Shaping Science and Technology Policy: The Next Generation of Research

10. Technical Change for Social Ends: Shaping Transportation Infrastructures in U.S. Cities

Introduction Faith in technical innovation is often coupled with hopes for social progress (Marx 1987; Pfaffenberger 1992; Smith and Marx 1994; Sarewitz 1996). New technologies are commonly expected to improve social circumstances while, in some instances, technical development is the very measure of progress (Adas 1989). Even though such hopes are often overblown, new technologies do enable particular social possibilities while simultaneously foreclosing others. This relationship between technical and social change offers a challenge and arguably an obligation to consider how technical innovation and implementation might be steered more intelligently. In this chapter, I argue that directed technical change can facilitate ameliorative social change by making particular everyday practices more appealing and convenient. I use the case of urban public transportation to show how design and policy can promote such change through the shaping of the built environment. With his concept of the technological fix, Alvin Weinberg (1966) provides one such formulation of the relationship between the technical 217 10 Technical Change for Social Ends Shaping Transportation Infrastructures in U.S. Cities  .  and the social. He argues that technology can provide solutions that are relatively easy to identify and implement compared to the complexity of social ills. Weinberg (1966, 37) writes: “The [social] problems are, in a way, harder to identify just because their solutions are never clear-cut: how do we know when our cities are renewed, or our air clean enough, or our transportation convenient enough?” A technological fix for a problem like traffic congestion might reduce people’s commute times with some clever innovation. By avoiding a change in people’s commuting practices, the fix is an expedient intervention because, as Weinberg explains , “[t]he resolution of social problems by the traditional methods— by motivating or forcing people to behave more rationally—is a frustrating business” (37). In Weinberg’s formulation, the technological fix overcomes the urgency of social problems with breakthrough technologies that extend the viability of the social status quo. Such fixes are expedient because they mitigate a problem without disrupting the social patterns that create it. The technological fix does not solve social problems per se. Rather, it overcomes a limitation on social practice through technological innovation. From regional, state, and federal perspectives, public transportation is a means for addressing traffic congestion, vehicle emissions, high levels of energy consumption, and social inequities in U.S. cities (Calthorpe 1993; GAO 2001; Kenworthy and Laube 1999a). While buses are often the most cost-effective form of public transit, they are generally the transportation mode of last resort (Transportation and Land Use Coalition 2002; Bullard and Johnson 1997; Wypijewski 2000). There is also widespread sentiment that modest numbers of people are willing to ride buses by choice. Few riders means fewer resources for improving service, and congested streets make it difficult to provide good service. With the notable exception of those influenced by ideology, who would choose a second-class technology for the arduous task of traversing the metropolis ? This stigma shapes planning efforts and funding patterns, and it shades the possibility of people making bus-riding a part of their lives. In this chapter, I offer a variation on Weinberg’s technological fix that uses the steering of technical change as a means for shaping ameliorative social change. While my argument also considers breakthrough technologies, I emphasize how those innovations facilitate social change by redesigning what is possible and practical in people’s daily lives. In contrast to Weinberg, I develop technical change as a means for addressing social problems through people’s behaviors. Rather than    forcing people to behave more rationally, I argue that the built environment can be designed such that the convenient choice is also—socially and environmentally—the right choice. This argument is embedded in the details of bus-riding on Telegraph Avenue in Oakland, California. I consider the promise of intelligent transportation systems and the emerging concept of bus rapid transit to explore how technical change creates social opportunities. Through the concepts of infrastructure and community of practice, I suggest that the technical levers for shaping social change are embedded in the details of how design and policy shape daily life.1 Bus Riders as a Community of Practice In most U.S. cities, the experience of bus-riding is little different today than it was fifty years ago. Catching the bus on Telegraph Avenue in Oakland is no exception. People wait at stops marked with signs listing numbered...