New Incentives from Federal Transportation Funding

The law authorizing federal highway and transit programs expires on May 31, and Congress is currently debating where the money will come from for a new transportation bill and where it should be spent. But a third question is even more important: what are the incentives created by federal transportation spending and how can they be improved to provide Americans with faster, cleaner, and safer transportation? Randal O’Toole will describe the perverse incentives that currently govern federal transit programs; Baruch Feigenbaum will discuss federal policies that make infrastructure unnecessarily expensive; and Marc Scribner will explore other incentives created by federal regulation and ask, “Is there a future for federal transportation policy?”