Robert Puentes is a fellow with the Brookings Institution Metropolitan
Policy Program where he also directs the Program's Metropolitan
Infrastructure Initiative. The Initiative was established to address the
pressing transportation and infrastructure challenges facing cities and
suburbs in the United States and abroad.
Puentes's work focuses on the broad array of policies and issues related to
metropolitan growth and development. He is an expert on transportation
and infrastructure, urban planning, growth management, suburban issues
and housing.
Recent publications include: "A Bridge to Somewhere: Rethinking American Transportation for the
21st Century", "America’s Infrastructure: Ramping Up or Crashing Down?", "Challenges Ahead:
New Urban Demographics and Impacts on Transportation," "A Review of the Land Use
Regulations in the Nation's 50 Largest Metropolitan Areas," "Prosperity at Risk: Toward a
Competitive New Jersey," and "One Fifth of the Nation: A Profile of Change in America’s First
Suburbs." He is a frequent speaker to a variety of groups, a regular contributor in newspapers and
other media, and has testified before Congressional committees.
Prior to joining Brookings, Puentes was the director of infrastructure programs at the Intelligent
Transportation Society of America. He holds a master degree from the University of Virginia where
he serves on the Alumni Advisory Board, and is an affiliated professor with Georgetown
University's Public Policy Institute. He serves on a variety of boards and committees including,
most recently, the Northern Virginia Transportation Authority, the Tysons Corner Tomorrow
Advisory Task Force, and the Falls Church, Virginia Planning Commission where he lives with his
wife and three sons.
It depends on what the definition of 'reform' is. Do thousands and thousands of business-as-usual earmarks represent the kind of focused, evidence-based, or values-driven program many are calling for? Well, no. This aggregation does not even adhere to the largely unanimous overarching policy recommendation for a unified and purposeful national program. There is little economic justification for a nation making broad transportation and infrastructure improvements in all places. Yet that is exactly how the American transportation structure operates as we do not prioritize projects on the national level. SAFETEA-LU's entropic set of earmarks have replaced and trumped any unified… Read more
Whether a specific stretch of interstate should be tolled is tough to answer. The interstates serve a range of functions so whether or not tolling is the right approach kinda depends. Another question would be whether the federal government should expand its experiments and pilot programs to provide more options for interstate tolling. Yes it should—but as part of an overall national policy for road pricing that includes a range of flexible strategies: standard tolling on the interstates and otherwise, variable pricing, HOT lanes, cordon and area wide schemes. The goal would be to permit states and metropolitan areas to deploy the best… Read more
Roadway safety is perennially cited as a key area of policy focus. With the tens of thousands of deaths that occur on our roadways every year—and our continued ranking at or near the bottom of international comparisons for roadway safety—our safety record is widely considered unacceptable. It is wholly appropriate for the federal government to strive for broad and ambitious safety goals. NHTSA has incentive programs and links funding to goals such as increased use of set belts. States have responded to these federal incentives and as a result, 49 states now require vehicle occupants to wear them. In 1984 Congress… Read more
The United States is currently undergoing a transformation of dramatic scale and complexity comparable to what it experienced at the beginning of the last century—another period characterized by the radical reshaping of the American landscape. For one, unlike peer countries in Western Europe and parts of Asia we will continue to grow by leaps and bounds. And despite the economic downturn we still expect a wave of immigration to fuel this increase. Nearly 13 percent of our residents—some 38 million people—were born outside the United States, the highest share since 1920. This immigration offsets another major demographic trend. The… Read more
The time is right to look beyond our borders for lessons and ideas. Policymakers are beginning to view the upcoming expiration of the federal transportation bill (SAFETEA-LU) as an opportunity to consider significant national transportation reform. A vital element is to consider international policy best practices that will facilitate such reform in several areas: 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… Read more
New federal highway administration data confirms yet again that after years and years of steady increases, the total amount of driving in the U.S. has slowed down dramatically. From October 2007 to September 2008, for example, we drove 90 billion fewer miles than the same time period the year before. In fact, for the first time in our history, the amount of roadway available to drivers is outpacing the number of miles we actually drive. (Look for a new Brookings report coming out tomorrow which will provide a more exhaustive analysis of our national driving patterns over the last several… Read more
Members of Congress and the new administration are currently debating a recovery plan that could direct hundreds of billions of dollars towards infrastructure to help put Americans back to work and get our economy moving by rebuilding our roads, bridges, and mass transit systems. Though state governments have tremendous outstanding investment needs, any infrastructure investments included in a recovery bill need to focus on investments that secure the existing system and help transition to a clean, efficient, energy-independent future—creating millions of green jobs and job opportunities for the under-employed in the process. There are three core recommendations: 1. Fix what… Read more
At the precise time when the nation desperately needs to prioritize its limited investments and resources, the federal transportation program has lost focus. Our response has been mostly to keep throwing money at the problem, without any meaningful attempt at policy reform. Federal transportation funds are distributed like peanut butter across the continent without any real purpose, targeting, or accountability. There are several problems: First, for the vast majority of the program the federal government is absent where it should be present, lacking any overarching national vision, goals, leadership, or direction. So unlike our competitor nations—who have both national freight… Read more
Related Link: http://www.brookings.edu/experts/puentesr.aspx
