In the LATimes today, James Rainey discussed the "war-correspondent" approach of the media in reporting southern California wildfires. The "inexorable 'march' of fire across the mountains", the "counterattack", the "air assault". He observed, as did I, a constant questioning as to why some planes are on the ground and not fighting the fire. This simply suggests that those reporters haven't done their homework or just don't have a clue. But it was a short article on the Hidden Springs Tavern that really caught my eye. The information officer for the fire fighting effort was reported as saying "It was completely razed". I certainly don't blame the spokesman for the redundancy spoken in the heat of battle (my bad!) but I cannot excuse the LATimes' Victoria Kim for reporting it and then invoking her own military analogy: "With no more fuel to consume, the fire had moved on, sparing only a couple of trailers." There's something mesmerizing about watching these fires; to others, there's also something memerizing about watching car chases. In either case, if you want to keep the picture on, I recommend you keep the sound off.

I've always thought that the typical capitalist model of ever growing population, markets, and economies was not sustainable, long before sustainability was a buzzword. But I never found a good analogy until reading Stan Stalnaker in the Harvard Business Review [19aug2009] who presents a cancer analogy. "Continuous growth can't be sustained in living things. It's likewise unsustainable (and undesirable) in business."

A column by David Lazarus in the LATimes business section today entitled "A tough sell for public transit" provided many choice sound bites. Media love them because you get an expert summarizing the problem and sometimes a potential solution in very few words as if to close the book on the matter.

"I rode just about every form of public transit imaginable...". It's always a short stay in a foreign city that makes people say "Why can't we have this here?". If you want that sort of getting around, make your next stay permanent. Or move to New York. The biggest difference between those who love living in big cities and using public transit and those who don't is that those who do can't comprehend why those who don't don't. Regarding NYC, Lazarus says "Who'd even consider the hassles of driving and parking in Manhatten when you can take the subway instead?" Wrong question. Most people would not even consider living in NYC, in part because they do like to consider driving and parking. And have you waited for a rush hour train in NYC lately? Or priced an apartment?

The chances of public transit becoming a viable option in southern California in the near future is, as the sound bite provided by Marty Wachs suggests, not likely unless we "discourage the use of cars". In other words, people are making choices and these choices are not for transit. Robert Cervero wrote a wishful book about the "Transit Metropolis" but concluded that it would likely take strong car disincentives such as $4 per gallon fuel. While there were some signs of reduced VMT last summer when fuel prices went way over that, it did not have a huge (nor long lasting) effect. But we know all of this. Evidence suggests, however, that we don't exactly know why. Not that this would stop the sound bites.

Consider Lazarus' discussion of high speed rail. How often to you see high speed rail mentioned with the benefit of congestion relief? What congestion will be relieved? Fast intercity rail will not reduce metropolitan congestion. Fast metropolitan rail barely has any effect. But such comments sound good.

Brian Taylor provides several sound bites. "We now keep the cost of driving as cheap as we possibly can." Replace the word "driving" with "education", or "heath care", or public goods, in general. Or even with public transit, as in "We keep the cost of public transit as cheap as we possibly can." These are good things, right? What we do need to do is to address the negative impacts of driving choices, such as air quality, by making sure that the cost of polluting is borne by those who pollute.

But what is proposed? Charge more for parking and for road tolls just to get people out of their cars? No mention of the costs and benefits to society. Taylor also thinks that the cost of gax taxes need to go way up. I agree. But if we spend this money on cross-subsidizing transit, the funds available to maintain the highway system, which is also used by freight and transit systems, will decrease, as will the subsidy for transit itself. If transit is to be successful, it needs a direct source of revenue, not a cross-subsidy. Taylor's conclusion that, under the current model, more ridership would generate more revenue is very misleading. Since every transit rider covers only about 25% of their total cost, while revenue may increase, costs will increase faster. Where does this "cities good and suburbs bad, bus good and car bad" mentality arise?

David Boyce says we should focus on land use. We should, but for some reason, our transportation agencies historically seem to have been told that land use is not their business. What Lazarus did not mention about any foreign city where transit "works" is that the land use pattern has developed to support first walking then public transit since the city's beginning. The variety of shops, cafes, and other land uses at transit stops supports transit use. In the US, I guess we could locate transit stations inside of a Costco, but that would only work if we put high density condos on top of the Costco.

Lazarus realizes the political infeasibility of changing land use and transportation patterns, even if he never defines the associated problems (again, driving a car is not a problem; pollution and other impacts can be). So this would be a good time to mention that virtually all transportation agency boards are politicians, elected for other office and appointed to the board, with nary a single transportation professional elected, or even appointed, to the board. I think we need less professional sound bites and more professional decision-making.

Today a meeting was moved up an hour. A colleague used the term "preponed". I always took the term "postponed" to imply indefiniteness, a deferment to a later but unspecified time. In that light, how would one realistically "prepone" a meeting?

Jerry Amante, chairman of the TCA, quickly responded to the Shriver/Reynolds opinion piece in the LATimes (see 10 March 2009 below) stating that the article "regurgitates deceits from an anti-road, pro-gridlock campaign". Talk about "regurgitating deceits". While "the TCA and other planning agencies" do, collectively, deal with all modes of transportation, the TCA by itself does not (how about "Kobe Bryant and Mike McNally are keeping the Lakers at the top of the NBA"). The TCA is a one goal entity. Build and operate the full tollroad network as initially planned.

The county's master plan is just that: a plan, by design, intended to provide broad guidance and to evolve over time. Broad master plans do not reflect specific problems on specific projects and it was certainly never envisioned to plow a state road through a state park. All issues might have been considered but the results are clearly not "balanced". Our county's transportation authority, OCTA, together with Caltrans, both of whom consider all aspects of transportation planning for the county, the region, and the state, should be the only agencies planning for the future. The TCA is simply not authorized to be "balanced".

And, ignoring for the moment the continued incorrect use of the term "gridlock" by those who should know, is there really anyone who is pro-gridlock? In particular, are there any environmentalists who think wasting energy and polluting the environment is a good thing?

In an editorial in today's LA Times, Bobby Shriver and Joel Reynolds propose a broader course for the TCA to undertake since the denial of their appeal to the feds to approve the Foothill South tollroad. While they are right on regarding the problems with the Foothill South, they missed the bus regarding a revised role for the TCA. The TCA was created as a "one trick pony" -- build a tollroad network in Orange County, their sole raison d'etre. The state legislature chartered the TCA for nothing more than expediancy. It was a bad idea then and it remains a bad idea to have such a public agency independent of conventional regional planning agencies. We have OCTA and Caltrans to handle these tasks. The legislature should revoke the TCA charter and transfer any further planning and design, if not operations and management, to OCTA and Caltrans.

If an entity is "too big to fail", then it is too big to exist.

A singularity becomes manifold. Ashes to ashes and dust to dust.

Problem: To much demand for the capacity available in the peak hour.
Solution: Congestion pricing. Clearly the solution, so say the economists and the private sector proponents who stand to prosper from such a policy change.

I'm talking about highway congestion, right? At least that's what you assumed.

What about public transit? We've known for decades that the public transit problem IS the "peak hour demand exceeds supply" problem. Without the peak problem, we could reduce transit fleets and costs substantially, so...

Why don't we price people off transit during these congested times? In fact, don't pricing proponents expect that those who are priced off the higher utility roads will move to the lower utility transit systems, exacerbating the already improperly priced transit problem?

I smell a Nobel Prize in Economics (except that there's not actually a Nobel Prize in Economics; rather, a Swedish Bank created a prize that emulates the original Nobel Prizes -- I'll still take the cash).

Someone has proposed that $50 million be spent to string a stainless steel net under the Golden Gate Bridge to catch jumpers. If these depressed people really were calling out for help, I would think that a less definitive action than bridge jumping would be in the cards. If they want to die, they will just find another way to do so.

All this attention on getting people to register to vote but virtually nothing on getting them to pay attention to the issues as a necessary pre-requisite. If so many registered voters don't exercise the privilege they have, maybe it's because they just don't understand the choices. So wouldn't someone who understood the real choices be registered already? If you want to sign up new voters, the day after election day would be the perfect time to start the process.

At the end of last summer (see September 2007, US Secretary of Transportation Mary Peters said: "The daily frustration of drivers on our roadways is ample evidence that our current transportation model is broken, and that bold thinking and leadership are needed. We're never going to solve congestion with higher federal gas taxes or additional earmarks; instead, we need fresh approaches like new technology, congestion pricing and greater private sector investment to get Americans moving again."

Congestion was the problem: "we need ... new technology, congestion pricing, and greater private sector investment to get Americans moving again."

Fast forward about a year, and Peters said: "By driving less and using more fuel-efficient vehicles, Americans are showing us that the highways of tomorrow cannot be supported solely by the federal gas tax. We must embrace more sustainable funding sources for highways and bridges through more sustainable and effective ways such as congestion pricing and private activity bonds." [FHWA Press Release]

Different problem but apparently the same solution. First, we have too much traffic. Now we have too little. In either case we need new technology, congestion pricing, and private sector investment.

Technology can do only two things. It can increase capacity through more efficient use of existing infrastructure and services (increasing traffic and thus increasing road revenue, ceteris paribus), and it can facilitate pricing (thus decreasing traffic with likely increases in revenue). And the private sector? For their investment, they will make a profit. In fact, new technology and congestion pricing must each involve the private sector, and private sector profits. And this is what Peters, the Bush administration, and the private sector want.

This is not about transit versus highways. This is not even about different mechanisms for funding transportation systems. This is simply another attempt to privatize transportation... at least those components where there's a profit to be made.

Waterboarding. Subject all proponents to said torture. If they stick to their story that it isn't torture, then I'll believe them. If they change their mind and say that it is torture, then I'll believe that it is, whether they truly believe it or if they were just tortured into saying so.

Too many cars? Let's price them off the road. Essentially, demand exceeds capacity and pricing can remove those trips. But how do we provide for this supressed demand? Pricing proponents would direct this demand to less congested periods and to public transit. While it may be hard to envision now, what would happen if public transit systems become congested? Should these systems be subject to congestion pricing?

Guess what? Public transit systems are already congested. The biggest problem in providing public transit is not the low level of ridership in off-peak hours; rather it's the excessive demand during the peak hours that requires a larger fleet size, larger vehicles, and more drivers, resulting in many vehicles and paid drivers that sit unused in the off-peak or large empty vehicles in service with little demand to balance the costs of operations. Shouldn't we price people off of transit so that we can avoid these problems? We can, as with the highway, hope that those priced off the system will instead still travel by the public mode but at an off-peak time. And what about the sidewalks?

I support the application of appropriate technologies to improve the performance of transportation systems. I support the deployment of public transportation, even where it is not justified based on system performance, if it addresses other regional goals and if it does not degrade the performance of other transportation system components. I support policies, programs, and plans to encourage land development that address population needs and encourage land, activity, and transportation options that minimize impact on the natural environment. I do not support the use of euphemistic, politically correct but typically inconsistently applied weasel words such as "smart" (as in technologies or growth), "success story" or "boondoggle", "seamless" or "balanced", any term followed by "-oriented" (pedestrian-oriented, transit-oriented, active lifestyle-oriented), or "green". And gridlock does not mean what you think it does.

There are only two ways to address congestion: increase supply or decrease demand.

Scenarios to increase supply include new roads or transit systems as well as more effective use of existing facilities and services, such as better timing of traffic signals or transit transfers. The cost varies significantly over the options, but in general the entire traveling public has access to most if not all of the options.

Scenarios to decrease demand include a range of policy options to control travel by either restricting facility access to defined users (e.g., carpools in carpool lanes) or by simply directly charging for it (e.g., road tolls or transit fares). The cost varies depending on the specific strategy (and typically will involve supply-side changes) but, in general, the traveling public will not have equal access to system options due to the imposed pricing and significant variation in ability to pay.

A downside of capacity increases in areas marked by increasing congestion is that performance improvements are often soon lost to new demand that now can be accommodated by the new capacity. But the system is accommodating more demand and this is a good thing, all other things constant. There is no real difference from adding, say, school capacity in response to school enrollment pressure and finding that the new capacity is consumed by new demand. Fresh air, clean water, public safety, K-12 schools, and transportation are public goods, the demand for which increases with growth, growth that is typically a sign of strong economic activity.

The downside of pricing options is equity. We all have 24 hours in a day but we all do not have the income or employer benefits to provide full access to variable rate transportation systems. Yes, once in a blue moon a poor man will choose to pay more than they can afford to save time and a rich man will choose to save a few dollars and sit in traffic, but no responsible person would actually pose this argument as if this made things acceptable. Transportation is not a simple economic good, and a typical traveler is often not your typical economic man.

Pricing some facilities and services shifts demand to unpriced options. Congestion is managed on the priced facility at the expense of the unpriced facility. To prevent these shifts, all facilities must be priced. In this manner, pricing will decrease overall demand. One could assume that less important travel will disappear first. One could also assume that those with a lower ability to pay would suffer more, to the benefit of those who can pay and can now drive less impeded on their merry way. So will congestion be reduced? If all travel is appropriately priced, then probably so. If only selected facilities are priced, then probably not, with congestion getting worse on free facilities.

US Secretary of Transportation Mary Peters is quoted in a recent Institute of Transportation Engineers e-news: "The daily frustration of drivers on our roadways is ample evidence that our current transportation model is broken, and that bold thinking and leadership are needed. We're never going to solve congestion with higher federal gas taxes or additional earmarks; instead, we need fresh approaches like new technology, congestion pricing and greater private sector investment to get Americans moving again." This is the Bush administration speaking for corporate America and stating that an over-burdened system is "broken" and thus in need of a new operational paradigm. Ignoring the obvious applicability to the federal government, that conclusion could apply to virtually any component of public infrastructure and service. One must properly define the problem before one can evaluate potential solutions.

I'm in favor of new thinking, open to new technologies, and supportive of privatization, where the solutions fit the problems. However, each of these "fresh" approaches, including Intelligent Transportation Systems, congestion pricing, and privatization, is a case of the tail wagging the dog. Is congestion even the problem? Isn't the overarching goal to provide a system to move people and goods to benefit the economy and quality of life?

The fundamental problem is that these "fresh" approaches are not unlike the old build for capacity approaches. It all comes down to either increasing capacity or reducing demand. Any stragegy that makes more efficient use of current capacity is effectively increasing capacity. This will initially improve system performance but, in an area defined by a growing economy and population, will lead to induce additional in demand.

The potential contribution to a sustainable transportation system is constrained. Demand has to be controlled, not simply priced. The factors contributing to demand, land development and a population growing in size and affluence, must be controlled. Pricing people out of traveling will reduce demand and allow for an acceptable level of congestion to be established, but with significant equity issues. If you do not provide more capacity, or make better use of existing capacity throught fundamental changes in location and travel behavior, then the wish to "get Americans moving again" can not be gained.

This from the Institute of Transportation Engineers (assuming that's still their name):

"The name of the Goods Movement Council has been changed to the Freight Mobility Council by the ITE Board of Direction. The Board has recognized the increasing importance of freight transportation and the role that transportation engineers and planners can play in increasing efficiency..."

So, in recognition of "the increasing role that engineers and planners can play", the ITE Board of Direction renames that council. Now that's definitive action, and none too soon! And it's called the ITE Board of Direction? Not Directors? (Egads, it seems ASCE also has a Board of Direction!) How about replacing "transportation engineers and planners" with Mobility Enhancement Professionals (MEPs)?

Here's an idea. If you want to go to a baseball game, just go. Buy a ticket, take a seat, and watch the game. Have a hot dog and a beer, cheer on the home team, and maybe engage in some good-natured booing. And when the game is over, just get up and go. This is not about self-affirmation or group identification. Keep your social and religious revivals in the churches, temples, and mosques. And leave baseball alone in the parks.

I wish this would go for the athletes, too. Play your game; do your best. And if you win, enjoy it (but respect the other team). But please leave the Big Guy out of it -- he wasn't rooting for you nor was he rooting against the other team. [see 10 June 2006].

The California proposition process is a good idea gone bad. Virtually all of these public initiatives are sold as single issue initiatives but in reality they're very badly written but complex legal documents subject to judicial interpretation. In other words, it's impossible to tell what you're getting.

Case 1. The supposed single issue behind Prop 90 is that property transfers between private parties should occur only in the private sector marketplace. If that was all that it said, then most people would back it. Afterall, who wants their house taken by eminent domain then sold to Walmart for the supposed "public good"? Public takings should be limited to direct public facilities. Unfortunately, Prop 90 is being forwarded by developers and property rights supporters, and backed by many public office seekers, who typically see any taking for the public good as a bad thing. It is unclear how the general public power of emminent domain will be affected, since the Prop 90 language seems to suggest that any constraints on private benefit of property is effectively a taking. While I have personal arguments with strict supporters of property rights (and the historically recent systems that "assign" such rights), my argument here is simply that such complex propositions should never be approved. KISS.

Case 2, 3, ... Let's nail the oil companies. Why not compare the relative price of gas with coffee and see whether it's not Starbucks that we should be nailing? I'd like to agree with Gore and Clinton: we really should start doing something about the energy future. But when proponents of Prop 87 tell us that this will reduce oil prices, how can we possibly agree? Even if it was sold solely on promoting alternative energy, one would think that the private market place would address this. hey, maybe that's why gas prices are so high. And let's nail smokers while we're at it. If we really cared about them, we'd dedicate all of Prop 86 revenues directly toward stopping smoking. That is not what Prop 86 does. Read the legislative analyst summaries in the ballot material all registered voters receive.

Propositions more often than not leverage real public fears to misrepresent complex positions that the public in general would not support at face value. This has been the case for prior propositions that claim to advance environmental protection, reduce smoking, help uninsured children, and spank oil companies. Maybe Nancy Reagan was right: "Just Say No".

Orange County's Measure M. There are three possible perspectives. The first is that all taxes are bad. While I tend to agree that most taxes are bad, a tax that is very well defined as far as an expenditure plan seems to be one that can be analyzed via the other two perspectives: either what is being sold is worth the price of admission or it is not. The first Measure M has been very successful on virtually any scale. The Measure M renewal promises more of the same projects, policies, and perspectives. Read the ballot summary. Is what is being proposed worth continuing the half cent sales tax that you already are paying? If so, vote yes; if not vote, no. Actually, there is a fourth perspective, one that says we really need a renewed Measure M, but not the one being offered. The original Measure M was the third attempt to pass this sales tax for transportation. Perhaps a defeat in November would produce a better version next time around. Things change.

For all its greatness, the US Constitution makes it virtually impossible to change it.

Happy Birthday.

Geography 1. East vs. West -- East coast people walk faster and drive slower.
Geography 2. San Francisco vs. LA -- they hate us, and we ignore them.

Why was it so easy to impose term limits, especially since politicians now all seem to want to relax them? Why couldn't we address the real problems of special interests, campaign contributions, and other politician self-help programs. Did we just create a leash law?

What college course really moved you? The LA Times asked the question of several local names, and the results were not very surprising. For those involved in some form of public service, it was a non-technical courses that fed the fire. One might guess that scientists and engineers would be motivated by a technical-oriented course. But why? A career-forming experience could be a single course, but is this likely? What really moves you in college? In life? I couldn't think of a single college course, or other event, that set a path for me. Isn't it more the many choices we make? Or don't make?

Leash Laws. If you put a leash on what disturbs you, is the real concern really being addressed. If not, what happens when the leash comes off?

There are many inexpensive automobiles available that feature high fuel mileage, so why the excitement with hybrids? They're expensive relative to non-hybrid equivalents, have somewhat unknown maintenance and re-sale values, and don't really save much gas. What cars do people give up to purchase a hybrid? Is the HOV lane enticement reducing fuel consumption and improving air quality? Do we know any of this? Or is this a roundabout way to move toward HOT lanes?

What should be outlawed are the shameless politicians who wrap themselves in the flag while pretending to be looking out for anything other than themselves. The flag is symbolic of our freedom -- let's protect that. The last thing I want to do is burn our flag, but the first thing I'll have to do if they change the constitution is to be civil disobedient and do so.

Last week, some one in Arizona proposed giving a lottery ticket to everyone who votes. Talk about getting it wrong -- if anything, we should prohibit people who buy lottery tickets from voting at all. Voting may be a right, but educating one's self on the issues and the candidates is a duty that needs to be completed before exercising the right. It's not a crap shoot, but there is a big payoff when you play your best game: it's called democracy. Then again, maybe we should replace elections with lotteries. We couldn't do much worse...

Take down the O'Shaughnessy Dam and restore Hetch Hetchy Valley? While it's hard to believe that it was built there in the first place, this certainly isn't something that needs to be placed on the front burner. Why not open the reservoir to a range of recreational activity, continue to benefit from the dam, and think about the many ways the $1 billion to $10 billion could be used to save unprotected natural areas. When we run out of other more urgent environmental needs, and if we still have the big bucks left, then consider removing the dam.

"Our strength is our diversity". A colleague said this referring to research endeavors. I begged to differ: our strength is our strength. It's not the quantity or range of ideas that is important but how well you express the ideas that you have. In public affairs, however, our true strength is indeed our diversity, or at least the ability to take and express a range of opinions. It is not "either you're with us or you're with (them)". As soon as we acquiesce to a bully pulpit, we have lost our strength.

Re-organized two years ago, the Board of Directors for the Orange County Transportation Authority (OCTA) now comprises 17 members. The five county supervisors serve as well as ten city representatives, two from each supervisory district. Each pair are appointed by the OC League of Cities (one weighted by city population and one not). The other two are public members that are appointed by the first 15. A good starting place for reform would be direct election of the two public members, based on qualifications in the field of transportation. Such an obvious choice, right?

Who's the last person elected to your local water district? How about the last one for the Board of Equalization? How about the people you elected to your community college district? Or even your local school board? Well, you certainly can remember who the last person was that got your vote for the local transportation board? No? Well, I can't help you with the first four but I can with the last. No one. You'd find it quite difficult to find anyone elected to any transportation position at the federal, state, regional, county, or local levels. While engineers, planners, accountants, lawyers, educators, and entrepreneurs can bring their skills to many elective offices, it's not the case in transportation. And not for any shortage of skilled candidates. With about 12 percent of the GNP associated with transportation there is a corresponding share of total employment in transportation fields. In additional to thousands employed by government agencies at all levels, more are employed by private industry, transportation providers, shippers, consulting firms, and educational and research institutions. For domestic households, transportation is typically the largest expenditure after housing.

Who does serve on transportation boards? In general, people that were elected to other positions and were then appointed to the transportation board. Many boards have public members, but these positions are appointed by other board members. If you're not elected to do a job, then you are probably not accountable for that job. When's the last time you heard of a politician being voted out of office for bad transportation policy? Or being punished for rampant pork barrel politics that dominate transportation appropriations?

Any potential solutions? Give me to next week to think about it...

School's out. For some kids, maybe it should be permanent vacation. Let's face it, our schools are getting crowded, and both capital and operating funds are limited. We can't keep building our way out of school congestion. Demand for schools must be managed. The economically efficient way to do this is congestion pricing. "Value pricing" will give families a choice: pay more to attend in the peak hours (during the day), or pay less to go off-peak (at night). Sounds great, right? Maybe we should apply this approach to other areas of congestion...

We've always been encouraged to maintain our bodies through good nutrition and exercise, and to maintain our minds through the mental equivalents. The personal benefit was basically that you would have a healthier, happier, and longer life. In our world, we increasingly see that "maintain" must become "improve". And it seems that we can't do this by ourselves. From self-help gurus (oxymoronic?), to personal trainers, to just about anyone with a way to expand your guilt and deflate your wallet, an entire industry has emerged based on self-improvement. This trend has been inflicted on our children as the days of pick-up neighborhood baseball games has become personal coaches for second grade kids to sizable investments in hi-tech training and travel teams. When the bar for success has been raised so high, and the rewards for success even higher, it should not be a surprise that any means of improvement will be utilized. But it's no longer a question of personal improvement; rather, it's performance improvement.

Why are we so concerned about illegal drug usage in professional and amateur sports? We are all medicated beyond what any physician could have imagined years ago. We accept plastic surgery in beauty pageants and the media. We expect everything to be bigger and better. Our celebrity athletes have become CEOs of their self-named athletic enterprises with staffs replete with personal trainers, nutritionists, spiritual guides, media and financial advisors, and, apparently, pharmaceutical advisors. Only this last one seems to be a problem.

There are two ways to address this. The easy way is to grin and bear it. If it's such a bad thing, then the piper will be paid one day. The hard way? Cancel your subscriptions to SI and People. Stop attending professional sports. Boycott the Olympics. Don't buy sports merchandise. Don't put your kids on a one-way street. But whatever you do, please don't just complain about Barry Bonds -- afterall, you created him.

Would everyone please stop thanking Jesus for your success. I can't think of any world, physical or spiritual, where any higher being would care about your personal success at the expense of others. If you really want to thank him, then donate your winnings and your time to helping those less fortunate. No need to tell anyone about it. He'll know.

Not long ago, UCI faculty transcribed final grades from digital media (usually a spreadsheet) to 3-part paper forms that were hand-carried to the registrar who then promptly re-entered the data to generate digital student transcripts. But we have recently evolved to a 100 percent digital system. Almost.

Faculty still assemble final grades from a variety of student work, much if not most that is still graded on percentage terms. In a typical engineering class, students complete homeworks, lab reports, papers, quizzes, and exams, the weighted sum which is used to establish a digital grade for the course as a whole. And then we convert that score to a letter grade (several years ago we added + and - refinements).

In my humble opinion, the letter grade is bad enough. But we now electronically send the digital representation of that letter grade to the registrar who assembles all of the letter grades for a given student and promptly converts them back to a numerical score, the student's Grade Point Average (GPA). So a student is "letter graded" based on how they fall on a distribution curve (did you ever "just miss" an A?). But the most important measure of student achievement is the GPA, reported more often than not to two "significant" digits (e.g., 3.42). Why do we do this? Why do we have these letter grades at all?