This look backwards from the year 2020 sees the eighties and nineties to have been a low point in productivity in the surface transportation sector. The provision of public infrastructure--transportation infrastructure and services, highway and transit--appeared to have been isolated from the economic expression of consumer demand andfrom effective means of responding innovatively to its market. The key question facing transportation professionals at the close of thetwentieth century was, what kind of a transportation system did a postindustrial service economy, geography, and society really need, and how was society going to shape it and pay for it. Highlights are included of the actual developments that have taken place by the year 2020, which have included such things as the automated vehicle operation that allows both 14-year-olds and 84-year-olds to operate vehicles, and the stratoliner which will carry the author of this paperfrom his boston conference in the morning to paris for his afternoon meeting. This paper appears in transportation research record no. 1243, Future of statewide transportation planning.
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