This year, the UCLA Lake Arrowhead Symposium presents  Not ‘Back to Normal’:  Mapping a Just Transportation Recovery from COVID-19, a remote learning series that will explore transportation conditions before, during, and after COVID-19. 

Since the COVID-19 outbreak, transportation agencies have suffered a profound shock, after already struggling with ages of system-wide inequities and inefficiencies. The intensity and speed with which COVID-19 spread through communities around the globe forced quick and often difficult adaptations by the industry. These challenges were exacerbated by transportation’s history of rigid and slow-changing systems. 

Returning “back to normal” would mean returning to an era of declining transit ridership, chronic congestion, unsafe streets, regressive finance, and persistent mobility challenges for economically and socially-vulnerable populations. 

Presentations drawing from the University of California Institute of Transportation Studies COVID-19 Response and Recovery Research Initiative will showcase changes made during the COVID-19 impacted period across multiple areas of focus including:

From these sessions, attendees will gain a broader understanding of how new policy and planning decisions made during this period will shape transportation’s future.

The series will also highlight the work of transportation practitioners and advocates working on a just post-COVID transition.