-- Lisa Caruso, NationalJournal.com

One month later to the day our guide Lisa Caruso posed to our panel on 26 January, I am now ready to respond as promised. My initial response (http://transportation.nationaljournal.com/2009/01/transportation-beyond-our-borders.php#1264848 ) was to indicate that, rather than try to provide my own personal best answers, I would instead reach out to our long established international new mobility network and ask one hundred of my colleagues who are right in the middle of these issues in their own cities and countries to share with us their answers. (It occurred to me that this would be much more useful by way of clues to guide and perhaps even to inspire transportation planners and policymakers in Washington as they set out to lay the groundwork for what absolutely must be an entirely new era of thinking and policy in the transportation sector.)

In actual fact I am not able to present to you this morning the full promised pack of one hundred responses, but if you click today to the little website we have set up for this at www.messages.newmobility.org, you will find a link which takes you to the rather extensive report in process, which my colleagues and I have thus far assembled for you and which already contains some ninety responses to this query. 

We have thus far heard from colleagues wiring from government, private sector and NGOs from Australia, Austria, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Denmark, Estonia, Europe, France, Germany, Global South, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Philippines, Poland, Singapore, Slovenia, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, and . . . the United States of America. And even as I prepare today's response, more are coming in daily.

In order to encourage you to have a look, I have placed just below a copy of the Table of Contents for the working draft as it stands of this date.

And now that we have gotten things thus far a choice me most is not only that this is already useful, but that is probably something that we should not simply leave as is. This turns out to be a pretty good approach for getting a better handle on what is happening in leading edge situations around the world, so we have every intention to continue this inquiry for at least the several months directly ahead.  I see it as a resource that will not only be useful for planners and policymakers in the United States but indeed for any country anywhere in the world, since we all, for better or worse, to suffer from a tendency to restrict our vision to what is closest at hand.

The process of building on this currently is moving ahead in two stages. Later this spring, an expanded version of what you see here will be published as a special edition of the Journal of World Transport Policy and Practice -- of which you can freely obtain copies by contacting the editor@newmobility.org.

In addition to that, and indeed in good part inspired by the process which we are now reporting to you here, we have taken the decision decision to provide a continuing base for following these developments, which you can now find this part of the program World Streets: Rethinking Transportation in Cities at www.Worldstreets.org.

I certainly welcome comments on any aspects or projects that are up here, though to be perfectly fair to my colleagues I have to make the point that for any problems or inconsistencies you might account I am personally responsible. My colleagues and I have discussed at some length the importance of sharing these ideas with you, and hope sincerely that they will serve well not only our friends, old and new, at the United States Department of Transportation and the other agencies in Washington, but in agencies and groups concerned with these matters across the United States.

As one of my colleagues pointed out, if only one of these ideas is picked up in one city or agency, all this work would have been well worth it. I could not agree more

Eric Britton

Paris, 26 February 2009

Messages for America – (Draft of 26 Feb. 2009)

Table of Contents:

Cautionary note

Introduction      

In the beginning was the National Journal Transportation Panel   

International call for ideas and contributions      

Organization of report   

Next step: Journal of World Transport Policy and Practice – Special Edition, Spring       

New Mobility Messages from the World           

Messages from Australia          

1.     Slow down       

2.     Four messages from Western Australia 

3.     Cars and cities; Time for a paradigm change     

4.     Three “easy” strategies  

Messages from Austria 

5.     America, Know thyself  

Messages from Brazil   

6.     A Brazilian solution to mass transport   

Messages from Canada

7.     Mobility Matters - Reducing car use on a long term basis           

8.     On value capture finance          

9.     Transportation Redevelopment Administration (TRA)      

10. The importance of image - inspired by Bogota Colombia and elsewhere 

11. It’s all about choice

12. Sustainable airport strategies    

Messages from Colombia         

13. The experience of Bogotá         

Messages from Denmark          

14. People First     

Messages from Europe:           

15. Learning from Europe

16. Speed Mitigation          

17. From countries with better safety records than the U.S.

18. Look beyond Transportation     

19. More attention to national level policies 

20. Integrate Cycling With Public Transport  

Messages from France:

21. The Greening of Paris – The Paris Mobility Plan:

22. Paris’s Vélib’: Try carsharing with bicycles        

23. Mobilien: The wonderful flying machine 

24. «Autopartage, label Paris».: More than just a pretty face

25. Carte Orange/Navigo    

26. The route to a global mobility policy      

Messages from Germany          

27. Lessons from a shopping trolley (High level of mobility with fewer cars.)

28. Purchase of tickets and multi-door entry

29. Inter-state, inter-disciplinary collaboration          

Messages from the Global South          

30. Learning from the developing countries 

31. Share taxi lessons        

32. xTransit: The Key to reducing VMT and congestion and ..

Messages from Iceland

33. A strategy for increased Cycling ,integrated in National Transport Plan

34. Demanding Commuter equity contracts and TDM (public institutions / area-regulation)

35. Make train tickets purchase and route-finding sexier than for plane-travel

Message from India      

36. Basics are being sidelined        

37. The long walk to pedestrian freedom     

38. Encouraging car- users to leave their cars behind           

Messages from Indonesia/USA/Germany           

39. Learn from international experiences in terms of sustainable transport development.

Messages from Ireland 

40. One Small Step – Social Marketing for Travel Behavior Change  

Message from Israel     

41. A distributive approach to transport      

Messages from the Netherlands

42. Shared Space - Shared Knowledge       

43. Sustainable transport innovation from sunny Amsterdam - Benevolent virus approach

44. Latin: conferrem to bring together         

45. Reducing Vehicle Size, Weight, Power, Speed - solution to America's oil addiction

46. A supply-side approach to carsharing   

47. Sustainable Mobility cannot be achieved without transforming driver behavior

48. Redesigning intersections         

49. How do you get the population riding bikes for daily transportation?      

50. Learning from different choices for sustainable mobility design  

Messages from New Zealand    

51. Carpoolers Need Meeting Places, Not Databases          

52. Get pricing right           

Messages from: Philippine/Japan         

53. Cross-disciplinary approach + role of women in sustainable transport planning   

Messages from Poland

54. We badly need a new American transport model (because the one you sent us is broke)

Messages from Singapore        

55. Change from automotive-based economy to bicycle based economy     

Messages from Slovenia          

56. The Culture of Mobility  

Messages from Sweden           

57. Combating climate change and peak oil with free public transport           

58. The key is density        

59. Flexbus ('Flexlinjen')     

60. Vision Zero      

61. Sweden's Färdtjänst service      

62. Stockholm congestion tax        

63. Combinations of measures promoting sustainable transport       

Messages from Switzerland      

64. Make the connections   

65. Learn from the best European practices

66. The Mobility CarSharing Story: a Tale of Caution

Messages from the United Kingdom     

67. Community Safety Drives save fuel, money and lives and change attitudes        

68. Twenty is plenty           

69. How can disadvantaged people take advantage of public transport if

70. School Travel Health Check – The evidence based approach

Messages from the United Kingdom     

71. “Shared space”: whereby road signs and segregation are minimised

72. Developing a Conceptual Framework for Changing Travel Behavior        

73. Nurture and value cycling and walking   

74. Ridesharing - In search of the simple solution:   

75. Make the public transport network comprehensive         

76. Smarter Choices: Mobility Management 

77. Reduce commute distances to increase accessibility by walking and cycling

78. Teamwork for real energy efficiency      

79. Traffic lights are an unnecessary evil     

80. London congestion charging scheme    

81. Reducing vehicle size, weight, power, speed - solution to America's oil addiction

Messages to ourselves 

82. Preserve the transit we already have      

83. Raise gas tax to fund reduction in vehicle miles traveled

84. Change way we finance infrastructure based on efficiency model:          

85. New Mobility Hub Networks      

86. Moving the work instead of the worker  

87. Offset Incentives for Auto Use  

88. Educational Infrastructure for Safe Cycling in US           

89. Streetfilms: Seeing it helps you to believe it

90. Get ready to learn (from Europe)           

Afterword – Reflections on the path to transportation systems reform     

Annexes          

A: Clues and references           

B World Streets

C: Index           

-àFor the latest copy of report, click to www.messages.newmobility.org

"What can we learn...?" When our friends From the National Journal asked us this intriguing question on the 26th of  January, I indicated to you at the time that my contribution was going to be to reach out to one hundred  or so of my distinguished international colleagues working in our sector in various parts of the world and to ask them what they might have to share with us on this topic. Right from the horse’s mouth, if you will. I would now like to share with you a brief interim report of what we have managed to achieve thus far.

As of today we have received a wide range of ideas and contributions from some 70 experts from the following countries: Austria, Australia, Canada, Estonia, Europe, France, Germany, Global South, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Philippines, Poland, Singapore, Slovenia, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, and the United States of America. In the weeks ahead we hope to add more contributions from expert colleagues in the developing countries, and if we can find a way to do it to others in Russia and their associated republics.

And if you want to see what they have to say as of today, even though what we have thus far is still very much work in progress, a visit to www.messages.newmobility.org  will allow you to download and inspect and 80 page report with the first round of draft contributions.  And even though I am in the middle of it all, I am consistently amazed by the variety and the depth of understanding that we are getting from these fine colleagues

As we move ahead on this I decided we would give ourselves exactly one month to report back to you on this, which means I will have the final report in your hands on 26 February. And although we are only about halfway there today, I thought it just might interest you already to get a feel for the wide variety of suggestions and recommendations that are coming in, so I have selected three to reproduce here as they currently stand in the draft. 

I hope you understand the spirit in which these people are sharing their views with us. Sometimes it can be a little difficult to hear critical views from others concerning our own work and responsibilities. (I am sensitive to this because thinner skin than mine and you would be transparent.) You will find some probing critical thinking here, but you do not have to dig very deep into it to understand that these ideas are being shared with us by people who have real affection for our country and who are excited about opportunities that the new administration is already working so hard to bring about.  So with friends like them, you are lucky to have friends.

Now let me stand aside and hand the word over to our first three contributors, one from Australia, the second from Poland, and the third from Slovenia. (Some of you at least make enjoyed the subtitle which the Polish author has given to his confusion: “We badly need a new American transportation model (because the one you sent us is broke)”).  And finally to round off this first group, a short contribution from New York City just to balance the discussion.

*           *           *           *           *

Message from Australia

There are four messages we can share with you based on some of our best experiences in recent years:.

1.     Building fast trains to the car dependent outer suburbs will work.
The US city has almost no transit going to its outer areas where people are heavily car dependent. The sub-prime mortgage areas most hit by the oil crisis were in these areas. They are highly vulnerable now. Most transport experts say you can’t build rail to these low density areas so buses only are provided and few of these services work competitively. Perth built a fast train 80 kms south through such suburbs and it now carries 55,000 passengers a day when the buses in the corridor carried just 14,000. It is full at peak time. The train has a max speed of 130 kph and can outstrip the cars down the freeway where it runs. Most US cities have freeway space that could be used for such trains.
Ref: See Newman P, Beatley T and Boyer H (2009) ‘Resilient Cities: Responding to Peak Oil and Climate Change’, Island press, Washington DC.

2.       TravelSmart is a successful travel demand management system.
It was pioneered in Perth. It has gone across Australia and to the UK and is being trialed in 4 US cities. It works as an individualized marketing approach rather than a broad media approach. Eco-coaches are trained to go into people’s houses and help them to use their cars less. They concentrate on short local journeys which can be better done by walking and cycling which in most areas surveyed increase by around 30% with car use less by around 15%.
Ref. See Salzman R (2008) ‘Now that’s what I call intelligent transport’, Thinking Highways, 3(1)

3.     Regional planning to ensure regional transit systems and associated TODS.  
Transit Oriented Developments have begun to work well in US cities but they are scattered rather than in coherent corridors, rather like the transit systems which sometimes defy rationality in the routes they take. This is because regional planning is weak in US cities. The MPO system could be strengthened as in Denver and Portland where coherent regional solutions are now happening. Australian cities, and Perth in particular, has strong regional governance on its transit and land use planning. It works.
Ref. See http://citistates.com/peirce/ and also Resilient Cities as above.

4.     Renewable transport through electric vehicles and smart grids will green private transport. Even if all the above works cities will only reduce their car use by 50% at most. The rest needs to be greened too. The Li-ion battery has enabled plug-in electric vehicles to rapidly become the vehicle of choice. It is essential that these are introduced by linking them to renewable power and a smart grid to enable 100% renewable energy to power the city through the storage capacity of the electric vehicles. This technology is part of the green economy but will only happen if a clear policy is developed to encourage it as in the Better Place model in Israel, Denmark, Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney and in a new demonstration suburb called North port Quay in Perth.
Ref. See our paper ‘Renewable Transport’ on www.sustainability.curtin.edu.au/publications.

Peter Newman, P.Newman@curtin.edu.au

Curtin University
Perth, Western Australia

*           *           *           *           *

Ten years after system change and free market democracy was introduced, the motor industry, car dealers and the road-building lobbies are coming on strong. Not exactly like in the USA in the glamour years after World War II (we have less money), but the general direction is pretty much the same. Some of our media (often nicely supported by car advertisements) are trumpeting public transport as non-efficient, the car as most convenient, and more highways as” The Roads to the New Bright Future”.

The decision-makers behind this are almost always men, often who started their careers in early seventies, when their studies (if any, apart from what they were taught by our glorious Communist Party at the time) were solidly based on the “amazing achievements” of the US motoring and road-building industry of the fifties.  You were our new gods. We wanted to do just like you.

The result is anything but surprising. I think you have seen this in more places than one in America. Thanks to the old model we are clogging our cities with cars, making our towns in the process thoroughly unpleasant for human living, and forcing the beleaguered inhabitants to escape to the suburbs. This tendency is consistently and delectably covered by our tabloids, who write about new houses of the celebrities “far from the horrible city”. So we move out blindly following the trend, commuting distances increase and every day more cars enter our towns, making them even more non-liveable.

Hardly surprising the developers and construction branch fuel these tendencies, which of course allows them build more suburban houses and make more excellent business.  

Recommended treatment  the patient (for Poland and – maybe two some extent the US):

1.     More interdisciplinary research and strategies to clarify, give value to, and enhance intelligence and sustainable multimodal living and moving: a high-quality mobility environment that lets people combine their own choice of “walk, cycle, public transport”, transportation democracy.

2.     Change the public’s mind by running campaigns focused on different real-world target groups (children, students, young professionals, women, senior citizens, families, members of different classes) to attract them to the sustainable mix of walking, cycling, and high-quality public transport.

3.     Make sustainable transport a fashion trend (for example today some young people from better-off families [i.e. natural trendsetters in their age group] already declare that they don’t have and don’t ever want to have a car, because it makes no sense in the city).

4.     Prepare the essential hardware (i.e. the infrastructure), and implement Public Share Bike Systems.

5.     Introduce changes in law, favouring vulnerable road users (pedestrians, cyclists) and giving right of way to public transport.

6.     Support development of sustainable technologies to create new jobs for employees of the auto industry. In the early stages, but subsidies if necessary.

7.     Support introduction of vertical axis wind turbines on high houses, renewable energy generators, etc. to create a market for a re-wired car industry and to minimise dependence of foreign energy sources.

It will not be easy and nice. Did you ever tried to take a bowl of meat of the dog? And do you still have all your fingers? Did you ever tried to push a 1000-years-old sequoia back into its acorn? It will require similar skills...

Marek Utkin, marktwo@poczta.onet.pl

Wydział Transportu Rowerowego i Komunikacji Pieszej

Warsaw Poland

*           *           *           *           *

What message could a private citizen, an engineer no less, from a small city of a country with barely two million inhabitants send to the Secretary of Transportation of the United States of America? Happily, there is more to transport and social policy than mere size. So if you decide to continue reading, I may have a modest message for you after all.

This evening, 6 February 2009, an interesting event will take place in my city. A thematic event has been organized, dedicated to the "Culture of Mobility". In this we want to show (again) at the culture of mobility and the culture of the city are one and the same.

Maribor, my beautiful city, the second-largest in Slovenia, is to become the cultural capital of Europe in 2012. Today's event will start with a documentary film to open up the perspectives of transportation decision-makers in the city of New York, "Contested Streets: a Mobility Tour of Four Great World Cities". "Contested" takes its point of departure the old habit of automatically building new infrastructure for cars every time a traffic problem arose. The world-famous and world-practiced "forecast and build" culture

This one-hour film shows very clearly what makes the difference between cities where one would like to live, and those where one has to survive. (If you have not seen it, you can catch a trailer for it at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEcJnZtBQy8&feature=channel_page   you can order the DVD from the New York transportation alternatives group at http://www.transalt.org . Recommended.) 

But in any city, anywhere in the world, you are going to find very similar people on each side of this classic debate: on the one hand those with long-practiced, straight forward but mostly unsustainable ideas. And those with a more thoughtful vision of sustainable prosperity.

When it comes to deciding between the two the real difference lies in the consciousness of the decision makers. Which ultimately determines the path a city takes in its evolution.

Thinking about traffic problems, transportation and mobility eventually brings us to thinking about the culture of a community. And then further down to the question of the quality of life and to the basic values of life. If you know the difference between a car and a bicycle, then you know what I mean. If not, try a bicycle. So, is there anything in this message you didn't know already? Probably not. But it's good to know there are people with similar visions all around the globe, isn't it.

URL

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEcJnZtBQy8&feature=channel_page

http://www.e2-series.com/, click Webcast, then Paris

Dr. Danijel Rebolj, danijel@rebolj.si

Vice-dean, University of Maribor, Faculty of Civil Engineering

Maribor, Slovenia

*           *           *           *           *

Message from the United States of America 

The #1 most important thing that the Obama Administration needs to hear is that it is possible to make transit viable in a medium/low density to inner and middle ring US suburbs have much lower car use than their US counterpart due to decent transit service, good bike feeders, land use, behavior mod, etc.  and there are some new technologies on the horizon that would make it more so  (smart paratransit and carpooling for example)

Paul Steely White, Executive Director, paul@transalt.org

Transportation Alternatives, www.transalt.org

New York City, USA

*           *           *           *           *

There you have it. Once again you will be able to follow discussions as you wish at any point at www.messages.newmobility.org, and I shall be reporting back to you on this finally on 26 February. I hope you are enjoying this trip around the world in 28 days and that you will make some new friends and have some new ideas about what to do next to make a much needed break with the past .

Eric Britton

The New Mobility Agenda at www.newmobility.org

Paris France and Los Angeles VA

Let’s get back to Lisa Caruso’s original question for this week: what can we learn about transportation from beyond our borders? Until 2001, I had visited only two countries beyond the borders of the United States: Japan and Sweden. Since that time, I’ve visited more than 25 countries on every continent and had the privilege of seeing how other parts of the world do transportation. It’s a humbling experience that has significantly changed my perspective on transportation here in the States. We do some things very well; other things we could do much better than we do now. The key, I think is to be open to other perspectives and possibilities.

Thinking more broadly about Lisa’s question, I think the real challenge is to find out what we can learn from beyond the borders of our own minds. We, all of us, have firmly held convictions about certain things and we continually reinforce those views to avoid “cognitive dissonance,” a condition in which the facts of a situation go against our beliefs and we’re forced either to reject the facts or reject our beliefs. We all struggle with this dilemma (at least I hope we do) and evolution has given us good reason to trust our firmly held beliefs (right or wrong) because they often provide a handy shortcut to survival.

In many ways, we’re in survival mode right now – whether it’s talking about the economy, jobs, energy security, or transportation. We fall back on the beliefs that have worked before – first, because it’s easy and, second, because these beliefs have helped us survive in the past. Now, we confront both short-term and long-term survival. In an evolutionary sense, we not only have to kill the saber tooth tiger today but we must also make hard choices now that may seem to make us more vulnerable to the saber tooth tiger in order to protect ourselves against even bigger threats down the road. That takes a lot of hard work and thinking beyond the borders of our own minds. 

I hope we can all continue to use this blog as an opportunity to explore new frontiers, whether they are geographical or mental. The crises we face in our world demand all of our energies. I’m grateful to everyone in this blog space for sharing your expertise and wisdom so generously. Let’s continue to open our minds to new perspectives.

 Pat

We seem to be getting caught in one of our traditional spats for between partisans of opposing philosophies concerning the respective roles of public and private sector. As we all know this is a dynamite question and certainly one that is worth a discussion topic of its own. Each of us has doubtless their own political and strategic philosophy on all this, and while I am aching to give you my own (Executive Summary: new sources of finance including fair charging for access to the public right-of-way, value capture in its many variants, full cost pricing for energy, new transparent and strategic public/private partnerships, and all that with a thoughtful understanding of the importance of not losing sight of everything that goes with the public service function. This last something on the order of my grandmother told me, "Man does not live by bread alone") However since that is not the topic we have been assigned here, I am not allowed to say that so let me see if I can get us back on track concerning specifically to "Lessons from beyond our borders...". In this case a...

Message from Europe:

I pass the following from Philippe Crist of the OECD transportation program on for your consideration. Philippe is a US citizen and through the international activities of his program after more than a decade been exposed to ideas and practices, but less good, in many parts of the world. He asked me to pass this message on to you as his contribution to the present exchanges.

Eric – just back from the USA and just a few ideas for our friends at DOT…

Tax base – Having those that benefit most from high quality public transport(i.e. employers)  pay for the service is a good start. Why more countries/regions have not put in place something analogous to the redevance transport (a hefty regular contribution by employers to cover the cost of public transport) is beyond me…. and you apparently, since you have been on to people to take this approach for years! Still a good idea and ones that our friends at DOT should be looking at.

Land value taxation/value capture– Same thing, have those that benefit from public transport services pay for them.

Planning: ISTEA and its successive successors have had pretty good planning provisions re. MPO taking account of non-road investments. But nowhere near what the French PDUs (mandated urban mobility plans) have , So what can be done in order to ramp up these provisions in the name of greater energy independence (since that is what will likely have the greatest traction in the USA)

Long-term: Clearly, we are talking about planning and infrastructure changes that will take one or two generations to pan out. Having a long term plan and sticking to its key principles is essential. This is still lacking in the USA (and many EU countries).

The USA is not Europe:. Paying for PT of Barcelona-type quality in Atlanta is going to be very costly --  even for a wealthy country like the US. Without discounting the role of PT, in the medium term, US responses to reduce traffic impacts will likely be different than EU responses.

There are three fundamental principles which I was and policymakers should be looking at in light of international experience in leading edge:

·         1st  principle, Do no (more) harm. Look at planning/transport decisions and evaluate them on their GHG/other env. and economic impacts and act on those that that leave people (incl. those that are 1-2 generations down the road) better off. Here, standard discount rate approaches may not be sufficient (see Weitzman’s arguments re. how to evaluate high impact, uncertain probability events: http://www.economics.harvard.edu/faculty/weitzman/files/REStatModeling.pdf, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Weitzman).

·         2nd principle, Make places better to live, work, play – this will involve some thinking that involves the communities re. what kind of place they wish their region to be.

·         3rd principle: Make sure that administrative structures and money flows are in adequation (sorry for the frenchisism) with what the scale and scope of responsibilities necessary to bring about #2 and #1.

Details:

·         Streets support many non-transport uses – where appropriate, they should be managed and built to facilitate all uses. Caveat – this may not be possible on many US “streets” which are in fact mono-use facilities that may prove very difficult to retrofit.

·         Much of US (sub)urban transport will take place in cars for years to come – despite increases in the cost of car use. This is a shame, especially for the young and elderly but one that can difficultly be avoided given the momentum embodied in the built stock. What EU policies likely to work best in the immediate are the type of policies that are being deployed at the periphery of large EU conurbations where many of the conditions are identical to the US. Look here and not at the EU city centres for what can best be copied or modified for US use (caveat – not many EU places are dealing with these spaces well)

·         Most US buses are substandard. They must be improved (low floors, adequate maintenance, dedicated facilities, extensive network coverage, etc…) in order to become an attractive option for commuting and to open the doorway to the later deployment of light or heavy rail. Starting with rail investment is ass-backwards in most US cases. As long as buses are still essentially the same rattling models (or their most recent iterations) that have plied the roads since the 1960s, there is no hope for large-scale uptake of PT. Buses must look and feel like something completely new and better. Here, looking to the changes undergone by EU buses can help. Better real-time info, coordinated routes and higher frequencies must also be part of the solution. (I say this as someone who has grown up in the US without driving relying solely on walking, cycling and bus transportation – so believe me when I say that this is important!)

Next US fact finding tour to Europe: If DOT is planning a fact-finding tour – I would plan one for them that spends 80% of the time outside of city centres… no Vélib, no Amsterdam tram, no anything except what seems to be working in the low-density suburbs of cities over here. Not only will they learn more, they might also feel more at home!

Philippe Crist, Administrator, philippe.crist@oecd.org

Joint Transport Research Centre of the OECD and the International Transport Forum, www.internationaltransportforum.org

Paris, France

 Some might say America just needs to remember what it’s like to be the world leader in infrastructure, and that it takes a willingness to invest.  In the 1950s President Eisenhower had the vision to understand what infrastructure would mean to the nation. Since then the structure he put in place has been a key driving force behind the greatest economy in history. We must embrace a vision like this or risk being outstripped by others in a global market place that is increasingly interconnected and ever more competitive.  

A recent report on our infrastructure points out the connection between national greatness and infrastructure:  “(D)uring its ascendance to superpower status from 1910 to 1970, the United States invested massively in its infrastructure: expanding ports, building extensive road systems, leading in airport design, erecting dams, laying down power grids, and constructing water treatment facilities.”   

Our global competitors – the European Union, China, Russia, etc. -  have taken the story of our success to heart and acting accordingly.  Emerging markets seem to show a greater sense of urgency about infrastructure improvement than we do. China invests 9 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) in infrastructure versus our 0.93 percent of GDP investment.  The lesson from outside our borders seems clear; our infrastructure – highways and roads, sea ports, waterways, airports, railroads, the electrical grid, etc. – need serious investment. Without the investment our economy will be surpassed by fierce global competitors who have been investing more heavily and wisely in infrastructure than we have. 

1. If you want a good transportation system with sound infrastructure, you have to invest in it. Spain is spending about 1 percent of its GDP a year on inter-city and urban rail infrastructure and rolling stock alone. And Ed Wytkind and many others have pointed out what China is planning to invest, and there is India too. Compare that to the 0.01% of GDP the US spends on capital investment in transit each year, and you can understand more clearly how underfunded public transportation is in the United States.
 
2. We need a national long-term vision for transportation which ties into our economic, environmental and energy goals. France, as part of its goal to reduce carbon emissions by 20 percent by 2020, envisions adding 950 miles of urban public transportation and bike lanes and doubling its high speed rail network in the next 10-15 years. India adopted a National Urban Transport Policy in April of 2006 to ensure safe, affordable, quick, comfortable, reliable, and sustainable access for the growing number of urban residents.

3. Integrating multi-modal transportation planning with land-use planning only happens if you have the right decision-making structures at city and regional levels to do it. One only needs to look at countries like Germany and Austria to find great examples. 

Last but not least, we have to believe it is possible to make a sane transportation  transformation! We are not the only country in the world in love with the car yet we seem to be the only country that doesn’t think we can do anything about it. Alternatives can be provided, but it takes will and investment to make it happen.

A recent, long-term study of mortality trends in the U.S. from 1960 to 2000 found that the average life expectancy of a significant segment of our population is actually declining, or at best stagnating due to inappropriate diet, health, and access to certain medications – diuretics, statins, and anticoagulants – that can clear up arteries. Now, before you check to see if this blog has been posted in the wrong place, let me note that a similar problem faces the arteries of our nation’s economy – our highways and transit systems. They too are clogged and in need of immediate treatment.

And just as the medical profession often looks overseas for new remedies, so too must we in the transportation sector look beyond our borders for innovative solutions. While further building of our highways, bridges and transit systems is imperative, the time it takes from conception to ribbon cutting continually increases. Our arteries are blocked, and we need some fast acting medication.

Let’s look overseas to an idea that is gaining currency and is readily available – congestion pricing. The experience in London, Singapore, Oslo and Stockholm proves that congestion pricing can significantly reduce traffic congestion, cut down on emissions, and help finance needed transportation improvements. Over the last five years, London has experienced a 30 percent average drop in congestion, a 37 percent average increase in traffic speed, and a 20 percent decrease in fossil fuel consumption and CO2 emissions. In Singapore, where there’s been a 45 percent reduction in traffic, average speeds have increased by 10 mph yet there are 25 percent fewer traffic accidents. This change has been accompanied by increased utilization of public transit and a significant reduction in pollutants emitted. And technologies like electronic or open road tolling make fee collection virtually seamless.

While congestion pricing has met initial resistance in the U.S., with New York City as a recent example, a look at public opinion in other countries is very telling. After three years of congestion pricing, a Transport for London survey showed that more than 70 percent of local residents said the system was effective and twice as many supported the charge as opposed it. Before its implementation in Stockholm in 2006, a survey showed that only 31 percent of the local residents supported a congestion pricing program. But after a seven month trial period, two thirds of Stockholm’s residents believe the government did the right think in introducing the system. Stockholm’s forward thinking is a key reason why the city was chosen to host the 16th World Congress on Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) this September.

We can learn from the experience of some of the major cities around the world that have used congestion pricing to increase safety and cut traffic in their urban centers, all the while reducing harmful pollutants.

In my view no. 

I think that is the decision for the appropriate level of government.  I think they should be incentivized to do a comprehensive alternatives analysis, which would consider the performance criteria set in the program as well as the local market dynamics in order to reach the best decision about mode, level of service, and other factors. 

If roads are as superior as you believe they are in the overwhelming number of instances, then presumably they would come out on top.  My own view is that in many cases they would, but I think in others that alternative modes would rate more highly.

I would not limit this type of decision-making to roads or rail, but would apply it across land, sea and air using the expansive set of criteria discussed in this blog.  Such a process would support true intermodalism.

Steve    

Steve –

Of course I want transport services to be privately financed, but is it not desirable to “segregate all of the revenues by mode” in the public sector also?

Imagine public sector restaurants charging the same price for all meals, irrespective of the menu. Would not the more popular dishes have to be queued for? What incentives would there be for economy? Would it be right to force the consumers of the less costly dishes to subsidize the more costly? And what would be the criteria for deciding how many dishes of each kind to provide?

The probable result would be that the dishes would be selected, and the foods for the restaurants ordered, in accordance with the preferences of the restaurant managers, rather than of the customers. Is that not what happens under “Intermodalism”?

Deron: The experience from Europe is instructive, but not encouraging to those who support consumer choice. According to the 2005 Vatanen/Harbour report on transport in 15 EU countries, cars and trucks, which carried over 90 per cent of the transport load, contributed 107 billion Euros in taxation in 2004, while rail and other land public transport, which carried less than 10 per cent, received subsidies of 105 billion Euros. So the land transport sectors were in rough financial balance, but would this sort of balance be helpful in the US?

Gabriel

I also love Patrick's post about innovation. We saw plenty of that during a study trip through Europe, co-sponsored by AASHTO and FHWA, last fall. A delegation of state, local and private sector experts spent a week-and-a-half learning about transportation planning, policy and projects in England, Denmark and the Netherlands.

In every country we saw and heard about innovative ways to manage capacity of road systems, whether via congestion pricing in London or variable speed limits in the Netherlands. A team at Parsons Brinckerhoff explained to us that since 1994 the priorities for policy have been ordered this way: 1) Reduce traffic; 2) Manage traffic; and 3) Invest in new capacity.

One means of managing capacity is a balanced split of travel between modes. Amsterdam was of course most remarkable for its biking, which captures nearly half the cities trips. Multi-level bike parking garages were an amazing sight. And Amsterdam, which already has ample public transportation in the form of light rail, is intent on building more. The Dutch are tackling the engineering challenge of building underground rail through the tens of thousands of pilons that support this low-lying urban settlement.

In Copenhagen, we saw one of the few rail systems that actually turns a modest profit -- Metro -- in part due to top-notch technology. Its cars use regenerative braking to recycle energy when going down hills, use energy-efficient lighting and are driverless to boot! They run 24-7-365 and are on time 98 percent of the time.

And the train stations. We saw glorious train stations, including St. Pancras in London, where the visionary architect who restored it gave us a tour. Gorgeous statues, Europe's longest champagne bar, historically accurate design details left the whole delegation in awe. England and Europe clearly value rail as a transportation option much more highly than monolingual Americans.

A focus on road capacity management, use of cutting-edge technology, commitment to a variety of transportation modes, good transit service and magnificent train stations. We do indeed have a lot to learn from our brethren across the pond.

Europe is not there yet (although they are further along than we are).

What we are discussing here is the user and what he or she is using.  From my perspective, I am a transportation user, not a car or rail user, using different modes in the transportation network.  (My individual decisions are influenced by my alternatives, time of travel, reliability, etc.)

Certainly public or private actors who pay for roads should insist upon a level of service.  Many states, such as Virginia and Washington, have gone in that direction and have quite explicit performance dashboards for key routes.  That kind of accountability is great and should be applied to all modes--as some states and localities are in the process of doing (at least from a performance measurement perspective).

When I travel from my home to Washington I expect that my taxes (whether paid through gasoline taxes, sales taxes, or general fund) will be used to fund the most efficient way (broadly defined) to get me from home to work. Some of these taxes may be specifically tied to a particular project explicity approved, that is fine.  Some like a gasoline tax (or perhaps in the future a VMT fee) may not be and that is fine too (the difference between being a citizen and a private consumer).  My expectation for all of it is informed by the fact that I know it is all part of a network.

For example, if I pay a gas tax and it is used for light or heavy rail that is okay with me as the point is to get from point A to point B--the government need not and should not segregate all of the revenues by mode--that would elevate the method of collection or modal interest above the transportation imperative.  I also understand we have a federal system and monies collected locally may not always return 1:1 for my own particular route into work.  However, I hope over time if my case is compelling--using whatever explicit criteria are chosen--I would get relief. 

Now if you want to fund it totally privately, like the Heathrow Express in London or a dedicated toll road, then that is a different matter.

Steve

 Agreed that the “user pays” principle needs to be reformed, to ensure that transportation users pay the costs arising out of their choices, including “externalities”. GPS-based road pricing methods, which are already applied in Europe, do indeed promise to make this practicable in the US.

But, if users were to pay the proper costs, including road costs, would you allow them to get the facilities they were prepared to pay for? And what then would be the point then of “Intermodalism”? On both sides of the Atlantic its main purpose  now seems to be to get road users to cover deficits incurred by rail.

 Gabriel

We have a transportation policy today, but unfortunately it is a collection of disjointed and incrementally built policies that collectively don't respond to today or tomorrow's challenges (if only we had really focused on ISTEA's goals of nearly 20 years ago). 

That is why it is so important to spend the time devising new authorizations, ones that effectively tackle the traditional transportation challenges such as mobility, safety, and capacity but also address ones too long ignored--congestion, energy use and the environment.

In our quest to devise a new policy architecture and funding sources--not just for surface but for aviation and maritime as well--many nations (as well as our own states) have examples from which policymakers can draw.  These can augment the efforts of the two big commissions here in Washington as well as the work being done by good groups such as Brookings, BPC and others.

High speed rail in Spain; climate policy in the U.K. and E.U.; congestion policy in the Netherlands; freight and logistics in Germany; and transit-oriented development in many, many advanced democracies are just a few of the available case studies. 

Before drawing from these examples we have to set our national priorities and clarify what role the public sector is going to play.  In my view we need to get out of the box of "user-pays," at least the way we conceive of it today.  Every day millions of transportation decisions are made without regard to the effects they have on energy use, the environment, or congestion.  The user may pay, but the user is (1) most often not not paying enough and/or (2) is not paying for the externalities and adverse consequences imposed on others. This requires that we either price the externalities into the individual decisions or the national government finds a way to augment what the user pays and support alternatives such as urban transit and policies such as energy conversion.

Reforming our current flawed conception of user pays, together with a renewed focus on intermodalism (again cited by several contributors in this post!), provide the right predicates for reform.

Steve Van Beek

See more at www.enotrans.com

Another lesson that some may have missed: Britain’s Labour government is adjusting its “Smart Growth” policies in rural areas, established in 1948.

Gordon Brown to bulldoze rural housing curbs

From The Sunday Times

January 4, 2009

Isabel Oakeshott, Deputy Political Editor

GORDON BROWN is preparing to sweep aside planning controls in villages and market towns to allow the biggest rural house-building programme for a generation.

Local authorities are to be controversially ordered to adopt a relaxed approach to the building of new homes in areas where planning permission has traditionally been refused.

The government has concluded that protecting the environment should no longer be the overriding consideration when decisions are made about whether to allow development in areas where locals are struggling to afford homes.

About 16,000 small towns, villages and hamlets across England, and dozens of market towns, could be affected by what is being described by ministers as a “fundamental shake-up” of rural planning policy.

For full story see http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article5439439.ece

Decidedly our international colleagues continue to come back to support the idea that if America is looking for great new ideas, including that America itself may not be a bad place to start. This latest in this morning from Michael Yeates of Brisbane Australia. I quote:

* * * * * 

"Thanks Eric and Peter (http://transportation.nationaljournal.com/2009/01/transportation-beyond-our-borders.php#1267536) ... excellent. There seem to be several problematic issues here however so may I use some examples?

A.          It seems that aside from the occasional occurrence of a real leader, and then somewhat contrary to ideas of democracy, innovation has first to get noticed and overcome objections and obstructions from those who enjoy and benefit from the status quo ... and then if it can do that, then it not only has to achieve majority support or appear to, it must appear to have far more than that to begin to gain attention. And then it has to overcome the problem of token and/or symbolic acceptance.

So here are three "easy" strategies both "big" and "small" (to use Eric's descriptive classifications below) which if the USA were to adopt them, major global change would certainly follow.

1.      The first is adopting what "we" (i.e. "CUST") have called a "Safe Urban Speed Limit" i.e. a speed limit that is safe for the users who would be expected were they to have a "supportive environment". This concept equates well with the "Vision Zero" concepts. It has been shown to work in many places throughout Europe and in particular in the city of Graz in Austria where the (default) speed limit is 30km/h unless otherwise posted ... unlike any other city in the world ... or at least that was the case recently. Most countries and the OECD agree that pedestrians and cyclists are at unacceptable risk of fatality if involved in a crash involving another vehicle with speed in excess of 30km/h so why not adopt 30km/h or 20mph as the "Safe Urban Speed Limit" and ONLY allow design and/or management of the road system at higher speeds where it is safe for ALL expected users?

2.      The second is designing and in particular retrofitting towns and cities so the priority is for pedestrians and cyclists and NOT for high speed motorised travel except where designed for those modes. Again this fits with "Vision Zero" concepts. The best known model is the "new" town of Houten in the Netherlands and for retrofit, Groningen also in the Netherlands. Both are well documented and the concepts involved are widely applicable. Why not adopt them as they reinforce use of trains for longer trips and walking and cycling for local trips and no doubt also encourage reduced trips thereby supporting the local economy.

3.      The third is (guess what?) from the USA although it has been discovered in other places and here I need to confess to exporting the idea to Brisbane Australia after first seeing it at a conference in Basle in 1995 and while it has been adopted elsewhere as well as in Brisbane, it is still struggling against opposition from (you guessed?) the state road management and road "UNsafety" authorities ... and various elements purporting to advocate for cyclists and/or cycling ...! This is an idea originating from Denver Colorado which aimed to show motorists where to expect cyclists on the road. It is a simple concept because very few road authorities ban cycling on ordinary urban roads i.e. other than freeways. It has been subjected to some 15 or more years "debate" and finally in a much watered down version begun the adoption process in the USA. It has worked well here in Australia and can be found by searching for "BFZ", "BAZ" or "yellow BIKE". But still people don't really want to support it. But once asked "why?" it becomes clear ... they know the roads are too dangerous ... but won't change that. So why not ask for all urban roads to be made safe for pedestrians and cyclists but shared with motorists not segregated? This too fits in well with "Vision Zero" etc.

They work ... there is evidence.

So will the USA adopt them and if not, why not? Are there any examples of these in the USA ... if so please publicise them, and if not, ask "Why not ...?" ...!

B.         It also seems that there is too much difficulty in gaining support i.e. everyone has their own ideas and thus populism flourishes ... especially where political decision makers are concerned. We know the issues involved and why we must change. If so, the question is why have we not changed and as above, why not? Also, if the problems are known, why are the "experts" not doing anything much to reduce or eliminate them?

Again the USA provides many good examples that are not then adopted more widely ... in some cases, apparently quite deliberately. So why not try contrasting for example the models of the Californian clean air requirements or Portland for walking, cycling and urban public transport as against other places in the USA? Or Denver with very high car ownership but also surprisingly high use of walking, cycling and/or transit? After all, it is the USA that successfully pioneered the use of front mounted racks for bicycles on buses yet that too has been resisted overseas with the only other international example adopting the concept being the Australian national capital Canberra. Why the resistance to good proven ideas?

C.         And what do we do about somehow getting the recently regarded experts to recant or change? What does THAT do for their credibility? Given that they are in fact basing their decisions on sound knowledge and research not too blinkered by recent practices, there is every reason to expect them to acknowledge that change is now essential and to get on with ensuring it occurs and is not held back by old practices ... or practitioners. Those who can't or won't should depart ...! Surely there must be SOME exemplars in the USA ... of both people and places? Again please find them and publicise them.

It may be thought to be difficult to make these almost radical changes .... but the USA and many other places have shown it is not.

And as Groningen has shown, it can be incremental ... but it must be with intent and dedication to the "new" to the detriment if not almost exclusion of the "old".

Regards and best wishes to the USA, hopefully a global leader that can learn from others .. and from itself ..!

Michael Yeates Australia

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Bill says that “congestion pricing comes at a cost to motorists, businesses and the economy.” This may be true in some circumstances. But the absence of congestion pricing also imposes huge costs on motorists and the economy. Today on our highways, we experience the equivalent of an electrical brownout twice a day – every day – in every major metropolitan area in America. This brownout manifests itself as gridlock when the congestion of the morning and evening rush hour brings commerce and commuting to a halt. When too many vehicles seek to occupy the same space at the same time, the resulting gridlock means no one goes anywhere fast. The cost of gridlock is wasted fuel, missed appointments, and delayed deliveries for truckers, shippers and receivers. The Texas Transportation Institute’s 2007 Urban Mobility Report notes that traffic congestion in American cities of all sizes creates a $78 billion annual drain on the U.S. economy in the form of 4.2 billion lost hours and 2.9 billion gallons of wasted fuel—that's 105 million weeks of vacation and 58 fully-loaded supertankers. Congestion pricing at least offers the possibility to eliminate some of that $78 billion drain. 

Bill Graves says that fuel taxes offer the best solution to build new highway capacity and that “motorists already have paid to use the roadways with taxes.” Using this logic, homeowners should not have to pay for the electricity or water that comes into their homes because the power lines and the pipes have already been paid for. Paying for the pavement in a road is one thing; but paying for the use of the road is another thing entirely. In our congested world, paying for the actual use of the road is just as important – if not more important – than the cost of the pavement. We confront a situation in America in which we have a relatively cheap good – roads – that are being overused by all of us precisely because we are not assessed the true cost of using those roads. The fuel taxes that bought us the wonderful roads we have today will not alleviate the congestion that occurs when 1,000 vehicles at that same time attempt to use the road space that can accommodate only 500 vehicles at that time. The solution to that problem, Bill, is not more fuel taxes. The solution is more tools, more creativity, and more inventiveness. One of those tools – though not the only tool – is congestion pricing. 

Finally, Bill Graves says, “Privatization is dismantling the nation’s interstate highway network.” Sorry, Bill, but I respectfully disagree. Our interstate highway network is being dismantled by America’s collective lack of investment in that network. Privatization has nothing to do with that. As Thomas Friedman so ably points out, the dismantling of our infrastructure has happened because “we’ve indulged ourselves for too long with tax cuts that we can’t afford, bailouts of auto companies that have become giant wealth-destruction machines,” and a host of other practices that are emblematic of a people who are not behaving responsibly. We as a country need to start behaving responsibly again. Paying for the actual use of our transportation system in real time is responsible. Casting aspersions on Europe and Asia for using congestion pricing and private sector investment to try to improve their road infrastructure is not a responsible thing to do.

First, that high-quality, high-frequency, public transport can be provided without subsidy, often by associations of vehicle-owners sharing a route. The "Por Puesto" taxis in Caracas, minibuses in Hong Kong, Sherut in Israel, Dolmus in Istanbul, “Serveece” taxis in Jordan, Jeepneys in Manila, Publicos in Puerto Rico, are examples known to many. Such services have been regulated out of existence in most of the US but still operate (legally) in Atlantic City and (illegally) in New York City. 

Second, that people in other countries crave the “right to mobility”, mentioned so eloquently in this exchange by Eric Britton. The data show that people everywhere strive to maximize their travel within the constraints of the time and money available to them. To that extent we are “one world”.

Third, that massive expenditures on mass transit, in Europe, Asia and Latin America, have added to passenger transport capacity, but have had negligible effects on road traffic congestion. 

Light rail may be old hat by now, but there is no lack of other ideas and innovations that our incoming senior U.S. DOT officials could benefit from by taking a trip abroad early in their tenure. They could learn, for example, how European governments regulate long-term private tollroad concessions; why congestion pricing has been accepted in London and Stockholm but rejected in Manchester; how the Dutch government plans to transition to a national vehicle-km road pricing system by 2012; how the combination intercityrail/car sharing system (the "Mobility Coop") works in Switzerland; and what accounts for the surprising success of the public bicycle-sharing  "Velib" program in Paris.

Let us hope that the transportation leaders in the Obama administration will follow in the footseps of their predecessors, encourage an active program of foreign exchanges and become willing learners and adapters of innovative ideas from abroad

Peter Wiederkehr, formerly director of the OECD EST! program for "Environmentally Sustainable Transportation", who is currently  senior adviser to the Austrian government on transportation and environmental policy, picked up the phone this morning and called me in Paris to tell me the following (my paraphrase):

"Eric, I think you and your colleagues on that National Journal transportation expert panel are asking some great questions about international experience that the incoming Obama team and the US more generally will do well to know more about.  There are, as you know, many great ones out there and this will surely be a fruitful and ultimately useful search for them.  I am sure you will find a way to channel to them solid  information on some of the best ones.

"But please tell them for my part that, based on my extensive experience with the OECD and other international programs that have had me working extensively over the years with US agencies and projects, as well as people from other nations, probably the most important single thing that our US colleagues could do for themselves today would be to look into the many successful pathbreaking  projects inside  the United States that have made their mark and paved the way in many important ways.

"The problem is that these projects are often not well known and not consistently or strategically supported by government policy either at the state or national level -- and that is a real pity because it means that, despite their hard work and successes at the local level, these projects and initiatives rarely end up being sufficiently well known to inform and encourage other communities and groups about strategies that work.  Moreover, in many cases I have seen situations in which very small amounts of financial and other support could make a big difference for these projects which are leading or trying to lead the way.  But that is rarely forthcoming."

What can I do but to agree to with Peter and pass on this message to all of you.

*           *           *

Taking this one step further I can share with you the observation that this matter of finding and supporting smaller projects and initiatives is one that few countries and institutions have been able to deal with effectively in just about any part of the world.  Most of our institutions and procedures are geared primarily to working with small numbers of large projects. It is less confusing, cheaper, and the way they have always done it. I can appreciate that.

However given the nature of the transportation sector and the economic and environmental constraints we face today, there is every reason for us to find ways to encourage and support these local often smaller initiatives. Adjusting our routines and practices to take advantage of all these innovations that are so badly needed, despite the fact that they may be "inconveniently small for orderly processing" is certainly part of the challenge ahead. 

This is problematic because in the world in which we live the future will belong to our ability to generate and make succeed very large numbers of often quite small and almost always very diverse projects and approaches. This requires an entirely different legislative, administrative, and financial approach. And behind all that a different mindset. Fortunately we have the communication tools and procedures that will allow us to deal with these new challenges efficiently. Now all we have to fix is that mindset.

I guess that counts for a lesson from "beyond our borders", as much as anything else we are likely to come up with here. Thanks Peter.

Kind regards,

Eric Britton

The fact that many other countries are seeking to optimize transportation infrastructure spending across all modes - or regardless of mode.  (Matt Rose, Steve Heminger)  I say repeatedly to audiences that businesses focus on optimizing the way they get product from point A to B, or drawing from the best pool of people.  Individuals are focused on their end goal, whether commuting to work, running errands, or traveling the country or the world for leisure or business.  They don't care about modal legislative battles.

The importance of making infrastructure investment a strategic priority (Ed Wytkind, Richard Timmons).  Transportation can't be moved to the end of the line of priorities after the stimulus, and a fragmented approach to policy and programs -- in contrast to the strong leadership in China, Canada and Mexico to invest in transportation that supports economic competitiveness -- doesn't make sense and is something this nation can't sell to the American people.  

And the need to expand on how transportation infrastructure is financed and delivered (Bob Poole and Pat Jones) is the third piece.  Project financing delivers capital projects all over the world and in many forms.  Let's step back from ideology for a minute and understand that if there are cash flows there can be financing mechanisms - debt or equity - that allow projects to get going rather than saving up cash to "buy the house," so to speak. 

What does this say to me?

First, we can't afford for Congress to say, "Been there, done that," after the stimulus.  The FAA needs marching orders so that NextGen moves forward, the avionics to support NextGen can be installed by the industry and ground (airport, runway) improvements can be made.  At a bare minimum the Highway Trust Fund has to be made solvent to prevent 50% cuts in highway and transit funding, but more importantly there needs to be a new direction for surface transportation.  The often-forgotten Water Resources Development Act should be reauthorization for locks, dams and levees, as well as fully utilizing the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund for critical dredging projects in support of trade flows.  And don't forget the need to pass a tax credit supporting additional investment in rail capacity.  There is a big legislative agenda for the remainder of 2009.

Second, Congress may be looking at these three separate authorizations this year - SAFETEA-LU, WRDA and FAA - along with a host of other transportation measures that could affect the safety, condition, efficiency and cost of transportation - but without some sense of guiding principles regardless of mode or committee of jurisdiction the solutions I don't see how the concept of optimizing investment comes to fruition.  Perhaps there is an opportunity in the Senate for the leaders of the various committees of jurisdiction to start the reauthorization processes by coming together and definining a vision, national interest and goals for transportation policy and discussing how various bills, or titles of those bills, can reinforce an overall vision.  Chairman Oberstar and Ranking Member Mica can take this task on in their own committee.  And in my wildest dreams all of these leaders actually meet soon to reconcile their own visions.  That would be great progress - the leaders of several committees in both houses agreeing that no single piece of transportation legislation can be done in a vacuum.

And finally, every single revenue source and financing approach should be on the table to get the jobs done across transportation.  Recognize that the private sector does have expertise in project management and in infrastructure operations.  Invite them in as a partner.  Yes, there will be growing pains as each sector - public and private - learn to speak one another's languages, but there will be benefits. And don't forget that beyond highways, transit, aviation, and inland waterways & ports that the private sector iteself owns and operates freight railroads, as well as energy, broadband and water infrastructure.  We have to make sure that barriers to private investment - financial, regulatory or bureaucratic - are torn down so that we can rebuild America.

During my time as the commanding officer of the United States Eighth Army in Korea I witnessed firsthand the economic dynamo of the Pacific Rim.  The U.S. enjoys a phenomenal transportation network seldom rivaled.  However, our system is still not as robust as future demand will require, and developing countries are rapidly increasing their capabilities.  

The infrastructure investments that many states are willing to make are truly staggering.  As one example (also raised by TTD’s Ed Wytkind) the People’s Republic of China announced in their “11th Five-Year Plan” a stupendous increase in investment in railroad infrastructure which was projected to lead to over US$23 billion in rail investment in 2007 alone. 

Unlike in the PRC, the American people are blessed with a freight rail system that is overwhelmingly privately owned and maintained.  However railroads, especially the 550 short line and regional freight railroads, need a helping hand in order to build the capacity necessary to ensure our domestic transportation future.

The U.S. spends a trickle of its federal transportation funding on freight railways.  The latest proposals for economic recovery packages include no funding for freight rail transportation [House; Senate].  A recent Cambridge Systematics study indicates the short line industry needs to invest an additional $14 billion to upgrade its infrastructure and meet future demand.  Short lines are not asking the government to foot this entire bill but rather to provide the help they need to jump start this investment.  Whether it be the short line tax credit or the RRIF loan program, every time the government steps in with some investment assistance, private short line investment increases many times that amount.

Even including annual U.S. private investment of roughly $13 billion by the seven largest freight railroads, and an additional $1 billion by small railroads, China has heavily outspent the U.S. on railroad infrastructure in recent years, and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.

The ability to move bulk goods and material in a fuel efficient manner is critical to the economic and strategic wellbeing of a nation by creating good jobs at a critical time for our nation's economy.  Abraham Lincoln knew this in the 1860s with the creation of the transcontinental railroad.  China knows it today.  It’s a lesson we must relearn. 

The National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Study Commission (on which I served) called for a new beginning for the federal program that was "performance-driven, outcome-based, generally mode-neutral, and refocused to pursue objectives of genuine national interest."  We need more investment and better performance out of all the modes -- whether air, road, rail, or water.  And the way to get it is by ignoring those distinctions as much as possible, and putting our money and management muscle behind the best solution in each travel corridor.

As Pat Jones correctly points out, most of Europe and increasing numbers of countries in Latin America and Asia-Pacific (especially Australia) fund most of their major highways and urban expressways via tolling. But what is not clear in Pat’s commentary is that in most cases, these projects are also developed and operated by the private sector under long-term (30 to 70-year) concessions. In the United States, we typically refer to such agreements as one form of public-private partnership (PPP).

Doing toll projects via long-term concessions brings several major benefits, in addition to a funding mechanism. First, in a well-structured concession, significant risk can be shifted from the public sector to the private sector. Start-up toll roads tend to be high-risk projects, with many failing to achieve projected revenues in their first 5 to 10 years. When traffic and revenue risk are taken on by the concession company, in the worst-case scenario of the toll road entering bankruptcy, the investors lose out—but motorists and taxpayers do not. The past decade has seen two such projects—Camino Columbia in Texas and Cross-City Tunnel in Sydney, Australia—go belly up. In both cases, the new toll roads have remained in operation, allowing new owners (in one case Texas DOT) to take them over at a fraction of their cost and keep them in operation.

A second key benefit is innovation. It is the private sector, via toll-concession projects, that first implemented electronic congestion pricing (91 Express Lanes in California), that developed the world’s highest toll bridge (Millau Viaduct in France), and that has built the world’s most advanced highway tunnel (A86 West) deep beneath Versailles, completing a long-stalled missing link in the Paris ring road.

And a third benefit is better targeting of transportation investment dollars to projects that pass a benefit/cost test. All too much of the current federal “investment” in transportation is doled out by formula, with no requirement that the project’s benefits exceed its costs. But you cannot get investors to plunk down $1 billion for a toll road, bridge, or tunnel without rigorous studies demonstrating a likely return on investment. That’s a much-needed filter to sort out low-performance projects.

Finally, the good news is that the last several years have seen some $180 billion assembled in the form of infrastructure investment funds. This is equity capital—i.e., real money—sitting in these funds looking for good PPP projects to invest in. When leveraged via debt investments of various kinds (including long-term toll revenue bonds), that sum should produce two to three times the amount of equity—i.e., $360 to $540 billion. That is over and above whatever the federal and state governments will appropriate over the next decade based on revenues from fuel taxes.

That $180 billion in equity is a global figure, though. So how much of it is invested here in America depends on the climate for such investments. Less than a dozen states have workable transportation PPP enabling legislation, and some congressional leaders have called for imposing federal regulation on states’ ability to do such projects. There are plenty of investment opportunities still in Europe, South America, India, China, etc. if policy-makers make such projects unattractive here.

It's worth reviewing how many other countries, especially those in the European Union, are seeking to optimize transportation infrastructure spending across all modes. That integrated approach tends to focus public investment on those types of transportation infrastructure projects that have the greatest benefit to the public, whether that benefit comes from reduced greenhouse gas emissions, improved overall transportation fuel efficiency, reduced highway congestion or all three.

In the U.S., we have the advantage of starting with robust, market-based private investment in freight rail, which has produced a freight rail network that is the envy of the world. Thus, our approach should be to preserve the market-based regulatory structure that has facilitated that investment and add to it public contribution and investment incentives, to achieve the policy goals that other countries have been quick to realize flow from expanded rail investment.

In sum, the government doesn't build or underwrite railroads in the U.S., as it does in China and the EU, but the U.S. government could prioritize freight rail's benefits as those countries do, and better leverage private spending on infrastructure. This would not only preserve the competitive advantage that our low-cost supply chain gives the U.S. economy, but also it would be stimulative, creating good U.S. jobs in the transportation sector, while making investments that return benefit to the public for years to come.

PARIS: For his efforts to reduce the privilege of car drivers in Paris, Denis Baupin has been saddled with nasty nicknames, including "Monsieur Embouteillages" (Mr. Traffic Jam), Khmer Vert and worse.

As the transportation chief of the French capital for seven years, Baupin, who has written a book called "All Cars, No Future," was the force behind the development of Paris's hugely successful bicycle-sharing program, Vélib'. He introduced a tramway, minibuses, rider subsidies, more bus lanes and faster bus speeds. He reduced auto speed limits to 30 kilometers an hour, or just under 19 miles an hour, from 50 kilometers an hour on 1,000 streets and closed many to cars altogether.

In short, Baupin has changed the face of mobility in Paris, making it, by most accounts, easier for users of public transportation, pedestrians and bikers, and less accessible to car drivers.

Since March 2008, the Green Party member has had a new but related charge: fighting climate change.

Continues at -- http://www.iht.com/articles/2009/01/22/business/wbspot24.1-411196.php

On Pat Jones’s “The (Foreign) Language of Transportation Innovation”

That is both an interesting piece and very nicely said.  Thanks Pat.   

Your piece brings up two points, one of which substantive than the other organizational, both of which I would like to comment briefly.

On the grounds of substance, I can only agree with you that there certainly significant part of our infrastructure which has traditionally been funded by taxpayers and then used freely willy-nilly by anyone who happens to want to access it, that should be deeply rethought.  And as you say international experience makes it clear that there are other, surely better ways of going about this.  And surely there has never been a better time to do this than now, since with any luck whatsoever we are in a real game-change situation.

There really are two keys to making this work, are there not Pat?  The first is the concept, and this is one case in which economists’ theories do actually correspond with the real world.  And that is why, among countless other things, William Vickery won his Nobel prize. (He didn’t get it for trying to teach me economic theory at Columbia I am sure, given the results.)

And the second key of course is technology.  We spent years, decades even, being almost there, and as good proof of being almost there as any is the way in which they eventually got around to handling their congestion charging scheme in London.  ( But I guess that is because the English are always consistently behind the curve in most of this stuff. Oops. I didn’t really say that.)  The fact is however that it’s 2009, the technology is there and ready to dance.  All it takes is careful preparation and the right selection of partners, and off you go.  Sure you can screw it up, but you have got to be real stupid to do it now.

Finally Pat, a note to our sponsor:  I would like to have been able to post something like this as a comment attached DIRECTLY to your piece, because I believe that is where it belongs -- as opposed to my making an additional entry which will not only add bulk and a certain amount of static to the whole but also surely get lost in the process.  Of course it is great to have these fine statements on after another by all of us who have the stage here, but also to my mind that is not enough -- comments and dialogues are needed which are organized in such a way that the whole thing fits nicely together.  It would be great to have a real simple little device which would allow us to do this, click click.  I am sure it is already there in the software package and can be quickly done.

Lisa you and your team are doing such a great job herding all us wayward felines.  Congratulations and avanti per la gloria del mondo.

Eric

America’s economic renewal and global competitiveness depend on a comprehensive infrastructure investment strategy. While America engages in the same old, tired debate, our international economic competitors get it: they are employing massive multi-billion dollar plans to improve and modernize their transportation systems. Congress should heed the calls of Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Jim Oberstar and fully fund the transportation stimulus provisions. But in the current economic recovery legislation, transit and rail have already gotten a significant haircut at a time when transit systems, their riders and workers need more resources in the face of high fuel costs, soaring demand and depleted budgets. 

China gets it. It will invest $200 billion in its railways between 2006 and 2010. Since 1990, it has built more than 33,000 miles of highways. By 2020, China plans almost 100 new airports and 190,000 miles of roads. These investments will lay the groundwork for long term economic growth for China. India’s plans are impressive as well. U.S. investment pales in comparison.

Other smaller countries are equally committed to investing in the future success of their economies. Consider, for example, South Korea and Spain, which have a gross domestic product (GDP) similar to that of New York State. South Korea has begun a massive investment in airports, rail, roads and transit as well as a plan to build a new $50 billion city to serve as the nation’s capital. Since 2000, Spain has budgeted $120 billion for extensive infrastructure and public works development and has an additional $200 billion earmarked through 2020. Those nations will be able to produce goods and services more efficiently and transport them to market more easily. They will also improve modern and efficient commuter transport networks for their citizens.

In a global economy, America can ill-afford to see its transportation system fail to meet the nation’s economic needs.  In contrast to our competitors’ investments, U.S. commitment to infrastructure improvements has been lacking for the last several decades. From 1950 to 1970, the U.S. devoted 3 percent of GDP to infrastructure spending; since 1980, that number has dropped to 2 percent of GDP. This is trending in the wrong direction, given that the American Society of Civil Engineers estimates that we need to invest $1.6 trillion over the next 5 years just to bring our system into good condition.

And with the collapsing economy, infrastructure investments create jobs. For every $1 billion in investment, as many as 47,000 jobs are created. Within three weeks of funding a project, employees are hired. Two weeks later paychecks start flowing. That’s economic stimulus!

This seems like a no-brainer – it’s about time America learns from the rest of the world.

As Governor, and in my former life as managing partner of a private law firm, I saw firsthand the value of benchmarking.  Where, for example, does the U.S. stand in its commitments to refreshing old and decaying infrastructure compared to other mature economies?  What about infrastructure workforce?  Are we graduating as many engineers and innovators as other growing economies?  How about global connections?  How does U.S. investment in ports and airports compare to other major economies?

Sadly, I think we all know the answer to these questions.

Going through an appropriate benchmarking exercise—which I am sure has been done many times over—will tell us how far we have to go in order to catch up and be competitive.  Let’s agree on a set of goals and find practical ways to achieve them.

Emphasis on Evidence-Based Policy: One such success story is from the UK and its groundbreaking Eddington Transport Study. Eddington investigated the long-term links between transport and the UK’s economic productivity, growth, and stability in the context of sustainable development – and utilized its findings to made wholesale reform recommendations. The study led to reforms at the Ministry for Transport away from modal schemes (transit, highways, maritime, etc.) and instead reflects functional schemes such as City, Regional, National, and International Networks. These functional schemes also sit together on a Department Board, ensuring that each function has a voice in the establishment of national strategy and policy.

The Eddington report advocates for a new model for funding transportation projects: fund investments that perform highest in a cost-benefit analysis based on selection criteria. In the end, it emphasized the improvements that could be made through smart transportation investments at key urban “pinch points” rather than in expensive, large-scale projects.

It should be noted that the strategy is coming under criticism in recent weeks but by recruiting respected business leaders, academics and other high-profile public figures to lead the effort, and staffing it with cross-disciplinary teams of civil servants and experts there is hope the effort can avoid getting bogged down in political inertia.

Trade, Freight and Logistics: There are also important lessons that can be taken from Germany. Their Freight and Logistics Master Plan offers real insights into how a federal government can develop a strategic master plan using a data-driven process.

Some key aspects of Germany’s plan/experience to takeaway: a) Significant commitment by the federal ministry to prioritize this effort, making all planned transportation projects subject to change based on the outcome of this effort; b) the cross-cutting nature of the plan's action items—ranging from education to the environment; c) collaboration with other federal ministries, showing recognition of the integrated nature of this master plan and the need for other ministries to develop and actualize policies and programmatic changes; and d) conversations with an extensive range of stakeholders (ports, logistical centers, governments) to gather information and build support.

Like other federal efforts, the freight plan is built on benefit/cost analysis, environmental appraisals, and spatial impact assessments. And even though the quality of data available in Germany is already much better that in other countries (a-hem!), yet the federal government has made a commitment to expand data collection on a range of topics over the next 5 years.

Bold Inter-Metropolitan Area Passenger Rail Plans: When it comes to comprehensive planning for inter-metro connectivity, there is no doubt that Europe is the current world leader. Its Trans-European Transport Network, or TEN-T, is a collection of modal networks that are centrally coordinated to enhance connectivity between the metropolitan centers throughout Europe. The network carries more than half of all European freight and passenger traffic, making it a significant contributor to European economic prosperity.

In 2005 TEN-T elected to expand its focus from the original fourteen projects and corridors to thirty. These projects vary in mode and scope, but all maintain the common thread to enhance connectivity while taking advantage of the particular characteristics of each area. TEN-T figures that completing this work will lead to annual benefits of $12.6 billion for regional transportation alone, as well as significant reductions in transportation-related emissions.

Public-Private Partnership Units: Many countries have begun implementing specialized units throughout various governmental agencies to assist with the expanding opportunities for public-private partnerships (PPPs).

So-called PPP Units provide divergent services based on the needs of the department or agency, but all share the common goal of protecting the public's interest by providing critical assistance regarding PPPs.

Canada maintains one of the most well-funded and expansively responsible PPP units. Formed in 2007, PPP Canada Inc. administers a $1.2 billion fund to support and invest in PPP infrastructure projects, in addition to providing other public units and private firms with valuable information regarding the PPP process. The unit and its fund operate within a broader Canadian infrastructure plan, Building Canada, which commits $32 billion over seven years to promote a growing economy, a cleaner environment, and more prosperous communities.

Ireland utilizes two separate units to split the tasks of informing and financially supporting PPPs. The Central PPP Policy Unit’s primary responsibilities are to develop the framework, including legislation, to support the PPP process while also disseminating best practice information. The companion program, the National Development Finance Agency, operates in the financial sector by applying commercial financial evaluation standards to ensure the Exchequer maximizes the public investment returns. The Agency also oversees the procurement process in the health, justice, and education sectors. Since 2005 both units have received votes of confidence from the central government by receiving expanded responsibilities.

Canada and Ireland display just two of the different approaches to national PPP unit development; India, the Netherlands, South Africa, and Italy are a sampling of the other countries that employ PPP units to facilitate their PPP process.

This is just a sample of the lessons we can learn from outside our borders. Let's not waste this opportunity!

Mexican Christmas (“A piñata of ideas”)

To get the job done I sat down immediately and drafted a round-robin email inviting them each to submit a SINGLE IDEA or concept together with up to 250 words of background and explanation. Thus far more than fifty of my distinguished colleagues have already piled in with contributions, spanning a couple of dozen countries on all continents (except Africa so far, alas). I am now in the process of trying to hammer all this into some kind of order to facilitate your consultation and use, however it is going to take me until the end of the week to get them to you in readable form. (In the meantime if you can stand the heat, you can view the latest draft entries at http://www.nj5.newmobility.org/ )

That process now well underway, I would like to conclude this first message with my own best single recommendation based on my own read of something that I believe to be important which is now taking shape in Europe, and which in my view has real potential to influence US transportation policy and investments in the critical four years directly ahead.

*           *           *

The Right to Mobility for All

This is a concept which we see gradually emerging out of the transportation policy dialogue in many parts of the world, one which increasingly is intersecting with and being shaped by considerations of environment, life quality, and social justice, as well as serving the critical economic underpinnings of our cities and countries. As you know well this idea that people may actually have a right to mobility is not one that is particularly high on the screen in the States today . But that’s why you’re asking us these questions, isn’t it?

You will see that this is an idea for our time. But it was not always so.

Why it is needed

For various reasons -- economics, age, health, location, impatience and a certain social blindness being among the most important -- we live in a world in which an increasing number of people are finding themselves systematically excluded from much of what would for most of us constitute a normal life: ranging from impossibilities of getting safely, at bearable cost and reasonably quickly to a place where they can find work, to get their shopping done, to meet with friends and family, to make their way to school or university, to get medical attention, yes to play, and to the full spectrum of daily life activities which all the rest of us take for granted. These people, this growing plurality, are under our present arrangements "transportation deprived". 

How has this come about? Is it something that is important? And what if anything can be done about it?

As the growing prosperity of the 20th century took hold around the world, the idea of having a driving your own car came to be considered universally desirable. It was a central part of the American dream and one which has been taken up with enormous enthusiasm by people around the world, North and South, East and West. And if you have any doubts about that a quick look at the streets and highways of places as far apart as Berlin and Moscow, Delhi and Beijing, Rio de Janeiro and Cape Town, will quickly ram the point home.

In the past "everybody" understood that the best possible way of getting from your A to your B, when and as you wish to, was simply to jump into your car and drive straight to your destination. Bingo! No problem! This consensus view was rarely challenged, in United States or for that matter pretty much anywhere else where people could conceivably gain possession of a car. 

Reasonably enough under these circumstances and the mindset that goes with it, our systems of infrastructure, public expenditure and the rest have come to be geared around a, basically, car-based system.    Doubtless the most striking proof of this is that something on the order of three quarters of all public expenditures have been and are being based on this model. And not only in America.

There was a time, not all that long ago, in which this seemed like a perfectly reasonable formula for an efficient and equitable life. Cars were cheap, energy abundant, distances great, roads free, the air fresh (enough), the population young, cities (relatively) small, land plentiful, parking not an issue (have you ever noticed that in movies no one ever has a parking problem?), and our planet boundless and without constraints.

But increasingly in many parts of the world, and of course in parts of the United States, this old formula for mobility and all that went with it has begun to show its age. And among the major costs of this poor fit of public policy and private reality are those being borne by a growing number of people who increasingly are being physically cut off from the mainstream of daily life. 

For a vast majority of Americans this concept of a "right to mobility" will undoubtedly be an unfamiliar, even uncomfortable idea. Certainly it does not square very well with a traditional culture imbued with ideals of the prominency of individual initiative as opposed to collective action. For this reason the concept has not thus far made much headway here. Yet!

And if you have not read or heard about much about all of this, it is because these same people are also out of the mainstream of communications. They are not a silent minority. They are, worse yet, a voiceless minority.

Should they have a voice? Do they deserve a voice? Who is going to be this voice?

Message from Europe:

By contrast with the States much of Europe has traditionally been considerably more sensitive to certain basic human rights for all, rich and poor, strong and weak -- rights what are seen as indispensable building blocks of a civilized and just (and effective) society. The right to education for all. The right to food. The right to health care for all.   The right of equality before the law. The rights to freedom of expression and religion.

Some of our more iron-willed conservative friends have been known to characterize this as an example of a "nanny state" gone amok, an “excessive desire” to protect. Or as one more right-leaning observer put it the day he heard that the US government under former President Bush was going to take an active role to work out some kind of policy to buttress America’s flailing banking system: "When I woke up this morning and read that in the paper, I suddenly thought I was in France ". Read this as you will but...

. . . I thought it was called good governance.

But you don’t have to come to France – just get out and have a look for yourself

This may seem like an abstract consideration to anyone who is comfortably ensconced in a warm room with a full plate and his own car nearby when he needs it. But if you get up from that nice chair this morning, step away from your office, and get out there to talk about these issues and problems with people who are older, infirm, unemployed, trapped in ghettos, living in outlying areas, rural, or just stone poor, your perception of the realities will undoubtedly be changed in a significant manner.

This is not a trivial minority. We are not talking about slackers or weak willed people. This phenomenon is not limited to one or two cities or communities in America which we believe to take care of the problem for themselves if at all. It is a problem that is so far reached in so large in scale that it merits closest consideration by the incoming Obama transportation team.

Which brings us to the concept of the Right to Mobility for All. A deep and powerful concept which I and many of my colleagues in the United States and abroad would like to see more carefully examined and put into action by the incoming Obama transportation team. Because when you start to dig into it seriously, you are going to find that it changes many things, many important things, in significant ways. But that you will see for yourselves when you actually start to dig into it.

But, and this is important, it is not something that can do itself. At the same time we also have to be aware of the "other shoe" of the Right to Mobility, namely the nuts and bolts of the concept of sustainable transportation. Now over the last years significant progress has been made about what this concept means and how it applies in very specific ways. It is no longer a pious thought or empty theory. It is a critical concomitant of robust and effective transportation.

While there are a number of places where you can turn for helpful guidelines as to how to put sustainable transportation policy to work (you could do worse than clicking to www.Knoogle.net and searching for "sustainable transportation"), one that I can recommend to you will be the very careful menu of strategic building blocks for policymakers that can be found on the opening pages of the New Mobility Agenda which you can click to from here at http://www.newmobility.org .

To succeed these two concepts have to move forward in tandem. And as you dig more carefully into the details and implications, you are going to see that this just might become an important part of the toolkit of the new transportation team. It certainly should.

Something familiar about this?

To me there is something hauntingly familiar in all this. Back when I was a child in Mississippi, I can tell you for a fact that we did not give a great deal of thought to the concept of the "right to vote". Even the phrase itself was not familiar in most of our conversations, whether we were blacks or whites, Native Americans or, more often than not, some combination of the above. Some of us voted and some of us didn’t. Not very many people made a big deal out of this. That was just the way it was.

But for those of us who have lived through the events of the last half-century, with all that has gone on to turn the concept of the right to vote to reality, the universal right to vote, we are well aware that we and our country have been indelibly marked, forever transformed, by our collective commitment to the concept of the universality of the right to vote. We would not be where we are today if some people, some concerned and brave citizens, did not think that was something worth fighting for.

I respectfully propose to this panel and to all who may read this that the concept of the Right to Mobility for All is one that deserves to be better known, more closely studied, and very shortly given its place in the law and in practice. And, if it has to be that way, one worth fighting for.

I hope this idea will be carefully considered and discussed at length in Washington DC and across the United States of America. We can take the lead from Europe and make it into our own. And in the process we can send a signal to the world that we are back. A lot of people out there have been waiting for us you know.

Eric Britton

Paris France and Los Angeles USA

Some years ago, a European friend told me this joke: If someone who speaks three languages is trilingual and someone who speaks two languages is bilingual, what do you call someone who speaks one language? An American! I laughed when I first heard this joke. But it wasn’t a full-throated belly laugh. It was the ironic, mournful laugh of one who faces a sad reality.

We Americans are very good at many things: farming, food production, sports, motion pictures, theater, medical research, construction, and much more. But compared to the rest of the world, we’re not very good at learning to speak other languages. Why should we learn other languages when the rest of the world speaks English? And why should we wonder what those people who speak other languages are doing with their time? What could they possibly be doing that we haven’t already figured out? Well, the answer is quite a bit.

Last December, New York Times columnist and author Thomas Friedman wrote an interesting column about the technological advances he’s encountered abroad. He observed how wonderful it was to make a static-free phone call from Hong Kong to his wife in Maryland using a friend’s Chinese cell phone. A few hours later, Friedman took off from Hong Kong’s ultramodern airport after riding out there from downtown on a sleek high-speed train — with wireless connectivity that was so good he was able to surf the Web the whole way on his laptop.

Returning to the U.S., Friedman confronted a host of frustrating realities. He noted the ugly low-ceilinged arrival hall at Kennedy Airport where they charge $3 to use a luggage cart. Why don’t we Americans let visitors to our country use a luggage cart for free after traveling thousands of miles to get here, as other countries do at their international airports? He noted the Penn Station escalators that are so narrow it’s almost impossible to carry a suitcase and the grimy trackside platforms that haven’t been cleaned in years. He also bemoaned his ride on the Acela train on which he tried to conduct an interview by cell phone, only to have his call dropped three times in 15 minutes. He concluded his mini-critique of America by asking, “If we’re so smart, why are other people living so much better than us?” The rest of Friedman’s column, Time to Reboot America, provides further commentary along these lines.

It’s clear to me that we have much to learn from our non-American cousins about improving the efficiency and sustainability of our transportation networks. For example, in the last decade the people of Santiago, Chile – a country with one-twentieth the population of the U.S. and less than one-fiftieth of our GDP – have constructed a modern, integrated network of five major motorways crisscrossing the city, all supported by a system of fully electronic open road tolling. There are no tollbooths in Santiago. However, there is a modern urban highway network entirely supported by tolls that are paid electronically by vehicles as they move swiftly through the city.

Across the Atlantic, the equivalent of our interstate highway system in “Old” Europe is an integrated network of toll roads operated by a collection of diverse private sector concessionaires. The 20 countries that are part of ASECAP, the European toll road association, collect $30 billion a year in tolls on a network of less than 18,000 miles of superhighways. Germany alone collects over $4 billion a year in tolls on heavy trucks. That’s nearly half the total value of tolls we collect in the United States in one year.

On the other side of the globe, the National Highways Authority of India is in the process of “four-laning” more than 12,000 kilometers of interurban highways in the Golden Quadrilateral and converting these roads to tolling. Road tolling makes a lot of sense to South Americans, Europeans, Asians, Australians, and South Africans. Our cousins abroad are successfully using tolls – and especially non-stop electronic tolling – to rebuild their highway systems, improve mobility, and stimulate economic growth. Meanwhile, back in America, we continue to rely on a federal gasoline tax that hasn’t been increased since the first year of the Clinton administration – a tax that continues to lose purchasing power and significance in our push to improve our nation’s infrastructure.

Why do we continue to ignore the technological and transportation funding wisdom of billions of people in Asia, Europe, South America and scores of other countries around the globe? When will we learn the language of transportation innovation?