From 1956 to about 1986, observes Alan Pisarski, federal transportation was centered around the vision and goal of building the Interstate Highway System. But once that system was created, no new vision emerged to replace it and federal transport funding lost its focus.
Alan Pisarski (right) with Frank Turner, one of the creators of the Interstate Highway System.
(Or, it might be more accurate to say, the new vision that emerged aimed at impeding transportation in an effort to get people to stop driving.)
Yet the money keeps pouring in: each penny of federal gasoline tax produces about $1.7 billion in annual revenues. With no grand vision, the result has been a politicization of transportation, with earmarks and diversions of funds to non-highway and non-transportation projects. ISTEA, TEA-21, and SAFTEA-LU have increasingly turned transportation into a porkfest.
Pisarski offered his new vision (2.7MB PowerPoint) at the Preserving the American Dream conference last week. You can also order a DVD of his presentation by emailing the American Dream Coalition.
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Pisarski believes that the next round of Congressional transportation reauthorization should focus on creating a new Interstate Highway System, one capable of carrying well over twice as much traffic as the existing one. The new system shoud have a third more miles and 80 percent more lane miles of highway.
The problem is that Congress and the administration are reluctant to increase taxes or user fees. Pisarski’s solution is to devolve decisions, by default if not by overt action, to state and local leaders.
This will mean more toll roads, not as a replacement for gas taxes but as a supplement. Pisarski believes gas taxes will continue to play an important role for several decades, but he points out that tolls create checks and balances that work better than gas taxes.
“There is a natural three-way virtuous circle between toll road operators, their bond-holders or other financial backers, and users,” says Pisarski, “each keeping the others in check.” He adds that, compared with the current tedious planning process, “toll roads can provide a quicker response to user needs.”
It’s interesting in dozens of slides that Pisarski manages to completely ignore two of the largest gorillas in the room, global warming and the spectre of peak oil. Even if he doesn’t believe in either, he should at least acknowledge that many people in fact think these two things are major problems that would interfere with his “vision,” and tell us how he would address their concerns, e.g., switch to hybrids, electrics, hydrogen, what? If “peak oil” is true, we obviously don’t need to worry about “congestion.”
Just look at how quickly things are happening.
http://automobiles.honda.com/fcx-clarity/?from=fcx.honda.com
We have a lot of time for companies to react to peak oil and or global warming if we unleash nuclear and other supply increasing technologies. First we need to acknowledge that the car is the best way to get around.
also pretty cool:
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2006/08/the_hybrid_mini.php
Think if our tax money would be diverted from trains to roads and incentives to keep this up…
Johngalt wrote:
“First we need to acknowledge that the car is the best way to get around.”
Well yes, but only until the next big thing comes along.
Britain is the home of the steam train, a happy mixture of horse-drawn wagons and steam driven mine pumps.
When the first trains arrived, the normal way of getting around was by stagecoach over the toll roads. The trains were so successful, that most of the road traffic transferred to trains. This meant that the toll revenue dropped alarmingly.
After a little while, the first cars were created. Naturally, the new car drivers wanted to drive them on the roads, but the roads were in a bad shape (no toll income to maintain them). The car drivers petitioned parliament, and parliament, not wishing to spend any money on the roads, when the trains were so obviously the way forward, responded with the 1865 Red Flag Act.
The Act stated that a car may be driven on the road, but only if it had four engineers, of which three must be on the vehicle, and the fouth walking no more than 100 yards in front, holding a red flag. Maximum speed 4mph in the countryside, and 2mph in town. Touche.
We are well overdue for the next big thing, and it will, on previous form, be extremely disruptive, and active opposed by government.