Chapter 1: The Machine for Access

In 1923, renowned architect Le Corbusier authored what is largely considered to be the best-selling architecture book of all time, Vers Une Architecture ("Towards a New Architecture"). Within the pages of his impassioned manifesto, he claimed that “A house is a machine for living.” Architecture, he claimed, is able to improve people's lives. For Le Corbusier, Victorian cities were chaotic and dark prisons for many of their inhabitants; he was convinced that a rationally planned city could offer a healthy, humane alternative. Contemporary planning initiatives suggest the time is ripe to revisit this metaphor, albeit on a larger scale.

Much of land use-transportation planning today aims to reduce average vehicular delays, increase passenger throughput, and in general, keep traffic flowing smoothly and safety. The barometers used to measure such attributes include hours of delay, speed of traffic, number of cars in congestion. Such barometers have become accepted lore among populations from both the transportation industry and popular culture. Newspapers around the country wait eagerly for the well-known annual rankings from the Texas Transportation Institute to relay to their residents how well (or in a perverse sense of pride, how poorly) their city is performing.