Transportation Needs An Economist's Mind, Not An Engineer's

Reason's Robert Poole responds to the report from the National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Study Commission and argues that despite its many good ideas, the engineer's perspective should be replaced with that of an economist.

1 minute read

February 2, 2008, 7:00 AM PST

By Nate Berg


"When it comes to large-scale programmatic changes, the majority's report suffers throughout from a major flaw. It reflects an engineering mind-set, when what 21st-century transportation needs is an economic mind-set. This is a long-standing concern of mine. I'm a graduate engineer, and have only ever had a handful of formal economics courses. Yet my views on public policy have been heavily shaped by what I've learned from economists over the past 30 years. I seem to have spent much of my transportation policy career trying to teach engineers to start thinking like economists."

"Engineers think in terms of "needs"-long lists of "it would be good to do" projects. They can always think up external benefits to justify boatloads of tax funding on things they like-such as the idea that citizens and companies always need a multiplicity of "transportation choices," regardless of whether those make sense as wise investments of always-scarce tax resources. The report is chock-full of this, with major proposed expansions of federal funding for inter-city rail and much greater use of mass transit, let alone waterway (locks and dams) projects, most of which would likely have costs far in excess of benefits."

Thursday, January 31, 2008 in Reason

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I love the variety of courses, many practical, and all richly illustrated. They have inspired many ideas that I've applied in practice, and in my own teaching.

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