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p>Lee Schipper at TRB. Photo by Ethan Arpi.

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p>Every year in January, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences Transportation Research Board holds it’s annual meeting.

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p>Wrapping up Sunday afternoon’s discussion, Lee Schipper, EMBARQ’s Research Director, asked fellow transportation gurus the “million dollar” question: Why do governments and funders tackling transportation problems so often pursue high-cost solutions, like highways and rail systems, when there are solutions like Bus Rapid Transit that are tried, true, and cheap?

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p>During EMBARQ’s Sunday session at the Transportation Review Board’s annual meeting I noticed that one of the day’s ongoing discussion topics dealt with the relationship between transportation policy and class politics. Transportation policy affects all citizens, but it does not always do so uniformly.