Brad Plumer writes about peak travel, overly optimistic forecasts, and the policy consequences at vox.com in: With driving down, there’s a growing backlash against unnecessary highways. He cites us in the closing paragraph:

Another key point was that states (and the federal government) should probably spend less money on building new roads and more money on maintaining existing roads. Economists have argued that more states should probably be doing this anyway — this Brookings Institution paper by Matthew Kahn and David Levinson makes the most comprehensive case. But the argument gets even stronger if vehicle travel is going to grow more slowly or plateau in the future.

What’s clear is that it doesn’t make much sense for states to keep planning around the idea that driving will grow at 20th century rates forever. Those predictions have been utterly wrong for nearly a decade now — and sticking with them could mean wasting billions on unnecessary roads and highways.