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The Department of Transportation (DOT) released a report this past Tuesday showing that the Highway Trust Fund will run out of money by this August. The fund is the primary way by which the government maintains our roads and highways. While the fund received a $9.7 billion dollar infusion from the General Fund just after the start of this fiscal year, the fund’s outlays continue to outpace receipts and it will soon be in the red. To be sure, part of the reason for this is that transportation infrastructure costs are on the rise. As the highways built in the...

During the last twenty years, roads and bridges have taken a back seat to commuter and light rail projects. This was never clearer than in a 2010 report by the Metropolitan Council titled, “Regional 2030 Transportation Policy Plan,” which virtually gives up on constructing any new vehicle lanes in the seven-county metropolitan area. Instead, the plan places heavy emphasis on rail projects. The population of the metropolitan area is about 3.3 million. Minneapolis and Saint Paul are only about 20 percent of that. In other words, most people live and work outside of the two cities. So why is there...

In many circles -- including advocates for cleaner air, safer streets, public transit -- it's a major policy goal to get people out of cars. Reduce car use, and you reduce pollution. Reduce car use, and we'll need fewer costly roads and parking garages. Reduce car use and shift more people onto bikes and trains, and maybe we'll all spend less of our lives idling in traffic. That line of thinking, however, seldom considers a group of people for whom more car use might actually be a good thing: the poor. A group of researchers at the Urban Institute, the...

The California Department of Motor Vehicles is setting up new facilities to process driver’s license applications for illegal immigrants alone. Last year, Gov. Jerry Brown signed into law a bill, AB 60, which will allow illegal immigrants to obtain the documents beginning Jan. 1, 2015. The bill was signed along with a number of others laws seen as favorable to undocumented immigrants. As part of the driver’s license application process, immigrants will have to acknowledge that they are undocumented. But AB 60 protects applicants from criminal prosecution. The measure will provide an avenue for the state’s three to four million...

SYRACUSE -- A series of public lectures on the future of Interstate 81 will be held this summer and spring. The speaker series bring renowned planning professionals, municipal leaders and community development experts to share their experiences and expertise. The first guest speaker will be Virginia Greiman, a veteran of Boston's Big Dig project and a leader in the field of project management. "Our community can learn a great deal from simply listening to others who have struggled with and overcome similar challenges that we now face," said Onondaga County Executive Joanie Mahoney. "I look forward to welcoming Professor Greiman...

American taxpayers are getting a terrible deal when it comes to large government-sponsored infrastructure projects. We pay 2 or 3 times as much for them as we should in many cases. The result is that we are put to shame by many other nations when it comes to building the highways and other transportation facilities we need to remain competitive.Consider bridges, for example. Compare the Millau Viaduct in France, a one and a half mile long cable stay bridge over the Tarn River Valley in France, completed in 2004 at a cost about $483 million dollars (at the 2004 dollar/euro...

While discussing federal spending and transportation funding, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) said “there is absolutely no way we’re going to cut spending.” Boxer was discussing the Highway Trust Fund with members of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) in Washington on Feb. 26th, when she addressed various tax increases that may be used to raise money for the program. “I don’t see support for raising the gas tax and there is absolutely no way we’re going to cut spending, so it’s going to have to be a creative way to fund this in reality,” Boxer said....

Over the last few years, we’ve seen Democrats raise the idea of adding a new revenue source to supplement the gas tax, as revenues have declined from this stream due to increased fuel efficiency thanks to mandates to that effect imposed by Congress. One bad idea that never seems to die is a mileage tax, which would force Americans to track their travel — or have government do it for them. That idea got shelved along with the Democratic House majority in 2011, but now it’s crept across the aisle (via Instapundit):

Paul Elio wanted to bring affordable transportation to drivers and create jobs for American workers. The company is planning to release vehicles for sale in the first quarter of 2015. The car is planned to use 95% American parts and American labor, vitally important to Paul.(VIDEO-AT-LINK)The company says that the vehicle will cost $6800, achieve an 84 miles per gallon fuel economy, and they anticipate a five star NHTSA safety rating. The eight gallon tank will theoretically allow a driver to go 672 miles on a tank of gas. Top speed of the Elio is said to be over 100...

In a move that signals a great technological leap forward for the auto industry, the federal government announced Monday that it will take steps to require all new cars and light trucks to communicate with each other, with the hopes of drastically reducing the total of more than 30,000 vehicle deaths each year. The technology, known as “vehicle-to-vehicle” or “V2V,” gives cars the ability to “talk” to each other and exchange safety data such as speed and position. If a nearby car abruptly changes lanes and moves into another car’s blind spot, the car would be alerted. The technology relies...

Cab fares around Manhattan can be ridiculous, that's expected. But imagine paying more than $1 million just to own a licensed taxi in New York City. That's the reality now.The New York Times reported that the city's first taxi medallion auction since 2008 netted $200 million for the sale of 200 of the licenses, making the average price of entry to legally drive one of the roughly 15,000 yellow cabs is almost double what it was at that last auction. The medallion system goes back to the 1930s and was designed to keep the number of cabs limited to...

The TSA agents union says a new supplemental TSA force with greater authority needs to be created. This 'new class' of TSA officers would work among regular TSA employees, but would be armed and able to make arrests. The announcement comes just days after one TSA agent was killed and two others injured at Los Angeles International Airport. The goal is to create a larger, and more consistent TSA presence in screening areas.

ALBANY — In a major boost for the state, the federal government has awarded New York the low-interest loan it was seeking to help pay for the construction of the new Tappan Zee Bridge. The feds agreed to lend up to $1.6 billion — the largest loan ever given out under the Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act — to fund a third of the anticipated costs for the new bridge over the Hudson River. It’s everything we’ve been looking for and more,” Cuomo crowed on public radio. Earlier this week, Standard & Poor’s reduced the Thruway Authority’s bond rating...

Driven on the Intercounty Connector lately? No? You’re not alone. Many haven’t. The 18.8-mile highway—the first stretch of which opened two and a half years ago after great hype and amid great controversy—is the road less traveled. Traffic counts are well below early projections, and revenue from tolls—needed to pay off the bonds that were sold to build the road—is far less than originally anticipated. The initial estimated cost of $1 billion has ballooned to $2.4 billion—or as much as $4 billion if you include interest payments. Consequently, all tolls on Maryland highways, bridges and tunnels have been raised in...

Stephen Harper should lose sleep this week, as the Danish-owned Nordic Orion becomes the first cargo vessel to use the Northwest Passage as an international shipping route – at no little risk to Canada’s environment and sovereignty. Last week, the crash of a Coast Guard helicopter in the Northwest Passage underlined how very dangerous Arctic waters can be. The three men on board were wearing survival suits. They escaped the aircraft before it sank but froze to death in the hour it took for the icebreaker Amundsen to reach them. Although the Nordic Orion is ice-strengthened, Arctic storms, shallow waters...

Rush-hour commuters could pay nearly $5 a day in tolls to travel back and forth on a seven-mile stretch of express toll lanes set to open next year along Interstate 95 east and north of Baltimore, according to proposed pricing approved Thursday by the board of the Maryland Transportation Authority. The new lanes, scheduled to open late next year, would offer a quicker travel option for commuters willing to pay. The suggested tolls vary by the time of day and the type of vehicle, but a car traveling on the toll lanes during peak hours would pay between 25 cents...

This Congress has been criticized for not passing many laws -- and praised for that in some quarters. And it's true that in quantitative terms its productivity has been low. A major case in point is transportation. Neither the Democratic-majority Senate nor the Republican-controlled House has passed a reauthorization of what was once known as the highway bill, which used to be done every five or six years. This failure can be ascribed in part to partisan warfare and to intra-party differences. But it's also due to the obsolescence of the federal funding scheme used since the Interstate Highway System...

America's Truck Driver ShortageBy Kate O'ConnellThe Innovation Trail's Kate O'Connell talks to truckers, industry reps, and analysts about America's trucker shortage. America’s trucking industry’s been experiencing a chronic shortage of drivers for at least 20 years. Conservative estimates put the number of vacancies upward of 20,000, and some say it goes into the hundreds of thousands. But, there are mixed views on the causes and solutions for this challenge to the industry. Kevin Dugan has a college degree in heating and air conditioning, but after graduating he had a similar experience to many young grads. Employers were reluctant to...

Existing conventional modes of transportation of people consists of four unique types: rail, road, water, and air. These modes of transport tend to be either relatively slow (i.e., road and water), expensive (i.e., air), or a combination of relatively slow and expensive (i.e., rail). Hyperloop is a new mode of transport that seeks to change this paradigm by being both fast and inexpensive for people and goods. Hyperloop is also unique in that it is an open design concept, similar to Linux. Feedback is desired from the community that can help advance the Hyperloop design and bring it from concept...

It is called “The Hyperloop” and, according to the designer, it will be a revolutionary “fifth mode” of transport, eclipsing trains, planes, boats and automobiles. (snip) Billionaire Elon Musk’s CV is impressive, to say the least. He made his initial fortune from PayPal ... his SpaceX venture ... founded Tesla (snip) he would be publishing plans for the Hyperloop on Monday, August 12 (snip) Mr Musk will not be patenting the design and it will be “open source”, meaning anyone can modify it, or try to build it.