Free Republic

PRINCE GEORGE COUNTY, Va. -- A driver is facing charges after a Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) contractor was struck and killed while setting up a work zone on I-95 in Prince George County Saturday morning.Virginia State Police Sgt. Keeli L. Hill said the crash happened at 11:15 a.m. on southbound I-95 nearly three miles north of Route 602.Hill said 27-year-old Samantha C. Hughes, of Wilmington, North Carolina, was traveling southbound when she looked down and took her eyes off the road.That is when 25-year-old Dustin Michael Warden, of Carson, Virginia, was struck while he was out of his vehicle...

Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) announced a deal Wednesday that will add 10 more miles of express lanes to the Interstate 95 corridor, expanding the system of high-occupancy toll (HOT) lanes to Fredericksburg by 2022. As part of the agreement, the private company building the lanes will give the state $277 million upfront to cover costs of a bridge over the Rappahannock River and other improvements along the corridor, Virginia transportation officials said. The deal essentially moves forward a 10-mile extension from Garrisonville Road (Route 610) in Stafford County to Route 17 in the Fredericksburg area. It also builds on...

It seems weary commuters will have to wait four more months before they can start using the Sarah Mildred Long Bridge between Portsmouth and Kittery, Maine. The lift-span bridge will now be open to traffic in mid-May, eight months after cars were supposed to start using it to cross the Piscataqua River, according to an updated construction schedule from Cianbro, the Pittsfield-based construction company hired by the state of Maine to build the bridge. Cianbro spokesman Alan Grover did not return a interview request Tuesday to explain why bridge construction has been delayed. Cianbro started construction on the $160 million...

PENNINGTON, N.J.—The past few years have been thick with promises of shiny new infrastructure and the revival of American greatness. Funny, then, that so little has been made of a quiet victory for U.S. infrastructure due later this year. By September 2018, one of the country’s most famous civil-engineering projects will finally complete construction, six decades after work on it began. Interstate 95, the country’s most used highway, will finally run as one continuous road between Miami and Maine by the late summer. The interstate’s infamous “gap” on the Pennsylvania and New Jersey border will be closed, turning I-95 into...

NEW DELHI: A turf battle for national highways has erupted with the department of economic affairs (DEA) seeking to take control of the funding for the highway construction programme. After unsuccessfully pushing for corporatisation of the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI), the DEA has proposed changes in the Central Road Fund (CRF) Act to take control of the allotment of fuel cess for infrastructure projects and to decide the priority of expenditure. So far, the road transport and highways ministry is entitled to get the largest share of the CRF, estimated at 41%. The proposal to use 2.5% of...

A Republican congressman says the U.S. government should significantly raise the gas tax in order to fund President Donald Trump's ambitious infrastructure plan. Rep. Bill Shuster of Pennsylvania told Bloomberg TV that the tax should be increased by 15 cents per gallon of gasoline. The current rate is 18.4 cents, and hasn't seen a hike since 1993. Shuster said Thursday at a Republican congressional retreat in West Virginia that for the average American, a 15-cent increase would equal the cost of 'a cup of coffee a week that they might have to forgo.' 'Or if you're a Starbucks person, half...

The Maryland Attorney General’s Office has called into question the state’s authority to grant permission to Tesla founder Elon Musk’s tunneling startup, The Boring Co., to build several miles of tunnels for his high-speed Hyperloop transportation system below the Baltimore-Washington Parkway. The State Highway Administration granted a conditional utility permit on Oct. 16 to allow The Boring Co. to begin building the tunnels, if the company supplies additional information about the project and it meets all necessary requirements. But the Hyperloop system “is not a utility under federal standards or SHA’s federally-approved utility accommodation policies,” Assistant Attorney General David Stamper...

Border Patrol agents in El Paso, Texas found a 75-foot tunnel along the U.S. bank of the Rio Grande river – and one former Border Patrol chief believes its origins could go back 100 years. The tunnel was found when Texas Department of Transportation employees were building near downtown and notified Border Patrol agents of a cave in. The Border Patrol’s Confined Space Entry Team went inside to take a look and found it goes further into the U.S. but not into Mexico. “Remediation efforts are already under way, which include filling the tunnel with concrete. At this time we...

At least 10 construction workers died and several were injured after a partially constructed bridge in central Colombia collapsed on Monday. The laborers were working on the bridge's drainage system when the incident occurred. The victims fell 280 meters (920 feet) into a ravine in Chirajara about 95 kilometers (60 miles) from the Colombian capital of Bogota.

At a measly 17 cents a gallon, Missouri’s fuel tax is woefully inadequate to fund the state’s growing need for transportation-infrastructure improvements. The more the system deteriorates, the worse our state’s business climate will become. Gov. Eric Greitens could put some muscle into his determination to attract business and generate more jobs by embracing a long-overdue fuel tax increase. The Missouri 21st Century Transportation Task Force, created by the Legislature and approved by the governor last year, proposes to boost the tax by a dime, and by 12 cents for diesel, which is only about half of what’s needed to...

Just after the end of World War I, a young Army officer who was born in Denison, Texas, was assigned to accompany an expedition of military vehicles driving across America. The mission was to determine the difficulties the nation might face moving an entire army across the continent. Lucky thing the country was no longer at war. The convoy constantly ground to a halt on unpaved roads, sinking into mud, slipping into ditches and sliding into quicksand. The cross-country journey took 62 days, averaging about six miles an hour, something close to the speed of a leisurely walk. The lessons...

A leaked six-page memo that purportedly outlines some of the key principles of the Trump administration’s long-awaited infrastructure plan is drawing fire from several corners of the trucking industry – especially regarding plans to allow states to broaden interstate tolling efforts and commercialize rest stops.“Our primary concern is that the memo talks about giving states the ‘flexibility’ to toll existing interstates and ‘reconcile the grandfathered restrictions on the use of highway toll revenues with current law.’ We’re gearing up for a big fight over that,” Stephanie Kane, spokesperson for the Alliance for Toll-Free Interstates, told Fleet Owner.Related: ATRI: Fuel tax...

SOUTHINGTON, CT — In alphabetical order, a majority of Democratic and one unaffiliated candidates for governor endorsed the idea of installing electronic tolls on Connecticut’s highways and received applause for it. The nine candidates participated in a forum Friday sponsored by the Connecticut Construction Industries Association. The same group sponsored a similar forum in December for the Republican gubernatorial candidates as well. None of the candidates who are still in the “exploratory” phase of their campaigns for governor were invited to either forum — only the declared candidates. The problem: Connecticut’s special transportation fund will start running a deficit in...

Southington — Oz Griebel, a petitioning candidate for governor who once led the state Transportation Strategy Board, told an audience of construction executives and union members Friday that Connecticut must embrace electronic tolling and higher gasoline taxes to preserve and improve its transportation infrastructure.At a transportation forum for Democratic and unaffiliated candidates, Griebel offered the broadest prescription for how to stabilize and grow a special transportation fund now projected to hit insolvency by 2022, leaving the state unable to borrow money to address a growing backlog of transportation needs.Many of the Democrats, unlike the Republican field at a similar event...

WASHINGTON — Expanding and extending Beltway toll lanes over the Potomac River sooner, delays and changes to D.C. Streetcar plans, and changes to widening plans for a number of roads across the region. Those are some of the transportation projects that moved forward to be part of long-range plans that can actually be constructed in coming years. Other projects accepted Wednesday as having the funding to move forward include an additional lane by 2025 on Interstate 95 south just across the Occoquan River to exit 160, and a plan to widen Route 15 from Battlefield Parkway to Montresor Road near...

OKLAHOMA CITY – Drivers across Oklahoma can expect to pay more on some turnpikes next year. On Tuesday, the Oklahoma Turnpike Authority voted to increase the tolls of some routes by 2.5 percent in January. Experts predict that the increase will cost drivers between 5 cents and 10 cents more on their trip. As you may remember, tolls were increased on the state’s turnpikes in March by about 12 percent. At that time, turnpike officials warned that rates would increase again in 2018 and in 2019. Officials say another 2.5 percent increase is expected in 2019.

With 1 in 5 working instead of attending school, the country is grappling with a potential future crisis. The programme Get Real meets the children, their parents and the enforcers who are trying to stamp out the problem. His back bent under a heavy load of bricks and gravel, the boy trudges towards an unfinished water tank under the morning sun, starting his long day as a mason’s assistant. Only 13, Aye Min is already a construction worker, having left school three years ago to help support his family. “It’s dangerous (work). I’ve worked on the seventh floor before; I...

OKLAHOMA COUNTY - Work is set to begin next week on a controversial, new turnpike that will carve a path through eastern Oklahoma County. The Eastern Oklahoma County Turnpike will connect I-40 to the Turner Turnpike, traveling roughly along Luther Road. Since the project was first announced almost two and a half years ago, it has drawn protests from many in the area who are set to lose their homes and land. “Even to this day, we don’t have a size or an actual line or layout for sure of what they even want,” said Joe Krecke. What Krecke does...

Motorists frustrated by the unending cycle of toll increases by the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission can take some comfort in a performance audit of the agency announced by state Auditor General Eugene DePasquale. The latest increase, effective Sunday, boosted tolls 6 percent; it's the 10th consecutive increase in as many years. Mr. DePasquale said the audit will examine the Turnpike Commission's assertion that traffic will increase despite increased tolls. It will also look at the turnpike's annual payments to PennDOT and the commission's process for awarding construction contracts. Given the increasing toll on motorists' wallets, a closer look at turnpike operations...

Local planning politics on Los Angeles’s Westside is in a sad state of affairs. There, a municipally-led push to complete city streets by adding bicycle infrastructure and other pedestrian improvements has been met with fierce opposition from local drivers. Recent efforts in L.A’s Mar Vista neighborhood, for example, grew so toxic that community members launched a now-stalled recall bid to remove Mike Bonin—the local council person who champions the so-called “road diets” as well as the city’s Vision Zero plan those diets support—from office. The embarrassing spectacle has thrown into question the commitment L.A. residents have not only toward prioritizing...