AN EXCHANGE ON BUILDING U.S. ROAD CAPACITY: THE POLITICS OF GRIDLOCK. IN: MOVING PEOPLE, GOODS, AND INFORMATION IN THE 21ST CENTURY: THE CUTTING-EDGE INFRASTRUCTURES OF NETWORKED CITIES

This chapter on building U.S. road capacity and the politics of gridlock is from a book on moving people, goods, and information in the 21st century. The author first reviews the history of building the transportation infrastructure and the development of congestion, as well as some of the political conflicts that have arisen over various options proposed to address these problems. The author then frames the politics of transportation as a battle among three groups: auto-suburban status quo defenders (including developers, many chambers of commerce, automobile associations, and highway builders) who work to continue old patterns; anti-car, anti-suburban activists who seek to get people out of their cars and single-family suburban homes; and reformers who appreciate the vast benefits of the auto-suburban system but recognize the increasing costs that must be dealt with. In the remainder of the chapter, the author describes how the third-way framework can become the dominant approach. Strategies covered include: respect the desire of Americans to live where they want to live, reject today's fashionable defeatism about congestion, speed development and deployment of new transportation technologies, streamline regulatory and review processes, create regional transportation councils, reduce public subsidies and rely more on user fees and public-private partnerships, and restructure the relationship between the federal government and the states.