Hey, idiots: Why not spend the money on computerized cars that coordinate traffic and reduce fuel costs?
Posted on 07/08/2010 9:06:04 AM PDT by Willie Green
A $293 million investment announced today by U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood means that residents in dozens of communities nationwide will soon enjoy major transit improvements, including new streetcars, buses, and transit facilities. The nearly $300 million investment is part of the Obama Administration's livability initiative to better coordinate transportation, housing and commercial development investments to serve the people living in those communities. It is being made through two competitive grant programs, the Urban Circulator Grant Program and the Bus and Bus Livability Grant Program. "This investment by the Obama Administration in our nation's communities will create jobs, boost economic development and recovery, and further reduce our dependence on oil," Secretary LaHood said. "Our goals are to provide cleaner, safer, and more efficient ways to get around."
Secretary LaHood, along with Federal Transit Administrator Peter Rogoff, announced the winners of the two competitive grant programs during a press conference call in Washington. Six new streetcar and bus rapid transit projects will be funded with $130 million from the Federal Transit Administration's Urban Circulator Program, and 47 additional projects aimed at upgrading bus services and facilities are slated to receive more than $163 million from the FTA's Bus and Bus Livability Program.
"Streetcars are making a comeback because cities across America are recognizing that they can restore economic development downtown - giving citizens the choice to move between home, shopping and entertainment without ever looking for a parking space," said FTA Administrator Peter Rogoff. "These streetcar and bus livability projects will not only create construction jobs now, they will aid our recovery by creating communities that are more prosperous and less congested."
The six cities that submitted successful Urban Circulator proposals include Dallas and Fort Worth, Texas; Chicago, Ill.; St. Louis, Mo.; Charlotte, N.C.; and Cincinnati, Ohio. The six projects were selected from 65 applications totaling more than $1 billion in requests. Construction of bus facilities and new bus and bus-related purchases will move forward in the 31 states where 47 Bus and Bus Livability projects are located. These projects were selected from 281 applications totaling over $2 billion in funding requests.
Inaugurated in December 2009, the two programs are a continuation of the FTA's effort dedicated to carrying out the Obama Administration's Livability Initiative, a joint venture of the U.S. Department of Transportation, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Projects were eligible to receive up to 80 percent in federal funding, with a maximum of $25 million for Urban Circulator projects.
A complete list of projects can be found at:
http://www.fta.dot.gov/news/news_events_11820.html.
Source: U.S. Department of Transportation
All Public Transportation that people can’t afford because they don’t have jobs. They have cars though, and could use new roads, but no new roads. Just more money spent to make people more dependent on government (public transportation) while shutting private enterprise out (competing against any private enterprise that might try to start a bus or other transportation service).
residents in dozens of communities nationwide will soon enjoy major transit improvements, including new streetcars, buses, and transit facilities. ..
—
soon?
Like before the November election?
.. and for all those no longer employed or aboe to find work, about the only place most who would ride them would go is to the polling place to toss Da Bums out!
That is Job #1 from here on out. :-}
Hey, idiots: Why not spend the money on computerized cars that coordinate traffic and reduce fuel costs?
What is this country coming too??
“investment by the 0bama Administration....” Sounds like they are personally going to pay for it. That’s great!!
Remind me again how this isn't Fascism?
All apart of the new urban habitat.
“The targets are the result of SB 375, the Sustainable Communities and Climate Protection Act of 2008. SB 375 is the lesser known but still important sibling to AB 32, the state’s landmark greenhouse gas reduction law. AB 32 will be challenged in a November ballot measure that calls for its suspension until unemployment is reduced to 5.5 percent for four consecutive quarters.”
“But even if AB 32 is suspended, SB 375 will live on, and it will soon be affecting how cities and counties plan and approve new development and transportation projects.”
http://www.healthycal.org/arb-moves-to-limit-greenhouse-gas-from-development-transportation.html
Time to stop pushing “new” projects and budget for existing roads and bridges. Which they will not do. They want the highway systems to fall apart and instead stick us with totally controlled, fixed route, 19th century technology, that is so inflexible they can’t be rerouted in case of problems.
It’s part of Agenda 21. People cannot be allowed to have independent control of their own travel.
Crap, pure unadulterated crap.
Houston's light rail comes in at somewhere between $40 and $100 million per mile ... $293 million is (once again Bambi) pissing into the wind political posturing, not substanitive policy.
Let me guess:
$50 million to “C.Rangel Consultants”
$20 Million to “Sharpton Mass Transit”
$30 Million to “J.Jackson and Sons Rainbow Trains”
etc.
Mass transit is all about density. Liberals of the progressive stripe want everyone living in high-density housing, growing their own vegetables at the communal garden plot, and riding mass transit or bicycles everywhere they go. Seriously. Go to a lib-leaning website and the wingnuts come whizzing out of the woodwork.
They laugh that firearm owners are atavistic - please, we don’t hold a candle to the Mother Earth News crowd.
0bama panders to these people because he knows that the “elite” such as himself will never have to live like that. They’ll have their urban estates and their country dachas, errr, houses to escape to while I’m complaining about my neighbor’s loud sex at 0300 one thin wall over.
Metropolitan Transportation Authority ARRA §5307 Long Island Rail Road/Metro-North Railroad/New York City Transit Formula $393,347,592
Federal Transit Administration ARRA Act of 2009 allocated for Transit Capital Assistance under Section 5307 and Section 5340 Urbanized Area Formula Program. $298,703,208 Newark NJ
Page: 1 2 3 >
http://stimuluswatch.org/2.0/agencies/view_awarding/112/0/award_amount/desc
Houston's light rail comes in at somewhere between $40 and $100 million per mile
For the record, Houston Metrorail cost $325 million for 7½ miles, or $43 million/mile.
Streetcars and buses are cheaper.
A $293 million investment announced today by U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood means that residents in dozens of communities nationwide will soon enjoy major transit improvements, including new streetcars, buses, and transit facilities.
Which will sit idle because 99% of the operating budget of these transit systems is going to pay Union pensions for employees who retired at age 50 to sit home on their a**.
For such a paltry sum, probably all that will result are transportation “studies”.
Obozo gave us in Michigan a whopping $40 million for a railroad estimated to cost $50 million per mile. So what we’re going to do is take some $230 million out of highway funds (While we’re letting roads return to dirt) and build another few miles of failroad.
Its a regular old marxist utopian plan. Destroy the roads which will destroy the cars which will force people into the cities.
Reminds one of the scheme by Romanian Dictator Nicolae Ceaucescu to DEMOLISH ALL RURAL TOWNS AND VILLAGES and forcibly resettle people in the cities. (by tearing down all those buildings you could increase the amount of arable land by 0.4%, you see). Sounds like a bad comedy but they actually did it.
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