About the Event
Cities face growing pressure to improve safety, reduce emissions, and expand economic opportunity while managing congestion and limited infrastructure capacity. Can transportation policy advance these goals at the same time? In this webinar, Andrew Waxman, Associate Professor at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin, examines how transportation policy shapes commuting behavior, residential location decisions, environmental outcomes, and access to jobs. Drawing on research on congestion pricing, real-time roadway pricing, commuting patterns, and vehicle emissions, the session explores how transportation policy affects both travel behavior and the broader organization of cities.
Participants will explore:
- Why policies that appear similar from a congestion standpoint can produce very different economic and distributional outcomes
- What real-time pricing reveals about how travelers value reliability and urgency
- How transportation policy shapes job access and the spatial structure of cities
- Why lasting emissions reductions often require reducing vehicle use, not just cleaner vehicles
- What current debates over gas taxes, funding, and implementation mean for cities
About the Speaker
Andrew Waxman is an Associate Professor at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin. An applied microeconomist, his research examines the intersection of urban policy, transportation, environmental outcomes, and inequality. His work focuses on how household decisions about where to live and work shape commuting patterns, energy use, and emissions, and how policies such as congestion pricing and public transit investments affect economic opportunity and urban form.
Presented by
This event is part of a National Urban Labs Convening exploring innovation, governance, and inclusion in the age of AI. It is hosted by the Inclusive Economic Development Lab (IEDL) at Yale School of Management and the LBJ Urban Lab at The University of Texas at Austin, in collaboration with the Urban Labs Convening Network.
This event is co-sponsored with the LBJ School of Public Affairs Urban Lab.