This research considers the urban planning situations in which transportation planners implicitly or explicitly use the term “improvement.” To answer our research questions—what do planners and policymakers mean by improvement, and how do these improvements challenge or reinforce car-centered transportation planning—we conducted a discourse analysis on documents from 50 cities, counties, and state departments of transportation. Using a critical discourse analysis, we find that perceptions about what is a transportation infrastructure “improvement” reveals policymakers’ and planners’ situatedness, defines for themselves and the public they serve “correct” travel methods, and upholds the car-centric status quo in the United States.

中文翻译：

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在交通规划师使用的语言中寻找“改进”：一个批判性的话语分析来说明交通政策制定中以汽车为中心的偏见

本研究考虑了交通规划者隐含或明确使用“改善”一词的城市规划情况。为了回答我们的研究问题——规划者和政策制定者所指的改进是什么，以及这些改进如何挑战或加强以汽车为中心的交通规划——我们对来自 50 个市、县和州交通部门的文件进行了话语分析。使用批判性话语分析，我们发现对什么是交通基础设施“改善”的看法揭示了政策制定者和规划者的处境，为他们自己和公众定义了他们所服务的“正确”出行方式，并维持了以汽车为中心的现状。美国。