John Hennessy III,
P.E.
Nine proposed highway expansion projects across the country – slated to cost $30 billion – exemplify the need for a fresh approach to transportation planning and spending. As America considers how to meet its infrastructure needs in a fiscally responsible way, the nation cannot afford expensive “boondoggle” projects that don’t meet our most important transportation needs.
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FRONTIER GROUP U.S. PIRG ENVIRONMENT AMERICA Executive Summary: Electric Buses: Clean Transportation for Healthier Neighborhoods and Cleaner Air Buses play a key role in in our nation’s transportation system, carrying millions of children daily to and from school and moving millions of Americans each day around our cities. Buses reduce the number of individual cars […]
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Phineas Baxandall is a Senior Policy Analyst at U.S. PIRG and directs program on tax and budget issues as well as transportation. He often presents at conferences and has given invited testimony and public comment to state legislatures, Congress, and the U.S. Department of Transportation. His blogs appear on the National Journal Transportation Expert blog, Huffington Post and StreetsBlog. At U.S. PIRG, he has authored or co-authored dozens of reports, including a series examining the end of America’s driving boom, a series on infrastructure privatization, and a series on state government spending transparency.
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FRONTIER GROUP
U.S. PIRG EDUCATION FUND
Many Americans believe that drivers pay the full cost of the roads they use through gas taxes and other user fees. That has never been true, and it is less true now than at any other point in modern times. Today, general taxes paid by all taxpayers cover nearly as much of the cost of building and maintaining highways as the gas tax and other fees paid by drivers. The purchasing power of gasoline taxes has declined as a result of inflation, improved vehicle fuel economy, and the recent stagnation in driving. As a result, so-called “user fees” cover a shrinking share of transportation costs.
U.S. PIRG EDUCATION FUND Executive Summary Over the last decade—after 60-plus years of steady increases—the number of miles driven by the average American has been falling. Young Americans have experienced the greatest changes: driving less; taking transit, biking and walking more; and seeking out places to live in cities and walkable communities where driving is […]
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U.S. PIRG EDUCATION FUND
Americans drive no more in total now than we did in 2005, and no more on average than we did at the end of Bill Clinton’s first term as president. The recent stagnation in driving comes on the heels of a six decade-long Driving Boom that saw steady, rapid increases in driving and congestion across the United States, along with the investment of more than $1 trillion of public money in highways…But even though the Driving Boom is now over, state and federal governments continue to pour vast sums of money into the construction of new highways and expansion of old ones—at the expense of urgent needs such as road and bridge repairs, improvements in public transportation and other transportation priorities.
U.S. PIRG
A review of data from the Federal Highway Administration, Federal Transit Administration and Census Bureau for America’s 100 most populous urbanized areas – which are home to over half of the nation’s population – shows that the decline in per-capita driving has taken place in a wide variety of regions. From 2006 to 2011, the average number of miles driven per resident fell in almost three-quarters of America’s largest urbanized areas for which up-to-date and accurate data are available.
U.S. PIRG
Nuclear power is among the most costly approaches to solving America’s energy problems. Per dollar of investment, clean energy solutions – such as energy efficiency and renewable resources – deliver far more energy than nuclear power. This fact has important implications for America’s energy policy. By directing resources toward the most cost-effective solutions, we can make greater progress toward a secure, reliable and safe supply of electricity to power America’s economy.
Vincent Kartheiser & Rich Sommer sit down in 1965 to discuss trains and why we need them. Trains get you where you want to go, more directly than planes too.
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U.S. PIRG
Highways do not—and, except for brief periods in our nation’s history—never have paid for themselves through the taxes that highway advocates label “user fees.” Yet highway advocates continue to suggest they do in an attempt to secure preferential access to scarce public resources and to shape how those resources are spent.
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