The Transportation Policy of Four Presidential Candidates

Daniel McGraw reports on a talking point missing from the presidential campaign trail thus far: "As a country, we are in the middle of a radical shift in our relationship to the automobile and its role in transportation, and the current candidates aren’t speaking much to the change." After providing some evidence that more of the country is, in fact, ready to adopt a more multi-modal lifestyle, McGraw goes on to examine the transportation policy platform of each of the remaining candidates from the two major parties.

Starting with Senator Ted Cruz, McGraw notes that the Tea Party favorite has promised to kill funding for the New Starts Transit Program and has already voted against the FAST Act—the first multi-year transportation funding bill passed by Congress since 2005. By contract, Donald Trump has "expressed more than once what seems like jealousy of other countries’ 'super-speed trains'" and has stated, albeit vaguely, that the United States should spend more on mass transit.

McGraw finds more consistency on the side of the Democrats, noting that "both Clinton and Sanders think more spending on mass transit is needed…" According to McGraw, " Sanders wants to spend $1 trillion over five years on infrastructure, which will include mass transit improvements." And "Clinton wants to increase spending by $275 billion over five years" on roads, bridges, and transit. Sanders and Clinton differ, however, in how that money would be spent.