We have carefully reviewed "Evaluation of the California Smog Check Program and Recommendations for Program Improvements: Fourth Report to the Legislature." Overall, we find it a thorough and competent presentation of the basic facts, though we disagree with the conclusions. Our major concern is...

Turnpike companies were the exemplary type of early American business corporation: they were the most prevalent, they were the most community laden, and they were unprofitable. The turnpike experience enhances our understanding of the evolution of the law of private and public corporations. We...

The heroic role of the agent called "government" in the simple public-goods model is clear enough, but the relevance of the model is still in dispute. A long history of doubters have challenged the premises that the government has the needed information, acts efficiently, and acts in the public...

Plank road fever struck New York when George Geddes and other promoters greatly exaggerated the durability of the wooden surfacing. Within a few years Americans built hundreds of plank roads across the nation. The episode highlights how promoters diffused investment information in an era with...

I arrived here at the UC Transportation Center just nine months ago. A former lawyer and aspiring writer, I had only a layman's knowledge of transportation systems, mostly based on my personal experiences.  Growing up in Hilo, Hawaii, I thought traffic jams meant having to circle the parking...

Urban transit has traditionally been conceived and governed within a paradigm of regulation and government ownership. This study explains how the alternative paradigm of property rights, which works so well in other sectors of the economy, can apply to urban transit. The key to a property rights...

The years 1800-1830 are sometimes designated "the turnpike era," since in the 1830s canals and railroads began eclipsing the old wagon roads. Its true that long distance travel went by water and rail, but the journey often began on one of the many short toll roads feeding the system. This paper...

A consensus is emerging among transportation economists that the best way to deal with freeway congestion is to charge for driving during peak hours. The main barrier to implementation is political: drastic change is politically unpopular. This paper proposes a way of overcoming the political...

The importance of canals and railroads has hardly grown "deeper and deeper," but at least they had their day. As for plank roads, most people have never heard of them. The historical obscurity of plank roads reflects the general scholarly neglect of nineteenth-century roads. Excellent work has...