The Ground Floor

Celebrating Parking

This post was written for The Ground Floor by Robert T. Dunphy, Transportation Consultant and Emeritus Fellow, at the Urban Land Institute.

Parking is the Rodney Dangerfield of transportation--it gets no respect. Other than parking books by ULI and a limited number of sources, industry advocates and a few parking wonks, the topic has received little critical attention from analysts or designers.

Parking one’s vehicle is normally relegated to vast expanses of surface lots, nasty parking garages, or left to back alley operators. So a new exhibit at the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C., House of Cars: Innovation and the Parking Garage, the first major exhibition to explore the history of this familiar structure , is an exciting opportunity for those interested in opening conversations about innovative designs and parking solutions for the future, and "how it can be a valuable component of responsible and sustainable city planning." The idea for the exhibition was brought to the Museum by Shannon Sanders McDonald, author of The Parking Garage: Design and Evolution of a Modern Urban Form, published by the ULI.

The presenting sponsor of House of Cars: Innovation and the Parking Garage is the National Parking Association, headquartered in Washington, D.C. "We are honored to be the presenting sponsor of this exciting exhibition," said Martin L. Stein, President, whose organization has served the industry since 1951.

House of Cars explores how the parked car has changed our built environment. Since cars spend most of their time at rest, parking facilities are probably more important than roads. For commercial developments, the amount of space required for parking exceeds that for businesses and shoppers, so parking is the bigfoot of development.

This exhibit reminds us of the days before DIY when parking required attendants to negotiate storing and retrieving vehicles. Eventually, ramping systems were developed that allowed customers to park their own cars, increasing convenience and eliminating labor. The exhibition concludes with a look at the future of parking, featuring "green garages" innovative designs.

The exhibit is on display through July 11, 2010 at the National Building Museum, and a traveling exhibition will accompany the NPA in their upcoming conventions. If you can’t make it to Washington, catch it elsewhere, a great opportunity to rethink an important urban design challenge--how we find places to park cars, so necessary to making places work, without making them hostile to visitors.

Extremism in Defense of the Environment is No Vice

This post was written for The Ground Floor by Robert T. Dunphy, Transportation Consultant and Emeritus Fellow, at the Urban Land Institute.

(With apologies to Barry Goldwater)--Does anyone believe reaching environmental sustainability targets will be easy? It should come as no surprise that some extreme measures will be needed to move the needle on greenhouse gases.

That is the message from a new study, Moving Cooler, sponsored by a range of federal agencies and nonprofits. The report published by ULI and prepared by Cambridge Systematics, Inc.--a highly regarded transportation consultant, and sponsored by 13 nonprofit organizations and federal agencies. 

This is the sequel to an earlier study by Professor Reid Ewing and other academics that looked at growth patterns, driving, and global warming–get it? So the sequel, kind of the Matrix Reloaded, looks at a wide range of transportation and development options, and evaluates policies at several levels of aggressiveness.

So what does it say? For openers, the baseline projection shows GHG emissions remaining roughly at 2005 levels through 2050, due to the combination of innovations in vehicle and fuel technology and lower levels of traffic growth. However, staying even will not nearly be enough in light of ambitious targets being discussed that call for about an 80-plus percent reduction in greenhouse gases from all sources. Fifty individual strategies were tested to analyze their impacts on greenhouse gases.

Strategies that contribute the most to GHG reductions in roughly decreasing order:

• Making driving more expensive through taxes or direct charges on driving. Interesting to note that Pay-As-You-Drive insurance, favored by environmental wonks, ranked quite highly. Simply knowing how much it was costing induced drivers to conserve;
• Reducing speed limits;
• Promoting eco-driving so drivers get better mileage;
• Compact, mixed-use development to reduce driving;
• Employer-based strategies to promote car pooling; and
• Multimodal strategies that expand travel options.

In order to make a significant impact, combinations of strategies were tested and estimated to produce a combined reduction of to 24 percent less than expected baseline levels in 2050. In addition, While three of these "bundles" were close, a long term maximum investment strategy was tops. The strategy that included land use finished slightly lower because such measures require longer to take hold. Strong economy-wide pricing measures, such as increasing the cost of a gallon of gasoline by $0.60 per gallon in 2015 and $1.25 in 2050 could result in a cumulative reduction in GHG emissions of 47 percent in 2050 from the baseline. Cutting greenhouse gases almost in half through such consistent policies would be a substantial reduction.

Some have criticized the study assumptions as "extreme, unrealistic, and in some cases downright impossible." Of course extremism is in the eye of the beholder, and changes depending on the mood of the public. Trillion dollar stimulus packages would have seemed unrealistic only a year ago. Rep. James Oberstar (D-Minnesota), Chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, and a booster for transit and urban living, speaking at the presentation of this report, had no problem with a future in which 38 percent of trips were on bicycles, a notion considered extreme by most main stream transportation planners. Reducing speed limits seems pretty painless, although a public mobilized to criticize centralized health care proposals could be expected to push back. Eco driving is a no brainer, and became popular as gas prices hovered around $4 a gallon.

We began this piece with apologies to Barry Goldwater for plagiarizing his quote on liberty. The latest study demonstrates how ingrained our patterns of travel and living really are. It is probably not going to be easy to change them, but combating climate change certainly seems to merit trying significant measures, including ones that seem extreme. Otherwise, by continuing to do what we have been doing, we can expect the same results.

House Approve $7 Billion for Highway Trust Fund

This post was written for The Ground Floor by Robert T. Dunphy, Transportation Consultant and Emeritus Fellow, at the Urban Land Institute.

Remember when $7 billion seemed like a lot of money? This week, the House of Representatives approved a $7 billion infusion into the Highway Trust Fund to keep the account solvent through the end of the fiscal year. House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman James Oberstar, of Minnesota was rumored to support a $3 billion transfer to keep the pressure on for addressing the longer term problem.

The legislation passed the Senate on Thursday, and the President was expected to sign it. Oberstar, who has been pushing for a reauthorization of the federal transportation programs before their scheduled expiration at the end of September said, "According to DOT, the Highway Account of the Trust Fund may run out of cash as early as the beginning of September...the legacy that has been left for users is an over-extended Trust Fund, uncertainty, and potential funding cuts.

Senators Tom Coburn, M.D. and John McCain released a report Thursday revealing that $78 billion from the soon-to-be-bankrupt Highway Trust Fund is not even being spent on bridges or roads. "Out of Gas:
Congress Raids the Highway Trust Fund for Pet Projects While Bridges and Roads Crumble." GAO auditors found that over the last five years, $78 billion in Highway Trust Fund receipts have been obligated for "purposes other than construction and maintenance of highways and bridges" such as bike paths, pedestrian walkways and facilities, "scenic beautification" and landscaping projects, and road-kill prevention projects. Conceding that, "No one is saying our nation should be without flowers and ferries or bike paths and boat museums," the report’s sponsors said, "But today's choices must be about priorities."

Last September, there was also a bailout of $8 billion to keep the fund solvent. "Another Bailout? Or is it? (September 23, 2008). Such short term fixes simply delay the day of reckoning, which is a rethinking of how the nation’s highway and transportation networks are planned, operated, and funded at the federal level. Oberstar’s committee has developed a six year plan, but the price tag of $500 billion is double today’s authorization levels, double today’s level of authorized spending.

The problem is that increasing the gas tax takes an act of congress. Literally. And of course there is no support in either the Congress or the Administration in raising taxes in the midst of a recession. As a result, the Administration, and key congressional leaders, favor an 18 month extension, with perhaps more of the same funny money games, to push the problem past the 2010 elections.

Admittedly, $7 billion seems small potatoes in light of the trillion plus in stimulus spent on an array of mostly noninfrastructure programs. But it is one thing we can get right to lay the foundation for long term economic growth.

In light of the current dialogue, this is one area in which the users have demonstrated a willingness to pay, making it "revenue neutral."

Read the floor statement of The Honorable James L. Oberstar

Watch Chairman Oberstar's Floor Statement

Cut Carbon Emissions by "Moving Cooler"

Moving Cooler: An Analysis of Transportation Strategies for Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions, prepared by Cambridge Systematics, Inc. based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, explores reductions in U.S. carbon emissions through a wide variety of transportation- and land use-related actions and strategies to minimize auto use. The report was prepared to inform various federal, state, and local proposals and plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from all sectors of the U.S. economy by more than 80 percent of the 2005 level by 2050.

Land use is one of nine categories of strategies considered by Moving Cooler, along with transportation pricing and taxes, public transportation improvements, non-motorized transport such as walking and biking, regulations to moderate vehicle use and speed, intelligent systems, expanded highway capacity and more efficient freight movement. The effectiveness of each strategy in cutting greenhouse gas emissions is measured against a baseline that represents current trends.

Although the baseline accounts for improvements in fuel and vehicle technology, the report explains that overall carbon emission levels from the transportation sector remain unchanged because the lower carbon emissions resulting from those improvements will be offset by increased motorized travel. Only when additional strategies are factored in to curb vehicle use does the baseline emission level start to decline. (An overall decline in carbon emissions is the central and overriding objective of all climate change legislation currently being considered by the U.S. Congress.)

The land use strategies focus specifically on the relationship between housing density and miles traveled, with higher density correlating to a reduction in both the number and length of vehicle trips. The land use density assumptions are grouped into three levels of implementation that have varying degrees of impact in cutting carbon emissions:

• "Expanded current practice," in which 43 percent of new housing built between 2015 and 2050 is in areas with five or more units per acre;

• "Aggressive deployment," in which 64 percent is built in areas with five or more units per acre; and
• "Maximum deployment," in which 90 percent is built in areas with five or more units per acre.

The report combines these density scenarios with non-motorized strategies, such as access to biking and walking trails. Together, the higher density and non-motorized strategies would result in a cumulative reduction in carbon emissions (from the 2005 level) of 6 percent to 9 percent by 2050, with the most impact on an annual basis occurring closer to 2050.

Moving Cooler points out that economy-wide pricing measure—such as an increase in the gasoline tax, carbon pricing, and pay-as-you-drive insurance—would produce the most significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, due to the likelihood of substantial shifts in driving behavior mandated by the high costs. However, outside of these pricing measures, the land use strategies produce the most emission reductions of any of the other strategies analyzed. Moreover, the costs of implementing such changes in development patterns are offset by the substantial savings in the cost of vehicle ownership and maintenance, the report adds.
   
The findings cite multiple benefits derived from combining concentrated, mixed-use land development strategies and non-motorized transportation strategies to reduce auto dependency: "The combined effect of more compact land use, improved transit service and improved bicycle and pedestrian conditions would be to improve mobility by non-automobile modes...Increased opportunities for walking and biking will lead to improvements in public health, and exercise and activity levels increase. Finally, denser development can lead to energy and greenhouse gas savings through decreased building use, in addition to transportation efficiencies."

Moving Cooler: An Analysis of Transportation Strategies for Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions is available for purchase at www.uli.org/bookstore.

Traffic Engineers are from Mars; Legislatures are from Venus

This post was written for The Ground Floor by Robert T. Dunphy, Transportation Consultant and Emeritus Fellow, at the Urban Land Institute.

There were two interesting takes on the state of transportation last week. The Texas Transportation Institute released their annual survey on the state of mobility--or perhaps immobility--finding a slight drop in congestion for the nation, attributed not to transportation investment, but rather to a deteriorating economy. This was followed by a New York Times analysis of federal stimulus spending on transportation projects, which found that most of the transportation stimulus money so far has gone to rural areas, not to the largest 100 regions which account for two-thrids of the nation’s population and three-quarters of the nation’s economy. 

Of the 20 largest regions, the Times’ researchers found that that most received stimulus funds roughly one-third to one-half of the regions share of GDP. Three regions: Tampa, Florida; Riverside, California; and St. Louis, Missouri actually received a greater share, while New York and Boston’s share of stimulus funding was less than one-quarter of its share of the nation’s GDP.

In Seattle, which the Times researchers called "a typical example of rural overindulgence," Charlie Howard, transportation director of the Puget Sound Regional Council, pointed out that “it's a bit more complex. We got about 46 percent of the funding received by the state for projects in our region--we're between 50 percent and 55 percent of the state population, and over 60 percent of the state jobs. But, the state funded some rehab work on Interstate-90 that our industries rely on. We strongly supported this work as a regional benefit--even though it's technically in rural counties--the benefit is largely urban. I think the article overstated, at least for Washington, any concern we might have on 'fair share.' " 

The Times article fears that “the large regions have lost a tug of war with state lawmakers that urban advocates say could hurt the nation’s economic engines.” Paving rural interstates may qualify as “shovel ready” for the sake of spending money quickly, but it obviously does not do much for a nation whose major regions are increasingly gridlocked.

What about the state of congestion? First of all, there is a slight discrepancy in timing. TTI data were for 2007, rather than 2009. This survey represents the very beginning of the economic meltdown in the U.S., and since then people have been driving less as a result of higher gas prices and a deteriorating economy. A Spring 2008 article in the LA Times already noted than that quicker commutes are a silver lining to rising gas prices and a weak economy, a pattern that has been observed in many regions, although without the thorough research of the TTI 2007 data.

They reported that peak hour commute times from suburban Santa Clarita, California to LA dropped by 3 percent between 2007-2008, while a suburban to suburban trip between Ontario and Riverside, California improved by 14 percent. Those at the top of the traffic leader board were LA; Washington, D.C.; Atlanta; Houston; Dallas-Fort Worth; San Jose; Orlando; San Diego; Detroit; and Miami were hardly popping champagne.

All of the top ten most congested regions showed reductions except Washington, D.C. and Houston, although the savings were a mere 1-2 hours annually. The LA Times noted that  Roads in Los Angeles, Orange counties most congested in the United States--the typical driver in the Inland Empire experienced about 44 hours of delay in 2007, one hour less than in 2006, but this was in contrast to 1982, counties, when the annual delay in Riverside and San Bernardino was only five hours. The typical motorist in Ventura County actually experienced an increase in delay of two hours compared with 2006,which was 10 times what it was in 1982. The Dallas Morning News took little consolation in the slight improvement, opining that Dallas-Fort Worth was still among the nation's hellholes for traffic congestion, not a good sales point for the region.

While critics denounce the pork barrel politics of the U.S. Congress, the experience with the stimulus funds shows that things are even worse in the state houses--and they control far more of the nation‘s transportation budget than the federal government does. There appears to be a growing momentum for reforming the way federal transportation dollars are spent. The states need to get on board to help our nations global cities compete internationally.

In the long run, it is not the short term economic shot in the arm from stimulus projects that counts, but the long term benefit to the broader economy, and to the efficiency of these global gateways.

ULI Infrastructure Update: Transportation Reform in the Limelight

Last week was a big week for transportation, with the House leadership and the Administration proposing differing approaches for how to proceed with transportation legislation and funding. A new interagency program to coordinate USDOT, EPA, and HUD activities and priorities---also announced last week---represents an exciting step forward in efforts to better integrate land use and transportation.

In the House, Rep. Oberstar (D-Minnesota) outlined his transportation reform package on June 18 and called for immediate mark up of a full bill in Subcommittee. A day earlier, USDOT Secretary LaHood asked Congress for a quick 18-month highway reauthorization to replenish the Highway Trust Fund. Long-term reform should wait, he said. "We should not rush legislation. We should work together on a full reauthorization that best meets the demands of the country."

Oberstar's proposal, "Blueprint for Investment and Reform," calls for moving away from "prescriptive programs" into a performance based framework designed around national objectives. Programs would be consolidated and simplified into four core formula categories (repair/maintenance, highway safety, surface transportation, and congestion mitigation/air quality). Oberstar would also create four new programs, including metropolitan mobility and high-speed rail programs, as well as an Office of Livability and a new transportation infrastructure bank.

Oberstar calls for total funding of $450 billion over five years, a significant increase from current funding levels, with an additional $50 billion for high speed rail. But he does not address where new revenues will come from. The funding issue "will be resolved in the Ways and Means Committee," he said at the press event. Oberstar released his full bill was released on Monday, June 22. 

HUD, DOT, and EPA Partnership for Sustainable Communities. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the U.S. Department of Transportation, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced a new joint partnership on June 16 to help Americans gain access to affordable housing, more transportation options, and lower transportation costs.

The collaboration will be guided by six main principles:

• Provide more transportation choices
• Promote equitable affordable housing
• Enhance economic competitiveness
• Support existing communities
• Coordinate policies and leverage investment
• Value communities and neighborhoods

Echoing ULI's recent Infrastructure 2009 report, USDOT Secretary LaHood called for "a holistic approach. . .to improve the linkage between housing, water, and transportation investments." For surface transportation programs, DOT will be taking a "hard look at potential changes to metropolitan and statewide transportation planning processes to ensure that they improve livability," he said.

The new federal initiative represents a promising start to creating a more integrated approach to infrastructure, housing, and sustainability. ULI President Rick Rosan said the partnership represents a "pivotal point in restoring land use issues as a national priority" in ULI's statement on the partnership.

Infrastructure 2009: Transit and Development in Secondary Markets

This post was written for The Ground Floor by Robert Dunphy, emeritus fellow, Transportation and Infrastructure for the Urban Land Institute.

One of the key topics for infrastructure discussions in ULI District Council infrastructure programs in Houston, San Antonio, and Idaho was public transit, especially surprising since these are all emerging transit cities, where transit carries a very small share of the commute market, even in the cities.

All are interested in significant transit (read rail) projects, and face the dilemma of how to do make significant expansions of transit capacity without the density of development to make it work--or how to generate significant increases in density without a transit network to handle some of the additional traffic. 

Houston recently opened its first light rail line, and has ambitious expansion plans, 58 miles of light rail and commuter rail, along with 40 miles of bus rapid transit, although in the city that proudly eschews zoning, it is difficult to mobilize a significant Transit Oriented Development (TOD) program.

San Antonio’s rail project was shot down, in part, by outsiders--a posse of anti-rail Libertarian outsiders who ride the range shooting down transit plans. While the existing bus system carries less than 4 percent of all commuters, expanding transit was reported to be the biggest challenge of all San Antonio’s infrastructure concerns.

Boise a relatively small region of less than one-half million people, nonetheless has big ambitions, transit wise. Experts on commuter rail, speaking at the Infrastructure forum there on May 14 discussed a range of issues related to implementing such a system, which I took to be quite boosterish, but the local newspaper ran an article suggesting not now and not never for commuter rail.

The point is not whether any of these transit proposals would work, but how to build the supporting development. It is quite a reversal from the last 50 years, when roads were in and transit was out. These next tier markets are all interested in getting transit, but must face the reality of an affordable system--bus is a good, but politically unpopular choice to a public not interested in using buses--and a sustainable land use pattern.

Infrastructure 2009: Pivot Point Underscores Need to Transform

The United States desperately needs a 21st-century national infrastructure plan to emerge from its deep recession and ensure future prosperity, according to Infrastructure 2009: Pivot Point, a new publication released today by the Urban Land Institute and Ernst & Young.

Infrastructure 2009 calls for overhauling federal infrastructure policy and integrating land use and infrastructure planning at all levels of government. Such a plan, the report says, could result in greater leveraging of public investments; an improved mobility network that adequately supports desired economic growth; and the mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions through reduced auto dependency. The publication discusses the evolving infrastructure market, including private systems, and the combinations of public-private systems for funding, construction, operations, maintenance, and management.

The report acknowledges that the $132 billion allotted to states for various ad hoc infrastructure projects in the recently-enacted American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) should help boost the U.S. economy by creating jobs, but says the legislation falls far short of developing a necessary national strategy aimed at enabling future economic growth.

Infrastructure 2009 details a four-pronged approach to changing infrastructure policy that addresses how the nation plans, funds and implements infrastructure programs:

• Create a national strategy – A comprehensive strategy is needed that accounts for population growth, rapid urbanization and declining mobility throughout urban areas. New transport networks must interconnect more efficiently to move people and goods through increasingly congested global pathway cities. Innovative new transit schemes, connected to airports and train stations, must help reduce car dependency, prevent bottlenecks in commercial centers and decrease pollution.
• Plan holistically – Goals to reduce congestion, cut carbon footprints, decrease foreign oil dependency and ensure adequate water supplies require integration of transportation, energy and environmental programs with land use planning and housing policy. Where people choose to live and work and how they travel will often be determined by the cost and convenience of various transport options.
• Consolidate government management – Federal, state and local governments must restructure agencies responsible for transportation, housing, water and energy to manage and execute a coordinated infrastructure policy. States should break down silos between different transportation agencies and local land use authorities to formulate long-range regional plans that tie into a national infrastructure agenda.
• Change funding approaches – More of the funding burdens for new infrastructure networks and repairs must shift to users from taxpayers, since government coffers alone will never be sufficient to cover costs. Among the new funding sources: higher gas taxes, greater use of highway tolls, charges for vehicle miles traveled. The report also supports establishment of a national infrastructure bank – drawing on the success of the European Investment Bank -- to help finance national networks and attract more private capital.

Read the full report or purchase the book from ULI's bookstore

Getting Rich Men on Transit

This post was written for The Ground Floor by Robert T. Dunphy, ULI senior resident fellow, Transportation and Infrastructure.

Last week at the 2008 ULI Fall Meeting and Urban Land Expo, I saw one of ULI’s leaders, an executive with an international real estate company, leave the convention hall and board a shuttle bus. No big deal, right, everybody was doing the same thing? Except that finding out how to appeal to a market of upper-income people with choices is one of the most challenging questions in transit. After all, since these are the people who will end up shouldering the cost of new transit projects, converting them to users is a good way to maintain their financial support. And also, if the rich rode the bus, it would become more prestigious to everyone else, rather than an “inferior good,” in economists’ parlance. What did it take to get these upper income people on the bus?

A simple, understandable, convenient service. Ideally, the route should be a direct point A to point B scheme, the same as in one’s car. In this case, there were five different routes to serve a range of hotels, but that is still eminently understandable. Service during peak times was frequent, a bus every 10 minutes – although more drawn out in off-peak times. One of the appeals of light rail system is that there are generally only a few routes, and one can tell whether the train follows a particular street because of the tracks.

Good information
The five routes were clearly marked by signs at the bus staging area, on the bus and listings in the meeting program. Travelers unfamiliar with the ubiquitous structure of a “many to many” local bus system often confront inscrutable routes and arcane route designations. Regulars get used to the drill, but it is tough on the newbies or potential newbies.

Congenial traveling companions
At a ULI meeting, you can even learn something enroute. An unfamiliar seatmate often turns up to be someone who is working on something of interest to you, or has a useful insight. It is tough to match that on public transportation-–except perhaps flying first class--on certain routes. (Although I saw a professional colleague yesterday on a Washington bus.) At least it should not be someone you felt uncomfortable with, a factor in the appeal of public transit to non-users we suggested in an earlier post. 

Inconvenient or expensive driving options
In Miami Beach, most hotels use valet parking, which is expensive, and requires calling ahead for a car. Combined with driving in unfamiliar territory, and finding a parking place at the convention center, driving is a hassle compared to the convenience of the bus. In normal life, things are just reversed.

Are there lessons for public transit systems?
Most important is the need for good information, frequent service, an understandable route structure, and maps. The transit system in Boulder, Colorado was redesigned to create buses with different colors for different routes to reduce the uncertainty of where the bus goes. Boston’s Silver Line uses a cool Silver bus. Some systems have established a 10 minute service as needed for basic convenience. At that frequency, a random arrival would have a manageable wait of 5 minutes. Difficulty of driving tends to happen naturally on corridors headed downtown, where parking is also typically expensive.

As far as traveling companions, it is important to avoid having transit cater entirely to the poor and those who cannot drive. A diversity of travelers makes transit more attractive to all. These ideas are easy to implement in the closed arena of a professional conference but much more difficult for a general public transit system. But it is still worth remembering the basics.

Reinventing Transportation Organizations: The devil you know, rather than the one you don’t?

This post was written by Robert T. Dunphy, ULI senior resident fellow, Transportation and Infrastructure

There is widespread belief among critics and many transportation practitioners that the way transportation projects and services are delivered in the U.S. is need of fundamental change. The extent to which transportation organizations themselves should endure radical change was addressed by experts at the 2008 ULI Fall Meeting. 

Such institutions tend to be top-down, command and control organizations, suited to the mobilization of large resources for safely moving masses of people. 

The immediate opportunity is the reauthorization of the federal surface transportation programs scheduled for next fall. Robert Healy, vice president of the American Public Transportation Association, pointed out that APTA’s membership, which represents transit operators in virtually every state and congressional district, considered the possibility of blowing up the current model in favor of recommending (potentially) improved procedures and funding. They demurred, and opted for improvements in existing procedures rather than a complete makeover, to assure a better, but reliable process--kind of the devil you know, rather than the one you don’t. 

Mary Lynn Tischer, a senior staff member with the Virginia Department of Transportation, agreed that the mood was changing among state departments of transportation, many of whom reacted negatively to radical change offered only 4-8 years ago. Because a national commission (the National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Commission) had offered such wide ranging options in a report earlier this year, they offered significant cover to states who might be thinking about something new. 

Fred Dock, director of transportation for the city of Pasadena, bemoaned the decline of federal and state engagement as financial resources diminished, resulting in localities left holding the bag. He pointed out that flexibility in funding, a hallmark of emerging public policy, "comes with a large trust me.'" 

Localities have adapted to such an extreme that in Los Angeles county, a proposed ballot measure is intended to raise significant money for regional road and transit projects, effectively replacing conventional state DOT roles for such an large region. Do we expect to see new age DOTs, or fleet, entrepreneurial transit agencies replacing today’s institutions? Maybe, but it will involve overcoming bureaucratic inertia as well as the fear that change (much a topic in the presidential election) will be for the worse  rather than the better.