Norman Garrick on the Past, Present, and Future of Transportation

UConn's esteemed professor emeritus talks what else but slow streets and ...engineers with communications skills?

We should all be so lucky to move to Zürich after years of meticulous planning and an illustrious career in education and action, but one such person is the inimitable Norman Garrick, Professor Emeritus and engineer plenipotentiary, whose work spans decades and whose legacy will last decades more. Three things drew me to seek out Professor Garrick for a chat: his work as a context-sensitive engineer (more on that), his piece for CityLab, and a timely and timeless inclusion in a New York Times article from 2021. I had a question: what more do you know?

The answer is, of course, a lot. Our conversation was a treasure trove of new heuristics and deepthinks, in the best way possible. But don’t take my word for it, take about 2000.

This conversation has been edited for length, clarity, and timeliness. The great and terrible thing about our industry is that the problems continue to be evergreen.