DeviceGuru

A conference held last year to assess the state of the U.S. transportation system has just published a 92-page report detailing its findings. Despite the fact that transportation systems are the “backbone of America” and keep it “strong and moving,” the bipartisan report concludes, “we have not been taking good care of this resource.”

The September 2009 “David R. Goode National Transportation Policy Conference,” which commissioned the report, comprised more than 80 transportation system experts and policy makers, including former U.S. Transportation Secretaries Norman Mineta and Sam Skinner, former Under Secretary of Transportation for Policy Jeffrey Shane, and former Virginia Gov. Gerald L. Baliles. Gov. Baliles currently serves as Director of the University of Virginia’s Miller Center of Public Affairs, which organized the conference.

A news conference held on Oct. 6, 2010 issued the conference’s report, a 92-page document entitled “Well Within Reach — America’s New Transportation Agenda.” The report details a 10-point prescription for fixing the nation’s “ailing transportation system.”

“Lacking a coherent vision for our transportation future and chronically short of resources, we defer new investments, fail to plan, and allow existing systems to fall into disrepair,” states the report.

“This shortsightedness and underinvestment — at the planning level and on our nation’s roads, rails, airports and waterways — costs the country dearly,” the report continues. “It compromises our productivity and ability to compete internationally; transportation users pay for the system’s inefficiencies in lost time, money and safety. Rural areas are cut off from economic opportunities and even urbanites suffer from inadequate public transportation options. Meanwhile, transportation-related pollution exacts a heavy toll on our environment and public health.”

“Stakeholders in the transportation community have recognized these costs. It is time to rethink existing systems for the 21st century and create an agenda for enacting change,” urges the report.

The report recommends that investments in a revitalized U.S. transportation system be structured to target the following objectives and benefits:

• Winning in the global marketplace. Our chief trading partners are making significant investments in their transportation infrastructure; America must do the same to remain competitive.
   

• Investment in expanded transportation options, including high speed rail and other innovations. Congestion on roads and in the air can be eased by high-speed rail, especially in high population areas and busy travel corridors.
   

• Funding mechanisms that get the incentives right. Funding for the Interstate Highway System was intended to come from drivers, but the current fuel tax no longer creates a direct link between charges and use. We must return to a “pay as you go” system.
   

• More efficient and reliable air travel. The technology to improve flight reliability and safety through new operations and systems exists. We must implement those systems without delay.
   

• Less time wasted in traffic. New technologies can also improve surface transportation flow, which means less time on the road and less aggravation, not to mention lower pollution and fuel expenditures.
   

• Lower long-term costs to U.S. taxpayers and to the economy as a whole. Congestion and inefficiency experienced at the personal level translate to significant impacts on a national level. To reduce these impacts, our transportation systems need increased and sustained funding.

To achieve these results, the report recommends the following actions:

1. Stop the bleeding: Congress must address the immediate crisis in transportation funding.
    

2. Beyond the gas tax: Innovative thinking is needed to develop the next generation of user fees. Specifically, future funding mechanisms should not depend primarily on fossil-fuel consumption — which the government is actively seeking to discourage through a number of other policies — to keep up with transportation investment needs.
    

3. Jobs for the future, not just today: Future stimulus spending should be directed to those transportation projects that will deliver the greatest returns in terms of future U.S. competitiveness, economic growth, and jobs. Building a foundation for sustained prosperity and long-term job creation is more important than boosting short-term employment in road construction.
    

4. Pass the power, please: Clarify decision-making power and enhance the effectiveness of states, localities, and metropolitan planning organizations.
    

5. Adopt a capital budget: The federal government should adopt accounting methods that (A) recognize expenditures on transportation infrastructure as investments (rather than consumption) and (B) take into account future returns on those investments.
    

6. Connect the dots: Adopt an integrated approach to transportation planning that includes freight and goods movement and stresses intermodal connectivity.
    

7. Getting Americans home in time for dinner: Find more effective ways of reducing urban congestion.
    

8. It’s all about leverage: Encourage public-private partnerships while also improving oversight of such partnerships.
    

9. Deliver transportation investments on time: Reform project planning, review, and permitting processes to speed actual implementation.
    

10. Build a foundation for informed policy: Better and more timely data are essential to measure progress toward defined goals and objectives and to improve the performance of the nation’s transportation systems.

The conference’s 92-page report is available for download from the website of the University of Virginia’s Miller Center of Public Affairs, here (pdf file). Further information regarding the conference may be found here.