Government Organizations

This is the second installment in our three-part "Revolving Door" series about how cronyism in state DOTs leads to wasteful highway building. The first part profiled Ohio DOT chief Jerry Wray, who has switched back and forth between working directly for the asphalt industry and shoveling money to the asphalt industry as a public official.

The other day I stumbled upon a document from the Ohio Department of Transportation called Ohio's Job's and Transportation Plan [PDF]. As I read it, I couldn't help but feel pessimistic about the direction of the state.

He strung it out long enough, but Ray LaHood has finally announced that he’s resigning as Transportation Secretary. Speculation has been rampant for months about who could replace him, and now it kicks into high gear.

One of the top goals of the national transportation reform movement is to get state DOTs to spend their money more wisely. The feds distribute tens of billions of dollars to state DOTs each year with very few strings attached. But for every state like Massachusetts or Tennessee that's decided to shift toward building walkable streets and away from highway construction, there are plenty of state DOTs that continue to build very expensive, sprawl-inducing roads, even though they can't afford to maintain what they already have.

After a few false alarms, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has finally come out and said it: He's leaving the administration.

After fighting to maintain reasonable funding levels in the transportation bill – and for the inclusion of dedicated transit funding in the first place – the Federal Transit Administration now finds itself up against almost certain funding cuts that imperil rail and bus expansion projects, as well as the agency's own staffing.

If there's a city that could serve as a cautionary tale for overbuilding highways, that city is Detroit. So it's fascinating -- and encouraging -- to see this city going through an internal tussle over the wisdom of building a highway.

Something tells me we're going to be seeing a lot more of this in the not-so-distant future.