New York Regional Plan Association Advocates 'America 2050' Plan

According to RPA Executive Director Robert Yaro, global competition requires that the United States focus on regions for future infrastructure investment.

1 minute read

May 5, 2008, 9:00 AM PDT

By James Brasuell @CasualBrasuell


The article is an interview with Robert Yaro, executive director of the Regional Plan Association:

"...all of our competitors around world-Europe and Japan and China-were engaged in long-range investment strategies around moving people and goods. The rest of the world is building high-speed rail, expanding commercial aviation systems, and building integrated goods movement systems that involve new connections between seaports and rail systems. Really, we're the only place in the world that doesn't have that kind of long-range investment strategy."

"...we need a national policy and investment framework. The analogy that we've been using is the interstate system. That really made late 20th century metropolitan regions possible. They were organized around these metro-scale motor-access highway networks."

"We're just approaching the one-year mark of the announcement of PlaNYC, and it's an amazing story. We had one highly visible setback, and that was the refusal of the New York State Legislature to vote on the congestion pricing proposal. That was one of 127 policy and investment recommendations."

Wednesday, April 30, 2008 in The Planning Report

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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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