Infrastructure in the News: May 20, 2011

According to All Headline News the Congress warned that public transportation cuts would hurt the US economy and Wall Street Journal reported that Amtrak is soliciting private investors to aide the Northeast line upgrade. Read more in today's Infrastructure in the News.

BAF in the News

Washington Examiner: If at first government fails, then spend, spend again
America needs more infrastructure development, but it should be provided by the private sector in collaboration with the states, not by the federal government. In Tuesday's Senate Finance Committee hearings on infrastructure funding, former Pennsylvania Gov. Edward Rendell, now co-chairman of Building America's Future, a nonprofit coalition of state and local officials, said that the new bank would be independent and make money. And according to the finance panel's chairman, Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., the bank would maintain America's competitiveness and create jobs, including some for returning GIs.

National News

Time Magazine: A Flight Plan for the American Economy
Two years into the recovery, growth is about 2% and job creation has reached around 250,000 a month, which might sound high but is actually barely enough to keep pace with all the new workers entering the job market for the first time.

Wall Street Journal: Amtrak Looks to Private Investors To Help Upgrade Northeast Line
Amtrak said it is soliciting proposals from private investors to help upgrade its heavily trafficked Northeast Corridor to eventually accommodate passenger trains that can travel at 220 miles per hour.

Associated Press: Prices at gas pump painful for 4 in 10 Americans
With gasoline prices hovering at $4 a gallon nationally, many Americans are making tough choices: scaling back summer vacations, driving less or ditching the car altogether. Some seniors are choosing a tank of gas over their prescriptions.

Forbes: Ditch Federal Fuel Taxes And Charge For Road Use
The Obama administration's recent reversal on road use charges is throwing away an opportunity to replace fuel taxes as a funding mechanism for roads and to channel private investment into America's infrastructure.

National Resource Defense Council: With $4 a Gallon Gasoline, Consumers Continue to Demand More MPG
Evidence from new polls, April sales figures and May used cars prices demonstrate that American drivers, fed up with high gas prices, continue to demand fuel-efficient cars. Data from Consumer Federation of America, Kelly Blue Book, Autotrader.com, Hybridcars.om, Ward’s Auto, the National Auto Dealers Association, all confirm that fuel efficiency remains the hottest attribute shoppers are looking for in new and used cars.

Infrastructurist: How Many 'U.S. Infrastructure Ailing' Reports Will It Take to Fix U.S. Infrastructure?
The ballad of America’s poor infrastructure just received another verse, and it sounds a lot like the first. The latest comes courtesy of the Urban Land Institute and Ernst & Young. According to their new report, "Infrastructure 2011: A Strategic Priority", U.S. infrastructure investment is lagging behind the rest of the world (heard that before), its transportation network is deteriorating (and that), and planned improvements will be delayed by the adverse political climate (and, many times, that).

Streetsblog Capitol Hill: Good News From the Senate: Transit Operating Assistance and Much More
Today’s Senate Banking Committee hearing held some good news for transit riders. Unintuitive though it may be, Banking has jurisdiction over public transportation in the Senate. While in the House, the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee handles every aspect of the reauthorization, in the Senate the bill gets carved up. Environment and Public Works is taking the lead, with the specifics on transit left to Banking.

National Resource Defense Council: Seven Bipartisan Fixes to Our Transportation Problems
Here in D.C. we often bemoan the fact that we can’t all just get along. But when it comes to transportation, we actually CAN get along. And now we’ve got it in writing. A new joint report by three organizations from all points in the political spectrum -- the left-leaning Transportation for America, the centrist Taxpayers for Common Sense, and the right-leaning Reason Foundation, points out seven taxpayer friendly solutions for national transportation problems.

All Headline News: Congress Warned That Public Transit Cuts Would Hurt U.S. Economy
Public transportation advocates said at a Senate Banking Committee Thursday that if transit agencies lose federal funding, the entire nation would suffer.

AltTransport: Oil Company Tax Break Repeal Fails in Senate
It’s logic that a majority of the Senate actually bought. After all, why levy a discriminatory tax against a profitable industry during a time of economic uncertainty, especially when that industry is arguably overregulated to begin with? Missouri’s Roy Blunt, for instance, voted against the bill because he believes that the subsidies debate is really a distraction from a larger energy-related issue: the opening of more of the United States to oil exploration:

Washington Post: Trying to Tame a River
Video: See how the Army Corps of Engineers took drastic action to contain flooding along the Mississippi River:

Trucking Info: Champions of Change Roundtable Discusses Transportation Issues
The White House kicked off National Transportation Week on Monday, May 16, with a 'Champions of Change' roundtable discussion about transportation issues. Champions of Change is a weekly White House event addressing the national issues by inviting ordinary Americans to contribute their ideas.

Trucking Info: Outlook Dim for Highway Reauthorization
There is practically no chance that Congress will approve any increase in infrastructure investment this year, and only a small chance that it will pass any highway legislation at all - other than an extension of the current program that might have to include funding cuts on the order of 30 percent.

Daily Press: Claims of economic boon from highway investments are debatable
The California-based think tank's report "Highway Infrastructure and the Economy" analyzed studies conducted on the federal, state and local levels to determine the accuracy of contentions that highway infrastructure investments contribute to economic growth. The report — that promotes federal policy reform regarding infrastructure funding — concluded economic effects vary greatly.

Boing Boing: America's first monorail: Even older than I thought
Ten years later, another monorail was operating, this time in the Boston area. And unlike the Centennial Monorail or the Swallow, this one really looked like the Fantasy Steampunk Monorail of Dreams.

State News

Daily Democrat: US Transportation Secretary, congressman tour West Sacramento Port
The U.S. Transportation Secretary visited the Port of West Sacramento Wednesday, calling it "well-managed."

San Mateo Daily Journal: Transportation secretary: 'We need to fix pipeline system'
After meeting with victims of a gas pipeline explosion that killed eight people in San Bruno last September, Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood said Thursday he will “redouble efforts” to impose stricter regulations on the nation’s natural gas pipeline infrastructure by the end of summer.

Merced Sun-Star: Merced applies for $800,000 high-speed rail study grant
The city of Merced will apply for an $800,000 grant from the California High-Speed Rail Authority for land use, traffic studies and financial planning around its proposed high-speed rail line.

San Francisco Chronicle: High-speed rail plan should be fixed, not forgotten
Though it hasn't laid an inch of track, California's high-speed rail project is in serious trouble. Its insular management appears ill-equipped for the task ahead, federal money is uncertain, and deadlines for major decisions are looming.

Streetsblog San Francisco: Will SF Tear Down That Freeway? 280 Removal Study for HSR Moves Forward
The freeway would be replaced with a boulevard running along the path of the current freeway, and could include a park at the mouth of Mission Bay as well as a bike path on the eastern edge, according to our sources. It could also set the stage for a future freeway-to-boulevard conversion southward to Chavez, or even farther.

California High Speed Rail: SF Chronicle Recognizes Need to Continue Ahead with HSR
Obviously this is “LAO report reaction week” here on the California High Speed Rail Blog. That’s out of necessity, given the impact of this report. And it’s good to see that there’s one paper out there that kind of, sort of, gets it:

FastLane: Remembering San Bruno by encouraging pipeline safety across America
Safety will always be the top priority at the Department of Transportation, but it’s not a mission we can do alone. It’s a job for all of us—and we must work together.

Greenwich, CT Patch: Our 'Extremely Fragile' Rail Line Slowly Gets M-8 Cars
More than two dozen new passenger cars have been delivered to Metro-North Railroad’s New Haven Line, the first of 380 ordered. But even as they are being put into service, "The ability to keep going is a challenge every single day,” says the railroad's president.

The News Delaware: DelDOT relies too heavily on borrowing for projects
We have read and studied the recent report on DelDOT funding prepared by the Transportation Trust Fund Task Force. In general, we concur with the findings of the report and the recommendations for immediate action to maintain the Transportation Trust Fund and provide the needed funds for the DelDOT Operating and Capital Programs. The one exception we have with the report is the lack of a recommendation to address the department's debt and over-reliance on borrowing to fund the capital program.

Sunshine State News: SunRail Pushed Onto Rick Scott by GOP Lawmakers
While Gov. Rick Scott looks to trim the $69.7 billion state budget through line-item vetoes, lawmakers put him -- and Florida taxpayers -- in a fiscal box with one big-ticket item: SunRail.

The Florida Times-Union: Florida's bridges are in excellent shape
Good news for Florida: The state's network of bridges are some of the best in the nation.

Kansas Reporter: Kansas streamlines some transportation decision making
Kansas transportation officials said Thursday they’ve retooled some parts of a statewide comprehensive transportation plan passed last year to increase economic opportunities across the state.

Boston Globe: Sale of 'ghost passes' cost MBTA millions of dollars
Attorney General Martha Coakley said today an employee of an MBTA contractor has been selling fake subway, bus, and commuter rail passes since at least 2007, a multi-million-dollar scheme that was the largest “ghost pass’’ fraud in the agency’s history.

Taunton Daily Gazette: GUEST OPINION: Senator Kerry: Investing in the future of employment
Just start with South Coast Rail. Right now Taunton, Fall River and New Bedford are the only cities within 50 miles of Boston without commuter rail service — a distinct disadvantage when it comes to accessing jobs and other economic opportunities around Boston.

Twin Cities Pioneer Press: Minnesota rail advocates make pitch to Ramsey County
If the state and federal governments help build a Rochester-to-Minneapolis or Rochester-to-St. Paul high-speed rail line, the train would do what few other public transit systems around the country have been able to accomplish without public subsidy, and that's pull a profit.

Associated Press: Mississippi crests in Vicksburg, claims 1st life
The Mississippi River crested at more than 14 feet above flood stage in Vicksburg on Thursday, a slightly lower than expected level that eased worries about water potentially spilling over a nearby levee and inundating thousands more acres of farmland.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Old St. Louis railroad trestle may become a park
"It is a growing trend," says Tim Ahern, spokesman for the Trust for Public Land, a national group that conserves land for parks, gardens and other green spaces. "We're doing a project in downtown Atlanta right now called the Belt Line. It's an old abandoned railroad at grade level that's 22 miles and encircles the city."

Transportation Nation: Gas Prices Not Expected to Dampen Summer Trips to Montana
She says the American public has a higher threshold for what they are willing to pay for gasoline and they don’t want to give up their vacations. (What are YOU giving up? Check out our interactive map here)

AltTransport: Win Over Bike Lane Haters With More Bike Lanes
New York City’s ambitious rollout of more than 250 miles of new bike lanes since 2007 has been fraught with controversy, to put it mildly. Now a group of eleven graduate students from the Urban Affairs and Planning Program at Hunter College have produced a 145 page report called “Beyond the Backlash: Equity and Participation in Bicycle Planning” that suggests one way to cool tensions: Build more bike lines. And fast.

Transportation Nation: NYC Taxi and Limousine Commission - Dollar Van Program a Total Bust
The NYC TLC announced with some fanfare last spring that it would use private vans to serve bus routes that had been eliminated entirely. But, it turns out, no one — really, almost no one — used them.

Mobilizing the Region: A Broad, Bipartisan Push for NY Complete Streets
In New York, the coalition standing behind a complete streets bill to make roads safer for all is even broader this year. Yesterday, State Senator Charles Fuschillo (R-Merrick), Chairman of the Senate Transportation Committee, introduced an amended version of the complete streets bill, co-sponsored by Senator Martin Dilan (D-Brooklyn), the committee’s ranking minority member.

Transportation Nation: After Hundreds of Millions of Dollars of Public Subsidies, Barely Used Yankees Parking Garages Face Financial Collapse
In the far North Bronx, near the Yonkers border, right fielder Stephan Alamies of the All Hallows High School varsity baseball team is batting against Mount Saint Michael. This is a home game for All Hallows–but they’re playing on their opponents’ field. They drove 45 minutes by bus to get here. Coach Edgardo Guttierez says the team used to play four blocks from school.

Transportation Nation: Public Transportation is Good For You: Study
If New Yorkers took fuller advantage of the city’s public transit system, bike lanes, and sidewalks, they’d be healthier. That’s the message behind a report released today by the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.

WIS News 10: Crumbling Columbia: City water, sewer infrastructure needs work
Water and sewer service are not exactly the most exciting subjects to delve into when we think about building a better city, but they are very much on the minds of Columbia city leaders these days.

Richmond Times-Dispatch: CSX investing $160 million to improve freight flow
CSX Corp., the second-largest publicly traded U.S. railroad, said it will invest $160 million to improve its ability to move freight from the Port of Virginia at Hampton Roads to the Midwest.