Free Republic

“We have bridges that are falling down,” then-candidate Donald Trump told Fox last August, pledging to double the amount Hillary Clinton wanted to spend on infrastructure as president of the United States. “We’ll get a fund, we’ll make a phenomenal deal with the low interest rates and rebuild our infrastructure.” One year later and eight months into his presidency, Trump has continued to double down on his lofty promises — during “Infrastructure Week” in June, he told his supporters in Cincinnati that the U.S. “deserves the best infrastructure in the world.” But the administration has been slow to move its...

LONDON — The rest of the planet bears a warning for President Trump’s plan to lean heavily on private business in conjuring a trillion dollars’ worth of American infrastructure: Handing profit-making companies responsibility for public works can produce trouble. In India, politically connected firms have captured contracts on the strength of relationships with officialdom, yielding defective engineering at bloated prices. When Britain handed control to private companies to upgrade London’s subway system more than a decade ago, the result was substandard, budget-busting work, prompting the government to step back in. Canada has suffered a string of excessive costs on public...

Texas is a highway state. This reality stems from the need to meet the mobility demands of both sprawling metropolitan regions and vast rural areas.Paying for the state's massive system of highways has always been a challenge, however. Estimates from the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) put the state's highway expansion and maintenance needs alone at nearly $383 billion by 2040. Existing public funding, projected to be $70 billion over the next decade, will not be able to cover that cost without unprecedented funding increases after 2026.While Texans are clearly amenable to paying for better roads — two recent state...

HOUSTON - The teachers at Spring Forest Middle School asked KHOU 11's Verify team whether Beltway 8 has been paid off and if the tolls will ever go away in the foreseeable future. "Why do we still pay for toll roads?" wondered 7th grade teacher Rebecca Mustachio. "To be honest, I thought we would be done paying for toll roads." We are not even close to paying the bill for those roads, according to Roxana Sibrian of the Harris County Toll Road Authority. In a statement emailed to KHOU, the authority says it will be paying off construction debt until...

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s grand plan to spend $1 trillion over the next 10 years on highways and other infrastructure improvements faces a formidable roadblock in Congress and state legislatures. There’s agreement the investment is badly needed to improve the nation’s sagging infrastructure but how to cover the huge expense is the point of tension. Trump would use $200 billion in public funds to generate $800 billion in private money under a partnership program that would finance government bonds and also return a profit to private companies through interstate tolls and other user fees. To do that, Congress would...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Donald Trump ended a week dedicated to modernizing U.S. highways, railways and rivers with a thud. The president visited the Transportation Department to highlight his goal of making it easier to build such projects. Trump said the permitting process takes too long, costing time and money. He pledged that "my administration is committed to ending these terrible delays once and for all." Underscoring the point, Trump flipped through the pages of a pair of thick binders that held the environmental impact statement for a Maryland highway. With the dramatic flair of the reality TV star he...

Solving traffic issues across our state is an age-old problem.Southern Nevada faces gridlock as the area continues to expand. Northern Nevada's geography makes road construction and rehab trickier.But the appetite for taxes, which help build our roads, is weak. One potential solution? Toll roads.Tom Skancke is a lobbyist and transportation expert who thinks toll roads could be a great way for Nevada to help improve its infrastructure."What I'm suggesting is that more states around the country and particularly in the West -- in the Intermountain West -- have a serious conversation about more toll lanes," he said.Skancke said one of...

This week, while Donald Trump ensnares himself in the most serious threat to his presidency to date, Congress is, to some extent, continuing with the typical business of government. A series of hearings during “Infrastructure Week” are focusing on the administration’s rumored infrastructure plan.Although the White House has been talking up private infrastructure investment as a replacement for public funding, a panel of experts told Congress that, even with perfectly executed public-private partnerships, the federal government still needs to provide its own support — especially for projects, like transit lines, that aren’t guaranteed to generate toll revenue for profit-seeking investors.This...

Please stop, I silently beg the three drivers heading down the on ramp to Interstate 70 from Washington Avenue. I’m driving parallel to them at 55 mph with a line of traffic behind me. I have my turn signal on signifying that I’m getting off at the exit just west of that on ramp. I cannot slam on my brakes and stop on the highway to allow these drivers to merge into my lane. Yet they keep coming down the ramp toward me. Fear has crept into my throat and I cannot scream if I wanted to. Don’t they understand...

In 1994, the Florida Legislature and the Miami-Dade County Commission adopted legislation creating the Miami-Dade Expressway Authority, also known as MDX, in an effort to maintain toll dollars in Miami-Dade to improve the quality of life of county residents. Fast forward 23 years — Miami-Dade’s population has grown to more than 2.6 million residents and out-of-town visitation has nearly doubled; thus, increasing the use of our roadways by both residents and visitors. This combination equals only one thing — ever growing traffic. The Florida Department of Transportation, Florida’s Turnpike, MDX, and Miami-Dade County have spent billions on expanding the Palmetto...

Why on God’s green Earth has the state legislature dawdled on the question of whether or not to extend tolling on the West Virginia Turnpike? Seriously. We have looked all around the issue for the past few years and have not found a single, solitary good reason the $2 fee shouldn’t be continued once the bonds are paid off in May 2019. Under current state law, toll collections will cease, the Parkways Authority will disband and the commissioner of Highways will assume oversight of the Turnpike the year after next if legislators fail to amend current legislation. Forget – in...

HARTFORD – Toll talk is back at the State Capitol. Some lawmakers say it will drive billions into the state over the next two decades and others want to put the brakes on the idea.At a hearing, Monday, the proposal to bring electronic tolls to Connecticut highways was discussed, with public comment both for and against it.State accountants said the way Connecticut funds transportation will no longer be sustainable in the next four years and a new revenue source is needed.“This doesn't make any sense at all," State Sen. Toni Boucher said. "This is just another name for another tax...

The idea of doing away with the Maine Turnpike Authority and eliminating tolls has a long and unsuccessful history through both Democratic and Republican administrations.Gov. Paul LePage revived the concept at a town hall meeting in Gorham on Wednesday night, saying he would like to see the turnpike authority merged with the Maine Department of Transportation and the elimination of almost all tollbooths, having one only in Kittery to collect tolls from out-of-state drivers. “The only toll we should have is for the visitors coming in and out of the state in the summer months,” LePage said, adding that Mainers...

DENVER (AP) — Colorado's legislative leaders knew they faced a hard sell when they unveiled a bipartisan measure to ask voters for a sales tax hike and a bond issue to generate billions of dollars for transportation. That hard sell was on full display before the Democrat-led House initially approved the bill on party lines Thursday. Even after that approval, Republicans kept trying to change the bill.

BALTIMORE (WJZ) — A bill that has already passed the Maryland House of Delegates would fine drivers up to $250 for lingering in the left lane of a highway after passing another vehicle.House Bill 1451 was sponsored by Frederick County Republican Delegate William G. Folden and is now pending in the Senate.Folden says the aim of the bill is to prevent traffic congestion.When it passed in the House last week, he posted the following statement on his Facebook page: “By the slimmest of margins and probably the most bi-partisan voting sheet I’ve seen, my bill for “Left Lane Passing Only”...

BROOKSVILLE (FOX 13) - Some neighbors in Hernando County have had it with the noise. They say all-night construction on I-75 is keeping them awake, even shaking their homes. It's all related to a 6.5-mile, $95 million FDOT project that started last summer. Crews are currently widening Interstate 75 from four to six lanes, starting south of State Road 50 and finishing at the Hernando/Sumter County line. Lauretta Clemons, who lives on Shadywood Lane in Brooksville, remembers her backyard 30 years ago. "Beautiful," Clemons said. "Trees, ferns, flowers, birds and wild animals." Now, the trees are gone and she and...

<p>MADISON -- A new audit shows huge cost overruns at the Wisconsin Department of Transportation, with dozens of projects costing double or triple their original estimates.</p> <p>The Legislative Audit Bureau report finds that estimated costs for 19 major projects completed between 2006 and 2016 were $1.5 billion, double the initial projection. The audit also finds that the estimated costs of 16 ongoing major highway projects have increased by $3.1 billion.</p>

President Trump has promised to eliminate regulations and rebuild the nation’s aging infrastructure. Federal agencies are awash with regulations and provisions based on the presumption that government is, and should be, the sole provider of infrastructure. But now that we understand the merits of public-private partnerships, which can provide more accountable public-purpose infrastructure, these numerous regulations and provisions serve as major obstacles preventing the improvement of highways and other infrastructure. Back in 1995, Reason Foundation published a policy study itemizing a number of these regulatory barriers. Sadly, most of them still exist today. If a state or municipal facility has...

The cost of driving in Pennsylvania is going up on two fronts in the new year. First, the state tax on wholesale motor fuels will increase Jan. 1 — 8 cents for gasoline and nearly 11 cents for diesel fuel. Those costs are expected to be passed on to retail prices at the pump. A week later, tolls on the Pennsylvania Turnpike will increase for the ninth year in a row, this time by 6 percent. The change will increase the cost of a trip from Ohio to New Jersey from $48.90 to $51.85 for cash and from $34.93 to...

The cost of toll roads, the toll of urban congestion, ride-hailing battles and a high-speed train war garnered plenty of attention in Texas this year. And after the Legislature spent two sessions focusing on highway funding, lawmakers now appear poised to tackle other transportation matters next year. Here's a look at the year's biggest transportation stories and how they may continue to unfold in the coming months:1. Uber and Lyft roll out of Austin after losing city electionNational ride-hailing companies Uber and Lyft stopped operating in Austin after voters there rejected an ordinance that would have repealed certain regulations, including...