Transportation Expert Calls for New Thinking

A nationally recognized transportation planner hopes those who rebuild the interstate system look beyond the interstate system and today’s highays philosophies. Executive Director William Ankner with the Missouri Transportation Institute in Rolla says these are times for states to look beyond themselves and evaluate how the interstates plug into a broader total transportation system that is regional and national. He says the original designers of the interstate system did not plan to connect it with other modes of transportation, creating gaps in the national system that created a more inefficient and costly transportation system He says it also created competition for dollars among transportation modes. . Ankner says it has been a mistake for highway planners to do their work project-by-project, rather than planning for the purposes of travel on those projects and where travelers want to go. He says many roads have been built on false assumptions of why travelers want to use them. Ankner also says those rebuilding the 50-year old interstate system need to think regionally and nationally, think more about integrating roads with rail and mass transit and re-evaluating where the roads should go.