Studies & Reports

Five months' groceries for a family of four. A year's worth of textbooks for a college student. One thousand sixty dollars: That's how much inadequate infrastructure spending cost the average American family last year, according to a new report from the American Society of Civil Engineers, "Failure to Act: The Economic Impact of Current Investment Trends in Surface Transportation Infrastructure." And it's only projected to get worse.

The issue of privatization of public infrastructure was polarizing enough before the recent House proposal to take the Northeast Corridor away from Amtrak and turn it over to private firms. The privatization plan has its champions, who say it's the only way to save high-speed rail, and its detractors, who call it a death knell for even the rail service we currently have.

We hear it all the time: The road lobby insists that the only way to reduce mind-numbing traffic congestion on the roads they built is to build new roads. Federal funding gives huge blank checks to state DOTs, which tend to prioritize road building over transit, bridge maintenance or anything else. But mounting evidence suggests that building new roads won't do anything to alleviate congestion.

Attempts by U.S. cities to build Bus Rapid Transit systems tend to get stymied by a Catch-22: Most Americans have no experience riding great BRT, so mustering the political will to build full-fledged systems -- and reallocate the necessary street space from cars to buses -- is often fiendishly difficult. The results -- incremental bus improvements sold to the public as BRT -- are too watered down to showcase the full extent to which bus-based systems can attract riders and get people to switch from driving to transit.

Don't be fooled by the high-pitched rhetoric in Washington. The vast majority of Americans are united, at least when it comes to the topic of transportation.

It makes intuitive sense that cycling and walking to work regularly would help people stay healthy, but until now there's only been anecdotal evidence suggesting that places where walking or cycling to work is common also have lower rates of obesity.

How could federal job creation programs be greener? Making access to public transit a priority would be one way.

When DOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan, together with consultant and Danish urban planner Jan Gehl,  introduced the new "World Class Streets" doc [PDF] to a crowd of over 300 last Thursday evening at the Center for Architecture, the event seemed equal parts town hall meeting and celebrity book launch.

Thanks to commenter Stephen for prodding us to post on the new report from the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy, "Active Transportation for America" (download the PDF here).