The City of Los Angeles has perhaps the clearest example of an approval process that was designed to fail. Placing a single bus shelter within city limits requires sign-off from nine different entities: the local councilmember; the city bureaus of Street Services, Engineering, Street Lighting, and Contract Administration; its departments of Plannin

Transit expansion also often must clear hurdles that road projects don’t. Most transit expansion projects that receive federal funding get it through a program colloquially known as “New Starts” (officially the Capital Improvement Grants program). Their sponsors have to demonstrate that the project will offer mobility and congestion relief, environ

Free Market Advocates (WINNERS): I count myself among this group and I love the concept of transportation spending decisions actually being made by supply and demand, not political patronage or an arbitrary standard.