Infrastructure in the News: April 23, 2010

According to Innovation Brief innovative financing can't substitute new funding and Business Week reported that Japan might back financially Central Japan Railway Co. and other bullet-train makers bidding for U.S. high-speed rail projects. Read more in this Infrastructure in the News.

National News

Innovation Briefs: Innovative Financing Is No Substitute for New Funding
Hoping to sustain interest in the Committee’s efforts to enact a new multi-year transportation bill during this session of Congress, Reps. James Oberstar (D-MN) and Peter DeFazio (D-OR), leaders of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, convened a hearing on April 14 to explore innovative ways of financing highway and transit investments. But while the hearing provided a useful survey of available financing tools and programs, it produced no new answers to the key question that has bedeviled transportation advocates for many months and remains as the chief obstacle to moving the legislation forward— the question of how to pay for the proposed multi-year surface transportation program. 

Daily Finance: Investing in Water Could Pour On the Returns
…Solving those problems by building and renovating water-system infrastructure, developing technologies to purify water and transporting water to people who need it present powerful financial and investment opportunities. To meet the coming demand, some analysts project the world may need to spend as much as $1 trillion per year through 2030 applying technologies to conserve water, maintain and replace water-related infrastructure and to construct sanitation systems. 

Business Week: Japan May Support Bullet-Train Makers for U.S. Bids
Japan may give financial backing to Central Japan Railway Co. and other bullet-train makers bidding for U.S. high-speed rail projects to help them compete with Chinese and European suppliers. “We will support them,” Noriyoshi Yamagami, head of the transport ministry’s global railway strategy section, said in an interview yesterday. State-owned Japan Bank for International Cooperation may provide financing, he said. 

State News

Huffington Post: Cities' Devastating Cuts to Education and Transit Highlight the Need for the Local Jobs for America Act
…Efficient transportation and quality education are cornerstones of America's global economic competitiveness. In the long run, downgrading these investments undermines the country's economic foundation. But it may push us back into economic decline more quickly than that. The Times quotes former Atlanta mayor Sam Massell: "We are just crawling out of a recession, but we will be knocked back into another one if the salespersons are not behind the store counters, if the restaurant workers are not in the kitchens, if the office staff are not behind their desks." Putting thousands of school personnel and transit workers out of a job both raises unemployment and undercuts critical public services. 

Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Georgia House, Senate Pass Transportation Bill
Breaking a legislative traffic jam that has endured for more than three years, the Georgia General Assembly on Wednesday voted to allow referendums throughout the state on transportation funding. Taking to the well for the first time this session, Speaker David Ralston in a rousing speech led the Georgia House to pass the bill, HB 277, by a vote of 141-29. The Senate passed it 43-8 shortly afterward. 

Business Week: LA board backs plan to speed up transit projects
Los Angeles County transportation officials agreed Thursday to support Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's ambitious plan to accelerate construction of a dozen transit projects by borrowing $8 billion from the federal government. The show of support by the Metropolitan County Transportation Authority board allows the agency's lobbyists to pursue federal loans in Washington.

Chicago Sun Times: Senate keeps free rides for all seniors on Chicago-area mass transit
Regardless of their income, senior citizens can continue riding Chicago-area mass transit for free after the state Senate Wednesday preserved what a GOP critic called one of impeached, ex-Gov. Blagojevich’s “last and most impulsive acts.”