{"product_id":"rethinking-americas-highways-a-21stcentury-vision-for-better-infrastructure-9780226759302","title":"Rethinking Americas Highways A 21stCentury Vision","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAmericans spend hours every day sitting in traffic. And the roads they idle on are often rough and potholed, their exits, tunnels, guardrails, and bridges in terrible disrepair. According to transportation expert Robert Poole, this congestion and deterioration are outcomes of the way America provides its highways. Our twentieth-century model overly politicizes highway investment decisions, short-changing maintenance and often investing in projects whose costs exceed their benefits.    In Rethinking America's Highways, Poole examines how our current model of state-owned highways came about and why it is failing to satisfy its customers. He argues for a new model that treats highways themselves as public utilitieslike electricity, telephones, and water supply. If highways were provided commercially, Poole argues, people would pay for highways based on how much they used, and the companies would issue revenue bonds to invest in facilities people were willing to pay for. Arguing for highwa\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Every policy wonk and politician interested in infrastructure should read Bob’s book.”  -- Chris Edwards * CATO Institute *\u003cbr\u003e“While per-gallon fuel taxes served as a proxy for our highway needs in the past, the pending insolvency of the federal Highway Trust Fund proves that model to be unsustainable. As Poole suggests, there are clear paths to self-supporting infrastructure by seeing highways as an asset class, and by creating an environment that taps into now widely available global infrastructure investment funds. Poole offers a well-reasoned transition from the failing 20th-century highway model to one that can sustain and support our country for the 21st century.” -- Mary Peters, former US Secretary of Transportation\u003cbr\u003e“Robert Poole’s bold, innovative thinking on infrastructure could not come at a better time. He provides a comprehensive analysis of the endemic, seemingly intractable problems facing our nation’s infrastructure, and offers a practical set of solutions. He explains not only how the tolling and private participation used around the world can improve US transportation infrastructure, but how decades-old lessons from utility regulation will ensure that those policies are in the public interest. This book is a must-read for anyone wanting a clear policy guide for moving US infrastructure into the 21st century.” -- Rick Geddes, Cornell University\u003cbr\u003e“In Rethinking America’s Highways, Poole furthers his reputation as one of the world’s leading experts on infrastructure and public-private partnerships. In this book, he brilliantly demonstrates how an economic model for highways, rather than our current political approach, would unlock substantial value.” -- Stephen Goldsmith, Harvard University\u003cbr\u003e“Are politicians ever celebrated for preventing bridges and roads from crumbling? No, they are celebrated for cutting ribbons on brand-new infrastructure projects, regardless of their economic soundness over time. This is one reason I find Robert Poole’s argument in \u003ci\u003eRethinking America’s Highways\u003c\/i\u003e so appealing. It is vitally important that we depoliticize infrastructure by turning state transportation departments into public utilities, a seemingly modest change that would have enormously beneficial consequences.” * National Review *\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTable of Contents\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePreface\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Chapter 1. Our Troubled Highway System\u003cbr\u003e Chapter 2. How the Private Sector Is Reinventing America’s Freeways\u003cbr\u003e Chapter 3. Where America’s 20th-Century Highway Model Came From\u003cbr\u003e Chapter 4. The Rediscovery of Toll Road Companies Overseas\u003cbr\u003e Chapter 5. Toll Concessions Return to America\u003cbr\u003e Chapter 6. The Benefits of Long-Term P3 Concessions\u003cbr\u003e Chapter 7. Critics and Controversy: Opposition to Tolling and Long-Term Concessions\u003cbr\u003e Chapter 8. Highways as Network Utilities\u003cbr\u003e Chapter 9. Transforming the Interstate Highways\u003cbr\u003e Chapter 10. Transforming Urban Freeways\u003cbr\u003e Chapter 11. Challenges to the New Vision\u003cbr\u003e Chapter 12. A New Future for US Highways\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Acknowledgments\u003cbr\u003e Notes\u003cbr\u003e Index","brand":"The University of Chicago Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48732919693655,"sku":"9780226759302","price":19.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9780226759302.jpg?v=1719998951","url":"https:\/\/bookcurl.com\/products\/rethinking-americas-highways-a-21stcentury-vision-for-better-infrastructure-9780226759302","provider":"Book Curl","version":"1.0","type":"link"}