Some may recall the story about the Howard County Exec who won an upset campaign against the ruling party establishment in the 70s and then spent the next four years proving to those who voted against him that he would NOT do what those who voted for him were counting on him to do.
Looks like a similar scenario is evolving because the new administration has a Secretary of Transportation that was chosen for ‘bipartisanship’ (NOT antiPartisanship) and who has little transport credibility. See “LaHood Talks of Mileage-Based Tax: White House Dismisses Controversial Idea to Fund Transportation Projects. WaPo 21 Feb 2009.
In an attempt to not rock too many boats at once the White House has apparently nixed one of the most important opportunities to improve Mobility and Access now available. They could also reverse one of the three catastrophic mistakes in implementation of an InterRegional roadway system. See “Interstate Crime” 28 Feb 2005
In summary the three problems are:
1. Running the Interstate roadways inside the Clear Edge (or the logical location for the Clear Edge) instead of stopping at the Clear Edge as called for by the earlier InterRegional Highway plans. Stopping at the Clear Edge is the normal practice for limited access roadways linking New Urban Regions in Europa.
2. Artificially holding down the true cost of the Interstate system by limiting the damages paid to Urban citizens in severance damages due to isolating land owners and citizens from the components of settlement that supported their quality of life and their property values. The Urban landscape is littered with orphaned Clusters, Neighborhoods and Villages. NonUrban land owners WERE compensated. This is one of the prime drivers of both Abandonment and Scatteration discussed in the first two chapters of ROOTS OF THE HELTER SKELTER CRISIS.
3. Failing to develop a fair allocation of the cost of use of the Interstate System and Federal Aid Highways by failing to instituting a equitable weight distance levy on roadway use.
Now for some reason correcting the only error that is still correctagle without massive expense is viewed as “controversial.”
How can it be more “controversial” than Lexus Lanes or raising the gas tax enough to make a difference?
Footnote: This post was drafted on 22 February. On 23 February WaPo carried a lead editorial that said about the same thing about the usefulness of considering at least a step toward fair and equitable weight / distance levies. Credit where credit is due.
Now if WaPo could just focus on settlement pattern dysfunction…
EMR
