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Keyword: transportation

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  • Rotten Roads Ahead: U.S. Infrastructure Is Falling Apart

    02/13/2013 8:16:30 PM PST · by ExxonPatrolUs · 30 replies
    The Truth About Cars ^ | 2-13-2013 | Bertel Schmitt
    The U.S. transportation system is in danger of falling apart, and will take down the economy with it, Bill Shuster, chairman of the House of Representatives Transportation Committee, said today while Reuters was keeping notes: “If we don’t deal with this issue at some point, as I said, we will reach a tipping point and the transportation system may not recover and we will fall behind the rest of the world.” According to Shuster, the U.S. transportation system has already “gone from being one of the top three, four (or) five systems in the world to now we’re 23 or...
  • Fireworks Truck Explodes on Bridge in China (87 yards collapse)

    02/01/2013 10:03:23 AM PST · by Pan_Yan · 16 replies
    New York Times ^ | February 1, 2013 | CHRIS BUCKLEY
    HONG KONG — A truck laden with fireworks exploded on an elevated expressway in central China on Friday, unleashing a blast that threw vehicles 30 yards to the ground below and killing at least nine people, state news reports said. The truck was on an expressway near Sanmenxia in Henan Province in morning fog when the truck erupted, causing an 87-yard section of the Yichang Bridge to collapse, according to the Web site of Dahe Daily, a newspaper in Henan, which quoted rescue officials at the site. Earlier, officials had raised the possibility that a bridge collapse set off the...
  • White House inactive on attack dangers ('The threat is on nobody's radar screen')

    01/08/2013 10:37:30 AM PST · by Perseverando · 26 replies
    WND ^ | January 7, 2013 | F. Michael Maloof
    WASHINGTON – The United States now is facing two serious national security challenges, but they aren’t expected to be addressed effectively because of the serious budgetary headaches Congress has created, and a virtually deadlocked legislature on just about every issue pending, according to report from Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin. And the White House apparently isn’t paying attention. The first is the growing concern of the impact that an electromagnetic pulse, or EMP, event – either natural or manmade – could have on the national grid system, on which the Department of Defense has a 99 percent dependency. The other concern...
  • I-270 gridlock cries out for solutions

    01/08/2013 6:40:13 AM PST · by Tolerance Sucks Rocks · 37 replies
    WTOP ^ | January 7, 2013 | Ari Ashe
    WASHINGTON - Interstate 270 is considered one of the most choked roads in the Washington region, but solutions for the gridlock are few and far between. Figures from the Maryland Department of Transportation show about 114,000 cars use I-270 daily, and that number is expected to jump to 200,000 in the next 10 to 15 years. "Everyone who is familiar with 270 knows it is jammed up in the morning rush hour and evening rush hour," says Gus Bauman, who studies transportation and funding and who chaired a Maryland Blue Ribbon Commission on Transportation Funding. One proposal to ease congestion...
  • San Jose, CA light rail among the nation's worst

    12/27/2012 12:00:43 PM PST · by fifedom · 21 replies
    San Jose Mercury-News ^ | 12/27/12 | Mike Rosenberg
    there was no grand celebration this month as Silicon Valley marked 25 years of light rail... The near-empty trolleys that often shuttle by at barely faster than jogging speeds serve as a constant reminder that the car is still king in Silicon Valley -- and that the Valley Transportation Authority's trains are among the least successful in the nation by any metric.
  • ICC users rack up unpaid tolls

    11/20/2012 1:06:40 PM PST · by Tolerance Sucks Rocks · 5 replies
    The Washington Post ^ | November 19, 2012 | Katherine Shaver
    Nearly one in three motorists who use the Intercounty Connector without an E-ZPass transponder don’t pay the toll later, making Maryland’s newest and most expensive highway home to a toll violation rate four times higher than the state average. Individual motorists racked up as much as $1,418 each in unpaid tolls after driving on the ICC, or Route 200, as many as 430 times during the first six months of this year. A rental car company owed $4,263 in ICC toll debt, while a construction company accrued $2,241 for 65 unpaid trips during that time. The new 18.8-mile highway between...
  • Experts Warning of Coming Crisis: a Shortage of Drivers.

    11/15/2012 5:00:49 PM PST · by 2ndDivisionVet · 48 replies
    Truckers America ^ | November 14, 2012
    Experts are warning of a coming crisis: a shortage of truck drivers. The Associated Press reports demand is so high that more than 100,000 trucking jobs are expected to go unfilled each year through 2016. Mohammed Khan, the Director of the Great American Truck Driving School in Detroit told WWJ’s Sandra McNeil he’s seen a 50-percent jump in enrollment at his school since 2010. “People do want to become truck drivers. The fact is that the demand just ups the supply right now,” said Khan. ”There are a lot of truck driving jobs that are wanting because they just can’t...
  • Gas Prices Moving to All-Time High

    08/18/2012 1:29:29 PM PDT · by alloysteel · 29 replies
    The New American ^ | August 16, 2012 | Bruce Walker
    The prices that Americans pay for gas at the pump may reach an all-time high this summer. The average price is $3.70 per gallon, which is an increase of 30 cents since July and the climb in price from July to August was 9 percent. The increase is particularly concerning because a reduction in global demand, caused by a persistent world-wide recession, has kept demand for gas relatively low. Some have predicted that the price of gas will reach $3.90 per gallon before Labor Day. Gas prices have risen each month for seven straight months this year.
  • Zoo Interchange lawsuit well-intended, misguided (interchange rebuild is raaaaacist!)

    08/17/2012 7:20:33 PM PDT · by Tolerance Sucks Rocks · 2 replies
    Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel ^ | August 14, 2012 | Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel
    Yes, transit in the Milwaukee region should be improved to give citizens, especially the many inner city residents without driver's licenses, better transportation options. And, yes, the state should ramp up transit aid and road maintenance even at the expense of new highway projects. But none of that means that reconstruction of the Zoo Interchange in Milwaukee County should be delayed and that planning for the interchange rebuild should go back to square one, as a lawsuit filed last week seeks to do. The interchange, the busiest in Wisconsin, is vital to commerce and the state's economy. It needs the...
  • Analyst speculates that 'fiscal cliff' could close St. Petersburg-Clearwater airport

    08/08/2012 6:54:59 AM PDT · by Cincinatus' Wife · 8 replies
    St. Petersburg - Tampa Bay Times ^ | August 8, 2012 | Jamal Thalji
    If America falls off the so-called "fiscal cliff" on Jan. 2, one of the first victims could be St. Petersburg-Clearwater International Airport. The Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank, speculated in a recent report that the airport could be one of six in Florida and 106 around the country that would have to shut down because the Federal Aviation Administration wouldn't be able to pay air traffic controllers. If St. Petersburg-Clearwater International were to close, officials there said the bay area would take a big economic hit. According to a 2010 state report, the airport generated $924 million...
  • Paving The Way for Driverless Cars

    07/21/2012 12:05:53 PM PDT · by garjog · 49 replies
    Wall Street Journal ^ | July 18, 2012 | By Clifford Winston
    California’s proposed bullet train between Los Angeles and San Francisco—which Gov. Jerry Brown is likely to sign off on soon—has been characterized by the Obama administration and its other supporters as an effective way to reduce highway congestion. These costs amount to more than $100 billion annually in wasted time and higher fuel expenses. In fact, a much better technological solution is on the horizon, if we pave the way by getting rid of obsolete highway design. It is already possible to imagine a world in which you could predict exactly how long it would take to drive in your...
  • 'Transportation Gap' In Connecticut, rest of U.S.

    07/16/2012 2:52:06 PM PDT · by matt04 · 5 replies
    Connecticut policymakers have been squarely focused on the education achievement gap this year, but a new report from the Brookings Institution cites another disparity that needs attention. Call it a "transportation gap." The report looked at the extent that residents in the top 100 U.S. metropolitan areas use public transportation to get to their jobs. Not surprisingly, Connecticut was only in the middle of the pack when it comes to workers' access to public transit. But another important finding described commuting disparties in and out of some of the state's larger cities -- like New Haven, Bridgeport and Hartford --...
  • Ray LaHood: Golly, I envy the Chinese government (In China, only three people make the decisions)

    07/06/2012 2:01:43 PM PDT · by SeekAndFind · 25 replies
    Hotair ^ | 07/06/2012 | Ed Morrissey
    It's bad enough to have a columnist at one of America's most prominent newspapers regularly singing the praises of Chinese authoritarianism. It's worse when high-ranking members of the American government do it. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood griped at the Aspen Ideas Festival about having to deal with political opposition, and yearned for the ease in which Beijing could impose solutions without having to deal with dissent: Echoing the laments of pundits like Thomas Friedman of the New York Times, U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood argued Saturday that China outpaces the United States in building major transportation infrastructure like high-speed rail...
  • In Which the Rhetoric of Fiscal Conservatism Ceases to Convince

    06/25/2012 4:06:02 PM PDT · by Lorianne · 1 replies
    The Trasport Politic ^ | 10 June 2012 | Yonah Freemark
    » Left with a chance to set in stone the rule that transportation funding should remain based on user fees alone, the House punts. On Friday, members of the U.S. House took one of the most significant votes on transportation in years. A non-binding motion brought forward by Representative Paul Broun (R-GA) to limit federal transportation expenditures to receipts from the fuel tax assembled in the Highway Trust Fund was defeated, massively defeated, by a 82 to 323 vote. Translation: A large majority of the lower chamber endorsed the idea that the government should be using funds sourced outside of...
  • 'No document exists' on bullet train's speed, lawsuit claims

    06/14/2012 5:06:29 PM PDT · by Twotone · 7 replies
    The Bay Citizen ^ | June 13, 2012 | Lance Williams
    California’s $68 billion bullet train is supposed to travel from San Francisco to Los Angeles in less than two hours and 40 minutes. That speed – an average of more than 140 mph, including stops – is a legal requirement, written into the state voter initiative that gave the project the go-ahead in 2008
  • Local officials look at BRT options as transportation budgets shrink

    06/10/2012 9:37:43 PM PDT · by Tolerance Sucks Rocks · 2 replies
    The Examiner ^ | June 8, 2012 | Rachel Baye
    Government officials in the Washington region, as well as nationwide, are looking increasingly to bus rapid transit for new transit options as they face tightening public purses. BRT plans are under way in Alexandria and Arlington County, where buses are planned to travel from Braddock Road to Pentagon City. Alexandria expects to begin construction in July and start running buses in dedicated lanes in December 2013, said Abi Lerner, Alexandria's deputy director of transportation. Arlington expects to complete its half of the system in spring 2014. Across the Potomac, Montgomery County officials have proposed a 160-mile system with 23 routes....
  • Tomorrowland meets Texas - Futuristic freight system planned for I-35 corridor

    06/06/2012 2:44:37 PM PDT · by Zakeet · 83 replies
    Freight normally hauled by trucks could one day soon be shipped on an electric-powered, overhead guideway across Texas. It may seem like an idea more suitable for Tomorrowland – and artist renderings of the project do resemble Disney’s famed monorail system – but Texas officials are encouraging a privately-funded business to get the project up and running, perhaps within six years. [The developers] have formed Freight Shuttle International, a company that is cobbling together the estimated $2.5 billion needed to build the first leg of this futuristic transportation system. The guideways would be built within the existing right-of-way of...
  • Will Maryland do another tax hike in 2013?

    05/18/2012 8:40:47 PM PDT · by Tolerance Sucks Rocks · 15 replies
    The Washington Times ^ | May 17, 2012 | David Hill
    After voting this week to raise income tax rates on the state’s highest earners, Maryland lawmakers aren’t ruling out more tax increases next year. The General Assembly passed legislation that will raise taxes on the top 14 percent of earners in an effort to balance the state’s $35.5 billion budget and cut half of Maryland’s $1 billion structural deficit, which measures expected revenue shortfalls in the future. Lawmakers could look to eliminate the remaining $500 million deficit over the next year by methods such as expanding gambling in the state, cutting spending or passing a long-debated tax increase to fund...
  • A FORD BICYCLE THE TWO-WHEELED CONCEPT FOR THE FUTURE OF TRANSPORTATION (Obama-maobile is unveiled)

    05/01/2012 5:31:06 PM PDT · by Brilliant · 48 replies
    Myfordmag.com ^ | Carrie Jones
    With electric vehicle technology becoming more desirable to the average consumer, Ford applied its innovative design sense to the two-wheel market and created the E-Bike concept vehicle. Unveiled at the 2011 Frankfurt Motor Show, this sleek, cross-gender bike is powered not with gas, but by a lithium-ion battery. The drive system is subtly embedded in the 5.5-pound aluminium-and-carbon construction frame for a cool, minimalist look—perfect for the energy (and image) conscious city commuter. Why now? More than 30 million motorized bicycles were sold globally in 2010, with an increasing market share in Europe. Because the E-Bike can also be ridden...
  • AFRICOM Transport No-Bid Contract-Extension Awarded

    05/01/2012 12:17:39 PM PDT · by Steve Peacock
    U.S. Trade & Aid Monitor ^ | May 1, 2012 | Steve Peacock
    Transportation of U.S. troops and cargo between Germany and Africa just became more lucrative for Cartersville, Ga.-based Phoenix Air Group, which yesterday—without needing to compete for the endeavor—received a six-month contract extension to provide such services. The U.S. Transportation Command (TRANSCOM) in 2009 initially selected Phoenix Air to provide “Fixed Wing Airlift Services” through March 31, 2012. The Firm Fixed Price Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity (ID/IQ) contract, then-valued at $26 million, has been modified to reflect the new delivery date through September 30. It did not disclose the cost of the contract modification. TRANSCOM explained in “A Justification For Other Than...