While I think this touches on some good points I think it misses the forest for the trees a bit. The Federal policy shift must not be contained to transport, USDOT promotes heavily quantitative BCA analysis often based on Crash Modification Factors, CMF's, with very little research to back them up and road deaths are heavily stochastic meaning money is just directed at places where fatalities have occurred and then uses CMF's with questionable effectiveness. While I think its good to pour money into safety instead of congestion management through widening as a first step, a better step would be for the Federal Government to get back into the business of building dense urban housing to simultaneously combat the housing crisis, climate crisis, and reduce VMT per capita. HUD stopped building affordable housing in 1973 under the auspice of Tricky Dick Nixon. On the transport side speed needs to be reduced on streets, notable not on roads, and that should be done whether or not a BCA analysis says its good.
While I think this touches on some good points I think it misses the forest for the trees a bit. The Federal policy shift must not be contained to transport, USDOT promotes heavily quantitative BCA analysis often based on Crash Modification Factors, CMF's, with very little research to back them up and road deaths are heavily stochastic meaning money is just directed at places where fatalities have occurred and then uses CMF's with questionable effectiveness. While I think its good to pour money into safety instead of congestion management through widening as a first step, a better step would be for the Federal Government to get back into the business of building dense urban housing to simultaneously combat the housing crisis, climate crisis, and reduce VMT per capita. HUD stopped building affordable housing in 1973 under the auspice of Tricky Dick Nixon. On the transport side speed needs to be reduced on streets, notable not on roads, and that should be done whether or not a BCA analysis says its good.