Americans are the most mobile society in history, yet our transportation system is on the verge of collapse. Traffic congestion today is five times worse than it was 25 years ago. Many of our bridges are in desperate need of replacement. Worst of all, many transportation planners believe their job is to make congestion worse in order to discourage mobility. Gridlock reveals how we got into this mess and how we can fix it. The United States has two paths before it. Some say we should build an expensive network of high-speed trains and urban rail transit lines that will mainly serve a narrow elite. Gridlock argues instead that we should focus on improving methods of transportation that will increase everyone's mobility and pay for themselves, whether it's cars, buses, planes, or trains.
Randal O'Toole is a senior fellow with the Cato Institute specializing in public lands, urban growth, and transportation issues. O'Toole spent 15 years working with environmental groups helping them understand the perils of big government planning and 15 years working with libertarian groups helping them find ways to protect the environment without big government.
O'Toole is an active cyclist who rides thousands of miles a year and a rail fan who loves riding passenger trains. But he is also an economist who recognizes that government spending must be cost-effective if it is to accomplish anything other than transferring money from taxpayers to special interests. This makes him skeptical of proposals to, for example, spend billions of dollars on urban rail transit or high-speed rail.
A native Oregonian, O'Toole was Yale University's McCluskey Conservation Fellow in 1998 and the Merrill Visiting Professor at Utah State University in 2000. He also taught at the University of California (Berkeley) College of Natural Resources in 1999 and 2001. He currently resides in Camp Sherman, Oregon.
