William W. Boyer Lecture

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.WILLIAM W. BOYER LECTURE SERIES  

“Shifting Gears: Toward a more equitable and sustainable transportation system”  

Susan Handy, Ph.D. Professor, Department of Environmental Science and Policy, University of California at Davis 

Thursday, April 2, 2026 • 4:00pm  
Amherst Room, Campus Center  
University of Massachusetts Amherst 

The transportation system in the U.S. has been shaped by a core set of ideas that are embedded in professional practice. These ideas – freedom, speed, mobility, vehicles, capacity, hierarchy, separation, control, and technology – have produced a system in which most people are dependent on driving, with all the negative consequences that entails.Shifting to a system that is both equitable and sustainable requires a shift in thinking on the part of the transportation profession. In this talk, I take a critical look at the way of thinking that, for the last century, has shaped our transportation system and consider the ways in which that thinking is – and is not – shifting.  

Free and open to all. Reception to immediately follow. 

Professor William W. Boyer was instrumental in the development of the UMass Transportation Program in the 1950s, 60s and 70s.