Bridges and roads take years to build, but too often, states and communities haven't known if funding will be there for them more than a few months at a time.
When you went into a Boston Chicken and ordered quarter-chicken, white, with mash and corn, when that was rung up, that would signal all the way along the supply chain the need for more potatoes to be put on a truck a thousand miles away.
After World War II the federal government figured out that Detroit could make 6 million cars a year and there were not enough roads to put them on.
Explaining the origin of the Interstate Highway System:
Many of them are doing it because they are concerned about smart growth.
You have got to connect your land use decisions with transportation decisions.
No one ever built an interstate highway system before
it was done in the Eisenhower administration
The Engineer Corps is charged with all construction, including light railways and roads.
If we do high-speed rail, the governor has to be intelligent and invest the dollars at the 'bookends' - San Francisco and Los Angeles.
I believe that States should be credited for their non-Federal investment in revenue-generating transportation facilities to address their regional transportation needs.
It is true that we need a consensus to go forward with restoring passenger rail in America, and often a consensus is formed by political action, via government. That is all true. But we have no such consensus, and no one in government or politics these days has the will or the force of personality or perhaps even the understanding of the situation to get on with job of forming a consensus supporting rail.
From what I've heard, Paris did a little bit more prep work as far as making bike lanes and all of that stuff. They really did it properly, which New York is getting to little by little.
Our decisions about transportation determine much more than where roads or bridges or tunnels or rail lines will be built. They determine the connections and barriers that people will encounter in their daily lives - and thus how hard or easy it will be for people to get where they need and want to go.
Pedestrians and cyclists are squeezed by planners into narrow and often dangerous spaces - the afterthoughts of urban design.
We didn't build the interstate system to connect New York to Los Angeles because the West Coast was a priority. No, we webbed the highways so people can go to multiple places and invent ways of doing things not thought of by the persons building the roads.
Supermarket companies are big logistics companies, and one of the ways we've increased profitability in the past is by re-evaluating how they do logistics.
Copenhagen has done a remarkable job creating streets that are focused on bicycles and pedestrians.
If we are to avail ourselves fully of the benefits of civil aviation, and if we are to use the automobiles we can produce, it will be necessary to construct thousands of airports and to overhaul our entire national highway system.
If we're talking about transportation, the best thing a city can do is densify as quickly as it can. That needs to be said every time this issue comes up, because it's the only universal strategy that works.
I've always been fascinated with how transportation systems work and how cities are designed.
Passenger rail development takes time, but good things come to those who are patient and stay the course.
People across America who value bicycling should have a voice when it comes to transportation planning. This is the end of favoring motorized transportation at the expense of non-motorized.
In the same way we have a long-term plan for building roads, we have to have a long term plan to build transit.
When dealing with complex transportation issues, the best thing to do is pull up with a cold beer and let somebody else figure it out.
For this reason, it is essential that our Nation's rural transportation professionals be provided with the necessary tools and support to promote and showcase the value, benefits, and accomplishments of rural transportation planning and development.