“Speaking from our experiences in Texas, Sam Staley and Adrian Moore get it right in Mobility First.” – Texas Governor Rick Perry
“This book is a must read for urban managers of large cities.” – Alain Bertaud, former Principal Urban Planner, World Bank.
“…an invaluable contribution to the looming public choice question in the debate over the proper use of roads and railways” – Prof. Lawrence Lai, University of Hong Kong
On the campaign trail, President-elect Barack Obama frequently talked about “rebuilding our crumbling roads, schools, and bridges.” Today, many pundits and policy experts are encouraging him to be “bold,” especially with big new infrastructure and transportation projects that might stimulate the economy.
In their new book Mobility First: A New Vision for Transportation in a Globally Competitive Twenty-First Century, Samuel Staley and Adrian Moore challenge policymakers to rethink how best to fix America’s gridlocked and deteriorating road and transit systems. For decades, America has struggled to prioritize and finance large-scale infrastructure projects. Staley and Moore detail how private capital investment and value-priced roads can usher in a new era, unclogging our transportation networks and unleashing a system capable of handling our 21st century economy. Obama has supported some of these principles by calling for a National Infrastructure Reinvestment Bank.
In Mobility First, Staley and Moore put forth real-world examples from across the globe to chart a new course for transportation planning. Mobility First offers ways to modernize transit and expand road capacity, sets goals for congestion reduction, calls for a redesign of the regional transportation network, outlines performance standards to increase transparency, and provides a blueprint for attracting large private investments to help build needed infrastructure.
About the Authors
Samuel Staley, Ph.D., is director of urban policy at Reason Foundation, a nonprofit think tank that has advised the last four presidential administrations on transportation issues. He is also author of the book The Road More Traveled: Why the Congestion Crisis Matters More Than You Think and What We Can Do About It.
Adrian Moore, Ph.D., is vice president of research at Reason Foundation, a nonprofit think tank that has advised the last four presidential administrations on transportation issues. Moore is a commissioner on the National Surface Transportation Infrastructure Financing Commission created by Congress.
Contact
Chris Mitchell, Director of Communications, Reason Foundation, (310) 367-6109
Mobility First, November 2008, ISBN 0-7425-5879-7, Rowman & Littlefield