Summer Book Reviews #4: The Road More Traveled

We are back to transportation with this book, which came out just after the 2006 Preserving the American Dream conference, so I think of it as a new book. The Road More Traveled is written by two “fellows” with the Reason Foundation and is the star (so far) of that group’s mobility project.

In contrast to Street Smart, which idealistically promotes widescale privatization, this book takes a more incrementalist look at highways and transportation. Bob Poole, who leads the Reason Foundation’s mobility project, ultimately supports privatization and tolling, but is willing to accept (and has even invented) many “halfway” measures, including high-occupancy toll (HOT) lanes (which some true-blue libertarians might question because it leave most lanes untolled).

This book starts at the very beginning: We have a congestion crisis; today’s transportation planners are not solving it; yet there are real solutions that can work.

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Too many transportation planners fiercely believe that “we can’t build our way out of congestion,” and so, they conclude, we shouldn’t try. Instead, we should try to get people to drive less. This leads to traffic calming and expensive rail transit projects. But ultimately these fail; people continue to drive for roughly 90 percent of urban travel.

The Road More Traveled shows that such programs are supported by a congestion coalition (I like that name) made up of groups that benefit from congestion — transit agencies, downtown property owners, and rail contractors, as well as anti-auto environmentalists.

Balaker and Staley’s solution is a combination of new construction, road pricing, and technical improvements such as traffic signal coordination. Eventually, cities should build complete networks of HOT lanes so that anyone can get anywhere anytime of the day without congestion if they are willing to pay a toll (one of the ideas first proposed by the Reason Foundation’s Bob Poole).

The Road More Traveled should be required reading for urban leaders, transportation planners, business CEOs, and anyone else concerned about urban congestion.