In July, Congress passed a rare piece of bipartisan legislation to fund surface transportation for two years. “Moving Ahead for Progress for the 21st Century” (MAP-21) provided $105 billion for the next two years to fund road repairs, mass transit and other critical repair and expansion projects. Members of both parties were quick to congratulate themselves on MAP-21, while the Department of Transportation announcement hailed it as “a milestone for the U.S. economy and the nation’s surface transportation program.” But while they did manage to forestall the immediate crisis, they shouldn’t have been so quick to pop the champagne corks.

The City of San Jose is considering new planing requriements for new development to encourage mode-share shifts to biking, walking and use of transit. SPUR has studied this topic extensively and is very supportive of these goals. We offer several categories of comments from strengthening the revised requirements.

Demand-based pricing may result in a better match-up of supply and demand than has previously been possible.