FEDERAL TRANSPORTATION REFORM

Remaking Transportation Infrastructure

Potholes, rough surfaces, and rusting bridges are manifestations of America's deteriorating infrastructure, tragically demonstrated with the disaster in Minneapolis.

State and local leaders are already clamoring for more federal money to prevent future tragedies. But just two years ago, states got a mammoth $244 billion for transportation. But the bill also contained over 6,000 earmarks, many dedicated to new projects, and awarded with no coherent plan or national priority.

That approach-emphasizing ribbon cutting over the maintenance and upgrade of our existing infrastructure-is exactly how not to prevent another catastrophic bridge collapse.

The Metropolitan Policy Program's Transportation Reform Series, led by Fellow Robert Puentes, has broadly reassessed the nation's transportation policies, providing options beyond the current hodgepodge of pet projects, to better address these critical needs.

ANALYSIS & COMMENTARY Transportation for a Metropolitan Nation  Debate on the nation’s transportation policy focuses narrowly on new revenues needed to bolster the federal program. In recent testimony before the House Budget Committee, Fellow Robert Puentes argues that we should start with a clearer articulation of the goals, objectives and desired outcomes. Going Nowhere: The Dimensions of the Transportation Problem in the U.S. As part of the plenary session at the Inaugural William O. Lipinski Symposium on Transportation Policy in Chicago, Robert Puentes discusses urgency of transportation accessibility, connectivity, and mobility issues that affecting the prosperity and vitality of the nation and its metropolitan areas. He highlights several critical flaws in current U.S. transportation policy today and offers a broad framework for a new transportation agenda. Not so fast: Key policy considerations for financing transportation Current conversations around finance and revenue distribution dominate the discussion about transportation in the U.S. today. These concerns are so prevalent today that they spawned not one – but two – national commissions to investigate how the nation should approach the issue of funding transportation over the long term. The Sticker Shock of Sprawl: Housing/Transportation Tradeoffs in Metro Kansas City If housing policy is to achieve its full potential, it cannot be crafted and executed in isolation, but rather, it must be shaped in concert with related policies like transportation, land use, economic development, financial services, and even education. In his presentation at the Kansas City Housing Matters Forum, Bruce Katz discusses the fundamental necessity of holistic housing policies for the good of families and communities. Cashing in on the BP Beltway Commercial interests and smart investors are turning their eyes toward some of our nation's most prominent roadways. Private companies, syndicates, and their advisors are putting up billions of dollars banking on steady, ever increasing toll revenues from generations of captive motorists. Rob Puentes argues that in selling off toll roads, governments are losing more than they gain. Remaking Transportation and Housing Policy for the New Century The profound demographic, economic, and spatial change in the United States demands that we design and embrace a new, unified, competitive vision for transportation and housing policy, argues Bruce Katz in his testimony before the Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies. An Inherent Bias? Geographic and Racial-Ethnic Patterns of Metropolitan Planning Organization Boards Metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) are often the conduit through which billions of federal and state transportation dollars flow for regional transportation investments. Principles for a U.S. Public Freight Agenda in a Global Economy Martin Robins and Anne Strauss-Wieder argue that, rather than the Balkanized approach of the past, a systems-based and multimodal agenda for America's freight needs involving regional coordination, public-private partnership, and federal funding recognition of the same is necessary to maintain America's competitiveness in a changing global economy. Getting Real about Gas Prices Federal and state policies make highways easy to build and relegate transit and other alternatives to second-class status.

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