[sustran] Obituary: Martin Mogridge

[SUSTRAN Network Secretariat]

Sad news forwarded from the pednet-list.  Some of Mogridge's writings have
been quite and inspiration to me. And another former physicist!

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The Times
March 17 2000 
OBITUARIES

Transport planner who saw the folly of building ever more roads 

            MARTIN MOGRIDGE 

Martin Mogridge, transport theorist, was born on December 2, 1940. He died
on February 29 aged 59, after a stroke 

  MARTIN MOGRIDGE applied his insights as a scientist to
  the ebb and flow of traffic. In doing so he demonstrated the
  validity of two significant paradoxes. 

  The first is that in congested conditions, building more road
  capacity for cars makes both motorists and users of public
  transport worse off. By encouraging a shift from public
  transport to cars it fills up the new road space, makes public
  transport less frequent and more expensive, and results in a
  new equilibrium that is slower for all. The second paradox
  follows from the first: taxing the inefficient road user (the
  motorist) and subsidising the efficient (on buses and trains)
  will make all travellers better off. 

  These arguments have been at the heart of the policy
  reversal that led to the abandoning of the expensive and
  damaging urban roadbuilding programmes that dominated
  postwar transport planning. That their implementation lagged
  so far behind their academic acceptance was a source of
  great frustration to Mogridge, but the most that he ever
  betrayed was mild exasperation. He was a self-effacing,
  gentle man who expected his logic to speak for itself. 

  Having taken a doctorate in physics, Martin Mogridge
  worked for the Greater London Council almost from its
  inception until 1978, when he moved to the Centre for
  Transport Studies at University College London. 

  From 1993 he ran his own consultancy. His most important
  client was London Transport, which he provided with powerful
  arguments for more investment in the public sector. 

  With his long hair and leather trousers, he brought an exotic
  flair to the mundane world of transport planning. He delighted
  in keeping people guessing. His thought processes were
  eclectic, inscrutable and unpredictable. 

  There was much more to him than transport planning. His
  literary interests ranged from science-fiction to Victorian
  erotica. A few years before his death he took up the study of
  Hebrew. He was a member of the Interplanetary Society, a
  body devoted to promoting the exploration of outer space. 

  He is survived by his wife, Jackie. 

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Distributed for the purpose of education and research.

A. Rahman Paul BARTER
Sustainable Transport Action Network for Asia
and the Pacific (the SUSTRAN Network)
P.O. Box 11501, Kuala Lumpur 50748, Malaysia.
E-mail: sustran at po.jaring.my
URL: http://www.malaysiakini.com/sustran

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