A World Class Transportation System: Transportation Finance for a New Economy

Among the many challenges in a capitalist society, it’s hard to imagine a way to profit from a car-free future. Governments don’t profit from providing public transportation to citizens. It’s a service, a reflection of our commitment to the social good. Private transportation — cars — are a different animal: hundreds of industries profit from it, f... See more

It’s largely how Japan has funded its acclaimed high-speed rail system. Buy the land around the station at pre-development prices. Build the high-speed rail, which makes the land far more valuable. Sell the land at the new price and use the profits from the sale to pay for the rail line. This is great public policy, although the lobbyist for the la

... See more

I ran the numbers; it would take 37 years of my neighbors and I paying taxes for the city to merely recoup the cost they had initially put into building the road. That was longer than the road was going to last. It was a dead-end road; we were the only ones who used it. If my taxes weren’t even enough to cover the initial construction costs, who wa

... See more

Transit expansion also often must clear hurdles that road projects don’t. Most transit expansion projects that receive federal funding get it through a program colloquially known as “New Starts” (officially the Capital Improvement Grants program). Their sponsors have to demonstrate that the project will offer mobility and congestion relief, environ

... See more