Session 21 Transportation Infrastructure: What Do We Need? How Can We Pay for It?
Congested and crumbling infrastructure is a threat to growth. But the public has seemed unwilling to fund improvements. What should be done? How should it be funded? Anyone concerned about transportation, trade, freight, or economic development policy will want to attend this session.
Presentations
Links of Interest
Speakers
Carl Chrappa
Independent Equipment Company, moderator
Robert Kanter
Port of Long Beach
With more than 30 years of experience, Dr. Robert G. Kanter is the Managing Director of Environmental Affairs and Planning for the Port of Long Beach. As director, Dr. Kanter guides the port’s environmental, transportation, and master land use planning divisions. He coordinates short- and long-range land-use planning with an eye toward forecasted commodity trends in international trade and commerce.
Dr. Kanter’s responsibilities include development of policies and plans for truck, rail, and transportation infrastructure improvements that are required to meet the demands created by increasing international trade. He is also responsible for developing port environmental policies, ensuring that the port is in compliance with existing environmental regulations, and planning for future requirements.
Robert Poole
Reason Foundation
Robert Poole is director of transportation studies at Reason Foundation, a free market think tank he founded. Poole, an MIT-trained engineer, has advised the last four presidential administrations on transportation and policy issues.
Surface Transportation
In the field of surface transportation, Poole has advised the Federal Highway Administration, the Federal Transit Administration, the White House Office of Policy Development, National Economic Council, Government Accountability Office, and state DOTs in numerous states.
Poole's 1988 policy paper proposing privately financed toll lanes to relieve congestion directly inspired California's landmark private tollway law (AB 680), which authorized four pilot toll projects including the successful 91 Express Lanes in Orange County. More than 20 other states and the federal government have since enacted similar public-private partnership legislation. In 1993, Poole oversaw a study that coined the term HOT (high-occupancy toll) Lanes, a term which has become widely accepted since.
California Gov. Pete Wilson appointed Poole to the California's Commission on Transportation Investment and he also served on the Caltrans Privatization Advisory Steering Committee, where he helped oversee the implementation of AB 680. Poole has also served on transportation advisory bodies to the California Air Resources Board and the Southern California Association of Governments, including SCAG's REACH task force on highway pricing measures. He is a member of the Los Angeles Economic Development Corporation’s Critical Infrastructure Council, an advisor to the American Legislative Exchange Council's Trade & Transportation Task Force, and a member of the board of the Public-Private Ventures division of American Road and Transportation Builders Association. From 2003 to 2005, he was a member of the Transportation Research Board’s special committee on the long-term viability of the fuel tax for highway finance.
Aviation
Poole is a member of the Government Accountability Office's National Aviation Studies Advisory Panel and he has testified before the House and Senate's aviation subcommittees on numerous occasions. Following the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Poole consulted the White House Domestic Policy Council and several members of Congress on ways to improve the nation's airport security.
He has also advised the Federal Aviation Administration, Office of the Secretary of Transportation, White House Office of Policy Development, National Performance Review, National Economic Council, and the National Civil Aviation Review Commission on aviation issues. Poole is a member of the Critical Infrastructure Council of the Los Angeles Economic Development Corporation and of the Air Traffic Control Association.
Poole was among the first to propose the commercialization of the U.S. air traffic control system, and his work in this field has helped shape proposals for a U.S. air traffic control corporation. A version of his corporation concept was implemented in Canada in 1996 and was more recently endorsed by several former top FAA administrators.
Poole's studies also launched a national debate on airport privatization in the United States. He advised both the FAA and local officials during the 1989-90 controversy over the proposed privatization of Albany (NY) Airport. His policy research on this issue helped inspire Congress' 1996 enactment of the Airport Privatization Pilot Program and the privatization of Indianapolis' airport management under Mayor Steve Goldsmith.
General Background
Robert Poole founded the Reason Foundation in 1978, and served as its president and CEO from then until the end of 2000. He was a member of the Bush-Cheney transition team in 2000. Over the years, he has advised the Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Clinton, and George W. Bush administrations on privatization and transportation policy.
Poole is credited as the first person to use the term "privatization" to refer to the contracting-out of public services and is the author of the first-ever book on privatization, Cutting Back City Hall, published by Universe Books in 1980. He is also editor of the books Instead of Regulation: Alternatives to Federal Regulatory Agencies (Lexington Books, 1981), Defending a Free Society (Lexington Books, 1984), and Unnatural Monopolies (Lexington Books, 1985). He also co-edited the book Free Minds & Free Markets: 25 Years of Reason (Pacific Research Institute, 1993).
Diego Saltes
American Road and Transportation Builders Association
Saltes has more than a decade of economic analysis and research expertise gained with top industry groups and trade associations. Saltes’s previous research has focused on the transportation, energy and construction markets, as well as macroeconomic analysis and forecasting. As a member of the ARTBA Economics & Research team, he helps develop analyses and reports for industry professionals, members of Congress and their staffs, and federal agency officials that detail the impacts of transportation investment on the U.S. economy.
Saltes joined ARTBA from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, where he served as an economist providing macroeconomic research, analysis and forecasting. He contributed to key congressional testimony on economic trends and also supported legislative proposals dealing with immigration and labor through extensive research on wages and employment. He was a regular contributor to the monthly U.S. Chamber publication, “Economics 101.”
Previously, Saltes directed market research and economic analysis for the American Institute of Architects. He developed economic models for establishing statistical relationships differentiating architecture services from overall construction spending. Saltes began his career with the American Trucking Associations, where he performed extensive research on trucking industry indicators and became a key spokesperson and lead analyst on energy market issues.
Saltes graduated cum laude with a bachelor’s degree in economics and obtained a master’s degree in international economics, both from Radford University. He is currently completing a master’s degree in International Public Policy from the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, D.C.
Saltes, a native of Caracas, Venezuela, is fluent in Spanish and English and is conversational in French. He resides in Arlington, Va.
