Kevin
DeGood

Director, Infrastructure Policy

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Kevin DeGood

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Kevin DeGood is the director of Infrastructure Policy at American Progress. His work focuses on how highway, transit, aviation, and maritime policy affect America’s global competitiveness, access to opportunity for diverse communities, and environmental sustainability.

Prior to joining American Progress, DeGood was the deputy policy director at Transportation for America, where he conducted research, provided legislative analysis, and advanced T4 campaign priorities with congressional leaders. In addition, DeGood served as the director of legislative affairs for Simon and Company, Inc., a federal affairs firm specializing in the representation of municipal governments and transit authorities.

DeGood holds a Master of Public Policy from the University of Southern California and a Bachelor of Arts from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is the author of Thinking Outside the Farebox: Creative Approaches to Financing Transit Projects.

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What California Can Teach America About How To Increase Housing Production Article
Construction of apartment complex with palm trees in background

What California Can Teach America About How To Increase Housing Production

Recent legislation in California has reduced the legal barriers to producing new housing units—everything from accessory dwelling units to large, multifamily buildings—when local governments fail to zone their communities for adequate housing.

Kevin DeGood

What kind of transportation future do we want? In the News

What kind of transportation future do we want?

In an op-ed published by Route Fifty, Kevin DeGood explains the potential risks that integrating autonomous vehicles could pose if pedestrians, cyclists, and other vulnerable users are not prioritized.

Route Fifty

Kevin DeGood

Public and Private Investments Are Poised To Transform Michigan Report
A worker works on the bed of one of Ford’s battery-powered F-150 Lightning trucks.

Public and Private Investments Are Poised To Transform Michigan

The historic home of the automotive industry, Michigan, stands to benefit from major infrastructure improvements and new plants for manufacturing electric vehicle batteries, especially if it incorporates public input and builds worker power to grow the middle class.

Improving Safety, Accident Response, and Public Health in the Wake of Recent Train Derailments Article
Damaged tanks after train derailment with trees in background

Improving Safety, Accident Response, and Public Health in the Wake of Recent Train Derailments

A comprehensive response to the East Palestine derailment must include safety reforms that will reduce the frequency and severity of future derailments; improve long-term health monitoring and access to health services; and reduce or eliminate toxic chemicals, including petrochemicals, from the U.S. economy.

Kevin DeGood

Tolls on state highways would ease gas tax shortfall In the News

Tolls on state highways would ease gas tax shortfall

Kevin DeGood explains why a well-designed, sophisticated tolling system in Michigan would not only ease revenue shortfalls but also allow the state’s highways to run more efficiently.

The Detroit News

Kevin DeGood

Fact Sheet: North Carolina’s Strategic Transportation Investments Law Fact Sheet

Fact Sheet: North Carolina’s Strategic Transportation Investments Law

North Carolina’s transportation project prioritization framework locks in highway investments at the expense of projects that would provide sustainable and affordable alternatives to driving, including public and active transportation such as biking and walking.

Kevin DeGood

North Carolina’s Strategic Transportation Investments Law Is a Barrier to Progressive Transportation Report

North Carolina’s Strategic Transportation Investments Law Is a Barrier to Progressive Transportation

North Carolina’s transportation project prioritization framework locks in highway investments at the expense of projects that would provide sustainable and affordable alternatives to driving, including public and active transportation such as biking and walking.

Kevin DeGood

Colorado’s Greenhouse Gas Emissions Rule for Surface Transportation Offers a Model for Other States and the Nation Report
Eastbound traffic is pictured on I-70 in Colorado.

Colorado’s Greenhouse Gas Emissions Rule for Surface Transportation Offers a Model for Other States and the Nation

Colorado’s statewide greenhouse gas emissions reduction mandate, and the associated planning rule from the state department of transportation, offers a model for how to effectively incorporate climate change mitigation into surface transportation planning and project selection.

Kevin DeGood, Michela Zonta

To Tackle Climate Change, We Must Reform Land Use Report

To Tackle Climate Change, We Must Reform Land Use

In addition to rapid electrification of the transportation sector, Congress must reform its transportation policies to expand transportation choice—including transit, biking, and walking—and encourage infill development.

Kevin DeGood

Building Infrastructure That Supports Opportunity, Equity, and Sustainability Report

Building Infrastructure That Supports Opportunity, Equity, and Sustainability

Generating a robust economic recovery that facilitates inclusive prosperity, redresses past harms, and advances national climate goals will require reforming federal infrastructure programs, which were not originally designed to meet these objectives.

Kevin DeGood

Using Performance Management to Eliminate Greenhouse Gas Emissions From the Surface Transportation Sector Article
Cars with streaked headlights are seen on Pennsylvania Avenue going toward the U.S. Capitol during afternoon rush hour in Washington, D.C. (Getty/Visions of America/Universal Images Group)

Using Performance Management to Eliminate Greenhouse Gas Emissions From the Surface Transportation Sector

The next surface transportation reauthorization bill should require states and metropolitan regions to adopt targets that represent clear reductions in surface transportation GHG emissions that put the sector on a path to net-zero emissions by midcentury.

Kevin DeGood

‘Republican Roadmap’ to Nowhere Article
A view of the U.S. Capitol on April 29, 2020, in Washington, D.C. (Getty/Drew Angerer)

‘Republican Roadmap’ to Nowhere

The Senate Republican alternative to the American Jobs Plan would fail to invest in critical sectors necessary to create jobs and transition the United States to a competitive, 100 percent clean economy.

A Framework for Strengthening Municipal Market Green Bond Labeling Report

A Framework for Strengthening Municipal Market Green Bond Labeling

Strengthening green bond labeling to include a ranking that accounts for the expected environmental and social performance of financed activities will help to increase capital flows to high-quality sustainability and environmental justice projects by eliminating greenwashing.

Kevin DeGood

A Call to Action on Combating Nonpoint Source and Stormwater Pollution Report
The Minnesota River Basin, once a healthy, balanced ecosystem, now functions like an overloaded and unstable drainage ditch for farms and a toilet for rural Minnesota. (Minnesota River Basin)

A Call to Action on Combating Nonpoint Source and Stormwater Pollution

The United States will never achieve its goal of restoring and maintaining the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of its waters without implementing a comprehensive, aggressive program to reduce nonpoint source water pollution and polluted urban runoff.

Kevin DeGood

A Reform Agenda for the U.S. Department of Transportation Report

A Reform Agenda for the U.S. Department of Transportation

The severe economic downturn caused by the coronavirus has created an urgent need to boost federal infrastructure spending and reform programs and policies to ensure they achieve the greatest social, economic, and environmental return on investment.

Kevin DeGood

White Elephant Watch: Vol. 7 Report

White Elephant Watch: Vol. 7

The Portsmouth Bypass represents a broken and deeply cost-ineffective theory of economic development that assumes reducing vehicle travel time—rather than investing in people and places facing economic distress—will unlock economic development.

Kevin DeGood

Flying Cars Will Undermine Democracy and the Environment Report

Flying Cars Will Undermine Democracy and the Environment

Flying cars will turbocharge sprawl and weaken the social cohesion that comes from shared experiences and geographic proximity that is essential to building consensus in a democracy.

Kevin DeGood

Climate Change and Municipal Finance Report
Single-family homes on islands and condo buildings on oceanfront property are seen in the city of Miami Beach, June 2014. (Getty/Joe Raedle)

Climate Change and Municipal Finance

To address the fact that economic shocks caused by climate change will reduce state and local tax collections and increase infrastructure costs—creating additional risks for municipal bond investors—state and local issuers should adopt new climate risk disclosure standards to ensure accurate risk assessment and bond pricing.

Kevin DeGood

Infrastructure Investment Decisions Are Political, Not Technical Report
A train passes during the opening of the Expo Line extension between Culver City, California, and Santa Monica, California, on May 20, 2016. (Getty/Frederic J. Brown)

Infrastructure Investment Decisions Are Political, Not Technical

Building infrastructure is an inherently political act of creation, and society must engage in deliberative planning processes with deep public engagement to determine what needs to be built and the type of future that infrastructure dollars should help achieve.

Kevin DeGood

White Elephant Watch: Vol. 6 Report

White Elephant Watch: Vol. 6

The High Desert Corridor would promote low-density land use and single-occupant vehicle trips, running counter to the state’s climate and sustainable communities goals.

Kevin DeGood

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