The average horse produces 35 pounds of solid and 18.5 pounds of liquid
excrement per day. There simply would not be enough disposal sites available for the
mountains of manure even if we could find the continental-size pasture area required. If we
were to maintain our present standard of living by means of live instead of mechanical
horses, there would be one ton of solid waste and one-half ton of liquid per person per day.
Viewed in this light, our pollution problem has already been solved.
In 1840 the City of London employed 2000 “crossing sweepers”. These gentlemen had the
task of sweeping a clean path across the street to enable a pedestrian to cross without
having to change his clothes on the other side. Even if we solved the feeding and disposal
problems, we simply would not have sufficient labor force to employ as crossing sweepers.
A similar development has taken place in water pollution. When we discovered that the
outhouse was polluting the well, we began to dispose of sewage into rivers and lakes,
polluting them instead, but still a tremendous forward leap. In 1810 the Thames River in
London at a low flow was so polluted that birds could walk across from one bank to the other.
The Thames also is finally being restored to clean flowing water because of increasing wealth
that makes it financially possible to employ the improving technology that is available.
Man-made pollution is gradually being legislated out of existence and our Jeremiahs should
turn their attention to natural pollution. Dr. W. T. Pecora, Director of the U.S. Geological
Survey, cites as an example the fact that three volcanic eruptions alone, Krakatoa (1883),
Mount Katmai (1912), and HekIa (1947), ejected more dust, ash and gases into the
atmosphere than all mankind's activity throughout history.
One package of cigarettes a day will put more carbon monoxide in your blood stream than
breathing the air in Los Angeles on its most polluted day.
The “population explosion” has been accompanied by considerable public trauma aided and
abetted by professional forecasters of the imminent end of the world. As usual, however, the
public by and large has not panicked but wisely has spread out to give itself breathing space
in a search for privacy and personal identity. The Stanford Research Institute has called it “a
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growing revolt of the individual against being treated as part of a herd”. They move into
garden apartments, low-density subdivisions, and vacation homes. They get away from the
masses by mass use of campers, boats and other means to privacy and convenience.
More and more evidence is accumulating that overcrowding leads to neurotic and abnormal
behavior ranging from thoughtless discourtesy to savagery.
This probably points out the crux of the passenger transportation problem. How do you herd
people into mass transportation and mass tenements when human nature demands the
opposite? Parke Godwin, the famed editor of the New York Evening Post around the turn of
the century, put it simply, “The Greatest of all human benefits …. is independence”. In
experimental runs of buses to aid people in Watts gain access to employment in other areas
of the Los Angeles metropolitan region, it was soon discovered that one of the first pay
checks went for a down-payment for an automobile. In European cities too, even with their
fine public transportation systems, people are purchasing automobiles for their personal
transportation. These people are not fools, but have recognized a simple economic principle transportation improvements increase mobility and the best transportation system gives the
greatest freedom in choosing where to live, expands the area where they can sell their labor
and gives them a greater choice in selecting shops, educational, religious, cultural and
recreational facilities.
For the employer there is a greater ease in recruiting and retaining a suitable supply of labor.
For the employee there is a greater likelihood that he will be able to find a job at a level
corresponding to his maximum ability. Gains in productivity and earnings, together with
increased job satisfaction accrue to the benefit of all.
The highly prized “open space” concept of modern city development is almost entirely
dependent upon the automobile. It is not possible, even if it were desirable, to arrest this
development by slowing the construction of roads, because the roads are already there. If
improvements are delayed, they will merely become more inadequate and pose an everincreasing problem whose solution will ultimately be demanded at great expense. As planner
William Pereira has said, “We are just now coming into the age of the automobile. And we
have not built a single city as a result of the auto because, as the case happens to be, it
came too fast”. Cities have to choose between stagnation and transformation to take
advantage of the versatility, mobility and accessibility that modern transportation offers.
Again quoting Humphrey Neill, “Fundamentally, a common error we're all prone to fall into is
mixing cause with effect”. Fleet Admiral Ernest J. King as early as November 1932, at the
Naval War College expressed his concern about America’s lack of preparedness, mentioning
as a primary cause the inability of the average individual to understand the interplay of cause
and effect.
Frank Herring of the Port of New York Authority in a study of the New York metropolitan
region concludes that the decline in use of mass transportation and the rise in the use of the
automobile are parallel phenomena, rather than cause and effect. They result from a
common cause, the changes in form and structure of the metropolis due to changes in power
installation, production techniques and communication methods, as well as transportation.
There is actually a substantial decrease in total travel between New Jersey and the New York
Central Business District in Manhattan. The increase in travel is dispersed over a multitude of
paths to many destinations.
The purpose of transportation is not merely to achieve the most economical and efficient
vehicles conceivable. The purpose of transportation is civilization itself. From the dawn of
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civilization those cities and states having the best transportation systems have achieved the
highest standards of living, have advanced their culture ahead of their time and have been
able to maintain themselves militarily against envious and aggressive neighbors.
Transportation is the most vital the primary input to the ecology of human civilizations. If we
jointly continue toward our goal of building a better America, we will achieve the vision of one
of the Hebrew prophets, peering into the future, “Every man shall sit under his own vine and
under his fig tree, and none shall make them afraid”.
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