20 research outputs found
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Right or Privilege? The History of Driver’s Licenses in California
In this dissertation, I examine the history of the driver’s license in California – drawing on legal and transportation history literature to better understand how licensing policies promoted automobility but also left behind certain drivers. Over the course of the twentieth century, adults increasingly needed to drive. The more essential a driver’s license was for daily life, the more effective the threat of its suspension. In a series of consequential court decisions in the late 1920s and early 1930s, California courts increasingly held that driving was not a fundamental right but a privilege. Progressively, driver’s license suspensions became a generic government enforcement technique; California and most other states continue to use suspensions to enforce a wide range of statutes, and violations that trigger them can be found in various government code sections. Policymakers use license suspensions as leverage for social control and as a tool to generate revenue, such as enforcing child support payments and coercing drivers to pay outstanding fines and fees. From the beginning the driver’s license was a regulatory tool that allowed most drivers to travel relatively undisturbed. Minority drivers, however, were most likely to be stopped by law enforcement and punished in the courts and, therefore, to feel the sting of a suspension and the additional criminal and monetary penalties of getting caught driving without a license. In metropolitan areas built around the automobile, and underserved by public transit modes, the consequences of being without a driver’s license are far-reaching. To redress the inequities and harmful consequences associated with driver’s license policy, it is important to first diagnose the cause and scope of the problem. In this dissertation, I provide a history of the driver’s license in California to understand both the ubiquity and eclecticism in the ways the license has been used, and how race/ethnicity and income are implicated. This study extends the existing scholarship on non-driving-related suspensions beyond failure-to-pay suspensions. My research shows the emergence of two license regimes in California: one for the Everyman and a hidden, punitive regime that occupies a dark corner of the law. The findings inform ongoing policy efforts to reform harmful non-driving related suspension policies
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Does Bundled Parking Influence Travel Behavior?
Parking requirements hide the cost of storing a vehicle in housing costs, making driving a more attractive option for vehicle owners than using alternative modes of transportation. While researchers have already identified the link between vehicle ownership and use with bundled parking, no study that I am aware of has used detailed national-level data to study the link between bundled parking and the use of other transportation modes. In this study I use data from the 2013 American Housing Survey to determine if the presence of bundled parking is associated with a household's transportation mode choice. After controlling for differences in socioeconomic and built environment characteristics, I find that the presence of bundled parking is associated with a 27 percent increase in vehicle miles traveled. Bundled households drive approximately 3,800 miles more, spend nearly $580 more on gasoline, and emit 14.47 more metric tons of carbon dioxide per year. Bundled parking is also negatively correlated to transit use, and households with unbundled parking are significantly more likely to be frequent transit users. This provides further evidence for the already strong case against parking requirements
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Delayed Mobility and Retirement: Final Report
This report examines whether being more mobile is associated with decisions by older people to remain in the active work force after normal retirement age. Mobility includes having access to and the capacity to drive cars and being transit accessible or being able to walk to work or work at home. The report presents findings in three sections and concludes, based on research conducted thus far, that there are indications of causal associations between mobility and delayed retirement. The report includes a review of the literature linking mobility, travel by the elderly, and retirement decision making. Following the review of the literature is quantitative analysis of data from the California Household Travel Survey, including mathematical models of relationships between mobility and the propensity of older Californians to remain in the active work force. The final component of the research findings is a summary of the results of qualitative research consisting of focus groups and interviews. While the findings are not conclusive they show relationships which indicate that further research, particularly using longitudinal rather than cross sectional data, are warranted. After presenting findings, the report concludes with recommendations for further research