Free Republic

Nearly a fifth of America's roads are now considered in poor shape and about one-in-four bridges is rated "structurally deficient." The U.S. Department of Transportation estimates that the cost to fix these problems is a staggering $460 billion. The tab grows far larger when you add in the hundreds of billions to build the new transportation infrastructure that's needed to handle the country's growth. Part of the problem is that big increases in state and local spending for politically popular programs, especially Medicaid and education, as well costly public employee pensions and benefits, have crowded out infrastructure -- even as...

A proposed North American “super corridor” would relieve overburdened highways and promote economic growth in three countries, supporters say. But others wonder whether the proposal might bring in cheap exports and put unsafe Mexican trucks on U.S. roads. The issue takes center stage at a three-day conference that begins today in Fort Worth, Texas. More than 350 transportation, logistics and economic development specialists from the United States, Canada and Mexico are meeting. The conference is sponsored by Dallas-based North America’s SuperCorridor Coalition. The nonprofit coalition, whose members include public- and private-sector organizations, wants to develop an integrated transportation system linking...

AUSTIN -- Key negotiators were still working Wednesday night to hammer out a compromise version of a toll-road moratorium bill that Gov. Rick Perry won't veto. Earlier Wednesday, Sen. John Carona, R-Dallas, said a compromise between the House and Senate versions of a transportation bill had been negotiated, but key House members quickly insisted that a deal had not been reached. The compromise version would require both chambers' approval. Perry vetoed a toll-road moratorium bill last week, citing concerns that it would cost the state federal funding of transportation projects. Different versions of a second moratorium passed both chambers last...

Paul Burka’s blog has a nice update on the legislative efforts to de-rail Gov. Perry’s Trans Texas Corridor project. It hasn’t been stopped yet (reference to bills are bills to halt the TTC): So here’s where we are. HB 1892, the original bill, has been vetoed. SB 792, Carona’s bill, is in conference committee. The governor’s office, through former senator Ken Armbrister, is trying to round up enough votes in the Senate (11) to block an override of the veto. If he is successful, then the governor holds all the cards. He can veto 792 as well, with the calendar...

Report says that more than $45 billion of the estimate is either in error or undocumented. The state auditor's office on Monday challenged the validity of more than half of a purported $86 billion shortfall in Texas transportation funding over the next generation and cautioned that the estimate "may not be reliable for making policy or funding decisions." That $86 billion, based on 2004 figures, has been cited repeatedly by Texas Department of Transportation officials and some legislators as a major reason for the state's increasing need for new toll roads. The number is a compilation of estimates from local...

The growing traffic congestion in Texas is a multipronged problem that cannot be solved by one policy. At a time when toll roads appear to be state leadership's primary answer to the dilemma, a bill proposed by Sen. John Carona, R-Dallas, has merit. The legislation would index the gas tax to the Highway Cost Index, or the cost of highway construction over time. According to Carona's office, the bill by 2030 would generate about $16 billion in gas tax revenue — or 31/2 times more than the current gas tax would. Not only would more money be available for transportation...

AUSTIN – Four years of simmering frustration boiled over at a recent Texas Senate committee hearing with just one thing on the agenda: toll roads. An overflow crowd bashed and booed the Texas Transportation Commission in front of mostly like-minded senators. For eight hours, lawmakers and audience members alike questioned the state's increasing reliance on tolls. "We can't simply build roads at any cost," Sen. John Carona said to cheers. "We've got to build them smarter." Some argue that toll roads are the only smart play in a state where the Legislature has refused to raise the tax on gasoline,...

In 1907, horse-drawn wagons traveled through Manhattan's streets at an average pace of almost 12 miles an hour. A century later, the average vehicle speed at rush hour has dropped to eight miles an hour. The slowdown may have something to do with the 800,000-fold increase, over the intervening 99 years, in the number of motorized vehicles that head each day into Manhattan's central business district. Like Singapore, Stockholm, and Oslo before it, New York is about to enter a debate over a radical solution to its traffic problem: inner-city tolls designed to discourage vehicles from entering Manhattan between 60th...

Labor Day weekend is usually one of the busiest travel weekends of the year, but who can tell anymore? Our roads are so overcrowded that a hectic holiday weekend is indistinguishable from an average weekday. Washington, D.C. is already the fourth most congested city in the U.S., behind only San Francisco, Chicago and Los Angeles. Commute times during peak traffic hours are 51 percent longer than during off-peak times, meaning a trip that is supposed to take you 30 minutes takes over 45.

When it comes to internet connections we are quick to appreciate the importance of speed. Whether we're shopping, job hunting, or doing just about anything else, we recognize that our opportunities expand when broadband connections let us zip around this global network quickly. We'd never want to return to dial-up now, but that's what we're doing with another network -- our roadway system. Fifty years ago today President Eisenhower signed legislation that created the Interstate Highway System. Many years prior a young Ike endured a long lesson on the importance of mobility when he participated in coast-to-coast military convoy. Much...

March 21, 2006, 2:37PM Richmond rail plan draws a crowd Most of the 500 at town hall talk oppose Metro idea By RAD SALLEE Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle More than 500 people attended a town hall meeting Monday night on the controversial choice of a route for the Metropolitan Transit Authority's next light rail line, most opposing plans to build on Richmond Avenue. Those who spoke at the meeting, at St. Luke's United Methodist Church, 3471 Westheimer, were each given one minute to talk, and most said they favored a line on nearby Westpark. Some, like Christina Campbell, said construction...

January 5, 2006 Policy Analysis no. 559 A Desire Named Streetcar: How Federal Subsidies Encourage Wasteful Local Transit Systems by Randal O'Toole Randal O'Toole is director of the Thoreau Institute and an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute. Executive Summary The nation's mass transit system is a classic example of how special interests prevail over the needs and interests of voters and taxpayers. Total inflation-adjusted subsidies to transit?buses and trains?have more than doubled since 1990, yet total ridership has increased by less than 10 percent. Train ridership has dropped dramatically while automobile use has skyrocketed. Prior to 1964, when...

KLBJ radio reporting up to 5,000 cars parked along I-10 in Colorado County (near Columbus, TX) due to lack of gasoline or breakdowns. Also reporting trashcans at all quick stops/gasoline stations are overflowing. The exit ramps from I-10 into Columbus are closed and people are NOT allowed into the city from I-10.

Better drivers - men or women?" The underlying problem here is in the definition and insinuation of the phrase 'better driver'. Better at what? Which part of driving? There are so many procedures, manoeuvres, exercises and rules involved with driving that it is highly unlikely that one gender is going to be consistently able to perform them more efficiently than the other. Consider the following example..... 1) A car is stopped at a particularly busy t-junction and is indicating left. Inside the car is a man and a woman. If the man is at the wheel, he will pull out...

The Predator, with a 49-foot wingspan, is among the remotely piloted aircraft sending data from Iraq and Afghanistan back to crews in Nevada. U.S. Drones Crowding the Skies to Fight Insurgents in Iraq By ERIC SCHMITT NELLIS AIR FORCE BASE, Nev., March 30 - In the skies over Iraq, the number of remotely piloted aircraft - increasingly crucial tools in tracking insurgents, foiling roadside bombings, protecting convoys and launching missile attacks - has shot up to more than 700 now from just a handful four years ago, military officials say. As the American military continues to shift its emphasis...

AAA today released its list of some of the country's worst "Commuter Hot Spots" and launched a nationwide grassroots campaign to urge Congress to pass the federal transportation funding reauthorization bill. The nation's largest auto club also offered tips on how motorists can deal with the daily grind of rush hour commutes.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE December 16, 2004 AUSTIN —Taking an historic step, the Texas Transportation Commission today selected a proposal by Cintra — an international group of engineering, construction and financial firms — as the best value for the state in developing the Oklahoma-to-Mexico portion of the Trans-Texas Corridor (TTC-35). Cintra proposes to invest $6 billion in a toll road between Dallas and San Antonio by 2010, give the state $1.2 billion for additional transportation improvements between Oklahoma and Mexico, and to extend the corridor into the Lower Rio Grande Valley to Mexico. "This is an historic change in the way...

The Trans-Texas Corridor plan outlines a new vision for transportation in Texas. This proposed multi-use, statewide network of transportation routes will make driving safer, send hazardous cargo around populated areas, and sustain and enhance economic development. (Excerpt from website contents)

Is this a vanity? I dunno... I can barely SEE ANYTHING because my vision is blurred from all the tears... I haven't sneezed this much in MANY MANY YEARS... my chest hurts now :( Anyone else afflicted?

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. A vote in Florida next week over whether to invest public money in high speed train transportation could reverberate in Tennessee in the coming years. In Florida, voters will decide whether to move forward with a $40 billion high-speed rail system that would connect the state's largest cities. A similar system is in the planning stages in California, where high-speed trains will connect San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego. The cost is an estimated $37 billion. Voters were to decide next week whether to fund the first leg of the...

WASHINGTON - Americans are so frustrated by traffic that more than half say they would be willing to pay higher taxes if it really would improve things. For now, people are changing routes and schedules, but not getting out of their cars. Only about one in 20 uses mass transit, an Associated Press poll found. Fifty-five percent of those questioned said traffic in their area had worsened in the past five years, and three in 10 said it was much worse, according to the survey conducted for the AP by Ipsos-Public Affairs. Fifty-six percent said they would be willing to...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. WASHINGTON - Drivers in Phoenix spend nearly 23 million hours a year combined sitting in traffic at the notorious Mini-Stack interchange. Chicago motorists spend even more — 25.2 million hours — at the dreaded Circle Interchange. Los Angeles drivers on the Ventura Freeway at the I-405 interchange top them all, annually enduring 27 million hours of traffic delays. Those figures were calculated for a study released Thursday that said the number of major U.S. traffic chokepoints — places where highways cannot handle all the cars — rose 40 percent over five...

Unless a judge intervenes, the only exit ramp ferrying traffic from the Southwest Freeway into Midtown and downtown will close this week for a three-year reconstruction, leaving drivers across the Houston region scrambling to find alternate routes. U.S. District Judge David Hittner is expected to rule as early as today on a request by area residents to force the Texas Department of Transportation to delay tearing down the inbound lanes of Spur 527. The West Alabama Quality of Life Coalition argues that the neighborhoods surrounding the spur and freeway will suffer "irreparable harm" from the flood of traffic looking to...

Special units of emergency staff with life-saving equipment are to be created to deal with potential gridlock on Britain's roads. Amid rising concern about growing congestion throughout the country, transport officials fear that a whole city or trunk route could seize up - leaving drivers stranded in their cars. The Government's Highways Agency is looking at how it would cope with a major incident on its network of motorways and A-roads, including emergency medical help, water supplies and portable lavatories in case motorists are stuck for many hours. Gridlock in African cities such as Lagos in Nigeria is common, and...

While the Salinas Police Department says its anti-cruising crackdown is intended to protect the public, some people reject the strategy as both disruptive and unfair to young people. On Feb. 6, police announced a new campaign to eradicate cruising, the practice of vehicles repeatedly driving a street route to be seen and socialize. They say it breeds illegal activity. Last Friday and Saturday nights, officers set up checkpoints on North Main Street and threatened to ticket any drivers who passed through twice within six hours. The department plans a similar effort this weekend.... In calls and letters to The Californian,...