Maine's response to a serious road maintenance funding emergency is to cling to AASHTO’s archaic code book while projecting a value system of improve, Improve, IMPROVE, even going so far as to assume massive traffic increases where there is little traffic today.
Read MoreProposed changes to federal rules on congestion mitigation reaffirm that real responses to the complex problems we face will only come from our cities, towns and neighborhoods.
Read MoreThe city of Bismarck, ND is struggling with how to pay for miles and miles of unproductive transportation investments. The North Dakota Watchdog Network -- that has put forth ten questions they would like to see answered as part of this dialogue.
Read MoreHere in one commercial is everything that is wrong with our economy.
Read MoreSpecial guest Joe Minicozzi joins Chuck Marohn to talk about the movie The Big Short and their own experience with big money and shady land deals.
Read MoreA sophisticated set of questions a city should be asking when they are looking at doing a major project.
Read MoreCity-owned golf courses are no better than big box stores when it comes to tax revenue.
Read MoreWhen we prioritize local, we aren’t just participating in a trendy consumer pattern. We are actively building stronger local economies and stronger towns.
Read MoreRockford faces the challenge of reinventing itself while also meeting the mounting obligations of decades of infrastructure expansion. We did a little digging of our own to try and better understand the true nature of the deficit.
Read MoreA video by Urban Three shows the changing wealth patterns of Huntington, WV.
Read MoreThe Governmental Accounting Standards Board now requires cities to disclose, as part of their financial reporting, the amount of money lost to tax subsidies. This is a significant development.
Read MoreA code smell is a piece of code that correctly executes a given task (i.e. it's not a bug) but its construction indicates deeper flaws in the logic and design of a program.
Read MoreThe Idaho legislature recently ended its 2015 session with a transportation funding compromise that included passage of a seven cent per gallon increase in the gas tax and additional registration fees.
Read MoreTransit supporters from Seattle and the region have been working hard to get Sound Transit to the ballot by 2016, and with good reason. We desperately need better rail transit. Unfortunately, our zeal for rail is being used against us to produce a transportation package that does far more harm than good.
Read MoreIf someone lives in a place dominated by state/fed money where progress is continually are thwarted by state/federal mandates, it is not hard to imagine where the healthy skepticism of government would originate.
Read MoreThe Move MN transportation financing proposal may be good politics, but it is bad policy. Enacting it will lead to a weaker Minnesota. Here are the reasons I oppose it.
Read MoreThe 10th Avenue Bridge is a local street with a local bridge that serves local traffic. Yet, in many cases, the general public narrative finds it necessary to criticize state legislators for not allocating money to support a project that has no state or regional significance. Herein lies the disconnect between how we think transportation financing works and how it actually works.
Read MoreBuilding our cities to cater to the needs of car traffic have produced lower levels of livability. There are good reasons to believe that throwing more money at the existing system of building and operating streets will do little to make city life better.
Read MoreAs our cities go further and further into insolvency, getting cash from fines is going to become more -- not less -- prevalent.
Read MoreWhat would our neighborhoods look like if we voluntarily reduced the amount of infrastructure? This isn’t a purely academic question. As municipal, state, and federal budgets get squeezed there’s going to be a point at which we have no choice but to stop building new roads and even reduce the amount of maintenance on the roads we already have. We could approach this situation with dread and a sense of loss, or we could embrace it as an opportunity to get a better quality of life for a whole lot less money.
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