Greg Cohen

Bicyclists and highway users began their advocacy at the turn of the 20th Century in partnership for better roads as a public interest campaign. We could be allies again if we resolved tensions over divisive planning theories and funding. This week’s topic is a great opportunity to discuss the tension over funding.

There are two main arguments that hurt the bicyclists’ cause with the federal government. One is basically a federalist argument that bicycle paths are inherently local in nature and that building infrastructure for them should only be a local government function. The second argument is that funding bicycle paths from the Highway Trust Fund is a diversion of highway user fees, since the fund is made up of tax receipts from motor vehicle users.

I’ll leave the first concern to constitutional experts. As to the second argument, the bicycling community can solve this issue once and for all by embracing the creation of its own trust fund and its own user fee. Unlike some other transportation users seeking highway funds, bicyclists c

The title of this week’s question (Could Focusing on Repairs Please Everyone?) is a symptom of a major problem in transportation policymaking. Over the past generation, the goal of pleasing everyone has done tremendous damage to the public perception of federal transportation programs. Fortunately for funding recipients, the damage was always swept under the rug as long as more money was available for broader and broader distribution. Many believed that a “big tent” meant more power and an unstoppable political force. But it is clear that the goal of pleasing everyone meant a poorer return-on-investment for those funding the programs with highway user fees. This mentality has directly resulted in the current reality, where one-hundred times as many associations exist to support a transportation bill (compared to 50 years ago), but our friends in Congress tell us they won’t take the political risks to raise money to fund it. Whether or not the politicians’ fears are justified is debatable, but the perception is the reality we have to deal with.

The mayors’ report may accurately reflect the parochial concerns of its constituency. But the Congress and the Obama Administration should be primarily interested in federal priorities. Chief among these should be improving the flow interstate commerce, promoting national economic growth, and halting the epidemic of highway fatalities.

From the broader national perspective, new highways, redundant routes, and expanded highway capacity are essential for the country’s economic growth. Perhaps this is less the case in those cities where the local street network is largely built-out and interstate traffic is unwelcome. Yet in growing cities that are facing severe congestion ahead, businesses are relocating out-of-town to escape the traffic that politicians seem to do so little about. In addition, most growth is in suburban areas, and most commerce is moving through rural areas, where new roads and road capacity are critical to increasing opportunities and operating a just-in-time logistics chain. That is why Congress needs to think more broadly than most mayors a