Free Republic

Gov. Larry Hogan never met a highway project he didn’t like. He’s a 1950s type of politician – solve all the state’s transportation gridlock and congestion by paving the countryside with lanes of new concrete.He’s got a $9 billion plan that is a lollapalooza: Let construction giants build and pay for toll lanes on the Capital Beltway and the busy I-270 corridor from the beltway to Frederick – 70 miles of exclusive Lexus lanes – and let those companies reap the toll rewards so they can recoup a staggering $7.6 billion investment (the actual cost is likely to be substantially...

Last Thursday, Maryland Governor Larry Hogan unveiled a $9 billion project to widen three of the state’s most heavily trafficked highways: I-270, I-495—also known as the Capital Beltway—and MD-295, the Baltimore-Washington Parkway. What the governor’s office dubbed the Traffic Relief Plan involves constructing two express toll lanes each way—or four total toll lanes—to all three highways. Widening the Capital Beltway and the section of I-270 connecting the growing commuter-city of Frederick to Washington, D.C., would cost an estimated $7.6 billion, which the state expects to be financed via public-private partnerships: Private companies would build and maintain the new toll lanes,...

CHICAGO — Sixteen miles of new "flex lanes" will allow PACE buses to breeze past traffic along I-90 going west from O'Hare Airport, suburban transportation officials announced this week. The lanes will carry six new bus lines all along the Jane Addams Tollway, half of them linking up with the Rosemont Blue Line station to give passengers direct access to the city. Ratcheting up bus service was the last piece of a $2.5 billion effort to widen the tollway between O'Hare and suburban Elgin, officials said. Construction wrapped up last December. The extra lane will stay clear most of the...

Dozens of public transit projects around the country are in danger of stalling as the White House's plan to boost U.S. infrastructure fails to gain momentum - with thousands of jobs at risk. The uncertainty over these projects has worsened in recent days as President Donald Trump - who had vowed to make the week's focus infrastructure - faced a series of distractions, including a congressional hearing featuring former FBI director James Comey. The president, who had called for $1 trillion in new infrastructure programs to create millions of jobs, now faces an increasing probability that not only will his...

Is fighting sprawl still a goal for those who decide the fate of transportation funding at the federal, state and local levels?Transportation planning is deeply connected to economic development, but there in any agreement about transportation funding among government leaders often ends.Parag Khanna, a senior public policy analyst in Singapore and author of “Connectography: Mapping the Future of Global Civilization,” summarized the political divide over transportation planning like this: “America is increasingly divided not between red states and blue states, but between connected hubs and disconnected backwaters.”But division that stymies transportation planning goes further. Government leaders have always been divided...

AUBURN, Ala. - Two employees of the transit system at Auburn University have been accused of raping an 18-year-old student on one of the buses Friday night. Tony Martin Patillo, 51, of Columbus, Georgia, and James Don Johnson Jr., 32, of Auburn, are each charged with first-degree rape and first-degree sodomy, according to Lee County Jail records. Patillo is also charged with four counts of public lewdness. The Opelika-Auburn News reported that the lewdness charges stem from an incident just before midnight on Friday in which witnesses spotted a man exposing himself while standing over a woman on the ground....

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...

TAMPA — Hillsborough County leaders voted Tuesday to move forward with a plan to add 90 miles of toll lanes to Tampa Bay's interstates despite continued opposition from the people whose neighborhoods would be impacted the most by the project. The Hillsborough County Metropolitan Planning Organization — a 16-person board which approves transportation projects — listened to more than 3½- hours of public comment on its Transportation Improvement Program, which lists the county's priorities for the next five years. The TIP includes dozens of projects, from road maintenance to bike paths. But the evening's debate centered around only one project:...

The city of Madrid has joined the likes of other Progressive cities like New York City and banned “manspreading” on mass transit. According to Spanish news source the Local, the Municipal Transportation Company (EMT) will be posting signs on the bus system discouraging men from spreading their legs when sitting. A tweet by the Madrid City Council shows the signs will include a big red “x” next to a photo of a man with his legs spread and the phrase, “Respect the space of others” next to it: In a statement provided to the Local, the EMT said, “The new...

DENVER - The future of RTD commuter rail lines may be in question after its private business partner claims there is no solution to a lingering problem. In a letter to RTD, Denver Transit Partners said the crossing gate timing issue won’t be fixed by the deadline. Denver Transit Partners is made up of the group of contractors who built and maintain the A Line, B Line and the future G Line. At issue, the crossing gates that must be manned 24 hours a day, seven days a week, because of a computer glitch. ... The crossing gate technology does...

Westminster-based Knorr Brake Co., which makes brakes, doors and HVAC systems for mass-transit rail lines, will add 200 new jobs over the next six years, the Maryland Department of Commerce announced Thursday. The company will add 30,000 square feet of space to its facility at the Westminster Technology Park, investing $2.2 million. The company built its facility there in 2013. The Maryland Department of Commerce will provide a $700,000 conditional loan through the Maryland Economic Development Assistance Authority and Fund to help the company expand. Knorr Brake currently has 280 full-time employees....

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...

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...

A new study by the Paris Region Planning and Development Agency (IAU) has found that 56 per cent of women are afraid to use public transport due to concerns over sex attacks and theft. Le Parisien reports respondents’ insecurity as a “legitimate fear”, noting that 37-per-cent of robberies without violence and 39-per-cent of sexual assaults against women are carried out on public transport and at train stations. “Amongst female respondents, the fear of being attacked or robbed is so strong it prevents them from using public transport,” the IAU said. “Women are four times more likely (6.2 per cent) to...

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.

As I retire, I want to devote my last column to travelers who wrote in to discuss their tips and travails. Some wanted to get something fixed. Some just wanted to vent. All were welcome. Dear Dr. Gridlock: I’m not a commuter, but I have a real gridlock problem. When people in a left lane don’t pull up to the vehicle in front of them, they block the ability of people trying to turn left from accessing the left-turn lane. I can’t even count how many times I’ve missed the left green arrow because of this. It seems that if...

Federal funding for Maryland’s Purple Line is in jeopardy, as are Metro’s hopes for a significant increase in money from the government under President Trump’s proposed 2018 budget released Thursday. Trump’s proposed spending plan, which slashes the federal transportation budget by 13 percent, also curbs long-distance Amtrak service out of Washington and cuts millions in federal grants that the region’s governments have relied on for new rapid bus lines, road work, bus stop improvements and bike paths. The cuts came as a shock to many, considering Trump’s campaign pledge to pump $1 trillion into the nation’s crumbling infrastructure. “I find...

MERCER ISLAND, Wash. - The city of Mercer Island plans to sue Sound Transit and the State Department of Transportation over I-90 access, which could freeze the East Light construction project set to begin in June. The City Council unanimously approved the legal action Monday during a packed council meeting. They plan to sue both agencies and seek a moratorium on the construction as they search for short-term solutions to their traffic concerns. In response to the authorized legal action, Sound Transit CEO Peter Rogoff released a statement calling the decision “highly regrettable.” “While Sound Transit remains ready to reach...

As cities across Ontario finalize their budgets and try to squeeze out savings to expand public transit, something doesn't add up. Too many cities, including Toronto, are missing out on hundreds of millions in savings. That's because Ontario has a labour law loophole that's putting cities, companies and taxpayers at a huge disadvantage. The heated debate over road tolls in Toronto has distracted from a far simpler way of saving for public transit expansion. Here it is: Change the way construction projects are tendered. Right now, Toronto and too many other municipalities including Hamilton, Sault Ste. Marie and the Region...

BART, whose trains carry riders between a number of Bay Area sanctuary cities, will consider adopting its own policy protecting undocumented immigrants from the federal government. The BART board decided to consider a measure proposed Thursday by directors Nick Josefowitz of San Francisco and Lateefah Simon of Oakland. “Recent studies indicate that there are over 500,000 undocumented immigrants living in the Bay Area. Many of these immigrants ride BART every day,” Josefowitz said, adding that they should feel safe aboard BART.