A World Class Transportation System Quotes

“The proper response to congestion between cities is to build capacity. The proper response to congestion within a city is to intensify land use. The former is simple, almost mechanical. The latter is extremely complex and nuanced. After decades of ripping cities apart in the fight against congestion, it is time we recognize congestion as our best friend in our effort to build wealth and prosperity.”
― Charles Marohn, A World Class Transportation System: Transportation Finance for a New Economy

“It is also important to briefly emphasize the difference between a land tax and a property tax. The former taxes the value of the land only (just the dirt) while the property tax includes both the land and the improvements that have been made. The land tax creates an incentive to improve one’s property (since only the land is taxed, taxes don’t increase when the property is improved) while the property tax creates an incentive to allow properties to decline (improving a property raises one’s taxes). If we want cities to be successful, if we want to build wealth within our state, we will stop discouraging people from improving their property.”
― Charles Marohn, A World Class Transportation System: Transportation Finance for a New Economy

“I would require that any “rails to trails” corridors be required to retain the rail alignment in perpetuity. It is important that we reserve the right to have a “trails to rails” program when that need arises (which I suspect it will).”
― Charles Marohn, A World Class Transportation System: Transportation Finance for a New Economy

“We have largely convinced ourselves that transportation spending creates jobs, opportunity and wealth for Americans. Does it? This is a testable hypothesis where we can generate and obtain plenty of data, yet we don’t. Why?”
― Charles Marohn, A World Class Transportation System: Transportation Finance for a New Economy

“We should not be building multi-million dollar interchanges, for example, to provide access to strip malls, gas stations and big box stores, all of which have very low financial productivity.”
― Charles Marohn, A World Class Transportation System: Transportation Finance for a New Economy