Finding “Improvement” in the Language Transportation Planners Use: A Critical Discourse Analysis to Illustrate an Automobile-Centric Bias in Transportation Policymaking

Introduction

The simple act of moving between two locations is fundamental to most other aspects of contemporary American life. Mobility, or the ability to travel beyond one’s walking range (Walker, 2012), generally precedes acquiring education, employment, cultural, or health care resources. Such aspects of transportation are important because they allow us to simultaneously improve our lives and express our individuality through enhanced independence, access to cultural institutions, and employment opportunities (Lucas, 2004; Rothe, 2008). Transportation planning posits that through collective action we can plan how we will share time and space (Friedmann, 1987; Gunder, 2010; Healey, 2003, 2015); how such sharing occurs is a worthy question of scholars of public policymaking.

Considering who benefits and who loses from any social arrangement is an important aspect of policymaking, yet the transportation policymaking and planning process rarely considers the needs of disadvantaged households (Deka, 2004, p. 334; Garrett & Taylor, 1999, p. 8). Across the United States, mobility is frequently withheld from many segments of the population through the regressive requirement that individuals must purchase a personal automobile—and the requisite insurance, maintenance, and gasoline—before traveling, accounting for up to 40% of household income for the poorest quintile of Americans (U.S. Department of Transportation, 2004). With regard to mobility, all communities are not created equal, and one of the ways that the transportation planning process fosters such inequalities is by focusing on quantitative metrics of automobile travel such as roadway congestion or pavement condition and ignoring or discounting measures of social well-being, mobility, and access (Boschken, 2002, p. 16). In other words, implicit assumptions on the part of policymakers and planners regarding the primacy of automobile travel, or perhaps more insidiously, an ignorance of the challenges of life without a personal automobile, can, according to Healey (2003), become embedded in institutionalized practices, accepted as “normal,” and reinforce other similar assumptions in an unvirtuous cycle. A pursuit of policymaking fairness, therefore, implies a need to recognize that not all groups are fairly served by a rationalistic, metric-driven, or one-size-fits-all approach (Portugali & Alfasi, 2008; Willson, 2001), though such an approach maintains powerful control over the transportation policymaking and planning process in the United States.

Transportation planning is not situated by the sum of actions taken by the individuals within it, but “in the way people embody assumptions about appropriate ways of thinking and acting in their daily discourses and practices and how these in turn may become embedded in institutionalized practices” (Healey, 2003, p. 106). Understanding and reducing the consequences of automobile-centric transportation planning requires that we must first consider the assumptions that have seeped into transportation planners’ and policymakers’ work. The language transportation planners and policymakers use matters because it actively creates participants and defines relationships between them, constituting a significant source of power to shape perceptions and reinforce power differentials (Rydin, 1998, p. 178). Such relationships between power-holders and the less powerful impacts the policymaking process, reveals the situatedness of decisionmakers’ thinking, and prevents policy alternatives from being considered. To understand these institutionalized practices, this article examines the discourse that shapes individual planners’ perspectives and transportation planning as a field of practice. Placing emphasis on the language used in transportation planning and policymaking is not necessarily new or novel; perceived reality is expressed through language, as argued by Berger and Luckmann (1991). In 2014 the City of New York dropped the use of the word “accident” in all official transportation documents, replacing it with “crash,” because city officials viewed the 250 traffic deaths per year on New York streets as preventable incidents that can be systematically and purposefully addressed (Richtel, 2016) rather than an immutable fact.

This research explores two interrelated questions: (a) What do transportation planners and policymakers mean by “improvement,” and (b) how does the use of that specific term challenge or reinforce the automobile-centric ideology dominant in American transportation planning? The term “improvement” is inherently value-laden and perceptions about what is, and is not, a transportation infrastructure “improvement,” reflects a certain set of values (to the exclusion of other values) and can reveal policymakers’ and planners’ situatedness. By examining the contexts in which transportation projects are characterized as an improvement could reveal how planners and policymakers define for themselves and the public, what types of projects need improvement and what counts as “correct” travel methods. Use of improvement to characterize certain transportation changes as a community enhancement embeds such ideas in institutional practices, stifles transportation alternatives from emerging, and upholds the car-centric status quo to the detriment of vulnerable populations like the poor, young, elderly, and differently abled.

To answer these questions, the manuscript reviews the existing transportation planning literature followed by a discourse analysis of publicly available planning documents from 50 randomly selected U.S. cities with populations greater than 100,000. The research found that “improvement” is frequently used by transportation planners but in ways that differ from the commonly understood meaning. The way in which policymakers discuss transportation modifications perceived as improvements that benefit car-free and automobile travelers, also differs remarkably. Three separate but interrelated themes emerged from this analysis that can support an overt shift to greater clarity in public documents and discussion. In this regard, critical discourse analysis was found to hold particular value for transportation and public works managers interested in contributing to the emergence of a fairer, more equitable transportation system.

Literature Review

Many scholars argue that transportation planning throughout the industrialized global West, favoring the personal automobile, constrains the mobility of some populations while boosting it for others (Martens, 2006). Disparities in access caused by limited transportation options for the carless is well documented in urban planning literature. Poor communities in American cities commonly experience negative externalities related to transportation infrastructure at much higher rates than their wealthier counterparts (Lowe, 2016; Schweitzer & Valenzuelea, 2004). For example, inner city neighborhoods are far more likely to be dissected by wide freeways with obligatory tailpipe emission pollution, reduced water quality, and light and noise pollution, among other environmental justice concerns (Bullard, Johnson, & Torres, 2000). Lowe (2016) found that sidewalks in New Orleans, Louisiana were far less likely to be continuous or connected to bus stops in poor neighborhoods than in middle- or upper income areas.

Mobility, largely withheld through segregation laws from minority populations prior to the advent of the personal automobile, is now granted on the basis of wealth rather than skin color, and refused to the carless—frequently the poor, young, disabled, and aged. This reflects Domosh and Seager’s (2001) argument that

Transportation choices reflect, symbolically and really, class and income differences . . . Wealthier people move through space more easily than their poorer counterparts: simply put, wealthy people fly, poor people take the bus. “Upward mobility” is not just a metaphor: as personal income increases, choices of transportation expand. Reliability, speed, and choice of modes of transportation all improve with income. Moreover, people in middle- and upper-income brackets usually control their own means of transportation: it’s not the upper classes who are left at the curb waiting for a bus that never comes. (p. 114)

Many scholars like Litman (2007), Lutz and Fernandez (2010), and Bullard (2003) contend that this reflects the idea that since World War II, American urban planners focused primarily on the free movement of automobiles to the detriment of the free movement of human beings. Urban planning practices focused on the automobile restrict the physical mobility of carless individuals, and this, Domosh and Seager (2001) reason, also restricts their social mobility (Domosh & Seager, 2001, p. 115), preventing poor—and frequently racial and ethnic minority—communities from fully participating in society. Bullard (2003) suggests that physical isolation leading to social isolation is exploitative; Garrett and Taylor (1999) argue that such social isolation is achieved by underfunding public transportation, accompanied by “massive public investment in urban freeways that helped to empty out central cities of middle- and upper-income residents” (Garrett & Taylor, 1999, p. 8). In any case, keeping the poor “in their place” seems to have at least been an unwelcome side effect of transportation policymaking over the past several decades, though several authors indicate this might have been neither unintentional nor unwelcome (e.g., Bullard, 2003; Bullard et al., 2000; Sanchez, Stolz, & Ma, 2003).

Considering who benefits and who loses from any social arrangement is an important aspect of policymaking, yet the transportation policymaking and planning process rarely considers the needs of disadvantaged households (Deka, 2004, p. 334; Garrett & Taylor, 1999, p. 8). Such evaluation “requires that we consider to what degree people’s travel patterns are the outcomes of choice or constraints. How are the costs and benefits of transportation systems shared among different groups of people?” (Hanson, 1995, p. 8). This, Bullard et al. (2000) indicate, is an important question to answer because it belies social conflict between unequal groups of people with some communities benefiting from automobile-based transportation planning and others paying disproportionate costs through reduced air quality, traffic noise, and neighborhoods divided by wide highways. As Bullard et al. (2000) argue, “Having a seven-lane freeway next door is not a benefit to someone who does not even own a car” (p. 45).

Contemporary American urban land use patterns and transportation planning disenfranchises communities unable to purchase a private automobile, creating an “accessibility deficit” among poorer communities which prevents them from physically accessing cultural and social activities, even further contributing to their social disenfranchisement (Clifton & Lucas, 2006, p. 15). This creates a troubling cycle when private automobile ownership is accepted as a social norm, public transportation options are scaled back, urban development disperses in density and to the periphery of cities, and negative externalities associated with motorized transportation—namely air and noise pollution and vehicular crashes—become routine and expected (Clifton & Lucas, 2006, p. 16). As a result, populations unable to afford private transportation frequently experience greater physical and social isolation, pressure to expend valuable resources on an automobile, and increased reliance on public transit options frequently facing retrenchment. Furthermore, automobile-centric planning by nature results in traffic congestion, which is then used to justify the construction of additional roads, negatively affecting adjacent communities and redirecting even more public resources from other forms of personal mobility (Newman & Kenworthy, 2000).

Ureta (2008) and Kenyon, Rafferty, and Lyons (2002) suggest that wealthier groups exert disproportionate influence on the transportation planning and policymaking process to secure funding, support, and resources for personal motorized transportation, rendering other groups less involved in the public decision-making process to advocate for other forms of mobility provision. Lutz and Fernandez (2010) extend this argument by suggesting that a car-centric planning paradigm reallocates wealth up the income ladder, exacerbating social and income inequality in the United States, and serving the interests of the powerful. Not only is basic mobility without a personal vehicle a pronounced difficulty in most areas of the country (and such lack of mobility can decrease economic advancement and increase personal debt when car purchases are required) the car-centric system elevates the status of prominent American families who are beneficiaries of vehicle manufacturing operations, oil and gas exploration, and financial firms who support such activities (Lutz & Fernandez, 2010). The former CEO of General Motors, for example, argued in 1952, “what’s good for the country is good for GM and vice versa” (Hirsch, 2008).

Finally, the social norm of car ownership results in transportation planners and educators experiencing a lack of empirical research examining their work. Social justice literature regarding the application of theory to urban planning (Martens, 2012; Martens, Golub, & Robinson, 2012), conceptualization (Farrington & Farrington, 2005), decision-making (Hananel & Berechman, 2016), livability indicators (Miller, Witlox, & Tribby, 2013), and cost benefit analysis (Martens, 2011) provide normative explorations but no empirical contributions to the literature. Empirical studies of socially just transportation planning remain an under filled gap in the literature. A seven-part case study in Belgium into goal displacement found policy conflicts between the social justice discourse and sustainability discourse (Boussauw & Vanoutrive, 2017). Another, 2017 study explored pedestrian and bicycle master plans from 13 major U.S. cities to assess how planners understand and address transportation equity. It revealed significant variation in understanding and implementation of active transportation planning among planners and suggests stronger government oversight may be needed for greater emphasis on active transportation and mobility provision for all groups (Lee, Sener, & Jones, 2017). Finally, in a study that also examined transportation plans, Manaugh, Badami, and El-Geneidy (2015) critically analyzed transportation plans from 18 large American metropolitan areas and found that despite the inclusion of social equity objectives into transportation plans, they lack appropriate indicators, are frequently not translated into specific objectives and are given less importance than car-centered objectives such as reducing congestion. Our work seeks to enhance the literature by contributing an empirical study of socially just transportation planning that derives its normative conclusions from data and practice.

Method

Our research questions are,

To answer these questions, we conducted a discourse analysis which “interrogates the nature of social action by dealing with how actions and/or meanings are constructed in and through text and talk” (Nikander, 2008, p. 415). The aim of a discourse analysis is to study “text in context” (Van Dijk, 1993, p. 96), to provide a “systematic theoretical and descriptive account of the structures and strategies, at various levels, of written and spoken discourse, seen both as a textual ‘object’ and as a form of sociocultural practice and interaction” and the relationship between these texts and interactions with “the relevant structures of their cognitive, social, cultural, and historical ‘contexts’” (Van Dijk, 1993, p. 96). To examine text in context we chose to focus explicitly on planners’ discursive practice regarding the word “improvement.” The popularity of the term among planners and policymakers, coupled with the frequency the term is used in transportation planning documents, made it an appropriate focus to explore the car centeredness of the planning discourse and differences in the planners’ discursive practices surrounding active and public transportation.

Discourse analysis sees language as a form of social practice and focuses on the relationship between language use and the wider social/cultural structures (Titshcer, Meyer, Wodak & Vetter, 2000). This relationship can be understood through three interrelated components: text, discursive practice, and social practice. Texts refer to the language and documents in the corpus and is micro in scope. The discursive practice is focused on interpretation, specifically “which types of discourse (including ‘discourses in the more social-theoretical sense’) are drawn upon and how they are combined” (Fairclough, 1992, p. 4). “The social practice is concerned with organizational or institutional context of the discursive event, how that shapes the nature of the discursive practice, and the constitutive/constructive effects” on the text and discursive practice dimensions (p. 4). It is important to highlight the relationship between the social practice and the discursive practice. The discursive practice is a particular form of a social practice, however they are not interchangeable for the social practice may be composed of discursive and nondiscursive practices (Fairclough, 1992, p. 71). In other words, all discourses contribute to social practice in some way, but social practice is more than just discourse. We will discuss the ramifications for social practice in the conclusion but the analysis of this research is primarily focused on the interplay of text and discourse.

Discourse analysis methodology is often difficult to describe because there is no unitary theoretical framework (Van Dijk, 1997) and the term “discourse” is used in two different but interconnected ways. Discourse refers to “the phenomenon of contextualized real-time utterances in general” (Chilton & Schaffner, 2002, p. 18), or, to state more plainly, generally what transportation planners and officials are saying and communicating. Discourse is also used to reference “the totality of utterances in a society viewed as an autonomous entity in relation of which individuals only have partial self-determination, if any at all,” or in other words “particular sets of utterances and practices [italics added]” such as the discourse of medicine, the discourse of transportation planning, among others (Chilton & Schaffner, 2002, p. 18). There is a symbiotic relationship between the two uses as the real-time utterances contribute to the sets of utterances and are themselves shaped and influenced by the sets of utterances. In essence, discourse analysis is interested in the connection between texts, discourse and social practice.

To illustrate, the City of South Bend, Indiana has its own discourse, comprised of contextualized statements from its strategic plan, policy papers, websites, and so on, which contribute to the broader discourses on planning and transportation but are also shaped by those broader discourses. The discourse from the city, combined with the discourses from other municipalities and other social actors, comprise the set of “utterances and practices” that constitute the discourse of transportation planning, which in turn, shapes social practice. The purpose of this research is to examine the discursive practices of the planners and their understanding of “improvement” to examine how they are challenging and/or sustaining the broader social discourses on transportation planning, including the stakeholders or beneficiaries and a notion of “normal” or “correct” transportation.

Results and Findings

Before we answer what transportation planners and policymakers mean by “improvement” and how such improvements challenge or reinforce the automobile-centric ideology dominant in American transportation planning, we will first provide an overview of the corpus of texts for context.

Upon initial review of the corpus we found planners were using the terms “improvement” and “enhance” along with their variants (improvement and improves, enhancement and enhances, respectively) frequently and almost interchangeably in the 262-text corpus. The term “improve” was used more than 10,000 times in the documents, whereas “enhance” occurred in 2,232 instances. In total there were 12,330 references to “improve” and “enhance.” Of the cities, Burbank, California had the fewest uses of the terms, with 42 references to “improve” and 28 in reference to “enhance,” for a total of 70 utterances. Providence, Rhode Island mentioned “improve”mpro times, and “enhance”n87 times for a total of 523 utterances. Cities tended to use “improve” more than “enhance” but all cities in the sample included multiple references to these terms in their documents. The frequency with which transportation planners are using these terms in their texts is itself notable. More than 12,000 uses in fewer than 300 documents indicates the terms are not just occasional descriptors but represent a deeper mind-set. The ubiquity of the terms used makes including every example from the texts prohibitive; instead we have provided the most illustrative example from the coded data in our discussion of the analysis and results.

Overall, our research found that “improvement” is frequently used by transportation planners in ways different than the commonly understood meaning. From the data, the three following themes emerged: (a) transportation projects benefiting drivers remain the primary context in which infrastructure changes are seen as improvements with the locus remaining the personal automobile and the act of driving; (b) contrary to critics, there are abundant examples in which improvement is used to describe transportation infrastructure construction or modifications benefiting car-free transportation users (i.e., pedestrians, bicyclists, and transit riders), but with important caveats; and (c) the way in which policymakers discuss transportation modifications perceived as improvements benefiting the two groups of travelers, car-free users and automobile users, differs remarkably. It is important to note that the themes overlap and are mutually reinforcing—the primary focus is the personal automobile; car-free transportation improvements are discussed, but not in relation to car-centered transportation and infrastructure, and justified because of its value to economic development; planners and policymakers, justify their case for transportation improvements by highlighting the benefits to personal drivers and alternative transportation but their discourse reveals their car-centered ideology.

Theme 1: The Primacy of the Driver

Theme 2: Car-Free Transportation

As noted earlier, very little social justice transportation research draws on empirical work, a gap this work seeks to rectify. The discursive practices of planners and policymakers regarding car-free modes of transportation—primarily transit users, pedestrians, and bicyclists—reveals the contexts in which projects are seen by transportation planners and policymakers as improvements. Within the discussion of active transportation, however, important caveats arise. First, projects aimed at improving car-free modes of transportation are relegated to narrow contexts and largely absent in the broader transportation discourse. Second, active transportation projects are often justified with language that reveals the intended beneficiaries of active transportation projects are often not the active transportation users themselves but corporations and businesses which operate in an economy built around the personal automobile.

Theme 3: Supremacy of the Car

The discursive practices policymakers and transportation planners use to describe improvement projects designed for private automobile users displays considerable differences from the discourse that policymakers and planners use to describe improvements for active transportation users. In describing the practices used to designate improvements for motorists, it is important to draw a distinction that not only are the types of improvement projects different from active transportation projects, but the way in which the projects are discussed as well as the rationale provided for the improvements differs significantly between the modes of transportation.

One example from a Trenton, New Jersey elected official utilizes language that is often used to discuss improvements in ways that benefit the safety of motorists to the arguable exclusion of other road users: “Necessary improvements to the infrastructure of our roads and bridges not only ensure that our communities are safer for motorists, but are vital to enhanced traffic flow” (State of New Jersey, 2015, emphasis added). In this example, classifying infrastructural changes as “necessary improvements” arguably conveys a sense of responsibility and urgency for these projects that seek to improve motorists’ safety. This differs markedly from the discourse and reasoning used to describe projects seeking to improve safety for active transportation users which, in our collected documents, never involved the word “necessary.”

When car-based infrastructure projects were discussed as improving safety, in no instance was the safety of non-automobile users mentioned. In every instance, “safety” referred to car drivers and their passengers. Indeed, many readers will note that enlarging roadways frequently has a deleterious effect on the safety of adjacent pedestrians, cyclists, and transit users, so one notable difference in discussion between the two groups is simply the absence of safety improvements for non-automobile users. Pensacola’s Sorrento Road Plan provides an example in which specific discursive practices are utilized to portray improvements in a manner that emphasizes and prioritizes the enhanced safety of car users. One project in the Sorrento Road Plan under consideration is intended to widen an existing two-lane arterial to four lanes, and is described as achieving safety objectives: “This project is needed for capacity enhancements and improved safety,” although readers are left to speculate about whether the safety of pedestrians will likewise be improved.

Relatedly, even when active transportation safety is discussed, we find it is contained within a car-centric framework. Specifically, discussions of “improving” safety for bicyclists and pedestrians is limited to addressing interactions between vehicles and active transportation users. Considerations for how the built transportation environment affects other aspects of individual safety is startlingly absent.

Another difference in discussion is that benefits to the carless minority are frequently omitted in the documents we reviewed, even when a particular project will also be to their benefit. This can be seen in a public official’s remarks to the media regarding a resurfacing project affecting six city roads with vehicular and bicycle lanes in Grand Junction, Colorado: “It makes the city look nice neat and clean for one thing, but it also provides for a good riding surface for the vehicles for many years.” Despite both motorists and bicyclists benefiting as a result of the proposed resurfacing project, qualifying the statement with the group that benefits from these projects as motorists arguably reveals the public official’s situatedness.

As detailed in Theme 1, mentions of “improving”mthe driving experience is pervasive in the data. However, discussions of the car-free user’s experience is largely absent. In the rare examples where street amenities such as shade trees, benches, and pedestrian-scale street lighting are discussed, the justifications do not parallel the same concern for user experience as features aimed to “improve driver frustration,m despite obvious implications of street amenities on bicycle and pedestrian user experience. Considering the differences in discussion reveals the supremacy of the car in transportation planning and policymaking. That is, personal automobiles and the act of driving operates a privileged position in the discourse, which rewards one mode of travelsion reveals the supremacy of the car in transportation pl

Discussion

This research provided an empirical exploration of social justice transportation and planning, drawing on a large data set, with important ramifications for scholars and practitioners.’ Before we discuss the ramifications of our findings we must first address a few limitations of the study. This was a qualitative study exploring 50 cities, and while it aimed to be both rigorous and comprehensive, the results are not generalizable. Although research validity can be difficult to establish in qualitative research, let alone in a methodology as challenging and nebulous as discourse analysis, the researchers went to great lengths to account for research bias and have, through the transparency and replicability of the research design, sought to provide both external and internal validity to the results. In terms of reliability, the third researcher was excluded from analyzing the corpus of texts but did review a sample of documents to account for dependability and researcher bias. The third researcher’s reliability test was not incorporated into the analysis.

Although our findings are not applicable to the broader field of transportation planning, they have value for both academics and practitioners. For scholars, the results are further confirmation of how deep the car-centeredness of U.S. transportation planning practice remains. But for a profession nested within the domain of public works, we argue the dominance of transportation planners’ concern for private transportation runs contrary to the very publicness of their role as public administrators. We find that the discourse reinforces the idea that private transportation is viewed as the “correct” mode of transportation, which has vast implications for the ability for public works officials to address pressing issues of public relevance, including but not limited to, climate change and public health concerns including air quality and obesity.

The extensive and frequent use of “improvement” may signal the need for planning programs and instructors to address car-centeredness in our teaching and pedagogy. Planners are not learning a car-centered discourse in a vacuum, and as a field we need to critically reflect on the implications of this discourse and our role in perpetuating it. For planning practitioners, the findings suggest their work is guided by deeply unacknowledged assumptions that need to be critically unpacked. Finally, the results of the study demonstrate the need for a diversity of stakeholders and participants in transportation planning. If our training programs, classrooms, and planning meetings are full of people who prioritize independent automobile driving, even subconsciously, policies will continue to advantage automobiles at the expense of other forms of mobility provision.

In view of the above findings, we contend that transportation planners and policymakers truly believe that the infrastructural changes and expansions they are labeling as “improvements” do, indeed, make traveling better, and the experience of traveling of higher quality. However, we assert that the casual use of improvement illustrated above, instead of “change” or “expand,” to describe a wide variety of infrastructural changes focuses the public’s attention on drivers’ needs and experiences to the exclusion of the needs of pedestrians, cyclists, transit users, or pressing environmental concerns including air quality degradation and its effects on vulnerable populations. The improvements being proposed are, by definition, improvements only for a specific group of people—drivers—and, frequently, disimprovements for other groups of people—cyclists, pedestrians, transit users, and people who live adjacent to the roadway.

If residents, for example, now experience higher volumes of traffic outside their homes as a result of a roadway expansion, or if pedestrians must now cross twice as many travel lanes, what is touted as an “improvement” might be an improvement for some (motorists) but, is arguably a disimprovement for other street users. In other words, “improvement” is not a universal claim; infrastructure projects described as improvements often have multiple dimensions and varying implications, as this article illustrates. Therefore, pervasive use of the term “improvement” within the transportation discourse privileges the mobility needs of some under the guise of benefiting everyone, and as a result, at times fails to sufficiently capture the true impact of the transportation changes. As Hanson (1995) as well as Bullard et al. (2000) argue, transportation administrators have an obligation to work to meet the mobility needs of the marginalized, and intentional language choice is one important avenue to begin to reflect such commitment.

Specific language choice may seem a trivial matter to some, but social action is in part determined by discursive practice and discourses are the sum of the texts. By selecting “improvement” to describe the infrastructural changes, transportation planners, and policymakers, exercising official power as a spokesperson for a public entity speaking to an entire community, are embedding institutionalized practices favoring the private automobile, potentially suffocating policy alternatives, and possibly ignoring perspectives of members of the community with reduced amounts of power to affect transportation policymaking.

Conclusion

Through use of a discourse analysis this research aimed to explore (a) what do planners and policymakers mean by improvements? and (b) how do these improvements challenge or reinforce car-centered transportation planning? An analysis of city documents revealed transportation planners use improvement to describe a broad array of infrastructure projects but they often use it to mean “change or enhance,h as opposed to “make better or enhance quality.” Second, the two most prominent discourses promoted by transportation planners were improvements that emphasized the needs of drivers and the need for improvements, for both active and public transportation, for the purpose of economic development. Finally, transportation planners’ discursive practices highlighted projects’ibenefits for the driving experience and motorist convenience and discussed the specifics and rationales of active transportation projects differently than public and active transportation projects. Even when an improvement benefited both vehicular and car-free transportation users, public statements centered on the automotive advantages.

In terms of practical implications for transportation policy planners, two connected questions arise. First, what can changing a word actually accomplish? Or is this, perhaps, much ado about nothing? We contend language usage does matter for a number of reasons. The word “improvement” and its variations were used more than 10,000 times within our research sample. The frequency and ubiquity of the seemingly objective, value-laden term contributes to the car-centered discourse which helps perpetuate car-centered policy, and while it may be in the interest of the elected policy makers, public relations consultants and the media to sell these plans as “improvements,” it is not in the interest of public works and transportation administrators. Transportation and public works have a responsibility to serve the entire public, not just the constituents in a winner-take-all democracy and the most politically valuable stakeholders. To put it more bluntly, they serve the public, not the car-driving public.

With trust in government at an all-time low and anti-statist bias a fixture of the culture, transportation policymakers should be careful with their language. In the era of fake news, transportation planners may contribute to this social practice through their slippery use of terms. If a project is an expansion of existing infrastructure, it should be labeled as such and not described as an improvement. Public works and transportation managers have an ethical responsibility to be honest, and this includes the language they use. Finally, changing transportation policymakers use of “improvements” will contribute to social practice as it will require them to be specific about who benefits and no longer paint car-centered improvements as benefits for all.

If transportation planners were to alter their car-centered discourse, this leads to the second question; how would that help improve nondrivers’ access to transportation policy planning? The documents reflect transportation planners’ mind-set which then affects the audience’s mind-set on these policy issues. The purpose of changing transportation policymakers’ and planners’ discourse is not to affect one specific aim (as worthy as the goals of greater minority participation is); the purpose is to create public documents which provide the public important resources for policy information and deliberation, that better serve their communities by not excluding portions of the population from the texts, and by extension, the discussion. Transportation planners need to be cognizant and thoughtful about the language they use in these public documents.

In this regard critical discourse analysis holds particular value for transportation and public works managers interested in contributing to a fairer, more equitable transportation system. Discourse analysis is interested in the relationship between text, discourse, and social practice so planners could review their texts, examining them for who was involved in their creation, who was left out, how the problem is framed, evidence of bias (both explicit and implicit), what’s not being discussed, an so on, to understand their discursive practice. Next they will try to understand the dynamic between the discursive practice and social practice. For example, the agency might be struggling with drawing participation and engagement from a minority neighborhood that has been adversely affected by climate change (a social practice) and review their texts (marketing materials, websites, information provided—including transportation plans) for ways their discursive practices are inhibiting or encouraging participation. By reflexively unpacking their own meaning and its relationship to social practice, these agencies can begin to question assumptions and expand transportation policy to represent more people and open deliberation to other, heretofore ignored, voices and alternative policy ideas.

While this research presents an important empirical contribution to transportation planning, more questions remain. Future research needs to explore the private creation of these public documents to reveal who was at the table and how these public documents did were produced. Scholars and practitioners must also unpack where planning’s car centeredness derives from. Discourse analyses of transportation planning text books, syllabi, academic journals, accrediting bodies, and professional associations may help to illuminate the primacy of car centeredness in transportation planning.