I don’t get this:

The Intelligence Transportation Society of America (ITSA) kicked off a $50,000 “Congestion Challenge” today that seeks to pair social networking with innovative transportation policy-making.

Co-sponsored by Spencer Trask, a private equity firm specializing in high-tech investments, the contest asks transportation professionals and everyday citizens to submit their proposals for clearing the nation’s jam-packed roads, bridges and transitways. Each submission will be judged based on its ability to address five issues: sustainability, safety, behavioral impact, economic competitiveness, and speed & efficiency.

We don’t need innovative ideas to reduce or eliminate congestion. Here’s what you do. Toll highways and institute a cordon congestion charge for crowded roads. Set peak and off-peak tolls and ratchet each one upward until there’s no more congestion. If the transit lines are also full, ratchet transit fares upward until the system is covering most of its operating costs (we’ll say 60%). And then, if the system is still crowded, start building new capacity (hint: the places where the tolls are highest are the ones most in need of new transportation capacity).

I presume that this idea won’t win the $50 grand because of the “economic competitiveness” requirement. It’s not “economically competitive” to make folks pay large tolls and fares, even if there’s a net societal benefit from the reduction in congestion, and even if the other innovative solutions will involve costs as well, just better disguised.

Anyway, if I were going to design a contest for a sticky problem, I’d ask people to submit their proposals for getting politically unpopular but sound policy ideas like congestion pricing passed. Give $50k to the person who can figure out how to get cap-and-trade with a 100% auction through the legislature. Hell, give them $50 million. Congestion and climate change are easy to fix. It’s getting legislators to do the obviously right thing that’s hard.