Balancing mobility and environmental quality: The politics of regional transportation infrastructure investment planning in the metropolitan United States

This is a study of agenda-building and the politics of regional transportation and environmental planning. How do regional governments confronted with chronic traffic congestion and poor air quality decide between infrastructure investments that promote automobile use and those alternatives that dissuade individuals from driving? Specifically, what determines the content of regional transportation plans as they relate to congestion mitigation and environmental quality?;This analysis is exploratory. The 1991 Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act and the 1990 Clean Air Act as Amended create an entirely new venue of policy making at the regional level. These statutes provide metropolitan planning organizations with the flexibility to use Federal highway and transit funds without restriction--to build more roads or to augment public transportation alternatives.;The 1993 transportation improvement plans for 30 major metropolitan areas throughout the United States are analyzed in order to characterize their regional transportation strategies addressing traffic congestion and air pollution. Using the agenda-building model as a theoretical approach, this study employs three sets of hypotheses derived from the rational choice, interest group and organizational behavior literatures to explain a region's bias in favor of a more highway-oriented or transit-oriented strategy.;Utilizing descriptive statistics it is found that no one set of hypotheses are entirely adequate in explaining regional transportation infrastructure investment decisions. Rather, investment choices are the product of each region's political culture and its prioritization of environmental and economic growth values. These values, in turn, predetermine the range of acceptable investment alternatives.