Free Republic

Ohio planners will move full speed ahead on a proposed hyperloop system that would carry passengers between Pittsburgh and Chicago in about 58 minutes for a one-way cost of about $93. But the full system, known as Mid-West Connect, probably wouldn’t be finished until about 2050. Thea Walsh, director of transportation and funding for the Columbus, Ohio-based Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission, said this week the agency is putting the finishing touches on feasibility and environmental impact studies but has concluded it should pursue the hyperloop system. The system being developed by Virgin Hyperloop One would move passengers and freight in...

Dive Brief: Illinois State Sen. Martin Sandoval has resigned from his position as chair of the State Senate's Transportation Committee amid a federal fraud and corruption investigation related to state construction work, the Associated Press reported. The Democratic senator is still listed as a member of the committee, however, as of Oct. 15. The move came after the details of a federal search warrant revealed that the FBI last month combed Sandoval's offices and home for information related to architect Cesar Santoy; Santoy's architecture firm, Studio ARQ; red-light camera program company SafeSpeed; lobbyists; construction companies; and employees of the Illinois...

Will a hyperloop work in Pennsylvania? That’s the question officials from legislative and executive branches, statewide agencies, organizations and departments, as well as a handful of private business leaders are trying to answer. Fifty people, invited to a workshop at Dixon University in Harrisburg on Wednesday, met to talk about the possibility of building a hyperloop system in the commonwealth. The Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission has until April 2020 to complete a $2 million state-legislative commissioned study on its viability. Media wasn’t permitted to attend the invitation-only meeting. According to the turnpike’s research, a hyperloop combines a magnetic levitation train and...

A precautionary boil water advisory has been issued for nearly 900 households in parts of Pittsburgh’s West End neighborhoods after a water main broke on Mount Washington Saturday afternoon. The boil water and flush advisory applies to portions of Ridgemont, Westwood and Elliott, according to the Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority. Many residents in the area had no water service or experienced low water pressure due to the break, which occurred around 3:30 p.m. along a 16-inch water main on Virginia Avenue at Kearsarge Street, the PWSA said. PWSA officials said the break was isolated and normal water service was...

MARYSVILLE, Wash. — We're taking a look at the worst of the worst traffic spots in western Washington – and some of the solutions to the problem. Marysville A problem spot in Marysville has city and state transportation officials working to come up with a fix. Interstate 5 traffic between Everett and Marysville gets congested during rush hour. According to the Washington State Department of Transportation, between 1980 and 2017, the population of Snohomish County increased 137%. It's expected to gain another 200,000 residents by 2035. This explosive growth increased the number of vehicles using I-5 between Everett and Marysville,...

Federal highway officials on Tuesday endorsed an accelerated timeline proposed by Oregon and Washington transportation officials that sets the two states on a fast track toward construction on a new Interstate Bridge by 2025. Last month, the two states requested a 10-year extension on their timeline to show progress on the bridge project or face repaying nearly $140 million in planning costs tied to the Columbia River Crossing Project. That request would’ve given the states until Sept. 30, 2029, to either start buying up right-of-way or began construction on the I-5 project. While seeking a decade delay, the states simultaneously...

SAN DIEGO — The San Diego Association of Governments will partially close a section of Interstate 5 in La Jolla Tuesday evening to continue construction of a future trolley bridge. Work crews will close all northbound lanes of I-5 from state Route 52 to La Jolla Village Drive from 9:30 p.m. to 5 a.m. Wednesday morning to pour concrete for the future bridge. Motorists on northbound I-5 will be detoured to I-805 via state Route 52, according to SANDAG. SANDAG crews completed similar closures of southbound I-5 last week to pour concrete for the future trolley bridge, which will cross...

Severio Kyyitan was awoken one recent morning by a thunderous thumping that reverberated through the walls of his home. It might be an earthquake, he thought, until he looked outside and discovered a pack of wild horses running by his property on the Gila River Indian Community. Animals have free reign on the reservation, he said, and that’s the way Kyyitan likes it. He’s hopeful state officials will keep wildlife in mind as they plan a possible widening of Interstate 10 through the reservation. “We know it’s a need,” Kyyitan said, adding that he doesn’t want the project to interfere...

A new report ranking the deadliest highways in the nation calls Interstate 10 the “most dangerous” in Arizona. But Arizona highway officials say the ranking is incomplete and overlooks a variety of efforts made to make the highway that links the two most populous metro areas in the state as safe as possible. There were 100 fatalities on Arizona’s nearly 400 miles of I-10 from 2015 to 2017, according to ASecureLife’s report, which used statistics from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The company, which mainly deals in security systems, said it seeks to report on everyday issues affecting consumers....

EL PASO, Texas - ABC-7 has learned the families of the young engaged couple killed when their semi-truck collided with a piece of construction machinery sticking out on Interstate 10 have settled their lawsuit against the company that was overseeing the construction site. The parents of Patrick Van Fossen and Keserie Paredes had filed a wrongful death lawsuit against JAR Construction, accusing JAR of causing the deaths of Van Fossen and Paredes on the early morning of Dec. 21, 2017. In July, ABC-7 reported that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, or OSHA, found numerous safety hazards at JAR's construction...

Interstate 10 is now three lanes both ways between Tucson and Casa Grande, but your commute probably won’t get faster. The Arizona Department of Transportation projects I-10 could be bumper-to-bumper all the way to Casa Grande during rush hour by 2035. The route currently carries around 60,000 vehicles daily, and that could quadruple depending on the region’s growth, according to an ADOT spokesperson. John Moffatt, director of economic development for Pima County, said those backups won’t just be bad for commuters. He said they will hurt trade with Mexico. “Trucks are like water. They find the path of least resistance...

A cardinal rule of government ought to be: stop wasting money before demanding taxpayers hand over more. When it comes to the Highway Trust Fund and the gas tax, Congress has failed to learn this simple lesson. The federal highway program is set to expire a year from now, but lawmakers looking to fund their pet projects are eager to get started. So the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee has already approved a bill that would authorize billions more in projects than the federal gas tax will bring in. The thing is though, they don’t know how to pay...

Republican Mark Finchem and Democrat Tom O’Halleran agree on at least one thing regarding Interstate 11. Both expect to be deceased before the proposed roadway becomes a reality. Finchem, a District 11 state representative spoke to Hidden Valley residents last week in a gathering attended by Blanca Varela, a representative from Congressman O’Halleran’s office, at Mountain View Community Church. The proposed interstate is a long-range goal of Arizona Department of Transportation and is expected to pass through Hidden Valley south of Maricopa. While Finchem has been outspoken against I-11, O’Halleran has remained neutral. Varela said the congressman had expressed to...

Two people were arrested Sunday morning by the Racine County Sheriff’s deputies for driving well in excess of the speed limit through the Interstate 94 construction zone. At 8:55 a.m., a deputy clocked a vehicle traveling 110 mph in a posted 60 mph construction zone in the northbound lane on I-94 in the Village of Raymond. The deputy spoke with the driver — 41-year-old Jose L. Mendoza of Racine — about his speed, and allegedly smelled the odor of intoxicants coming from Mendoza. Mendoza reportedly refused to perform field sobriety tests and was arrested and cited for speeding. Suggested charges...

Two wrecks in as many days has us reminding you of the risks we face driving through construction zones on Interstate 35. The first accident happened early Thursday when an 18-wheeler hit a road worker on I-35 near the flyovers to US 183. And early Friday, police had to respond to a three-car chain reaction crash just a mile away on the interstate. And while police explained to reporters how they were going to handle the aftermath of the latest crash, a car behind the officer spun out of control, hit the curb and finally stopped facing the wrong direction....

The recent threats by Beijing to cut off American access to critical mineral imports has many Americans wondering why our politicians have allowed the United States to become so overly dependent on China for these valued resources in the first place. Today, the United States is 90% dependent on China and Russia for many vital "rare earth minerals." The main reason for our overreliance on nations like China for these minerals is not that we are running out of these resources here at home. The U.S. Mining Association estimates that we have at least $5 trillion of recoverable mineral resources....

A first-draft plan for Arkansas roadway spending shows lane additions to the Greenwood bypass and Arkansas 22 between Charleston and Fort Smith, as well as potential Interstate 49 construction in the Fort Smith area. Dubbed the CAP-2 draft by the Arkansas Department of Transportation, the Connecting Arkansas Program-2 list is a “data driven” starting point work that will largely be contingent on the continuation of a half-percent sales tax next year, according to ARDOT spokesperson Danny Straessle. “The governor proposes to make it permanent,” Straessle said. “This is a list of about 20 years of work.” In a recent meeting,...

Even though it’s been about a year since the last public meeting on the Interstate 49 Connector in Lafayette, the project isn’t dead, or even dormant. Louisiana Transportation Secretary Shawn Wilson told The Acadiana Advocate on Monday things are happening to move the 5-mile section of interstate toward the federal Record of Decision needed to secure funding and start construction. The ideas and plans presented at public hearings over the past two years are being worked on, he said, and the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development is drawing up a contract extension for the consultants working on the project....

Gridlock on America’s roadways is increasing, according to the 2019 Urban Mobility Report published by the Texas A&M Transportation Institute – in part due to job growth that is “exacerbating” the nation’s traffic woes. As a result, over that 26-year period from 1982 to 2018: The number of hours per commuter lost to traffic delay has nearly tripled, climbing to 54 hours a year. The annual cost of that delay per commuter has nearly doubled to $1,010. The nationwide cost of gridlock has grown more than tenfold to $166 billion a year. The amount of fuel wasted sitting in stalled...

A few days before Christmas last year, after he was elected to the U.S. Senate but before he’d left Tallahassee for Washington, former Florida Gov. Rick Scott gave a $16 million gift to Orange County. It was a grant to help pay for an extension of Kirkman Road in the county’s International Drive tourism corridor, and it had been pulled from a pot of economic development money known as the “Florida Job Growth Grant Fund.” It was the biggest grant Scott had ever awarded through the fund, which he and the Florida Legislature established in 2017 amid promises to end...