Free Republic

For too long the state has held our roads and bridges hostage while increasing spending on other priorities like Medicaid expansion, hoping we taxpayers get so frustrated by traffic we’ll agree to a tax increase. Well, this fall voters will have a choice. As the Denver Chamber of Commerce pimps a 21% state sales tax increase for transit, roads and a slush fund for cities, there will be an alternative as our Fix Our Damn Roads initiative will also be on the ballot. It will force the state to use its large surplus funds and re-prioritize less than 2 percent...

Marylanders spend more time commuting to work than the residents of every other state, apart from New York. The time spent stuck in I-270 or Beltway traffic is maddeningly frustrating. Congestion results in less time spent with families and discourages workers from taking jobs involving longer commutes. Economists estimate that congestion costs run into the billions. The statewide cost of congestion based on auto delay, truck delay and wasted fuel and emissions was estimated at $2 billion in 2015. This is an increase of 22% from the $1.7 billion estimated cost for congestion in 2013. As serious a problem as...

Once again, the oh-so progressive, oh-so enlightened Seattle City Council is showing the rest of the country what not to do. The idealistic leftists who control the Council are wasting millions of hard-earned taxpayer dollars in failed attempts to solve problems the Council members created. All this is turning Seattle into the poster city for the failure of Big Government. The city best known for fish markets, coffee stores, rain and flannel-wearing musicians is now becoming legendary for its incompetent leadership and its financial boondoggles. The latest example of Seattle senselessness is the Council’s costly and deeply flawed efforts to...

ne city project has gone further off the rails. The new Seattle streetcars may not fit on the city’s existing rail lines. That heavy fact is among a handful of details from independent auditor KPMG. Its initial report on the Seattle streetcar system has raised more questions than answers. Mayor Jenny Durkan halted all construction on the City Center Connector Project in March after it became apparent that costs were over-budget by $23 million. The project aims to connect separate streetcar lines in South Lake Union and First Hill with a new line through the downtown core. But the streetcars...

Maryland’s $9 billion plan to expand the Beltway and Interstate 270 is among the nation’s biggest boondoggles, a public-interest advocacy group said Tuesday in a new report. The report — issued by U.S. PIRG Education Fund and Frontier Group — highlights nine highway projects, including Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan’s plan to widen certain roadways using public-private partnerships and tolling to pay for them. The advocates say these projects are unwise for several reasons. They say expanding or building new highways always leads to more congestion over time through the wholly predictable phenomenon of “induced demand”: When new capacity opens up,...

Any Montgomery County voter looking for traffic relief will not get much hope from the transportation manifestos of Montgomery County’s “progressive” Democrats this primary season. Collectively, they all try to outdo each other in their opposition to anything involving spending for roads. Instead of supporting projects that will reduce travel times, they propose diverting more money to public transit. They push a strategy of “planned gridlock” that is intended to drive motorists from their cars. If alleging “planned gridlock” seems harsh, consider the Montgomery County Council legislation designed to slow traffic flow by significantly narrowing travel lane widths on some...

FAIRFAX, Va. — Both Interstate 66 tolls for solo drivers and expanded HOV hours have not slowed traffic on most major parallel routes during the morning rush hour, Virginia transportation officials said Tuesday.A new analysis — which found the average daily toll paid in January was $12.37 — also showed that even an increased number of cars on some roads like U.S. Route 50 did not significantly change travel times in January, compared with the same time a year earlier.“What we’re still seeing is the project is working as intended,” said Nick Donohue, Virginia’s deputy transportation secretary.The Virginia Department of...

A coalition of local leaders backed by the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce wants voters to approve a sales tax increase on the November ballot to pay for projects like the widening of Interstate 25 and the buildout of bike lanes. The group filed four ballot measures with the Secretary of State on Thursday that would raise between $500 million and $1 billion for transportation projects, according to the chamber, and allow that money to be used to pay for bonds, which would generate even more upfront cash. A booming population across the Front Range has created traffic snarls on...

HARRISONBURG, Va. (WHSV) -- A group of 16 Virginia lawmakers has penned a letter to Virginia's Congressional Delegation (comprised of Senators Tim Kaine and Mark Warner and Representatives Bob Goodlatte, Barbara Comstock, and Morgan Griffith) asking for federal assistance to improve Interstate 81. The interstate has long been a source of frustration for people in the Shenandoah Valley, with the Virginia Department of Transportation reporting at least a 12-percent increase in traffic in just the past five years and a 55-percent increase of delays from crashes, construction, or bad weather. In 2014, Delegate Steve Landes introduced a state budget item...

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...

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...

HARRISBURG, PA (Jan. 4, 2018) —The PA Turnpike Commission (PTC) today reminded motorists that beginning 12:01 a.m. on Jan. 7 tolls will reflect a six-percent increase for both cash and E-ZPass customers. The toll increase, approved by commissioners last July, is needed to meet the PTC’s funding and capital-improvement obligations. Additionally, the PTC is legislatively mandated to offer $450 million in supplemental funding to PennDOT each year under Act 44 of 2007. Since Act 44 was passed, the PTC has provided payments to PennDOT totaling $5.875 billion. Of that amount, $3.625 billion has provided financial assistance to the commonwealth’s mass-transit...

Miami-Dade’s beleaguered transit system took its worst plunge in use ever in the past fiscal year, new figures reveal. Ridership among all four transit modes declined a combined 9.6% as almost one in every 10 riders disappeared. ....just as the county is promoting plans for six new legs of mass transit in its multi-billion-dollar Smart plan....

WASHINGTON — With construction on new toll lanes ramping up this year on Interstate 66 between Gainesville and the Beltway, Virginia’s Commonwealth Transportation Board is due to approve a number of projects next week that will be paid for by the toll lane operators. After a public hearing Thursday, the board is due to vote Jan. 10 on how to spend $496 million of a $579 million payment that Express Mobility Partners gave the state as part of the construction agreement. An additional $79 million is due to go toward oversight of the project, including public outreach, and there is...

WASHINGTON — About two years ago, during the last big debate over Interstate 66 rush-hour tolls for solo drivers, there was a lot of talk about $17 round-trip tolls. Virginia’s transportation secretary said this week that the tolls drivers have seen inside the Beltway so far remain in line with those projections. New data the Virginia Department of Transportation provided Thursday from the first day of tolls on Monday morning show the average morning toll for drivers who paid with an E-ZPass, or who will get automated violation notices in the mail, was $10.70, while the average afternoon toll paid...

The nearly $30-billion Gateway program to overhaul Northeast Corridor rail lines between Newark and New York City, an array of tunnels, bridges and viaduct over wetlands has two main thrusts: rehabilitation and expansion. These objectives are deeply intertwined—the project team must build new structures in the huge effort before it can upgrade old ones. That’s why digging two 1.4-mile, 28-ft-dia train tunnels under the Hudson River—an estimated $12.9-billion project component—isn’t just an expansion job but a lifeline to free a pair of 107-year-old tubes heavily damaged by Superstorm Sandy in 2012 and in need of a rebuild. It’s also why...

This year, America’s overall infrastructure was awarded a D+ grade, according to the American Society of Civil Engineers’ “Infrastructure Report Card.” Arizona’s infrastructure may be relatively newer by comparison but it is starting to show signs of wear and tear as indicated by the C grade that it received from ASEC. While the state of Arizona’s infrastructure may not be in as dire of shape as other urban areas, the need for new and repaired infrastructure is widely talked about, especially at Valley Partnership. For 30 years now, Valley Partnership has been the rational voice at the table whenever important...

BOSTON — One year after the lights went permanently dark inside the Bay State’s remaining human-staffed tollbooths, giving way to the era of all-electronic tolling, a bill on Beacon Hill touted by a powerful Democrat from Lynn would expand tolling throughout Greater Boston, with high-traveled freeways like Route 128, Interstate 93, Interstate 95, and Route 2 transitioning into tollways. State Senator Thomas McGee, the chairman of the Joint Transportation Committee, filed the bill, “An Act Establishing the Metropolitan Transportation Network,” last January. His bill was heard by the committee on Tuesday. Testifying at the hearing against the bill was Citizens...

If you live in the Bay Area, you’ll be hearing a lot about Senate Bill 595 over the next year or so. If you’re a regular user of any of the region’s seven state-owned toll bridges — that’s all of them, except the Golden Gate Bridge — you’ll want to pay close attention. SB 595, which won final passage Thursday and now awaits Gov. Jerry Brown’s signature, provides for a vote in the nine Bay Area counties next year to raise bridge tolls by as much as $3. If the Bay Area Toll Authority, the agency that oversees the bridges,...