Rethinking America's Highways : A 21st-Century Vision for Better Infrastructure / Robert W. Poole.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Poole, Robert W., author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Roads--United States--Finance.

Roads.

Transportation--Privatization.

Transportation.

Transportation and state--United States.

Transportation and state.

Transportation and state--United States--History--20th century.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xi, 363 pages) : illustrations

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Chicago : University of Chicago Press, [2018]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

Americans spend hours every day sitting in traffic. And the roads they idle on are often rough and potholed, their exits, tunnels, guardrails, and bridges in terrible disrepair. According to transportation expert Robert Poole, this congestion and deterioration are outcomes of the way America provides its highways. Our twentieth-century model overly politicizes highway investment decisions, short-changing maintenance and often investing in projects whose costs exceed their benefits. In Rethinking America's Highways, Poole examines how our current model of state-owned highways came about and why it is failing to satisfy its customers. He argues for a new model that treats highways themselves as public utilities-like electricity, telephones, and water supply. If highways were provided commercially, Poole argues, people would pay for highways based on how much they used, and the companies would issue revenue bonds to invest in facilities people were willing to pay for. Arguing for highway investments to be motivated by economic rather than political factors, this book makes a carefully-reasoned and well-documented case for a new approach to highways that is sure to inform future decisions and policies for U.S. infrastructure.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Tables and Figures

Preface

Chapter 1. Our Troubled Highway System

Chapter 2. How the Private Sector Is Reinventing America's Freeways

Chapter 3. Where America's 20th-Century Highway Model Came From

Chapter 4. The Rediscovery of Toll Road Companies Overseas

Chapter 5. Toll Concessions Return to America

Chapter 6. The Benefits of Long-Term P3 Concessions

Chapter 7. Critics and Controversy: Opposition to Tolling and Long-Term Concessions

Chapter 8. Highways as Network Utilities

Chapter 9. Transforming the Interstate Highways

Chapter 10. Transforming Urban Freeways

Chapter 11. Challenges to the New Vision for US Highways

Chapter 12. A New Future for US Highways

Acknowledgments

Notes

Index

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 325-352) and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 22. Okt 2019)

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

9780226557601

022655760X

OCLC:

1038797020