UC ITS Scholar Spotlight: Daniel A. Rodríguez

Rodriguez Daniel Director, UC Berkeley Institute of Transportation Studies
Chancellor’s Professor, Department of City and Regional Planning
University of California, Berkeley

What are your present research interests? 

I work on the reciprocal connection between transportation and land development—how transportation affects where development happens, and vice versa. I also look at how development influences where and how we travel, by what mode, and with whom.
If a residential area is dense and walkable, or has good transit access, do we travel differently than if it’s suburban, or more auto oriented? Do we have distinct travel patterns depending on where we live? I also focus on what that connection means for other aspects of urban development.

What types of projects are you currently working on?

I am currently working on several research projects focused on the health impacts of transportation and urban development. For example, bicycling or walking to places may have a positive impact on health through exercise, but it could also have some negative impacts. If we’re walking along a busy road, but cars are spewing lots of emissions, then that’s a negative for our health and well-being. 

What would you consider your most significant research finding or accomplishment thus far?  

There are a couple of very interesting research findings that I’d highlight. One is that we’re seeing increasing evidence that it is not so much how long people travel…45 minutes, an hour, an hour and a half…but rather travel delay, commonly referred to as traffic congestion, that seems to explain the impact of transportation on mental health. We’ve all experienced this. Some of us actually choose to take a longer route to our destination so long as we’re moving since we detest being in stop and go traffic or just stopped and not moving.

So, it’s that travel delay that seems to be mostly associated with depressive symptoms rather than overall travel time. That’s a novel finding maybe from the last five, seven years. 

I would say the other major finding is really how much transit contributes to people’s health through walking, taking into account the fact that a lot of people walk quite far to get to and from transit. Transit is a wonderful drug, a miracle drug, in the sense that about 20, 22, 23 percent of Americans get the levels of physical activity recommended by the Surgeon General just from walking to and from transit. 

We’ve looked at other countries and it’s the same. Transit riders are walking much more than they think. So transit’s benefit is kind of hidden in terms of how much walking and exercise people get. And it is a quite effective means to encourage people to walk more.

What issues in transportation keep you up at night?  

There are two things around transportation finance that keep me up at night. 

One is how should public transportation be funded given the challenges that we currently see in terms of financing? That is enormous. I think public transportation is in for a major reckoning. I don’t think that there’s going to be much of an appetite in the future to keep throwing money at it.

And related to that, we need to face the lack of a stable revenue source for transportation generally as more and more people switch to electric vehicles, which in California is about 25 percent of all new vehicles sold. In California, we raise money for transportation infrastructure primarily through the gas tax. That’s going away because of electric vehicle sales, which is a good thing, but policymakers and researchers need to put our heads together to consider other sources of revenue exist that are fair, equitable, stable, and predictable, so that we can maintain our roads, our sidewalks, make sure that the buses are running, and do everything else that needs to happen for California’s transportation system to operate.

Is there someone that has inspired you or your work?  

Absolutely. There are a number of people that have done really remarkable things for urban transportation. Those individuals have been a big inspiration. 

I want to call out three people in particular. Joe Sussman was a great systems thinker, connecting transportation organizations to information flows and the need for regional thinking. Ralph Gakenheimer, who recently passed away, always highlighted the importance of informal transportation and some of our ‘forgotten’ transportation modes, especially for low income residents. And Jonathan Levine who speaks with lucidity and clarity about the concept of accessibility.

In a more general way, from my hometown in Bogota, the implementation of the bus rapid transit system was very significant. The rapid buses that many world cities have now, including some in California, were part of an incredible paradigm shift worldwide. It resulted in a dramatic transformation of public transportation for cities around the world.

I admire the tenacity and the vision that those decision makers had to make these things happen. 

What are you reading right now? 

 A book called The Bitch from a Colombian author, Pilar Quintana. It’s a beautiful book about the Pacific Coast in Colombia and a female dog who was abandoned and adopted by this person. It’s the story of their relationship and basically how the dog sometimes escapes and goes into the rainforest. The dog comes back off and on and they have this beautiful subtle connection. Through that, this author has just a fantastic way of describing the landscape in ways that are hard to convey. It’s very stimulating and just has gorgeous prose. 

Is there anything that you’re watching or streaming right now? 

I’m streaming a few different shows. Fisk, which is an Australian comedy. It’s really funny, very dark humor, but enjoyable. Babylon Berlin, which is a German series on Netflix. It’s dark and serious. It’s not a comedy. I’m also watching The Man in the High Castle, which was on Amazon until recently. A dystopian alternative history that makes you think about the past and future. 

What is a fun fact about you?  

I love to ride my bicycle to most places. Not exactly everywhere, but I ride my bicycle a lot, including for recreation. I go for very long bike rides.

What’s something about you that people don’t know?  

I have one chicken and one dog at home. I used to have four chickens but sadly three have passed away.

What is your superpower? 

Empathy. Sometimes it’s loaded with kryptonite, too. Once you empathize too much, it can actually prevent you from being able to move ahead or make a decision.