Highway Expansion
Basics
U.S. PIRG: The Driving Boom Is Over But the Road-Building Binge Continues
The driving boom is over.
May 14, 2013
A Sensible Alternative to Wisconsin’s Gold-Plated Highway Budget
If you value principles like social and fiscal responsibility, the Wisconsin transportation budget is an unmitigated disaster. Not only does Wisconsin DOT's spending plan gut funds to transit and local streets, it lavishes $900 million in borrowed money to pay for extravagant highway projects of dubious value to the public.
May 1, 2013
Streetfacts: Roads Are a Money Losing Proposition
The majority of the roads and highways built in America are simply bad investments. Continuing this pattern will only ensure that wasteful projects consume larger chunks of our federal, state, and local budgets, without addressing the real need for transportation options.
April 22, 2013
Sparks Fly as Lawmaker Grills LaHood on Columbia River Crossing Transit
From the beginning of today’s hearing, Republicans on the House Appropriations Committee made it clear they weren’t going to let Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood’s last appearance before them be an easy one. While the hearing's purpose was to examine the department's budget request, the tough questions LaHood fielded on the budget were nothing compared to the fight one lawmaker picked about the Columbia River Crossing.
April 16, 2013
Virginia’s Transpo Future: Charge Drivers Less to Build More Roads
Congratulations are owed to Bob McDonnell. He's scored a victory on his transportation funding plan, cementing his legacy (though infuriating conservatives, including his hand-picked successor). His achievement is being called the first bipartisan initiative to pass in Virginia in decades. And what does this great deed accomplish? Secure revenue to fuel a new era of wasteful road-building in the commonwealth of Virginia.
February 26, 2013
Meet the $4.7 Billion Birmingham Highway Only Cronyism Could Build
It is really a testament to how dominant the highway industrial complex has become that we even have to talk about Birmingham's Northern Beltline, a $4.7 billion outerbelt first proposed in the 1960s. But with backing from big companies that would reap windfall real estate profits from the highway -- and with a U.S. Senator working to secure federal funding -- this boondoggle might actually get built.
January 28, 2013
Wisconsin Over-Invests in New Roads Destined for Underuse
Scott Walker, maybe we would respect your decision to pull the plug on high-speed rail in your state a little more if you weren’t such a hypocrite about transportation spending.
January 28, 2013
Does Detroit Need Another $1.8 Billion of Freeway? MDOT Thinks So
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.
January 17, 2013
Will Transportation Investments Keep Up With the Way Americans Travel?
Phineas Baxandall is a senior analyst at the U.S. Public Interest Research Group.
October 22, 2012