Beyond Traffic 2045 Is U.S

CHAPTER TITLE i ii BEYOND TRAFFIC DEDICATION Thank you for participating in our stakeholder outreach events. We appreciate all you do for us. #BeyondTraffic. TABLE OF CONTENTS Letter to the Reader III Introduction 1 Trends 7 How We Move How We Move Things How We Adapt How We Move Better How We Grow Economic Opportunity for All How We Align Decisions and Dollars System Implications 131 Why Do People Travel Highways and Motor Vehicles Transit Pedestrians and Cyclists Aviation Intercity Rail Marine Pipelines Shaping Our Future: Choices in Changing Times 182 Megaregions Forum Report 206 II BEYOND TRAFFIC LETTER TO THE READER We, as users of the transportation system, think little of the untold intricacies that converge so we can get to work, take children to their activities, or enjoy a cross country trip. There is hardware— the roads, runways, and railways. There is also software—the vehicles in which we move. There are the vehicle operators and fellow travelers with whom we share the highway, the sky, or the railroad tracks. There are the maps we use to chart our course. If any one of these elements fail, we may reach our destination but only after many hours have been lost. Increasingly, our ability to maximize our time correlates directly to transportation. deferred maintenance caused by inadequate Transportation matters more than just as a way budgets or perhaps misplaced priorities. to get us places. Transportation, for good or ill, Congestion is not limited to roads. A Midwestern shapes places. Many road networks have been farmer may have harvested several tons of built upon foot-worn paths of our forbearers. grain to ship by rail only to find limited space on Along these paths grew towns, and some of freight trains due to growing competition from those towns grew into cities. As new forms commodities such as energy products. Even our of transportation grew—from the horse and commercial airspace is experiencing congestion buggy, to the bicycle, to the locomotive, to the around major hub airports. As we grow, and as automobile—it became necessary to smooth our economy grows, the challenge of moving those paths and, more recently, pave them or lay will become even more complicated. If we could rails upon them. anticipate today what will likely slow or stop our national progress, we could plan an effective Places where we live and work also shape the response, engage in robust debate, and settle on transportation system. Clogged highways are not a course of action. Unfortunately, we have too the product of poor design per se. Sometimes often misstated the problem as simply one of they choke with unanticipated traffic flows funding when it may be one of both resources brought about by unforeseen zoning and land and design. use decisions, regional population growth, or III In the enabling legislation that gave rise to These strategies are at variance with our current the U.S. Department of Transportation, the posture. The U.S. transportation system is still Secretary of Transportation is vested with the proceeding under a 20th century model in responsibility to report on current and future which our policies, practices, and programs are conditions of our transportation system. This presumed to be sufficient, as are the resources report is the U.S. Department of Transportation’s devoted to them. most comprehensive assessment of national conditions in decades and is, in effect, a call to Over the past six years, the United States action. After years of chronic underinvestment government has passed 32 short-term measures and policy choices that sometimes work at to keep its surface transportation system afloat. cross-purposes with larger economic and social Funding uncertainty has undermined our ability mobility goals, now is the time for a report like to modernize our air traffic control system. this to be read, understood, considered, and Diffuse decision-making mechanisms at the utilized to breathe new life into funding and state and local level have hampered our ability policy discussions at the federal, state, and local to address critical freight and trade corridors. levels. And our programs and policies have not been reformed to tackle the challenges of tomorrow. Can we imagine a future in which traffic jams The combination of these forces—inconsistent, decline? Absolutely. Essentially, three strategies unreliable funding, and static policies in an era need to be employed—all of which demand of rapid change—has left our transportation increased funding and new, more adaptive infrastructure in an increasingly deteriorated policymaking at all levels of government. First, and fragile state. It has left the United States on we clearly have to take better care of our legacy the precipice of losing its historical advantage in transportation systems. We cannot cross bridges moving people and things faster, more safely, that have fallen apart or connect commerce to and more reliably than any other nation in the ports in disrepair. Most obviously, the question world. of sufficient resources must be confronted squarely. Second, we must fund and prioritize Thankfully, on December 4, 2015, President new projects based on future projections, not Obama signed the first long-term surface arcane precepts of mobility. Living patterns transportation bill in a decade: the FAST Act. are changing, as are transportation tastes. As This Act required bipartisan cooperation on its is the nature of freight movement. Rather than contents and its “pay for.” The proposal made plunge our heads in the sand, policymakers and some achievements, but nothing on the order of practitioners should understand these trends what’s needed in light of the following pages. In and plan with them in mind. Third, we must use terms of its “pay for,” the FAST Act largely used technologies and better design approaches that gimmicky offsets rather than dealing with the will allow us to maximize the use of our old and fundamental structural flaws inherent in the new transportation assets. Doing so may involve gas tax. Consequently, our system still lacks the adapting for innovations in vehicle safety and galvanizing clarity of purpose and vision that automation, improving federal, state, and local can drive public support. If a robust and clear coordination, and adopting best practices in the new vision for U.S. infrastructure can ever be design of infrastructure. developed in our time, the seed is planted in this report. IV BEYOND TRAFFIC It is important to note that Beyond Traffic is exception. Under Secretary of Policy Blair not an action plan and is not intended to be. It Anderson, Assistant Secretary Carlos Monje is a survey of where we are and where current and our team in the Office of Policy, as well as trends may take us if left unaddressed. The the Volpe Center led by Anne Aylward, have federal government alone cannot achieve built upon the work of their predecessors and resolution of all of the issues and concerns these teams have remained deeply vested in the future will bring; much decision making overseeing the development of this product. belongs to other stakeholders, including state and local governments and the private sector. In perhaps the most definitive of these surveys, Any comprehensive action plan would require Secretary Coleman, in the 1977 study entitled consultation and coordinated execution by all of “National Transportation: Trends and Choices these participants. (to the year 2000)” captured the sentiments that have guided our efforts in this work: Beyond Traffic is intended to start a long- overdue national conversation about what our “National Transportation: Trends and country really needs and why we need it. To Choices provides a starting point for that end, a draft of the report was published in that much needed public debate. It is February 2015. In the subsequent 18 months an agenda of national transportation it was downloaded more than 400,000 times. issues and alternative solutions that, from We asked you to provide us comments and you the perspective of the Department of did. We received hundreds of comments via Transportation, appear to have merit. It is email and thousands more in the webinars and not intended as a plan of action, although workshops we held to share our findings. We it encompasses programs and plans that received comments from engineers, researchers, already may have the force of law at transportation planners, pilots, truck drivers, various levels of Government. It is intended transit operators, safety advocates, and disability to be a prospectus of what is possible, rights advocates, among others. practicable, and in the public service.” This final version reflects the prevailing themes of I therefore ask that you, the reader, accept this the comments we received, as well as the specific document in the spirit in which it was prepared: corrections some of you provided. In response as a basis upon which we can all build together. to your concerns, we have added a new chapter to Beyond Traffic: How We Grow Opportunity for All. Anthony Foxx This survey is not the first effort to capture U.S. Secretary of Transportation current and future trends in transportation. Secretaries William Coleman, Sam Skinner, and Rodney Slater each published major reports in the past to contribute to the national dialogue. Each of these efforts has involved dedicated teams within the U.S. Department of Transportation, and Beyond Traffic is no BEYOND TRAFFIC V INTRODUCTION Introduction: Summary in Brief When the United States Department of Now is an exciting time to have this discussion. Transportation was created, the Secretary of Our transportation system is on the cusp of a Transportation was charged by law to report major transformation, akin to the introduction on both the current and the anticipated future of the steam engine or the automobile.

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