Transportation is loosely defined as the movement of people or goods from one place to another, although that definition does not truly reveal the importance of transportation. The transit of goods drives our global economy, people must travel as a part of their daily commute, and the movement of people throughout the country and around the world facilitates the exchange of cultural values and ideas.
Transportation is something we often take for granted, but should be considered a basic right of all people. When we put criminals in jail for crimes they commit, we provide them with free housing, free TV, and free food, but you’d still be hard pressed to find anybody who would willingly take up the life of a prisoner because of the way that prison takes away one of our most basic freedoms – the freedom of movement. It seems that society has decided that our harshest form of punishment is to restrict the travel of people, and the fact that very few would trade in their unrestricted movement for the life of a prisoner shows how much we subliminally value transportation.
It then follows that transportation is something that all people need in order to lead successful, fulfilled, and prosperous lives. Care must be taken to ensure that transport is available to all people regardless of social standing or economic condition, and at the same time investments must be made to ensure the efficient and speedy movement of passengers and critical goods across our increasingly congested transportation networks.
This blog, PeopleMovers, is about all things transportation. The goal is to harness the collective knowledge of and research experiences of the authors to bring transportation issues to the everyday person in a manner that is supported by facts, research, and practical application in a way that is intriguing and stimulating to the general public.
