our core transportation funding problem is that we’ve built more transportation infrastructure than we can effectively utilize. Our solution, bizarrely, is to build more.

The United States Army Corps of Engineers has its Chicago District headquarters in a Classical Revival building on LaSalle Street. A plaque outside the building explains that it was the site of the General Time Convention of 1883, held to sync the country’s clocks. The process involved pruning dozens of regional time zones down to four, which, in