Institutional Constraints Of Transportation Engineering
In the
United States, facilities and vehicles for transportation are provided in a
variety of ways. Considering only highway based situations, private owners provide
almost all of the automobiles and trucks while government furnishes the bulk of
the public transit vehicles. In sum, the provision and operation of these
vehicles consume about 92 cents of the highway dollar. Highways, which take
most of the remainder, are constructed, operated, and maintained by state and
local governments.There are substantial grants of
federal money. These federal funds and state subventions to local agencies are
largely allocated by formula. In contrast, federal and state funds for public transportation go directlv to urban transit agencies, often in the form of
individual grants for specific purposes. Under these conditions it is to be
expected that all granting agencies, politicians, and the public will demand a
voice in how the funds are to be expended.
Superimposed
on the wishes of and controls imposed by those concerned with transportation are the missions of and powers granted to other governmental units. For
example, land-use controls primarily rest with local planning agencies must deal with many considerations other than
transportation. Again, transportation plans come under the scrutiny of agencies
carrying out legislation and other directives about air, water, noise, visual,
ana other impacts of transportation on the environment. Although agencies such
as these usually do not have control over financing, they can veto or force
changes in plans through regulation. Yet another set of controlling influences
comes through court or other actions by individuals, groups, or organizations.
Common legal approaches are to challenge enabling legislation or regulations,
to demand that an environmental impact statement be made, or to protest its
adequacy if one has been done.
Planning, to
be effective, must recognize and deal with institutional constraints such as
these and others not mentioned. As indicated earlier, this has been possible
where a common purpose exists, as with construction of the rural Interstate
System in the late 1950s and 1960s. There were, of course, differences in
opinion among federal, state, and local interests over financing, location,
and other details, but these were resolved and the system largely completed.
However, when consensus is lacking as, for example, over the desirability of
completing certain segments of the urban Interstate System, institutional
constraints often block implementation of proposed plans or delay them for long
periods of time. Issues such as funding, land use, regulation imposed on one
governmental agency by another, and court actions, with these at more than one
level of government, can all come into play. Then it becomes very difficult to
carrv major projects through, even with the most caret'ullv developed
approaches. Rather, today's focus is largely on small scale, short-range solutions,
typified by those discussed later in this chapter under the headings of
Shorter-Range Planning and Transportation System Management
Title Post: Institutional Constraints Of Transportation Engineering
Rating: 100% based on 99998 ratings. 5 user reviews.
Author: aditya
Rating: 100% based on 99998 ratings. 5 user reviews.
Author: aditya
.jpg)
0 comments
Post a Comment