With the support of more than a dozen leading transportation organizations, UCLA developed and hosted a two-day conference in the nation’s capital on June 26th & 27th to study solutions to the growing problems of traffic congestion. The conference – Traffic Congestion: Issues and Options – was modeled on an annual transportation symposium that UCLA has hosted for several years at Lake Arrowhead, California. “Our last Arrowhead symposium on traffic congestion was so successful that several attendees asked for something similar on the East Coast,” said Brian Taylor, Institute of Transportation Studies director, and vice-chair of the Department of Urban Planning at UCLA’s School of Public Policy and Social Research. Given that Congress is scheduled to begin debate over a new $300-plus billion federal surface transportation bill this fall, this unique conference was designed to inform this debate by bringing together policy makers and researchers to explore creative solutions to traffic congestion, according to Taylor. The invitation-only conference was attended by more than 100 transportation policy leaders and congressional staff members. Speakers at the conference included transportation policy leaders such as Mary Peters, Administrator of the Federal Highway Administration, William Millar, President of the American Public Transit Association, John Horsley, President of the Association of American State Highway and Transportation Officials, Ann Canby, President of the Surface Transportation Policy Project, and T. Peter Ruane, President and CEO of the American Road and Transportation Builders Association. “The conference brought attention to some of the root causes of congestion and highlighted ways we can help mitigate the problem,” said Ruane. “It also sent a clear message that if we do nothing, the problem will only get worse and that lawmakers need to be bold in addressing this issue,” Ruane added. The conference also featured some of the most prominent experts on traffic and transportation including Tom Downs (Eno Transportation Foundation), Robert Dunphy (Urban Land Institute), Michael Meyer (Georgia Tech), Robert Noland (Imperial College, London), Robert W. Poole, Jr. (Reason Foundation), and Martin Wachs (UC Berkeley). Sponsors of the conference included sponsors included the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO), American Public Transportation Association (APTA), American Road and Transportation Builders Association – Transportation Development Foundation (ARTBA–TDF), Association of Metropolitan Planning Organizations (AMPO), Eno Transportation Foundation, Inc., Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP), PB Consult, Inc., Transportation Research Board (TRB), U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the University of California Transportation Center (UCTC). The program was jointly developed by the UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies and the UCLA Extension Public Policy Program.