The Commuter Vote

In response to Huckabee's call, in tonight's debate, for investing in highway infrastructure (in Florida, of course, among other places), David Freddoso titles a post, "Huckabee Wants To Be FDR," and then writes:

He wants two extra lanes on I-95 from Bangor to Miami.

Although I can completely identify with being stuck in traffic in Florida.

Of course he can - because America's transportation infrastructure simply hasn't kept pace with our population growth, our average commuting time has tripled in the last twenty-five years, and our country needs those extra lanes of traffic. Families need them. Businesses need them. Suburban and exurban voters - the swing vote in elections these days - need them. I understand all the "bridge to nowhere"/Big Dig fears on the porkbusting right, but his is an issue that a sensible pro-business, pro-family Republican Party ought to own - particularly since transportation earmarks, which blossom in the absence of a concerted strategy for improving national infrastructure, are part of the problem, not part of the solution.

Update: Good for Jonah.

Updated Update: And again.

Comments

I'd be in favor of more spending on transportation infrastructure only if it was funded via road tolls/congestion pricing.

As a Baltimore resident (and I'm assuming this applies to other cities as well), I don't see why I should be obliged to pay to build bigger roads so more people can commute 30-40 miles to work from southern York County, Harford County, and the like.

Posted by Jeff | January 24, 2008 9:58 PM

please provide citations to studies that prove that additional highway lanes actually reduces commuting times in the medium to long term. my understanding of anthony downs' work is that additional lanes invariably attracts more drivers and more traffic.

Posted by David | January 24, 2008 10:17 PM

What David said.

Mass transit is a much better investment. If you are going to build more lanes on the interstates, at least convert the interstates into tollways and congestion price them. (Conservatives ought to like that one anyway because it means less need for a tax increase.)

But just building more roads as more people move in is like the hamster on the exercise wheel; you spend a lot, but you never get anywhere.

Posted by Dilan Esper | January 24, 2008 10:42 PM

Ok, this will be out of left field for you neocons, but how about trying to eliminate tolls, which are undoubtedly the biggest single cause of traffic jams, besides the traffic itself. Delaware shouldn't be able to shift its corporate and sales taxes to commuters passing through. And as to the traffic itself, why the hell is everybody in this country so afraid of promoting trains? They work everywhere else. Is the fear that they might save too many lives? Make life too nice for poor people? Reduce polution too much? No, let's get more people out on the roads instead.

Idiots.

Posted by Tim | January 25, 2008 5:13 AM

David is correct. Per a college friend of mine who works as a transportation planner, this is not controversial in those circles.

Also, there's no good reason why we should continue to subsidize environmentally unfriendly practices. Build mass transit, or implement road pricing, but encouraging people to live farther away from work in less dense developments driving more miles is not good public policy.

Posted by Phaedrus | January 25, 2008 10:13 AM

Americans already drive too much as it is, and the world's oil supplies are disappearing down our insatiable maw, and people actually want to encourage _more_ people to get on the highways?

We need to build more mass transit, and try to get people to move closer in to the cities and away from the suburbs- and perhaps try and establish endogenous economic development in small towns and rural areas. But the one thing we _don't_ need is to further enocourage the automobile culture and suburbanization.

Americans drive their cars too big, too much, too often.

Posted by Hector | January 25, 2008 11:27 AM

Damn the Jonah links aren't loading for me...it is so rare that any links to him approviingly I just had to see what he said

Multiple Choice Mitt - Because One Answer is Never Enough!

Posted by Multiple Choice Mitt | January 25, 2008 12:39 PM

Ross, a little piece of me dies every time I hear that argument. What everyone above said. Also: if you could build your way out of congestion with new and bigger roads, places like Los Angelos would be a motorist's nirvana, no?

Posted by greg | January 25, 2008 1:27 PM

I'm all for congestion pricing, carbon taxation, and sundry other schemes to account for externalities and reduce cost shifting. It seems to me however, that to a large extent, we need not choose between better highway infrastructure and more and faster trains. We can have both, given a sufficiently robust financial commitment. Now, obviously not every part of the country is a suitable candidate for inter-city fast trains. And not every part of the country needs major highway improvements, either. But my sense is the denser parts of the country need and could make use of both. Because the thing is, in many of the parts of Europe that have excellent rail service (I'm thinking Germany, the Low Countries, Britain, France), they also have superb highways.

Given enough density, it makes economic sense to have both great highways and great trains. In America we're simply too averse to a robust, well-funded public sector for there to be a realistic chance at emulating our across-the-pond cousins.

Posted by Jasper | January 25, 2008 1:37 PM

Jonah is so predictable. If he's against it, it's just plain wrong, stupid even. If he's for it, it's right -- or at least defensible, as long as he gets to throw around words he doesn't really understand, like "Keynsian."

God, why do you asshats on the right give that punk-ass ANY credence?

More highway lanes means more drivers and the same or more congestion (depending on conditions). Motor vehicle traffic is a social ill that we cannot build our way out of.

Mass transit works.

Posted by Jamey | January 25, 2008 3:57 PM