Road Work: A New Highway Pricing and Investment Policy.

In this book the authors propose a comprehensive highway policy to meet the goals of efficiency, equity, and financial soundness. Their policy is based on two economic principles: efficient pricing to regulate demand for highway services and efficient investment to minimize the total public and private cost of providing them. Policy recommendations include a set of pavement-wear taxes for heavy trucks, a set of congestion taxes for all vehicles, and a program of optimal investments in road durability. These proposals should be especially attractive to policymakers because they can be implemented with current technology, offer little threat to the major interest groups, and in the long run will reduce the strain on state and local governments' highway budgets.