In an exclusive interview with a New York television station, Senator Barack Obama described congestion pricing as a thoughtful and innovative approach to the problem of congestion. In the interview he described it as a way to reduce congestion, reduce pollution, and invest in infrastructure and mass transit. With an April 7th deadline approaching, New […]
Taking the Train in Dallas
Before very recently, I knew very little about Dallas, Texas. That changed for two reasons. First, it’s the location of the site used for this year’s Urban Land Institute Hines Student Urban Design Competition. I was a member of a team at the University of Maryland that submitted an entry, creating a land use and […]
Calling for a New Eisenhower
In the 1950s, President Dwight D. Eisenhower championed a program to construct a nationwide network of highways to connect the nation. As a young soldier he had personally experienced the poor condition of American roads, and had seen first-hand on German autobahns how important a system of modern roads was for national defense purposes. The […]
‘The genie is somewhat out of the bottle’
The “genie” a Bush appointee at the Department of Transportation is referring to is congestion pricing, or the practice of setting tolls high enough to keep traffic flowing. The quote closed a cover story in today’s Washington Post about both congestion pricing and privatization of the nation’s transportation infrastructure. Long discussed by economists as the […]
Fixing America’s Federal Transportation Policy
Over the past 50 years, the U.S. has been transformed thanks to massive investment in the interstate highway system. Funded in large part by the federal gas tax, the federal government has set policies and allocated funds to states to construct the national network under a series of bills starting with the 1956 National Interstate […]
Are Expensive Parking Meters Fair?
Urban neighborhoods across America have a “parking problem.” Free curb spaces are hard to come by during busy times, especially in commercial areas. Because curb spaces are so much cheaper than garages, drivers continue to cruise for spaces. That’s the reason one of the major recommendations of parking reformers like Donald Shoup is raise the […]
D.C.’s Metrorail Fares in Context
After completing my recent analysis of WMATA’s Metrorail fare increase, I decided to do some more research to better put the fares in a national context, finding D.C. Metro riders pay some of the highest subway fares in the nation. I then did a side-by-side comparison with San Francisco’s BART, considered a sister system to the D.C. Metro. The analysis of BART fares from a downtown San Francisco station shows that Bay-area suburban commuters enjoy even cheaper per-mile fares than their D.C. counterparts.