Highway Trust Fund

"When you're talking about taking away money from transit, your proposal is flawed from the get-go," said one expert.

An EV fee might make a dent in America's staggering transportation bills — but until the highway network stops growing out of control, it won't help for long.

It's sort of the central myth of American transportation. Let's debunk it once and for all.

"The public is way ahead of the elected officials, and it's way ahead of the transportation officials in [talking about] the kind of future they want to see."

The post Study: Two-Thirds of Americans Know Highway Expansions Don’t Cure Traffic appeared first on Streetsblog USA.

The White House Council of Economic Advisers' first annual report under President Obama made headlines today for its gloomy job-creation outlook, but tucked inside its 462 pages is a tangible reflection of a changed outlook on transportation policy under the new administration.

Yesterday, Freakonomics linked to a new piece of research [PDF] on congestion that I'd been musing over for a few days. Let me quote the abstract here (paragraph break and emphasis mine):

The Senate took a major step forward last night in its battle with the House over transportation funding, releasing a plan to give $26.8 billion to the dwindling highway trust fund and -- perhaps most importantly, for the long term -- to restore the fund's ability to keep the interest it earns.

Green transportation advocates are pressing Congress to refuse any new spending that's not tied to reform of the existing system -- a call that influential senators in both parties ruled out today.

We now have in our hands the 775-page Surface Transportation Authorization Act, which was released yesterday by James Oberstar (D-MN), chairman of the House transportation committee. It is, in many ways, a remarkable bill -- a blueprint for how transportation planning and infrastructure construction might undergo a significant shift away from the mindsets that have dominated for the past half-century. There is a lot to like in the bill.