The Road to Prosperity: Real-Time Approaches to Economic Improvement

"Across America, too many people believe that 'no one will get out of their cars.' The newest data based on the American Community Survey, shows 'it ain’t so,' even for small cities and their surrounding areas. The national trend in the US is a drop of almost 1 percent per year in passenger vehicle-miles-traveled or VMT, driven by the high price of transportation generally and more specifically related to the need to drive, a function of the increased distance between people and what they do. People have been driving about 1% per year less for a while now."

Scott Bernstein, President of the Center for Neighborhood Technology, goes on to use Doña Ana County, New Mexico, as an example of the road to prosperity. Warning, this long thought piece is not an easy read, but sets out to invoke some heavy lifting for transportation types and PPPs.