trb

Reason's Bob Poole and Bill Reinhardt of Public Works Financing very graciously and flatteringly gave a dinner for TOLLROADSnews Tuesday evening at the excellent Lauriol Restaurant on 18thNW Street, up from Dupont Circle. They said things about TOLLROADSnews' value and importance so kind we're too shy to report.

Many of the crowd attending came over from the Value Pricing sessions of the TRB conference at Woodley Park.

SUMMARY: The Transportation Economics Committee of the Transportation Research Board is seeking papers on "Issues relating to privatizing roads in the United States" for presentation at the TRB's Annual Meeting in Washington DC, January 13-17, 2013. The issues mentioned by the Committee are shown in its "Call for Papers", which is reproduced below.

We'll call him Mike Friedman after Milton (1912-2006.) He's a staff economist and engineer in a government agency. But he's expressing his personal views on a big policy issue outside of his work, so it's not appropriate to ID him. 'Friedman' puts the case eloquently for market priced provision of highways. He does this in the context of suggesting a discussion topic for a Transportation Research Board annual conference event.

AASHTO, the state DOTs lobby in Washington DC has a report from the Academies of Sciences' Transportation Research Board (TRB) that determinedly avoids toll technologies and expertise in the search for a quick fix to declining gas tax revenues. Written by a RAND Corp led team the report lists three options for estimating vehicle-miles traveled (VMT) charges:

AHS

TRB applauds kill, scarifies mismanagement