If there was an overarching theme in the Department of Transportation's Beyond Traffic 2045 report – beyond "we're screwed" – it's that the feds have no clue how to fix the transportation problems it's created. They're counting on technology to solve things. Or Matt Damon in Good Will Hunting.
Since Congress continues to be a feckless institution filled with spiteful shitweasels that can barely agree on lunch, let alone getting a bill passed to fix our crumbling infrastructure, U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx is praying for a lone genius to save the day.
In an actual speech at the Detroit Economic Club yesterday, Foxx said this absolutely really real statement (via Politico):
I believe in the 'Good Will Hunting' approach, in the idea that genius can come from anywhere. The idea that sometimes, if you leave an equation on a chalkboard, then a Matt Damon might come along, and he will find you an answer. And that's sort of what Beyond Traffic is. It's an equation on the chalkboard, data on the page. And we hope that someone will come along and take the study to their apartment, or their garage, or their university. And we hope that they will read that data and develop a concept that, literally, redraws the map.
If you had any doubt the feds have completely given up on even attempting to do something – anything – to right their transportation wrongs, there you have it.
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