North Carolina’s I-77 express toll lanes public-private partnership is on hold

In this issue:

• NC I-77 express lanes P3 on hold
• Is drone delivery going mainstream?
• Assessing proposed Canadian HSR
• Congress inconsistent on freight automation
• Opposition to electric vehicle user fees
• Will autonomous vehicles lead to gridlock?
• News Notes
• Quotable Quotes

NC I-77 Express Lanes P3 on Hold

Last month, both the Charlotte City Council and the Charlotte Regional Transportation Planning Organization (CRTPO) put on hold the long-planned addition of express toll lanes on I-77 between Charlotte and the South Carolina border. The pause also halts North Carolina Department of Transportation activity toward selecting the winning bidder to be the design-build-finance-operate-maintain (DBFOM) P3 developer. The $3.2 billion project calls for adding express toll lanes (two each way) to 11 miles of I-77 South. The same configuration already exists on 26 miles of I-77 north of Charlotte. The North Carolina DOT has stated that if the project is canceled, the $600 million it has set aside for it would be spent on projects elsewhere in the state.

Political opposition, mostly from residents near the corridor, has grown dramatically as the project has neared the start of construction. The City Council resolution on May 11 called for the project to be “paused for due diligence, a targeted re-evaluation, and design analysis with community benefit.” It also explained that, “Historically, highway construction and expansion projects have disproportionally impacted Black communities and underserved populations, through neighborhood division, displacement, and long-term barriers to economic opportunity.” That description appears to fit the area through which the 11 miles of express toll lanes would be added. (Remember that I-77 already traverses that area, so the only point in question is the additional noise and other impacts that will result from adding the express lanes.)

The North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDOT) has responded promptly, offering six conceptual designs for mitigating the impacts and potentially undoing some of the harms previously caused by construction of the eleven miles of I-77 already there. These include a lid over some portions of the roadway (often called decks), parks built over the depressed roadway (e.g., the four-acre park above I-70 approaching Denver from the east), and “stitches” meaning pedestrian and bike paths over the roadway.

I note that all these proposals assume that the four added express lanes will also be below grade, rather than elevated. Below-grade would require excavation along one or both sides of the existing I-77 corridor, which would take land adjacent to the current right of way. One alternative that has not been mentioned is to build the new express toll lanes elevated above the existing right of way. Yes, that would raise concerns over traffic noise being broadcast over the surrounding neighborhoods. One approach to that is to add curved sound tubes on both sides of the elevated lanes. An example is on the urban portion of the 14-mile Melbourne CityLink tollway in Australia. Decks and lids are not uncommon on urban portions of U.S. freeways and expressways. There are many examples of these in Chapter 10 of my book, Rethinking America’s Highways (University of Chicago Press, 2018).

In short, these are problems that frequently occur when adding capacity to existing limited-access highways in urban areas. A wide array of mitigations is available in this country and in other OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) member nations. NCDOT has responded promptly and imaginatively to these concerns.

Update: On June 1, the Charlotte Observer reported that Mooresville Mayor Chris Carney criticized the Charlotte City Council for rescinding its support for the I-77 express toll lanes, deeming this as shortsighted and a setback for the region.

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Drone Delivery Going Mainstream?

Ever since Amazon years ago demonstrated delivery of a small parcel via drone, I’ve been skeptical. This seemed to me an inherently niche market, limited not only by drone range and carrying capacity but also by potential local opposition to noise and the potential for local bans based on creating a nuisance. But my skepticism is being challenged by Walmart, as DroneXL’s Rafael Suarez reported last month.

Walmart is the nation’s largest retailer, so we should pay attention when it embraces this new approach to product delivery. Suarez notes that of its one million deliveries, 40% occurred in just a single quarter. The current scope of its drone delivery is limited to only 66 stores in four states, of which Texas is the largest. The average delivery time is 23 minutes between the online order and the delivery drop.

Wisely, in my view, Walmart is not itself handling the drones; it has contracted with Wing Aviation (an Alphabet company) and with Zipline (which has been doing drone deliveries overseas worldwide). Wing uses a hybrid drone that takes off and lands vertically but cruises using ordinary wings for increased range. Zipline is using its new P2 drone, designed specifically for dense urban delivery. To avoid downwash during delivery, the drone stays high up and uses a tethered “droid” to lower the package to the ground.

Wing’s drone is limited to packages weighing three pounds, while Zipline’s new P2 drone can deliver packages up to eight pounds. Those weight limitations restrict drone delivery to pretty small loads, and Walmart is getting experience on what products lend themselves to drone delivery. According to Suarez, Walmart’s most common drone delivery products are bananas, snack food, pizza toppings, printer’s ink, and cold medicines.

The article gives no clue what a drone delivery costs Walmart, or how much it charges the customer. Compared with truck delivery, the drone is much faster, since the truck has a delivery route to cover, and that typically means hours rather than minutes.

There is no mention in the article about potential opposition by local governments or potential citizen protests about drones in people’s neighborhoods. While I don’t wish that on Walmart, I would not be surprised if such opposition comes about. Walmart appears to have found a market niche for drone delivery. It will be interesting to follow its development.  

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Assessing Canada’s Proposed High-Speed Rail

The Canadian government is planning a high-speed rail project called Alto. It would link Toronto with Ottawa, Montreal, and Quebec City, traversing about 1,000 kilometers. The cost is estimated as between C$60 billion and C$90 billion, with the first phase (Montreal to Ottawa) projected to begin by 2030, with potential opening by 2040.

As with any proposed high-speed rail (HSR) project, there are various critical reviews. One that impresses me comes from Andrew Miller, who writes interesting assessments of many transportation topics in his Changing Lanes newsletter. His critique, “Canada’s High-Speed Rail Is the New Seaway,” puts the project in perspective by comparing it with the St. Lawrence Seaway, a huge infrastructure project from the 1950s.

The St. Lawrence Seaway was a joint U.S./Canada megaproject aimed at enabling ocean-going cargo ships to go all the way through the Great Lakes to Duluth, Minnesota, and Thunder Bay, Canada. It opened to shipping in 1959, and reached its peak of shipping volume in 1977.

Today, it carries only two-thirds of the cargo it did at its peak. That’s because it was sized for bulk carriers and is not capable of handling the container-ship revolution that was masterfully documented in Marc Levinson’s book, The Box (2006). The Seaway’s locks cannot handle the wider container ships. And even if they had been widened, the slow inland travel speed (compared with truck and rail from eastern seaports) would not have been competitive.

Miller’s point from this history lesson is that the Seaway was built for a cargo paradigm that was already starting to fade, with the container ship revolution. He than goes on to discuss the proposed Alto HSR as potentially subject to something similar: autonomous vehicles (AVs). Today Waymo is operating AVs in a growing number of metro areas, and trucking companies are heading toward driverless long-distance trucks (a great productivity increaser given the absence of driver hour-of-service rules). Alto’s planners, like those who planned the Seaway, are proceeding as if the AV future is not going to happen.

The Canadian government’s rationale for Alto is based on optimistic projections of passenger demand. A stated-preference survey conducted by McGill University’s TRAM Lab projects about half as much long-term passenger travel as the government’s projection. Neither the government nor McGill considered the possible impact of for-hire or personally owned AVs in this same travel corridor.

Miller suggests that large-scale use of AVs, while not traveling as fast as Alto, could be meaningful competitors to the high-speed rail. Individually owned AVs take the traveler from actual origin to actual destination, potentially equalizing or beating the trip time of the overall journey using Alto and the modes needed at either end. AVs will also be competitive with air travel (on a door-to-door basis) between the metro areas in Alto’s corridor.

These well-argued points are relevant in analyzing any high-speed rail proposal, including the failing project in California and fever dreams of a national HSR network (see News Notes). Miller has done an excellent job of thinking through the implications of large-scale use of autonomous vehicles.

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House Bill’s Inconsistent Approach to Freight Automation
By Marc Scribner

On May 21, the House Transportation and Infrastructure (T&I) Committee approved its portions of the five-year surface transportation reauthorization bill it has titled the BUILD America 250 Act (H.R. 8870). The T&I Committee has jurisdiction over the vast majority of surface transportation legislation in the House, including funding and safety regulation of trucking and railroads. The trucking and rail titles took dramatically different approaches to automation. This inconsistency undermines modal neutrality and will reduce competition between rail and trucks if Congress fails to correct the T&I Committee’s mistake.

The BUILD America 250 Act includes language that aims to clear a regulatory path for automated trucking. These provisions are found in Title V, Subtitle E, and include the following:

• Mandates a new regulation that would require manufacturers of commercial motor vehicles equipped with automated driving systems (ADS) to demonstrate their vehicles will meet an equivalent or greater level of safety as a non-ADS-equipped commercial motor vehicles via a “safety case.” It would also formalize a national incident reporting system, prohibit driverless operations for school buses and trucks carrying hazardous materials, and require some remote driving support assistants to hold appropriate commercial driver’s license endorsements for the subject vehicles and be domiciled in the United States. The Department of Transportation is tasked with publishing this rule within two years of enactment of the BUILD America 250 Act. (Section 5402)
• Grants the Secretary of Transportation additional authority to preempt state laws and regulations governing ADS-equipped commercial motor vehicles. (Sec. 5403)
• Clarifies that cab-mounted warning beacons can be used in lieu of the longstanding requirement that truck drivers place warning triangles around their vehicles when they are stopped in or along a roadway. (Sec. 5405)

One can argue that some of these provisions are unnecessarily restrictive (I do), but on balance the BUILD America 250 Act undoubtedly advances the goal of establishing a policy framework that would allow automated trucks to operate nationwide. For this, the T&I Committee deserves praise.

But the T&I Committee also adopted the Railway Safety Act (Title X, Subtitle G), which was offered as an amendment by Rep. Troy Nehls (R-TX) in the May 21 committee markup, over the objections of Chairman Sam Graves (R-MO). The Railway Safety Act includes several onerous regulatory provisions, including a mandate that trains must operate with two-person crews. This mandate has been a top priority for rail labor unions and earned the support of the Trump administration at the insistence of Vice President J.D. Vance, who sponsored the proposed Railway Safety Act when he represented Ohio in the Senate.

While the BUILD America 250 Act does contain a provision requiring the Department of Transportation to propose a rule that would establish safety requirements to authorize “self-contained propelled freight [rail] vehicles” (Sec. 10412, see Peloton’s autonomous railcar technology being tested on two railroads in Georgia), the two-person crew mandate would prevent railroads from adopting fully automated trains. Simultaneously encouraging truck automation while discouraging rail automation would put rail at a long-term competitive disadvantage with trucks. As I warned in 2023 testimony to the T&I Committee, this would lead to more freight being shifted onto highways and result in more fatalities and pollution.

I discussed in the March 2026 issue of this newsletter why the Railway Safety Act—despite its name—will not advance transportation safety. Its supporters claim it was written in response to the Feb. 2023 East Palestine, Ohio, derailment, but none of the main provisions are responsive to the National Transportation Safety Board’s findings and recommendations which followed that accident.

In the case of the two-person crew mandate, the Norfolk Southern train that derailed in East Palestine had three crewmembers on board. The Federal Railroad Administration has admitted it has no evidence that trains with two-person crews are safer than those crewed by a lone engineer, which have long been the norm in Europe.

Aside from the crew-size mandate, the Railway Safety Act would impose several additional costly regulations. University of Dayton Professor Michael Gorman estimates that the bill’s bearing defect detection requirements would cost the rail industry $1.1 billion to $2.2 billion. The rail industry has developed and implemented hot bearing detectors across the U.S. rail network. The Railway Safety Act’s highly prescriptive requirements on bearing defect detectors would discourage railroads from deploying superior technologies as they are developed. These provisions also violate the National Transportation Safety Board’s recommendations that regulators first study the performance of defect detectors before considering any mandates.

The highly prescriptive nature of the Railway Safety Act also contradicts another provision of the BUILD America 250 Act. Section 10404 requires the Federal Railroad Administration to consider performance-based rules in lieu of prescriptive regulations. If it declines to adopt a performance-based rule, the agency must provide an explanation for why it chose a prescriptive regulation. This language was meant to encourage regulators to think in terms of safety outcomes, rather than rote compliance with archaic standards, and was included in the recommendations that Reason Foundation submitted to the T&I Committee last year.

Automation has great potential to improve the safety and productivity of the transportation sector. These benefits will be realized only if policymakers adopt a technology-neutral stance. Picking modal winners and losers, as the BUILD America 250 Act does with freight transportation automation, will distort technology investment, development, and deployment. If the Senate Commerce Committee fails to correct the errors of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, Congress will be needlessly forfeiting a safer and more efficient transportation system.

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Opposition to Electric Vehicle User Fees
By Baruch Feigenbaum

The current federal surface transportation law expires on Sept. 30, 2026. The House Transportation and Infrastructure (T&I) Committee finally approved its surface transportation reauthorization bill, The Build Unrivaled Infrastructure and Long-term Development for America’s 250th Act (shortened to Build America 250 Act), by a vote of 62-2. While the bill is bipartisan, some Senate Democrats and Republicans and pundits are panning a new fee on electric vehicles, for very different reasons.

In order to close the funding gap and to ensure that all drivers pay their fair share, the bill imposes an annual $130 fee on electric vehicles (EVs) and a $35 fee on plug-in hybrids. The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) could increase the fees over time to $150 and $30, respectively. The funding would be subject to the same 80/20 highways/transit split as in other federal transportation funding.

Electric vehicles pay fees in more than 40 states and hybrids pay fees in more than 20, so this is hardly some revolutionary idea. Many of the state fees are significantly higher than the proposed federal fee. For example, Georgia charges $239 per year. Implementing the fees follows the users-pay/users-benefit principle underlying federal transportation policy. T&I Committee ranking member Rick Larsen alluded to that in his statement on the bill: “I came in in 2001 supporting the user-pays principle, and it’s 2026, and I haven’t changed my view of that.” He noted that past Democratic leaders of the T&I Committee have also aligned themselves with that principle.

One very fair criticism of the federal electric vehicle fee, and some state EV fees, is that they are more than what the average motorist pays in federal fuel taxes. If a driver travels 12,000 miles per year with a fuel efficiency of 25 miles per gallon, the total would be $88.32, significantly less than the proposed $130 EV fee.

Any federal transportation reauthorization must also pass the relevant Senate committees (Environment and Public Works, Banking, Commerce) in addition to the relevant revenue committees (Ways and Means and Finance), the full House and Senate, and be signed by the President. And two leading Senators have already expressed strong displeasure with the electric vehicle fees.

Senate Finance Committee Ranking Member Ron Wyden discussed the fee in negative terms: “This is another right-wing ideological trophy. They just don’t want to have renewable energy in the future, and they think these ideas up pretty regularly. As far as I am concerned, this is off the table.”

EPW Ranking Member Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse added, “Fossil-fuel-backed Republicans are hell-bent on keeping Americans chained to the gas pump even as [President Donald] Trump’s war sends gas prices skyrocketing. Slapping a fee on electric vehicles isn’t a solution for the Highway Trust Fund.”

Both Wyden and Whitehouse are known as outspoken climate hawks. They are aligned with and supported by environmental groups opposed to new fees. But in the past, many in the environmental community have been supportive of EV fees because these fees also fund transit and active transportation projects that serve as alternatives to automobiles. (This isn’t the strongest users-pay argument, but at least fuel tax revenue is spent on transportation purposes). Their current opposition seems more about their anger with President Trump’s environmental policies than with solving transportation problems.

I don’t agree with Wyden and Whitehouse that the fee is a penalty against EVs. I think it is an opening number in a negotiation. I’m hoping that with help from fellow Democrats the two Senators can find a number that is fair to all users of the highway system.

Criticism isn’t limited to those on the left. Kimberly Strassel of the Wall Street Journal editorial board argued that “The GOP Wants to Tax Your Car”. According to her logic, the policy must be bad because almost all the Democrats voted for it. She believes that Republicans are greedy for dollars to shower as pork barrel spending on states during the mid-term. Republicans have been using the general fund to expand transportation spending for years. They don’t need additional user-tax revenue to spend money; they will spend borrowed money.  She compares the top-line number of the Build America 250 Act to the bloated Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, without considering inflation, something President Donald Trump played a major role in creating. She argues every Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) will become like the Internal Revenue Service, in order to collect EV fees, ignoring that in states with electric vehicle fees, DMVs don’t collect the revenue now, and most legally cannot collect it.

Strassel’s argument is ironic because an EV fee is consistent with one of the five prongs of users-pay: self-limitation. Under this principle, the imposition of a user tax whose proceeds are dedicated to a specified purpose controls spending. If the concern is about overspending, which the current transportation bill does, having a limit on that spending will reduce the problem. In contrast, deficit spending from the general fund has no limit. Strassel should ask herself why having all motorists pay their fair share is worse than increasing fuel taxes paid only by those with internal combustion engines or increasing general fund support. Isn’t asking everybody to pay their fair share the best way to ensure that nobody’s taxes are needlessly increased or wasted?

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Will Autonomous Vehicles Lead to Gridlock?

In a recent post, transportation journalist David Zipper presented what he considers a potential future in which individually owned autonomous vehicles (AVs) result in gridlock, unless congestion pricing becomes ubiquitous.

As he points out, AVs are not yet available to individual owners, so his scenario is a “what if” projection of what might happen. He argues that personal AVs will make car travel so much easier that there will be a “deluge of traffic.” He thinks the convenience and privacy of AVs will lead to people taking more and longer car trips, in part because personal AVs will replace transit (not clear, since the cost of a personal AV will be well beyond the means of most transit riders). Next he assumes that dead-heading (the AV driving around while the owner is shopping or doing some other non-vehicle activity) will take place rather than the AV being parked. He’s assuming that the cost of the AV driving around empty would be less than the cost of parking: maybe in Manhattan but not in suburbia. And finally, he also speculates that AV owners might “dispatch their vehicle as a robotaxi when they don’t need it.” I don’t know about you, but no stranger is going to be driving around in my personal vehicle!

These assumptions lead Zipper to conclude that the existing U.S. roadway system is woefully inadequate for an “explosion of AV-induced driving.” Therefore, he argues that we will need widespread congestion pricing in order to prevent unprecedented levels of congestion. I have no problem with using congestion pricing where and when it’s needed. But I see serious flaws in the assumptions he makes to get to this point. Perhaps his forthcoming book on congestion pricing from MIT Press will provide a stronger case.

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News Notes

Alabama Applies to Federal Toll Program for I-10 Bridge
The Alabama Department of Transportation has applied to the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) for one of three available slots in a never-used federal law called the Interstate System Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Pilot Program. The idea is to get permission for ALDOT to charge tolls for its long-planned I-10 Mobile River Bridge project. But tolling is already legal for replacing bridges on the Interstate system, so if the U.S. DOT grants this request, it would needlessly take up one of the three slots in that program.

TxDOT Picks Ferrovial for $1.5 Billion Grand Parkway Expansion
The Grand Parkway is a planned 184-mile outer ring road serving the Houston metro area. This contract will pay for the construction of 15 miles of tolled lanes, two in each direction. The project will also add frontage roads on either side of the tolled lanes. As of today, 114 miles of the toll road are open to traffic, so when these new lanes are completed, the Parkway will be 70% completed.

Brightline West Federal Loan Request Under Fire
The Bond Buyer reported that the organization that has lobbied against a proposed passenger rail line between Dallas and Houston is now opposing Brightline West in California. Brightline has applied for a $6 billion Railroad Rehabilitation and Improvement Financing (RRIF) loan from the federal Build America Bureau. Trilogy Advisors, which represents a Texas organization fighting the Texas Central bullet train proposal, has argued that the Brightline project is likely to fail and will be unable to repay the $6 billion federal loan.

Expansion Planned for California Express Toll Lanes Corridor
The Inland Empire is the informal name for San Bernardino and Riverside Counties east of Los Angeles. Those two counties are developing what will be a 53-mile express toll lanes (ETLs) system on congested I-15. Most portions of that corridor already have express toll lanes, but the new project will fill in a missing link, creating what may be the longest ETL corridor in California. Kapsch TrafficCom last month signed a contract with the San Bernardino County Transportation Authority to add its electronic tolling equipment to that eight-mile missing link.

Can U.S. High-Speed Rail Be Investor-Owned?
At a high-speed rail conference in Washington, D.C. last month, the head of business development for P3-oriented firm Plenary Americas suggested that public-private partnerships rather than stand-alone private companies are the realistic way forward. Sia Kusha told conferees that “This is an asset class that is worthy of long-term investment by the private sector. But we need to recognize that it is a public infrastructure, and a public infrastructure needs to be owned by the public sector.” On the other hand, Kusha pointed out, “The biggest risks that we worry about are a political risk… of the public sector changing course midstream… Given the politics and the electoral cycles in this country, there is always that risk.”

Poland Plans 80 Kilometer Toll Road in Ukraine
Ukraine Business News reported that the Polish government plans to finance the M10 motorway project. The 80 km toll road will connect the Krakow-Korczow border crossing with Lviv, Ukraine. It is essentially a continuation of Poland’s A4 highway. The agreement on this project is due to be signed during a conference on Ukraine’s reconstruction, June 25-25 in Gdansk.

I-10 Calcasieu River Bridge P3 Begins Construction
April brought the ground-breaking ceremony for the $3.38 billion replacement of the obsolete I-10 Calcasieu River Bridge in Louisiana. The public-private partnership developer/operator is led by Plenary, Sacyr, and Acciona. Sponsor equity is $520 million and the financing includes $1.4 billion in tax-exempt Private Activity Bonds. The new bridge will add one lane in each direction, consistent with the I-10 lanes on either side. Projected opening date is 2031.

Florida DOT Opens Express Toll Lanes on Howard Frankland Bridge
During the last week of May, the Florida Department of Transportation opened to traffic the new northbound and southbound express toll lanes on the Howard Frankland Bridge, which serves traffic on I-275 between Tampa and St. Petersburg. After a get-acquainted period for motorists, all-electronic tolls will be charged 24 hours per day. The new bridge includes a 12-ft. wide shared-use path for pedestrians and cyclists.

Chicago Skyway Ownership May Change
The Chicago Skyway Concession Company holds a 99-year P3 lease on this tolled facility. The current owners are Atlas Arteria (66.67%) and Ontario Teachers Pension Plan (33.33%). According to Infralogic (May 28), Spanish company Abertis is considering the acquisition of Atlas Arteria’s stake, which has an estimated value of $1.67-2.07 billion according to Kroll.

Macquarie, Plenary Teams Seeking Saudi Airport Rail P3
Teams led by Macquarie and by Plenary are competing for the planned $8 billion high-speed rail line in Saudi Arabia. The planned high-speed rail line would connect the King Salman International Airport and the King Abdullah Financial District to Qiddiya City. With a planned speed of 250 km/hour, the Q-express is planned to make the trip in 30 minutes. Infralogic reported (May 13) that three other consortia are also seeking to be selected for the Q-express project.

Brightline Florida Plans to Sell Miami Assets
On May 15, Stephen Pastis and Kunal Kumal reported (Infralogic) that Brightline Florida has put a major portion of its Miami Central station complex up for sale. It consists of 124,581 sq. ft. and is only 62% occupied. Built in 2018, the project is part of Brightline’s original $1 billion Miami Central Station development, which included two office towers (sold in 2021 and 2022).

Grupo Mexico Sells Bajio Toll Road Stake
Grupo Mexico in April sold about 80% of Concesionaria de Infraestructura del Bajio (CIBSA) for $473.9 million. The project is the Salamanca-Leon toll road in Guanajuato. The net proceeds from the sale will be used for other investments in Mexico. Infralogic reported (April 20) that FIBRA EXI is working with Goldman Sachs to acquire a majority stake in CIBSA.

Massachusetts Gets Grants Rather than Use Toll Finance for Bridge Replacements
Two aging Cape Cod bridges (Sagamore and Borne) are aging and need replacement. Rather than use toll financing for this tourist-heavy area, MassDOT secured federal grants of $993 million and $372 million, along with another $350 million from the Army Corps of Engineers. The remaining $750 million will come from state DOT funds. Both bridges date from the 1930s and are functionally obsolete.

Will Virginia Use Toll Revenue for Transit?
On May 26, Nathaniel Cline reported for States Newsroom that Virginia officials are considering using express toll lane revenues to subsidize transit. The article includes photos of express lanes on I-95 and a large DASH bus. For several decades, I have written that express toll lanes are a great gift to transit, because they provide buses with much faster and more reliable trips. Most or all express toll lanes exempt buses from tolls, as well. A properly priced express toll lane is far more cost-effective than an exclusive busway. Transit agencies should be grateful for this synergy between buses and express lanes.

A Lost Cause: $205 Billion for National High-Speed Rail
Long-time high-speed rail advocate Rep. Seth Moulton (D-MA) last month introduced a bill to have Congress spend $205 billion (presumably in borrowed money) for a nationwide high-speed rail system. Moulton was formerly director of the never-implemented Texas Central HSR project. This is his fourth attempt to get a federal high-speed rail program off the ground.

The Hidden Cost of a Gas Tax Holiday
The Bipartisan Policy Center has released a report on the negative consequences for America’s highways from a suspension of federal taxes on gasoline and diesel fuel.

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Quotable Quotes

“There may be a better, but necessarily bipartisan, approach to bring American transport policy out of its modal partisanship: just agree to let the states make their transportation investment decisions and make it easier for them to build whatever they want . . . Large transportation project decisions are very obviously regional. Directing them from Washington or distributing decision-making to mayors or local agencies will both produce sub-optimal investments. There is nothing new here, which is why transportation decisions in the United States have historically been made by governors and state DOTs . . . Discretionary grant programs have proliferated, some of which enable the feds to go around states. Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs) are in theory common-sense regional transportation planning bodies, but they have increasingly become local veto points over state transportation projects.”
—Michael Bennon, “Modal Angst on the D.C. Beltway,” Public Works Financing, April 2026

“An AV will incur none of these costs [of air travel or HSR travel]. It arrives where the passenger is and leaves them where they want to go. It runs on the road network that already exists and serves every destination in the country. As such, it’s attractive for the very large share of trips that neither begin nor end in the downtown core but somewhere in the metropolitan sprawl around it. For the rail passenger whose origin and destination happen to be downtown, the rail terminal is a convenience. For everyone else, it is the first inconvenience of the trip.”
—Andrew Miller, “Canada’s High-Speed Rail Is the New Seaway,” Changing Lanes, Substack, May 26, 2026

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