The Obama administration's signature transportatin initiative is under threat because of midterm elections and Brookings puts out an interactive map of metropolitan America. Read more about these stories in Infrastructure in the News.
NATIONAL NEWS
Infrastructurist: Metro America's Commuting Methods: The Interactive Edition
No Brookings Institute, I did not. But I do now, thanks to your wonderful interactive map of metropolitan America. The data were originally part of the institute's State of Metropolitan America report, released in May. Earlier this week Brookings updated some of the numbers using the 2009 American Community Survey. The subjects include income, population, immigration, education, but for obvious reasons we chose to focus on transportation in particular, commuting practices. Here's a taste:
NY Times: Midterms Threaten Nationnwide Rail Plans
The Obama administration's signature transportation initiative is almost always described as "high speed rail." But more than half of the $10.4 billion the administration has awarded for rail so far has not gone toward real bullet trains, but to build slower, conventional train lines that it hopes will form the foundation of a nationwide high-speed rail network.
STATE NEWS
Jacksonville Daily Record: Tea Party may stall rail projects under Scott
Despite's Florida's popularity with federal transportation officials as a hub for rail projects, the unpopularity of trains with many voters who helped elect Gov.-elect Rick Scott could bring projects to a screeching halt once Scott gets to work.
Kare11: Labor union urges Wis Gov. to support high speed train
A Minnesota labor union is joining the chorus urging Wisconsin's Republican Governor-elect Scott Walker to change his mind, and allow a high-speed rail line to be built between Milwaukee and Madison.
BizTimes: Schwarzenegger asks for Wisconsin's high-speed rail dollars
California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger today sent a letter to U.S. Secretary of Transportation Raymond LaHood, requesting that California receive some of the federal high-speed rail dollars that Wisconsin Governor-elect Scott Walker wants to reject.
Streetsblog New York City: Ravitch: Tolls on Every Major Road Needed, Just to Keep Transpo Afloat
Faced with aging infrastructure and saddled with billions in debt, both the MTA and the State DOT are staring down impossible deficits. Without billions more dollars over the next few years, New York will watch as its trains begin to grind to a halt and its bridges collapse. A crisis of that scale demands similarly aggressive solutions, and Ravitch pulls no punches. He calls for not only tolls on the bridges into Manhattan, but on all major bridges and highways in the state, as well as special tax districts for particular mega-projects and potentially controversial reforms to the planning process.
Mobilizing the Region: NY Lt. Governor: State Needs $1.3B/Year for Transportation
A new report from New York's outgoing lieutenant governor Richard Ravitch the previous architect of transportation rescue plans Ñ offers a blueprint for the state to avoid a future with a diminished transportation network.
The Daily Press: State's bridges in trouble
A recent report issued by the Michigan Infrastructure and Transportation Association (MITA) shows that statewide, 28 percent, or 3,055, of Michigan's 10,831 bridges are in trouble.
Access North GA: DOT board clears way for $350M in infrastructure work
The State Transportation Board Thursday voted to begin as much as $350 million in new spending on statewide infrastructure projects to bolster job creation and preservation in Georgia's struggling transportation construction industry.