Taking the High Road: A Metropolitan Agenda for Transportation Reform

Pressing challenges face America's transportation networks, despite the passage of two key pieces of federal legislation in the 1990s that offered a new framework for transportation practices and helped to level the playing field between highway and alternative transportation strategies, as well as between old and new communities. Congestion is a hallmark of many metropolitan areas, while infrastructure is fraying. Working families often face daunting commutes to jobs whether they live in the metropolitan outer fringe or the heart of the city. And transportation funding, rather than creating new jobs and economic activity overall, typically shifts development from one metropolitan area to another. Here, experts in the field of transportation provide ideas for reform that could help state, metropolitan, and local leaders apply practical solutions to our nation's transportation dilemmas.