Mayor Pat McCrory was on WPTF this morning to share what he learned about transportation on a recent trip to Europe with South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford.

  1. People safely drive on the shoulders in Europe during rush hour. [They also do this on I-66 in Northern Virginia.]
  2. European cities control traffic volume in center cities with pricing, cameras, and other methods.
  3. European countries are privatizing their roads.
  4. European countries use toll roads and toll lanes to speed construction of roads

Other than the fact that he called these four lessons “learnings,” I couldn’t find much objectionable and was pleasantly surprised to hear his emphasis on road pricing. Two other items of note from the interview – McCrory said he supports rail where it makes sense but that he’s opposed rail in other parts of the city (check the MeckDeck to see if that’s true), and he emphasized the need to combine limited ingress and egress along roads with grid layouts so people have other outlets when the main thoroughfares are clogged.