Wall Street Journal's special section on transportation

-- Tomorrow's Transport

There are a number of articles on a number of topics including funding, freight, electric car charging, monorails, bus rapid transit, and air travel.

Earlier in the week, Notions Capital called our attention to this section's article entitled "Move It! ," which is a great piece by the Brookings Institution's Robert Puentes, based on the realization that while the US spends $170 billion/year on transportation, we don't spend it that wisely, we don't dedicate funding to a set of priority projects--including maintenance, because we don't have adequate "master" transportation plans at the national, state, and local levels.

Puentes discusses areas where US transportation can be significantly improved, based on the idea of congestion reduction and the economic and environmental costs of congestion:

• boosting exports and the quality of cross-border transportation connections;
• environmental impacts, especially air quality, of current mobility practices;
• innovations that if implemented can speed traffic;
• making it easier for people to get to and from work;
• better funding methods, such as a National Infrastructure Bank to fund projects (which would mean that municipalities don't have to sell their souls to private financiers for deals that aren't favorable).