BAF IN THE NEWS:
Politico Morning Transportation: CORNETT JOINS BAF
http://www.politico.com/morningtransportation/
Oklahoma City Mayor Mick Cornett is joining Building America’s Future, an official with the infrastructure advocacy group tells MT. The Republican mayor is “one of the nation’s most innovative mayors,” the group will say in a release today. “Mayor Cornett has demonstrated the type of leadership that is needed to invest in the types of projects that will allow his city and region to compete economically in the 21st Century. Time and again, mayors and governors are taking action and making the smart infrastructure investments while our leaders in Washington sit on their hands,” BAF co-chair Ed Rendell said.
The Suburban Times: Letter: High Speed Rail Sucks Money in High Speed
http://www.thesubtimes.com/letter-high-speed-rail-sucks-money-in-high-speed/
What does the Point Defiance Rail Bypass Project – that would reroute Amtrak passenger trains away from the scenic Puget Sound waterfront to a heavily life-congested path through Tillicum and other communities along I-5, seven daily round trips at 79 mph and 45 seconds perintersection - have in common with the following?
Wall Street Journal: Panel Implores Region to Heed Rising Seas
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323608504579023183533218404.html
A presidential task force convened to learn lessons from superstorm Sandy urged communities to take rising sea levels and climate change as a given—and plan to shore up their buildings and power grids accordingly.
(Full clip following “STATE NEWS.”)
Reuters: Sandy task force suggests ways to handle future superstorms
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/19/storm-sandy-recommendations-idUSL2N0GK1AT20130819
NEW YORK, Aug 19 (Reuters) - A U.S. task force on rebuilding after Superstorm Sandy listed dozens of recommendations on Monday to help protect communities from rising sea levels and increasingly intense storms.
Washington Post: AP: Superstorm task force says as coasts rebuild, they should prep for rising seas, future floods
NEW YORK — Coastal communities should assume floods are going to happen more frequently and realize that spending now on protectivemeasures could save money later, according to a report issued by a presidential task force charged with developing a strategy for rebuilding areas damaged by Superstorm Sandy.
Climate Progress: Sandy Rebuilding Task Force: Climate Change Must Factor In To Rebuilding Effort
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/08/19/2486601/sandy-rebuilding-task-force-recommendations/
On Monday morning, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan announced the recommendations of a task force dedicated to finding solutions for rebuilding in the wake of Superstorm Sandy.
NATIONAL NEWS:
Washington Post: Ethanol mandates creating an economic car-wreck
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/charles-lane-ethanol-mandates-creating-an-economic-pileup/2013/08/19/17346b08-08ef-11e3-8974-f97ab3b3c677_story.html There are two iron laws of energy policy in the United States. Iron Law No. 1: A higher federal excise tax on fuel would efficiently reduce gasoline consumption and its negative side effects (air pollution, traffic congestion, carbon emissions, dependence on foreign oil).
Investors Daily: Is Waste Management A New U.S. Silica In Shale Boom?
http://news.investors.com/business/081913-667961-is-waste-management-the-next-us-silica.htm
The U.S. fracking boom has been good for oil and gas companies as well as oil field service providers, but companies outside the energy sector like Waste Management (WM) are also benefiting.
STATE NEWS:
New York Times: With Proposed Rail Expansion, Northwest Confronts Its Clean Image
SPOKANE, Wash. — The Pacific Northwest’s sense of itself can sometimes seem green to the point of parody: a medium-roast blend of piney peaks and urban cool, populated by residents who look descended from lumberjacks or fishermen.
The Columbian: BNSF invests $125M in state's track system
http://www.columbian.com/news/2013/aug/19/bnsf-invests-125m-in-states-track-system/
A broad capital investment effort now underway is steering an estimated $125 million in maintenance work and improvements to BNSF Railway's track system in Washington this year, the company announced Monday.
Indystar: Amtrak supporters try to preserve Indy-Chicago route
LAFAYETTE, IND. — Supporters of maintaining daily Amtrak passenger service between Indianapolis and Chicago are looking to step up their lobbying push ahead of a state decision whether toannually contribute $3 million toward keeping it going.
Progressive Railroading: CSX honors Ohio economic development office exec's achievements, advances North Carolina turnout facility
CSX Corp. has presented its Industrial Development Partnershipping Award to Jerry Hayes, the executive director of the Defiance County Economic Development Office in Ohio.
Railway Age: CTA OKs car overhaul contracts
Chicago Transit Authority's Board of Directors has approved two contracts purchasing replacement and upgrade parts for CTA's 2100-series rail car fleet, totaling about $166 million.
KRGV: AP: Arlington, long without transit, rolls out buses
http://www.krgv.com/news/arlington-long-without-transit-rolls-out-buses
ARLINGTON, Texas (AP) A North Texas community has shed its reputation as the largest city in America not to offer public transportation.
Salt Lake Tribune: UTA commended for completing rail lines early and under budget
http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/politics/56733855-90/2015-allegra-draper-extension.html.csp
U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx jumped to his feet clapping — starting what spread into a standing ovation by all — when he heard the magic words: The Utah Transit Authority’s massive $2.5 billion "Frontlines 2015" projects are now officially complete two years early and $300 million under budget.
Wall Street Journal: Panel Implores Region to Heed Rising Seas
By HEATHER HADDON
August 20, 2013
A presidential task force convened to learn lessons from superstorm Sandy urged communities to take rising sea levels and climate change as a given—and plan to shore up their buildings and power grids accordingly.
The report released Monday by the Hurricane Sandy Rebuilding Task Force is in keeping with President Barack Obama's emphasis that climate change is real and must be addressed.
Connecticut and New York officials embraced the report. Mayor Michael Bloomberg and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo previously have described Sandy as an example of the type of more intense and frequent storms many scientists associate with climate change.
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has endorsed the need to build stronger, and was quick to adopt guidelines to require those affected by Sandy to elevate their structures to minimize damage by future storms. But in May, the Republican governor said there was no "proof thus far that Sandy was caused by" climate change.
Spokesmen for Mr. Christie didn't respond Monday for comment on the report and its discussion on climate change. Mr. Christie is to hold a news conference Tuesday with Shaun Donovan, U.S. secretary of Housing and Urban Development and task-force chairman.
The panel was the result of months of interviews with nearly 450 officials from the region and Washington, D.C. Government officials, housing advocates and planners working to rebuild the region after the Oct. 29 storm also weighed in on it.
Mr. Donovan pledged to implement all 69 recommendations detailed in the report.
"These recommendations are just too important in terms of protecting communities going forward," said Mr. Donovan, during an event Monday in Brooklyn announcing the findings.
Some of the report's recommendations are already in motion. Sandy caused nine million people to lose power, and the task force called for officials to improve the grid to prevent future widespread outages.
Con Edison is reconfiguring its Lower Manhattan network so fewer customers would go without power during a flood—with switches that limit outages to areas directly linked to swamped equipment—and strengthening power lines in the other boroughs, spokesman Michael Clendenin said. The agency plans to spend $1 billion over the next four years for such efforts.
The report also recommended allowing homeowners to make emergency repairs to stay in their homes after a disaster, an effort New York City practiced after Sandy.
With regard to the federal government, the task force recommended speeding insurance payments to homeowners and creating a consistent federal policy to prevent people from being foreclosed on after a disaster. The slow rate of insurance reimbursements was a top complaint after Sandy.
The report is expected to guide how a second round of federal Sandy assistance is distributed to the states. While a first round of $5.4 billion was focused on helping homeowners, the second, expected to flow in coming weeks, will target infrastructure, Mr. Donovan said. The exact amount of funding is still being determined.
The federal government is now taking sea level rise into account for road and bridge projects it helps pay for, and has invested in a tool plotting risk to help communities do the same.
"They need help to prepare and adapt," said Chris Sturm, senior director of state policy for New Jersey Future, a planning group that provided input on the report. "Sea levels are rising in New Jersey."
Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat, praised the task force, saying it had brought together officials from all levels of government to ensure the money is well spent to "protect the critical infrastructure that families, businesses and communities rely on."
Mr. Bloomberg also supported the findings and said it would help to "prepare our region for the intense coastal storms and extreme weather scientists tell us we have to get ready for."
New Jersey environmental advocates urged Mr. Christie to take another look at the potential impact of climate change in response to the report.
"Hopefully this will help us make changes to state policy here in New Jersey," said Jeff Tittel, director of the New Jersey chapter of the Sierra Club.
The report is the most extensive federal review in response to a natural disaster, particularly in terms of climate change, federal officials said. The Department of Homeland Security assessed infrastructure failures after Hurricane Katrina, but didn't publish a report. Former President Bill Clinton convened a task force after 1993 flooding on the Missouri River, but there was no federal commitment to adopt all the recommendations.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323608504579023183533218404.html
Politico Morning Transportation
By Adam Snider | 8/20/13 5:27 AM EDT
Featuring Kevin Robillard
MORE GOLDEN STATE HSR FALLOUT: The California High-Speed Rail Authority is undeterred by a recentcourt ruling that it hasn’t complied with Proposition 1A, the landmark 2008 state ballot measure that set aside $10 billion for the project. But there’s something missing in all the “judge deals blow to high-speed rail” headlines making the rounds, the authority says — namely, that the suit was against an older, out-of-date business plan that isn’t even in use anymore. The plaintiffs sued based on a 2011 funding plan that was part of a larger business plan. But the next year, that business plan got updated to incorporate the “blended” rail approach, lowering the estimated cost from nearly $100 billion to $68 billion.
Looking forward: Dan Richard,chairman of the authority’s board, also noted that while Superior Court Judge Michael Kenny looked at the older business plan, he also found that the state legislature exercised its due diligence in releasing the bond money — and that diligence included the updated business plan. Richard didn’t gloss over the judge’s finding that the authority violated state law — “I don't want in any way to suggest we don’t take that seriously, because we do,” he said — but he remains focused on moving ahead. “We are moving forward with this plan because the judge told us that we could move forward with this plan,” he told MT in an interview. “And the judge did not do the one thing that the plaintiffs asked him to do, which was to stop the project.”
The whole story: Richard thinks that some media outlets are telling only half the story, telling audiences that judge ruled the authority violated Prop 1A but not that he supported the state legislature’s decision to release the money. “To me this is somewhat reminiscent of CNN on the Affordable Care Act,” Richard told MT, alluding to the network’s botched coverage of the Supreme Court ruling that found the health care law unconstitutional under one section of the Constitution — but constitutional under another section.
TUESDAYS WITH MORRIE. Thanks for reading POLITICO’s Morning Transportation, your daily tipsheet on trains, planes and automobiles, where today we’re a bit surprised to find that 83 tow trucks was all it took to get an official Guinness world record for the largest tow truck parade nine years ago in Wenatchee, Wash.: http://bit.ly/12jU6vM. Please be in touch: asnider@politico.com. And follow on Twitter: @AdamKSnider and @POLITICOPro.
“We played a railroad song with a stomping beat …” http://bit.ly/14kQqaB
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SANDY REBUILDING TASK FORCE REPORT: The Hurricane Sandy Rebuilding Task Force is out with a 200-page report that includes 69 specific recommendations, some of which are already in effect. There’s some interesting stats on the huge impact the storm had the tri-state region’s transportation network — over 30 percent of people in the area use transit to get to and from work and the average commute time in Brooklyn more than doubled (from 42 to 86 minutes) after the storm’s floods shuttered large swaths of the rail network. Read the full report: http://1.usa.gov/170lyAn
Oops: The drama over NJ Transit’s decision to move hundreds of rail cars to a low-lying area before Sandy just gets better and better ... for those of us loving a good transportation screw-up story. After an early version of the transit agency’s plan released to media had everything but the title redacted, a full version of that doc (all three and a half pages of it) shows that NJ Transit didn’t obey their own recommendations. WNYC has much more: http://wny.cc/12jY0Vv
BAY BRIDGE TRUCKER WAS ON FIRST SOLO U.S. DRIVE: The truck driver whose rig caused a July crash that sent a car plummeting into the Chesapeake Bay was a Hungarian immigrant who was making his first solo trip to the United States from Canada, according to a preliminary NTSB report on the accident. The 29-year-old male driver told investigators he checked his driver-side mirror because of lights and sounds behind him shortly before the crash. When he looked forward again, traffic had stopped and he wasn't able to avoid a collision with a Chrysler Sebring. The car was forced onto and then over the bridge barrier and into seven feet ofwater. The 24-year-old female driving the car was rescued and treated for minor injuries. Read the full NTSB release: http://1.usa.gov/19tV3Um
CBC AGAINST KELLY AT DHS: The Congressional Black Caucus is warning the president against nominating New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly to lead DHS, adding to widespread criticism of Kelly by civil liberties advocates and minority groups. “A police commissioner who acts outside the law and below the radar has no place in an administration that values transparency, accountability and compliance with the United States Constitution," caucus members wrote in a letter earlier this month. The three-page letter points to both the NYPD’s stop and frisk program, which was recently deemed unconstitutional by a federal judge, and to its program of spying on Muslims. Kelly has defended both programs as necessary to protect New Yorkers from gun violence and terrorism. Read the letter: http://politico.pro/1alsyLo
BUSY ROADS: The Golden State has the three busiest interstates in the country, according to new FHWA data. People drove nearly 85 billion miles on California interstates in 2011, easily making it the top state. Texas, in second place, trailed California by 30 billion miles. The Golden State’s I-5 was the busiest interstate, with I-10 and I-110 in second and third place. I-405 in Los Angeles, with 379,000 cars a day, was the busiest interstate in a city. Overall, people drove 2.95 trillion miles on U.S. roads in 2011, the eighth-highest figure ever recorded and close todouble the miles logged in 1980. Your MT host, an admitted space geek was pretty psyched to see the agency noting that California’s 85 billion miles is “more than 900 times the distance from Earth to the Sun.” In case you were curious: It’s about 92 million miles from Earth to sun and it takes light eight minutes to reach Earth. More data: http://1.usa.gov/13AkyEi
IN TODAY’S FEDERAL REGISTER — VIN recall searches: As a reminder, today’s Register formalizes NHTSA’s new mandate that automakers let customers search for safety recalls by VIN. Brush up: http://1.usa.gov/16qiQTH
PTC reporting: The Surface Transportation Board wants railroads under the positive train control mandate to separately report their PTC expenses to “help inform the Board and the public about the specific costs attributable to PTC implementation.” Check out the final rule, which takes effect Sept. 19: http://bit.ly/12jZq2a
THE AUTOBAHN (SPEED READ)
- Five U.S. cities — Atlanta, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco and Seattle — buy half of the country’s electric vehicles. Wired: http://bit.ly/19FEo3F
- San Francisco Fire Department chief bans helmet cameras after Asiana Airlines crash response. http://huff.to/1d1xh5P
- Boosting HOT lane fees can lead to ... more cars using them? Atlantic Cities: http://bit.ly/1eYMNfF
- New Jersey legislature passes bill to ban some types of laser pointers amidconcerns they would be pointed at aircraft. NJToday: http://bit.ly/14RC3d6
- Good read: A look at how the Costa Concordia cruise ship disaster has affected a small Italian town. Scientific American: http://bit.ly/1d1ApP8
- ARTBA's P3 Division, which recently had its 25th annual conference, gets a new leader . http://bit.ly/19CrMua
THE DAY AHEAD: All day — The 2013 North American Inspectors Championship, hosted by the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance and held in conjunction with the American Trucking Associations’ National Truck Driving Championships. Salt Lake City.
THE COUNTDOWN: DOT funding and passenger rail policy both run out in 42 days. Surface transportation policy is up in 407 days and FAA policy in 772 days. The mid-term elections are in 451 days.
CABOOSE — Positively 14th Street: This century-old shot of 14th St. in D.C. features some streetcar infrastructure — but no cars. Shorpy: http://bit.ly/16YCXr7
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BAF IN THE NEWS:
Politico Morning Transportation: CORNETT JOINS BAF
http://www.politico.com/morningtransportation/
Oklahoma City Mayor Mick Cornett is joining Building America’s Future, an official with the infrastructure advocacy group tells MT. The Republican mayor is “one of the nation’s most innovative mayors,” the group will say in a release today. “Mayor Cornett has demonstrated the type of leadership that is needed to invest in the types of projects that will allow his city and region to compete economically in the 21st Century. Time and again, mayors and governors are taking action and making the smart infrastructure investments while our leaders in Washington sit on their hands,” BAF co-chair Ed Rendell said.