GTFS: Global Trends and Future Scenarios Index

Beyond Traffic 2045

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When the United States Department of Transportation was created, the Secretary of Transportation was charged by law to report on both the current and the anticipated future conditions of our nation’s transportation system. Beyond Traffic 2045 is U.S. DOT’s most comprehensive assessment of current and future conditions in decades—it is a call to action. After years of chronic underinvestment and policy choices that, in some cases, have actually worked at cross purposes with the broader economic and social goals held by most Americans, now is the time for a report like this one to be read, understood, considered—and used, to breathe new life into funding and policy discussions at all levels. Importantly, Beyond Traffic doesn’t prescribe a course of action. It doesn’t advocate for specific or partisan solutions. And because we know that we can’t predict the future with complete accuracy, Beyond Traffic doesn’t contain the blueprints for solving all of the transportation challenges our nation faces. Instead, Beyond Traffic presents and analyzes the long-term and emerging trends that will shape our transportation system. By doing this, it provides a framework for the factual, rooted-in-reality discussions we will need to have about coming to grips with what our needs really are, and what our priorities will have to be.