Free Republic

The Amtrak crash outside of Philadelphia was an invitation for practically every politician in the Northeast and every transit expert in America to complain about lack of funding for the county’s infrastructure. They didn’t even wait to know what was the cause of the tragedy to take to the airwaves, and weren’t deterred when it emerged that the engineer had been going twice the speed limit around a tight curve when Amtrak Train 188 derailed. They cared only for reciting the usual litany of laments for our “crumbling” infrastructure and our lack of high-speed rail, which is supposedly a stinging...

There is a move on Capitol Hill to fix the way we maintain America's airports by bringing free-market reforms to the massive transportation bill the Republican leadership is dead-set on passing this summer.Capitol Hill conservatives may not be able to stop the transportation spending bill, but some right-thinking members of Congress are working to leverage the Passenger Facility Charge as a way to move Uncle Sam further out of the airport business.It is not privatization, which is still a non-starter given that President Barack Obama still checks the mailbox at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. But, the plan relies on one of...

The Obama administration is warning state transportation departments that it will have to stop authorizing payments for construction projects on May 31 unless Congress reaches a deal to extend federal infrastructure funding. The current transportation funding measure is scheduled to expire on May 31, and lawmakers are struggling to come up with a way to pay for an extension. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx has said previously that the agency has enough money to cover existing projects until the end of summer, but he said in letter to state departments of transportation on Monday that he will be unable to make...

WASHINGTON -- Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said Monday that Congress needs the equivalent of basketball player LeBron James to help them pass a long-term extension of a federal fund that pays for the nation’s transportation system. The Highway Trust Fund is set to run out at the end of this month, and Congress has yet to set a vote in either chamber on legislation that would extend the expiration and allow the Department of Transportation to distribute what little funds it has left to states. “We have a clock that is running out. We’ve got 20 days left, and gosh,...

EVERY day, millions of Americans rely on a remarkable network of roads, bridges, subways, trains and buses to connect us to work, school and opportunity. But our transportation system, once the envy of the world, is in jeopardy. In New York City, subways and buses are overcrowded and often unreliable, and roadways and bridges are in dire need of repair and rehabilitation. From the next phase of the Second Avenue subway to plans to connect the Metro-North Railroad to Pennsylvania Station, to the proposed new subway line under Utica Avenue in Brooklyn, there isn’t a short- or long-term expansion project...

We in Michigan have been talking about fixing our roads for years. "Just fix the damn roads," was the mantra Michigan lawmakers heard over and over from their constituents. Now the refrain sounds more like "just don't fix the damn roads this way." Voters overwhelmingly voted "no" on Proposal 1 - the statewide road funding ballot initiative that would have raised the state's sales tax from 6% to 7% in order to change the way fuel is taxed in Michigan. The changes in fuel tax would have generated new road funding. See vote tallies here. Now it's back to the...

hatever one might have thought about the Maryland Transportation Authority's decision to raise tolls four years ago, no one can say the two-phase proposal wasn't scrutinized from all angles or that the public wasn't given sufficient opportunity to ask questions or make comment. The same can't be said for the agency's decision to roll them back — in some cases below what they were before the last price increase. That secrecy and abrupt decision-making should give Marylanders pause about what's going on at the agency that owns and manages some of the state's most important — and costly — transportation...

GOVERNOR HOGAN ROLLS BACK TOLLS STATEWIDE -- Saving Marylanders $54 Million A Year $2.50 Bay Bridge Toll Returns For Maryland E-ZPass Users; $4 For Drivers Paying Cash Plan Eliminates Monthly Account Fee And Doubles Discounts For Maryland E-ZPass Holders Governor Larry Hogan today delivered on his promise to roll back Maryland's high toll rates and put money back in the pockets of hard-working Maryland families and businesses. From the Bay and Hatem bridges to the Harbor Crossings, the Intercounty Connector (ICC), and the new I-95 Express Toll Lanes (ETL), Governor Hogan's toll rollback, which takes effect July 1, 2015, will...

If you’ve been holding your breath, waiting to see if Governor Rick Snyder (RINO-MI) was going to enter the RINO sweepstakes for President, the suspense may be over: Gov. Rick Snyder said he would wait until after this week's special road funding election to decide whether he'll run for president. The overwhelming defeat of the measure should send a straightforward message to the governor: Don't run, Rick. – Detroit News Not only does Snyder rank dead last in name recognition among Republicans in Iowa, butt the ballot initiative he championed to raise taxes in Michigan was not just defeated in...

Yesterday, conservative lawmakers pushed to attach key toll road reforms to two transportation bills in the Texas House, but they were thwarted by Speaker Joe Straus and his parliamentarian Chris Griesel who would not allow them to present their amendments. Griesel told them the amendments weren’t ‘germane’ (or salient) to the bills, HB 13 and HB 20, and blocked Rep. Jeff Leach and Rep. Jonathan Stickland from even laying out their amendments. Straus and Griesel utilized the same technique as they did on a Stickland amendment to the open carry bill the week before. The two decided to reject the...

Tuesday, Sep. 23, 2003. Page 1 Bike Boffins Pedal With General Clark By Kevin O'Flynn Staff Writer One was a doctor from Siberia, the other an American general now running for president, and best known in Russia for his brinkmanship in Kosovo. But now the fortunes of Alexander Pyntikov and former NATO commander General Wesley Clark -- who last week created a political sensation by declaring his candidacy for U.S. president -- are entwined in a company that makes push bikes. But these are no ordinary push bikes: The U.S. Special Forces Command currently freewheels on them, as do police...

It took an agreeable 15 minutes Monday to get from the Westgate Station to the Warehouse/Hennepin Avenue station on the Green Line. There was merriment in the air all right, but not enough actual humidity to smell the green grass of Target Field. We are unseasonably dry, and a bit of moisture in the air is essential to bring about the full flowering of the baseball home opener. I watched passengers get on and off; there are seven stops between Westgate and Warehouse, or probably two too many. I don't know who paid and who didn't. Impossible to tell, really,...

Raleigh, N.C. — A highway contractor pleaded guilty Thursday in a scheme to supply defective components to bridges in North Carolina, authorities said. Joel De La Torre, 33, of Chicago, pleaded guilty to federal charges of making false statements concerning highway projects and aggravated identity theft. He will be sentenced in July, when he faces up to seven years in prison and $500,000 in fines. Defects were found in October 2011 in elastomeric bridge bearings – slabs of rubber reinforced with multiple layers of steel and placed underneath bridges to absorb shock – that had been shipped to 25 highway...

BRIGHTON, Mich. (WXYZ) - Is Proposal 1 the right solution for our crumbling roads? It has the support of Republicans in Lansing, but one local GOP group is breaking with their party on this vote. Three weeks from today, voters across the state will have the final say on Proposal 1. In the meantime, there's no shortage of opinions on this proposed "fix" for Michigan's crumbling roads. "I'm like everyone, I'm for getting the roads fixed and I don't want taxes to increase," says voter Jim Johnson. "I want it to go to what they actually are saying it's supposed...

A little-noted provision of President Obama’s highway funding proposal would lift the federal prohibition against states imposing new tolls on existing interstate highways. The GROW AMERICA Act would eliminate restrictions held in place since the creation of the Federal Interstate System, according to a summary of the plan’s provisions, allowing states that receive permission from the Secretary of Transportation to toll existing Interstate highways “in order to make improvements or to manage congestion.” Since its creation in 1956, interstates have been funded primarily through fuel taxes, with tolls banned on all sections of highway built after that date, according to...

FRESNO, Calif. (AP) -- Federal authorities say California's $68 billion higher-speed rail could harm the protected kit fox.

LUBBOCK, TX (KCBD) - The staff at Gene Messer Volkswagen got a terrible shock on Wednesday, when they saw a dead body wrapped in a sheet in the back of a vehicle that had come in for an oil change.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The following is about infrastructure. Don't nod off just yet. To be specific, it's about pavement — basic, boring road surface. In the six decades since Interstate 70 began to creep across Missouri, how we view pavement hasn't changed much. Now meet Tim Sylvester, 33. He sees pavement as an electronic tablet with a concrete touch screen, The Kansas City Star (http://bit.ly/1MWYIxn) reports.

Andreas Lubitz: Germanwings flight's last minutes revealed in chilling black box transcript 29 March 2015 By Alex Wellman Patrick Sondheimer is heard screaming to his co-pilot "Open the goddam door" as passengers scream in the background The dramatic last moments of the doomed Germanwings flight have been revealed in a chilling transcript of the black box recording that shows the captain screaming at Andreas Lubitz “Open the goddam door”. Patrick Sondheimer, pilot of the traffic plane, is heard frantically pleading with the killer to let him into the cockpit, just seconds before crashing into the Alps. BEA Germanwings CVR Evidence:...

It seemed to be a classic case of “firemen first,” a theory first put forth in 1976 by legendary Washington, D.C., journalist Charles Peters. Any bureaucrat, when asked to list what services or jobs would be cut because of a looming budget crisis, identifies the most painful losses in public services – firemen, police officers, EMTs, workers who fill potholes, etc. Bureaucrats use it to try and pressure elected officials, afraid of voter backlash, to soften the budget cuts. It played out in the Capitol on March 3, when state Transportation Secretary Mark Gottlieb was asked what major state highways...