Rethinking roads
Will the fuel crunch finally bring about a dramatic change in the way Utahns and their lawmakers view transportation? It better have, says a new study, or economic development on the Wasatch Front will be hamstringed.The Brookings Institute Mountain Megas study, which calls for a shift of thinking from simply building highways to more innovative transportation solutions, is mainly aimed at federal policy, but it could just as well be applied to state and local decisions. The Tribune's Brandon Loomis reports:
If Congress continues to shrink from infrastructure spending and to insist its money go mostly to roads, Brookings scholars predict Utah could sprawl in ways that choke productivity. The Salt Lake region must keep up with 1.5 million newcomers over 30 years.Study author Mark Muro is impressed with how Wasatch Front cities have cooperated on transportation, but says the stakes remain high:
The region has more to lose or gain than any other.
1 Comments:
It's about time this started being talked about. If I was the prez I'd stop all the subsidies to the airlines, who just turn around and pay their CEOs obscene amounts for running their companies into the ground, and put it all into a huge infrastructure project to build high-speed rail all over the country. We've got freeways, right? Why can't the rail lines follow the freeways?
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