America is the most mobile society in history, but our transportation system is on the verge of collapse. Traffic congestion is today five times greater than it was 25 years ago, yet many transportation plans and projects are making it worse. As Randal O’Toole reveals in Gridlock, the prime causes of our ailing system are a government transportation planning philosophy whose primary goal is to diminish auto use—hence, personal mobility—in combination with federal budget incentives that perversely encourage transportation planners to increase congestion. As a result, the automobile which is accessible to almost every family in the nation and provides unparalleled access to better housing, low-cost consumer goods, a choice-driven affordable life, and freedom—is being deliberately forced off the transportation grid by the expensive “solution” of little-used high-speed trains and urban transit lines. Gridlock presents a wide range of innovative ideas and policy recommendations for creating an effective transportation system—improvements that will increase our mobility and pay for themselves, whether it’s cars, buses, planes, or trains. At the center of O’Toole’s solutions are three core principles: those who use transportation facilities should pay for them; negative effects should be dealt with in a cost-efficient manner; and new technologies that will increase mobility at a low cost must be embraced. In Gridlock, Randal O’Toole brings energetic and unconventional thinking to transportation strategies that have, until now, only driven us into the breakdown lane.

The Federal Highway Administration and Federal Transit Administration requested that the Transportation Research Board and the Commission on Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education of the National Research Council conduct a study of congestion pricing for congestion management. To conduct this study, the National Research Council established the Committee for Study on Urban Transportation Congestion Pricing. The committee's deliberations were supplemented by liaison representatives from several groups concerned about the benefits and costs of congestion pricing. After a review of the literature, and drawing from its expertise, the committee commissioned papers on a variety of topics. Volume 1 contains the committee's overview of the material contained in the commissioned papers, its conclusions, and its recommendations regarding the potential of congestion pricing, the need for evaluation of early demonstrations, and other research needs. Volume 2 provides a rich array of information about individual case studies from around the nation and thoughtful analyses by individual scholars about many of the critical issues surrounding congestion pricing., as revised by their authors after the symposium.

Cities across the world are facing unprecedented challenges in traffic management and transit congestion while coping with growing populations and mobility aspirations; existing policies that aim to tackle congestion and create more sustainable transport futures offer only weak remedies. In Gridlock: Congested Cities, Contested Policies, Unsustainable Mobility, transport consultant John C. Sutton explores how two competing discourses in transport policy and planning practice – convivial and competitive ideologies – lead to contradictory solutions and a gridlock in policy as well as on transport systems. Gridlock examines current transport and mobility in a geographical, social, political-economy and technological context. The challenges of rising congestion are highlighted through case studies from the UK, the USA, and OECD countries. Sutton offers readers a vision of a sustainable mobility future through the concept of mobility management, combining mobile communication and information technology with logistics to match travel demand to the capacity of transport systems. Essential reading for transport professionals and students of transportation planning and policy, Gridlock offers a unique manifesto for sustainable mobility settlement, addressing the pressing problems of growing populations and congestion while looking ahead to a more sustainable future.

A detailed study of political gridlock in Congress, offering an alternative perspective for evaluating its persistence and charting a course for change.

Robert Cervero documents the rise in suburban traffic around the country and examines the role of various planning, design, and management approaches in defining the automobile's growing presence in suburbia. The book highlights suburban business complexes and mixed-use centers throughout the United States that have been planned and designed to reduce auto dependency and to promote ridesharing, transit usage, and other commuting alternatives.Steps taken by various municipalities to enlist the support of private interests in reducing employee trip-making and financing area-wide roadway improvements are also examined. While the analysis is national in scope, detailed case studies offer in-depth insights into the many institutional and logistical problems involved in mitigating the impact of suburban congestion.The transportation planning profession has historically focused its attention and resources on downtown access and mobility problems. Suburbs, and places beyond, have long been considered havens for travel, free from traffic jams, and ideal for leisurely weekend excursions. Over the years, transportation planning in suburbia has involved little more than adding new projects to five-year capital improvement programs. This book remains essential for planners, administrators, and citizens interested in the future of suburbia and safeguarding it from the coming transportation crisis.

American Gridlock is a comprehensive analysis of polarization encompassing national and state politics, voters, elites, activists, the media, and the three branches of government.

This report summarizes the findings from an unprecedented series of 65 public forums held all across the United States between August 1987 and May 1988. The public forums were conceived as an element of the initial fact-finding stage of Transportation 2020, which itself represents the first ever attempt to develop a national consensus surface transportation policy.

The images of human trafficking are all too often reduced to media tales of helpless young women taken by heavily accented, dark-skinned captors—but the reality is a far cry from this stereotype. In the Middle East, Dubai has been accused of being a hotbed of trafficking. Pardis Mahdavi, however, draws a more complicated and more personal picture of this city filled with migrants. Not all migrant workers are trapped, tricked, and abused. Like anyone else, they make choices to better their lives, though the risk of ending up in bad situations is high. Legislators hoping to combat human trafficking focus heavily on women and sex work, but there is real potential for abuse of both male and female migrants in a variety of areas of employment—whether on the street, in a field, at a restaurant, or at someone's house. Gridlock explores how migrants' actual experiences in Dubai contrast with the typical discussions—and global moral panic—about human trafficking. Mahdavi powerfully contrasts migrants' own stories with interviews with U.S. policy makers, revealing the gaping disconnect between policies on human trafficking and the realities of forced labor and migration in the Persian Gulf. To work toward solving this global problem, we need to be honest about what trafficking is—and is not—and to finally get past the stereotypes about trafficked persons so we can really understand the challenges migrant workers are living through every day.