Marlon Boarnet has been one of my intellectual role models since before I went to graduate school. In today’s LA Times, he does a nice job of pointing out how superficial assertions about the equity of toll roads do not hold up. Bottom line: on public goods that are subject to congestion, there are only two things that discipline or ration use: out-of-pocket money costs and/or time costs. We can’t assume that favoring one or the other necessarily leads us to one conclusion about social equity. We can be pretty sure that impoverished families do pay proportionally higher out-of-pocket costs. We also can be sure that time burdens are also disproportionate, and we should never assume that less affluent individuals’ time is “free.”
In addition to Marlon, one of my colleagues from Industrial Engineering, Jim Moore, also weighs in intelligently, as does Kathryn Phillips–who is UCLA grad, like me–with Environmental Defense Fund also writes well here.
Hello,
My name is Bill Hawthorne, and I represent maacenter.org, a leading web resource for asbestos exposure and mesothelioma cancer information. Our organization is dedicated to increasing awareness of the terrible health consequences of asbestos exposure through the distribution of the best informational materials and public outreach efforts.
I found your site through a search and decided to contact you because of its high environmental and green presence which is extremely important in our movement. Your viewers are extremely savvy and motivated. The promotion of how buildings should now be built using green products to avoid asbestos and mesothelioma as well as the awareness of past buildings and preventative steps in avoiding asbestos exposure are extremely important. My goal is to get a resource link on your site/blog or even to provide a guest posting to be placed.
I look forward to hearing from you. Please feel free to check out our website at http://www.maacenter.org. Thank you for your time and consideration.
Bill