In addition to the “Brookings Economics” link you see to the left, I’m adding “Brookings Transportation. Once I saw this article, I thought it would be worth taking some time to recontemplate the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, and Efficient Transportation Equity Act of 2005 (SAFE-TEA). Brookings analysts were not pleased with the results, as they lacked these clear guiding principles:

Transparency. Congress should require states and metropolitan areas to disclose their programs and spending decisions in a transparent, accessible, frequent, and continuous manner. Incredibly, it continues to be easier for citizens to discern where private banks and thrifts lend than to determine where public transportation agencies spend.

Accountability. At a time of economic uncertainty and fiscal stress, transportation spending must be held to a higher standard of managerial efficiency, programmatic effectiveness, and fiscal responsibility. To that end, reform efforts should establish a new framework for accountability that includes improved performance measures and rewards for exceptional achievement.

Integration. Congestion is a product of many factorsÑdispersed development, employment decentralization, shifting consumption patterns, market restructuring, and accidents. Previous federal reform efforts led by the late Senator Daniel Moynihan made some efforts, mostly ignored, to integrate transportation decisions with local and regional decisions on land use, housing, workforce, and economic development. Those efforts should be expanded.

Metropolitan governance. Congress should recognize the primacy of metropolitan areas where eight out of 10 Americans live and align the geography of transportation decisionmaking with the geography of regional economies, commuting patterns, and social reality. To this end, it should devolve greater responsibility and resources to metropolitan entities.

Market dynamics. The mounting transportation pressures occur at a time of severe fiscal constraint, pervasive frustration with congestion, and increasing opposition to road expansion. As in Europe, this requires a firm national commitment to make maximum use of existing road capacity and expand transportation alternatives. Efforts for using state-of-the-art communications technology to encourage market approaches to congestion relief, including road pricing should be augmented.

As the ARC board undergoes its Regional Transportation Institution Analysis, they should keep these principles in mind.