21st Century Highways views the worsening road congestion as one of
the chief deficiencies of the existing highway programs and argues
that diminished mobility is contributing to a loss of economic
vitality. Having acknowledged the problem, ordinary citizens and
policymakers at the federal, state, and local levels must now decide
what to do about these troublesome trends. Do we get rid of the
federal program, substantially reform it, or simply let it run its
course and seek other mechanisms and institutions to fill the void
caused by an increasingly distracted federal program that still
commands extraordinary resources? A common theme in the book's
chapters is that our highway system needs considerably more resources
than it has available to it, but that the federal highway program, as
it now exists, may not offer the best mechanism to match those
additional resources with our most pressing transportation needs.
Instead, the authors propose a number of alternative approaches that
rely on funding sources other than the state and federal fuel taxes
the system now relies on, and on greater degrees of decentralization
that allow more discretion and flexibility to state and local
governments. Importantly, many of the authors note the private
sector's growing involvement in providing both leadership and
financial resources in the development of new road capacity. Whether
working independently or in partnership with state and local
governments, recent successes, planned projects, and developing
innovations suggest the emergence of important new options with which
to finance, build, and operate our roads. Authors and subjects
include John Fisher on the history of the federal highway program,
Joel Schwartz on the costs and benefits of automobiles, Alan Pisarski
and Ron Utt on performance-based policies, Bob Poole and Ken Orski on
toll roads, Ron Utt and Shirley Ybarra on public-private
partnerships, Wendell Cox on transit, Peter Gordon on regional
planning, and Ron Utt on giving more responsibility to the states.
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