Michael A. Replogle is Global Policy Director and Founder of the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy, a non-profit corporation that since 1985 has worked with city governments and local advocacy groups worldwide to implement projects that reduce poverty, pollution, and oil dependence. Replogle is also a strategic advisor on transportation to the Environmental Defense Fund, a 500,000 member non-profit organization that links law, science, and economics for environmental results, where he served as transportation director from 1992-2009. As a leading global expert on transportation and the environment, he is a news media resource and has frequently testified before Congress and state legislatures on transportation policy, finance, pricing, and planning. He has been a consultant to the World Bank, Federal Highway Administration, EPA, and governments in across the world. Replogle holds an M.S.E. and undergraduate honors degrees in Civil and Urban Engineering and Sociology, all from the University of Pennsylvania. He an emeritus member of the Transportation Research Board committee on developing countries and serves on US federal advisory committees on Intelligent Transportation Systems and EPA emissions modeling, as well as the Singapore Land Transport Authority Academy Advisory Board.
Replogle is the author of dozens of journal articles, several hundred magazine articles, and a book on access to public transportation.
It is a mistake to confuse mobility with utility, or past correlations of VMT and GDP with causality. Improving the efficiency of the existing travel system is a recipe for productivity and job growth and can unlock wasted resources and reduce pollution. There are many ways to boost existing transportation system efficiency. The most effective combine performance-focused system pricing (such as pay-as-you-drive insurance and time and place based road user charges and parking fees), smart infrastructure and service management (such as bus rapid transit and intelligent transportation systems), people-oriented urban and street design to expand travel choices, and smart growth… Read more
AASHTO has noted that “global climate change has become a political, environmental, and economic fact of life” and has proposed a goal of reducing the rate of growth in VMT to approximately the rate of population growth—about 1 percent per year to deal with that problem through mode shifting, in addition to promoting lower carbon vehicles and fuels http://www.transportation.org/news/121.aspx. Only the most extreme voices still argue that improvements in vehicle technology and fuels and network operating efficiency alone will provide sufficient climate-protective reductions in greenhouse gas pollution from transportation. Recent demographic and economic changes have held per capita VMT close… Read more
It’s time for the federal government to give much more flexibility to state and local governments to innovate in how they finance and solve transportation problems, tying future federal transportation funding increasingly to demonstrated performance in meeting national goals for transportation. Those goals need to encompass support for improved mobility and economic development as well as minimizing adverse health, community, and environmental impacts, including greenhouse gas emissions. Tolling legislation should be designed to protect and enhance the ability of local and state transportation and resource officials to protect public safety and health. Towards that end, the following principles should be… Read more
It’s worth noting some other details from the KPMG survey. The greatest public sector impediments to more investment in infrastructure identified by respondents, in declining order, are a politicization of infrastructure project priorities, followed by frequent changes in public policy, pursuit of the wrong public policies, lack of a sense of urgency, corruption or misuse of funds for infrastructure (seen most notably in developing countries), and lack of skills and public sector institutional capacity. The best way to improve the public sector’s current approach to infrastructure is to base transport funding, investment, management, and operating decisions and policies on how… Read more
America’s transportation system is both broke and broken. Fixing those problems will take new investment, a market-focused reorientation towards customers, new approaches to governance and service delivery, and success in setting and achieving system goals. It will require new forms of cooperation between the public and private sector, with incentives that tie public funds and private rewards to performance. HR 2724 – The National Transportation Objectives Act of 2009 – introduced by Senators Rockefeller and Lautenberg, provides a valuable marker of what is needed. It lays out a vision for national transportation goals, establishes regional, state, and national planning… Read more
America's transportation systems are both broke and broken. Immediate financing problems will likely be patched over with a combination of general revenues, indexed or higher gas taxes, sales taxes, asset leases and public-private partnerships. But these financing structures may do little to solve and could even exacerbate traffic growth, congestion, and related climate change. A 21st century transportation system demands new approaches that align funding and revenue measures with accountability for cutting congestion, traffic, and pollution while improving mobility and equity of access. Public confidence in transportation agencies has been shaken by decades of declining performance, cost-overruns, and pork-barrel politics.… Read more
With ridership growing, US public transportation needs more investment. Established rail systems need to be revitalized. But pouring money into poorly conceived transit projects will not make transit a viable alternative for the majority of Americans living in auto-dependent suburban areas. We don’t just need more transit investment, we need smarter transit investment, with rewards for political leaders willing to make the difficult but necessary choices that make good projects happen. The most cost-effective way to expand high performance mass rapid transit is Bus Rapid Transit, or BRT. New BRT systems have opened recently in cities as diverse as Cleveland, Mexico… Read more
In an historic first, President-elect Obama pledged that America’s leadership on climate change “will start with a federal cap and trade system. We will establish strong annual targets that set us on a course to reduce emissions to their 1990 levels by 2020 and reduce them an additional 80% by 2050.” His team is also moving fast with a stimulus package dedicated to “creating and saving 2.5 million jobs, jobs rebuilding our infrastructure, our roads, bridges, modernizing our schools and creating the clean energy infrastructure of the 21st century.” The question is: will these two decisions end up pulling in the… Read more
1. Get More Bang for the Buck by Investing in Existing Infrastructure. America’s roads and transit infrastructure are falling apart. Potholes and under-maintained buses and trains cause delays, reduce how long vehicles last, and risk public safety. A focus on getting more value from existing infrastructure will improve transportation, put Americans to work now, and save money in the long run. It also can reduce health-threatening air pollution and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Policymakers should: Rebuild the transportation system to a state of good repair and invest in systems to manage and reduce environmental harms from past transportation investments. Gain better… Read more
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