The following article was adapted from a paper presented by Bob Skinner, executive director of the Transportation Research Board, at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory on June 9, 2000. This paper was also the basis for remarks by Skinner to the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) Research Advisory Committee Meeting on July 31, 2000. Speculating about how transportation in the United States may evolve in the first few decades of this new century is clearly ambitious, and given the scale of our transportation system, it can be approached only partially. It is risky because everyone is a transportation expert — that is, most of us are not only customers but also operators of the system. And it is a bit presumptuous because talking about the future of transportation inevitably takes one well beyond transportation; it is intertwined with our lifestyles, our economic well-being, and our environment.
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