The Sustainable Development of U.S. Air Transportation: The Promise and Challenge of Institutional Reform

Sustainable development is a concept that has had great influence on natural resource policy; however, to date, it has had limited influence on transportation. This article examines how well U.S. air transportation practice meets the goal of sustainability and finds current practice to be unsustainable. Forecasted trends suggest that this problem will get worse. Neither current pollution control policies nor technological progress are sufficient to solve the problem. One potential solution is reduced use of air travel, however, the goals of mobility and speed of travel would be inhibited. Taxes could reduce the external costs caused by air pollution, however, there are administrative and political barriers to this. Institutional reform seems to be the logical solution, and the process to achieve this reform is described.