New Approach for American’s Transportation Future  

U.S. Transportation Secretary Mary E. Peters Unveils Bush Administration’s Visionary New Plan to
Refocus, Reform and Renew the National Approach to Highway and Transit Systems in America

The Secretary announced a new framework to overhaul the way U.S. transportation decisions and investments are made.  Reform is needed to address exploding highway congestion, rising fuel prices, unsustainable gas taxes and spending decisions based on political influence instead of merit, all of which are eroding confidence in government and threatening mobility, the economy and quality of life in America. The reform plan will:

Renew federal focus on maintaining and improving performance on the Interstate Highway System.

• While these highways represent just 1 percent of the nation’s roads, roughly one-quarter of all highway miles traveled in the U.S. takes place on the Interstate system.
• These roads are vital to local economies, interstate commerce and global trade.
• Ensuring the network is safe, maintained and un-congested must be a key federal priority.
• Utilizing the Federal Interest Highway proposal to focus on Interstates and highways that flow through rural areas, while continuing to fund the Highway Safety Improvement Program, which especially targets infrastructure improvements in rural areas, where a disproportionate number of highway fatalities take place.

Address urban congestion and give state and local leaders greater flexibility to invest in their transit and highway priorities.

• Create a Metropolitan Innovation Fund that reward cities willing to combine the powerful mix of effective transit investments, dynamic pricing of highways and new traffic technologies.
• Ensure local planners have the flexibility and greater resources to fund new subways, bus routes or highways, based on local needs not politics.

Create accountability measurers to ensure investments in transportation will actually deliver results.    

• Over the last 10 years, transportation spending has increased by over 100 percent, but congestion has increased by 300 percent.
• Define success in terms of increased travel time reliability, decreased delays hours and improved condition of bridges and pavement.

Refocus emphasis on safety using technology and data-driven approaches, while giving states greater flexibility to address their specific safety challenges.

• Measurable progress has been made in reducing traffic fatalities. But, with more than 42,000 deaths on the nation’s urban and rural roads every year, more work must be done.
• Using a data-driven approach, a renewed focus on stubborn issues that put drivers, commercial drivers, passengers and pedestrians at risk, including crashes involving drunk drivers, motorcycles, work zones and rural roads.

Streamline the federal review process for new transportation projects.

• It currently takes an average 13 years to design and build new highway and transit projects in the United States.
• Streamline the federal environmental and planning processes, without sidestepping or lessening stringency, so that needed projects can go from the drawing board to reality more quickly.

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