Robert Poole is Director of Transportation Studies at the Reason Foundation, a public policy think tank based in Los Angeles. He is nationally known as an expert on privatization and transportation policy.
Poole was among the first to propose the commercialization of the U.S. air traffic control system, and his work in this field has helped shape proposals for a U.S. ATC corporation. A version of his corporation concept was implemented in Canada in 1996. He has advised the Office of the Secretary of Transportation, the White House Office of Policy Development, the National Performance Review, the National Economic Council, and the National Civil Aviation Review Commission on ATC commercialization. He was a member of the Bush-Cheney transition team on transportation. He is a member of the Critical Infrastructure Council of the Los Angeles Economic Development Corporation and of the Air Traffic Control Association. He is also a member of the GAO's National Aviation Studies Advisory Panel.
Poole's Reason Foundation studies launched a national debate on airport privatization in the United States. He advised both the FAA and local officials during the 1989-90 controversy over the proposed privatization of Albany (NY) Airport. His seven years of policy research on this issue helped inspire both the privatization of Indianapolis airport management under Mayor Steve Goldsmith and Congress's 1996 enactment of the current Airport Privatization Pilot Program.
Poole has testified on airports, aviation security, and air traffic control on a number of occasions before House and Senate aviation subcommittees, and he has spoken on these subjects before numerous conferences over the past decade. He has also done consulting work on several airport privatization feasibility studies.
He is the author of dozens of policy studies and journal articles on transportation issues. His popular writings have appeared in national newspapers, including the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal; he has also been a guest on such network TV programs as "Crossfire," "Good Morning America," and "The O'Reilly Factor," as well as ABC and NBC News. He writes a monthly column on transportation policy issues for Public Works Financing.
Poole received his B.S. and M.S. in mechanical engineering at MIT and did graduate work in operations research at NYU.
A Solution in Search of a Problem As someone who loves riding trains, it pains me to say that the Administration’s high speed rail initiative is misconceived. It appears to be a solution in search of a problem or problems to be solved. Let’s examine the usual rationales. To reduce greenhouse gases? Recent analysis by researchers at UC Berkeley found that HSR may yield only marginal net GHG reductions, once the impacts of constructing it are included, especially if ridership falls short of official projections. And the cost of those reductions is very high—in the vicinity of… Read more
For the past several years, a growing number of transportation policy experts have called for rethinking how the federal government funds surface transportation. Reports from the Mary Peters DOT, the Policy & Revenue Commission, the Infrastructure Financing Commission, the Brookings Institution, and the Bipartisan Policy Center have all called for a more “performance-based approach,” as has the Government Accountability Office. All these various experts have argued that one of the big problems with current federal policy is that it largely just doles out money by formula (and by earmark), with little or no consideration of whether that money goes for… Read more
The TSA, as constituted, contains a built-in conflict of interest in that the agency is both the transportation security policymaker/regulator AND the provider of one major component of airport security, namely passenger and baggage screening. That kind of dual role leads to tendency to protect one’s own, while being more objective about demanding performance from those the agency regulates at arm’s length. For example, both the GAO and the DHS Inspector General’s office have periodically deployed red-teams to try to get banned objects past airport screening. They usually succeed. But have any heads rolled at TSA? Not as far as… Read more
How can we resolve the conflict between highway safety and increased goods-movement productivity from larger trucks? The first requisite is to turn to the findings of independent transportation researchers, not special interest groups with a stake in the outcome—whether freight carriers or highway safety groups. In terms of pavement damage, we know that six-axle configurations can distribute a heavier load in a way that would do no greater pavement damage than today’s 80,000-lb five-axle rigs. But we also know that 97,000 lbs. and heavier rigs exceed current limits of the FHWA’s bridge formula, an issue being brushed aside by the… Read more
What should Secretary LaHood’s new aviation advisory committee focus on? Let me suggest five guiding principles. First, do no harm. By that I mean don’t undercut or hobble the democratization of air travel ushered in by the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978. Even though adjusting to real competition has been difficult for most legacy carriers (and some new entrants), some airline business models are succeeding, even in today’s recession. Passengers overwhelmingly prefer low fares to greater amenities, and we should respect their judgment. Second, implement further reforms of the air traffic control system, as recommended by both the Baliles and… Read more
States, not the Feds, Should Protect the Public Interest in PPPs While I am largely in agreement with both Mary Peters and Greg Cohen on the importance of PPPs and protecting the public interest, neither adequately addressed the key question as we move into debating surface transportation reauthorization: What is the appropriate role of the federal government on this question? Chairman Oberstar’s bill, with its creation of an Office of Public Benefit, would greatly expand the federal government’s role, not only in PPPs but also in tolling, by creating what amounts to a tolling-and-PPP czar at US DOT. This position… Read more
Reducing Scope Could Restore Confidence in Federal Program It’s not only Mary Peters who has concluded that the federal surface transportation program has lost its way, increasingly evolving into a politicized public-works program. That was the conclusion of a March 2008 GAO report (GAO-08-400) as well as the Policy and Revenue Commission. But while the latter claimed to be streamlining and simplifying the program, it actually called for significantly expanding its scope to encompass inter-city rail, environment, and energy programs, in addition to expanding federal transit assistance to cities and towns of all sizes. That’s also what Chairman Oberstar… Read more
Transportation Security: Little Bang for the Buck Eight years ago, Congress enacted the Aviation & Transportation Security Act (ATSA) of 2001 in great haste, with very little prior study or research. The overwhelming political need was to reassure the voting public that something was being done to prevent a repeat of the horrible commandeering of airliners as weapons of mass destruction. Consequently, despite having the words “transportation security” in its title, ATSA devoted the vast majority of its mandates and funding to commercial aviation security. That not only leaves gaping vulnerabilities in other transportation modes but also focuses far too… Read more
A National Goods-Movement Policy? Goods-movement infrastructure has not gotten enough attention in recent decades, either at the federal level or in the transportation plans of urban area MPOs. So it would be useful for the forthcoming federal reauthorization to require MPOs to put more serious emphasis on goods movement as they revise their long range transportation plans. The larger question before us is what the federal government’s direct role should be. Despite my general decentralist leanings, I agree that facilitating the free flow of commerce—with the world and among the states—is one of the tasks the Constitution gives to the… Read more
Senate and House FAA Bills Are Both Flawed Though I have concerns over some of its provisions, I’m glad to see the Senate Commerce Committee finally moving forward on FAA reauthorization. By the time they get the Senate bill passed and into conference committee with the House, it will be two full years since the previous authorization lapsed (to be extended again and again, since September 2007). First, the good news. The Senate bill is for just two years. That jibes with the Administration’s intent to replace most of the current aviation excise tax structure with air traffic control user… Read more
Don’t Regulate VMT Reduction VMT reduction targeting, along the lines desired by environmental groups and some members of Congress, is already the law in California, thanks to SB 375, enacted last year. In the name of greenhouse gas reduction, this law sets GHG reduction targets for each of the state’s 17 metro areas and requires them to draft smart-growth-oriented land use and transportation plans aimed at reducing VMT. Those that produce the “best” plans to do this will get priority in the allocation of about $20 billion per year in federal and state transportation funding. The logic… Read more
Haste Makes Waste Congressmen Oberstar and Mica have proposed a sweeping revamp of the federal surface transportation program, which they hope to move quickly to enactment this summer. Doing so would be a mistake. Putting the bill on a fast track means this country will forego what should be an extended debate on whether this measure is the right path to pursue. And with other key Administration priorities—health care policy and global warming/cap & trade, in particular—already in play and requiring extensive debate, a rush to enactment of the surface transportation bill would almost certainly lead to… Read more
Urban Mass Transit is not a National Problem At a time of unprecedented federal deficits, the idea of expanding the federal government’s spending into what is basically a local issue requires a very high level of justification. The others who have posted on this blog, arguing in favor of federal funding for transit operating costs, have failed to meet that standard. Merely desiring federal money and having something nice to spend it on is hardly a justification. Not when, according to the Government Accountability Office, “the federal government’s financial condition and fiscal outlook are worse than many may understand. Specifically,… Read more
Airport Privatization Alive and Well, Despite Midway The failure of the proposed Midway Airport lease to get financed is a setback for U.S. airport privatization but hardly the end of the story. Like many other analysts, I was surprised at the size of the $2.5 billion winning bid from the Midco consortium, considering it very high given Midway’s limited growth prospects. That high price tag made the deal harder to finance, at a time when debt markets are still very risk-averse. A deal that would have required perhaps 30% equity and 70% debt 18 months ago may… Read more
Reducing Carbon Cost-Effectively The idea of using market mechanisms such as cap-and-trade or a carbon tax is a good one, in principle. Instead of government attempting to micromanage all sources of carbon emissions—and inevitably attempting to pick winners and losers—the market approach is to put a price on carbon and allow competitive market forces to sort out the least-cost way to reduce the output of carbon throughout our economy. Alas, that simple and efficient approach seems increasingly unlikely to be implemented. Congress and the Administration are moving steadily toward a version of cap-and-trade that combines the worst… Read more
Aviation is a Global Industry Despite deregulation of domestic airline activity more than 30 years ago, the U.S. government still practices a “father knows best” approach to airlines where “foreigners” are concerned. Among the most egregious protectionist practice is the severe limit imposed on non-U.S. ownership of U.S.-incorporated airlines. At a time when U.S. airlines are struggling and might benefit from new infusions of capital, these archaic rules prevent what is increasingly a global industry from taking advantage of global capital. While Rep. Oberstar proposes to reinforce those regulations, other countries are moving in the opposite direction. Both Australia… Read more
How Useful are New Reports on PPPs for Highways? By Robert Poole Three reports have appeared in recent weeks, offering advice to state policymakers on making use of the public-private partnership approach to highway infrastructure. The highly negative report from PIRG contrasts sharply with the reports put out by the Pew Center on the States and the Transportation Research Board. PIRG continues to attack PPP toll roads, presenting a very misleading picture of what is actually going on. In particular, their report blurs the distinction between leasing existing toll roads (“brownfields”) and creating new toll roads via PPP… Read more
Inter-City High Speed Rail? Not Necessarily It’s unfortunate that President Obama has made inter-city high-speed rail his “signature issue” in transportation. The $8 billion inserted into the stimulus bill at the last minute has created expectations for Japanese-style bullet trains on 11 long-planned corridors, but those hopes are likely to go unrealized. Moreover, by promoting expanded passenger rail service in these corridors, this policy may hinder many people’s hope of shifting more long-haul freight from truck to rail, as an energy-saving and greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction policy. Let me explain the problem. True high speed rail (HSR) that goes 150-200… Read more
Kathy, The report talks a lot about implementation of a national (or federal-government) VMT charge by 2020, but does not make clear how implementation is defined. When I served on the TRB committee on the long-term viability of fuel taxes for highway funding, experts on VMT charging such as David Forkenbrock told us that it takes about 20 years for the passenger vehicle fleet to turn over, as new cars replace old cars that are subsequently scrapped. Unless a hacker-proof retrofit device comes along, it sounds to me like we are stuck with a 20-year transition period. Since the Finance… Read more
Yes to a VMT Charge As others have already noted on this blog, our current highway funding system based on taxing petroleum fuels is broken (i.e., failing to provide sufficient revenue) and not sustainable in a world in which national policy favors reducing our dependence on petroleum as a transportation fuel. But the problem goes deeper than that. Over the last several decades, what was once a fairly decent user fee has grown increasingly disconnected from serving that function. With each subsequent reauthorization, it has become more and more of a generalized public works funding source, now… Read more
Why a Carbon Tax is the Way to Go The main focus of proposed climate change legislation is a cap & trade system, a version of which already exists in Europe for greenhouse gases (GHGs). Cap & trade legislation was endorsed by presidential candidates Obama and McCain, and a bill to that effect passed the House but was killed in the Senate in 2008. The basic idea is that the federal government would define maximum levels of carbon emissions over time, and would auction off permits which companies would need in order to emit carbon at all.… Read more
Rethinking User-Pays I agree with several others who have suggested that the basic principle should be “user-pays.” But there are quite a few different ways to interpret that principle. I recommend that we distinguish between two different things that users of the transportation system should pay for: the infrastructure they use and the externality effects they impose on unwilling others. For the former we should have user charges, analogous to the payments we make to other network utility providers—electricity, gas, water, cable, etc. These charges should cover the costs of building, operating, maintaining, and ultimately replacing the infrastructure used.… Read more
The Real Question Is: What Is the Federal Role in Transportation? One of the oldest clichés in government reform is that we should root out “waste, fraud, and abuse.” I don’t doubt that there is a fair amount of all three in our federal government, including its expansive surface transportation program. But instead of asking which of the hundreds of federal highway and transit programs are ineffective, I think it’s far more useful to ask which of them truly represent national—as opposed to state or urban-regional—concerns. As the program is structured now, anything that a sufficient degree of interest-group effort… Read more
Related Link: http://www.reason.org/transportation 
