The U.S. Needs To Build More Roads

Secretary of Transportation Mary Peters says that the highway trust fund, largely filled by the federal gasoline tax (18.4 cents per gallon), will go into deficit in 2009. In spite of the deficit, George Will advocates building more roads stating: "Los Angeles has the least pavement per person; Dallas has twice as much per person and half as much congestion. Furthermore, when new schools are built because old ones have become congested and then the new ones fill up with children from families attracted by new schools, who argues that building the new ones was a mistake?"

New roads will be combined with congestion pricing to keep traffic flowing by those who pay for the privilege: "The congestion crisis requires joining an old material -- concrete -- with new technologies. Toll highways or lanes can do what restaurants and movie theaters do -- use differential pricing to draw traffic to off-peak hours." An example is Interstate 15 in Southern California where the price to drive on it can change as often as every six minutes to prevent congestion.