Free Republic

A small plane managed to land safely last night at Buffalo Niagara International Airport in New York after the pilot "reported losing the left rear passenger door" during flight, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) says. An FAA spokesperson said in a statement to FOX Business on Tuesday that the single-engine Diamond DA40 aircraft, which was carrying two people, touched down around 5:30 p.m. local time. The FAA is now reviewing the incident. There were no reports of injuries. The Cheektowaga Police Department told WIVB that the pilot reported losing the door while flying over Stiglmeier Park in Cheektowaga, which is...

Wheel of a Delta Boeing 757 comes off while it was preparing to take off at Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta Airport

Voters in Maine overwhelmingly passed a ballot measure Tuesday that enshrines the right to repair cars, a major win for consumers and a blow to auto manufacturers who have spent millions lobbying against similar legislation and fighting against it in the courts. “Question 4,” which enshrines consumers’ data access to car diagnostics for the purposes of repair, passed by a margin of 84.3-15.7 in Tuesday’s election with 94 percent of the votes tallied. The yes/no question was simple: “Do you want to require vehicle manufacturers to standardize on-board diagnostic systems and provide remote access to those systems and mechanical data...

An explosion at a chemical plant in Texas on Wednesday has prompted nearby communities to shelter in place as officials work to determine whether any chemicals were released into the air. The blast happened at Sound Resource Solutions along U.S. Highway 59 in Shepherd. The city in located in San Jacinto County about 60 miles northeast of Houston. One person suffered first-degree burns to the face and second-degree and third-degree burns to the arms, FOX26 Houston reported, citing a source. The individual was being treated at Memorial Hermann-Texas Medical Center.

There has been another train derailment leading to a hazardous waste leak. This time the incident occurred in North Dakota. As reported by KFGO, several Canadian Pacific train cars derailed “with some spilling hazardous material in Richland County.” “Authorities say it happened around 11:15 p.m. on Sunday, March 26 just one mile southeast of Wyndmere, ND,” the report noted. “31 cars of a 70-car train derailed, with some leaking petroleum used to make asphalt. At this time, authorities are saying there’s no danger to the public.” “Canadian Pacific says its hazardous material experts are on scene along with local authorities...

The city’s Department of Transportation (DOT) said today it will begin work this weekend along the Brooklyn Queens Expressway (BQE), in an effort to extend the life of the triple-cantilever roadway that runs underneath the Brooklyn Promenade. Crews will begin work Friday evening, but the real impact on traffic will be felt Monday, when DOT plans to reduce the number of lanes on the portion of the expressway from Atlantic Avenue to the Brooklyn Bridge from three to two in both directions. The agency warned drivers to expect construction-induced traffic jams, and suggested they take public transit instead. Trucks and...

With commercial traffic returning to pre-pandemic levels, the Pennsylvania Turnpike is increasing its spending on road improvements by nearly $200 million for the fiscal year that begins June 1. The turnpike commission Tuesday approved the capital spending increase to $660 million for the new year along with passing an operating budget of $417.3 million, about 2% lower than the current spending plan. Last year, the agency cut its capital spending from $606 million to $468 million as a result of losing more than $250 million in tolls due to reduced travel during the pandemic. Turnpike CEO Mark Compton said in...

$3.4 billion. That’s how much bad roads and congestion in North Carolina costs its drivers in higher vehicle ownership costs, according to a report commissioned by the North Carolina Department of Transportation. Fixing those roads—as well as repairing and replacing bridges, building new highways and any other large projects the N.C. DOT has on its schedule—takes money, and lots of it. Steve Abbott, a spokesperson for the N.C. DOT, said that to bring every bridge in the state to “good” condition would cost $3.8 billion, roughly 71 percent of the department’s $5.3 billion budget for the year. “As of now,...

Michigan drivers and taxpayers have been complaining about road and highway conditions for years. But the solutions policymakers have recently proposed ranged from the politically impossible, like raising the gas tax 45 cents per gallon, to financially-risky short-term fixes like borrowing billions in bonds to pay for teacher pension contributions so that money could be shifted to funding for roads. But it seems like Michigan lawmakers may be warming up to a long-term, sustainable, users-pay solution to achieving better roads: tolling. Lansing's interest in tolling has gone back decades but this year the state Legislature and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's administration...

“Toll free in ’73.” That was the campaign slogan over five decades ago that promised tolls on Illinois interstates would be a temporary revenue sources. Today, the tolls are higher and the tollway authority is more permanent than ever. Lawmakers promised tolls would help fund 186 miles of interstate construction and would be removed when the roads were paid off. After that, highway maintenance would be funded by the gas tax. In 1968, the General Assembly made the Illinois Toll Highway Authority permanent. What started at just 10 cents at the exits and 25 cents at the plazas has grown...

With few exceptions, states are losing the battle with aging bridges in need of repair or replacement. Even states with low percentages of bridges rated poor are finding it difficult to keep up with bridge and road systems that in many cases are 50 years old or older. Utah, which ranks fourth for the lowest percentage of poor bridges, programs a bridge for repair or replacement in the year after it drops to a poor rating, completing the project within four or five years. The Utah Department of Transportation notes, though, that the number of bridges falling from good to...

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,...

In late April, President Trump and Democratic congressional leaders finally found something they agreed on: infrastructure. Outside the White House after a meeting with the president, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the California Democrat, issued the pronouncement, “Big and bold.” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, the Democrat from New York, echoed the takeaway: “We agreed on a number, which was very, very good, $2 trillion.” Trump himself has been publicly quiet but didn’t dispute that he told the Democrats he “like[s] the number.” By May, this renewed spirit of cooperation had fallen apart, at least temporarily, with a second meeting collapsing...

Are tolls going to be enforced on private drivers? The German government, along with every car owner in the European Union, will finally get a definitive answer to that question on Tuesday. If the European Court of Justice (ECJ) rules in favor of the tolls, all motorists will be charged to drive on German highways. The fees, known as "vignettes," are to be collected according to the time traveled on the autobahn. For cars registered in Germany, however, owners will get a credit deductible from the motor vehicle tax as compensation, meaning the costs would be offset, and ultimately, Germans...

Residents of a neighborhood in Las Vegas got an unwelcome surprise in the form of an airplane door falling out of the sky and hitting an apartment building and car. The incident took place near Nellis Air Force Base, which is just northeast of Las Vegas. It is unclear what type of plane the debris fell off, but it did not appear to come from a civilian aircraft.

The stretch of Interstate 75 that runs through the city of Cincinnati has been under construction for nearly a decade. Nine years ago, the Ohio Department of Transportation began the Mill Creek Expressway improvement project, at an estimated total cost of $550-650 million. The project's goal is to improve the integrity of the roadway and increase vehicle capacity. But is increasing capacity on a highway system that the state has admitted it cannot afford to maintain — under current funding levels — really the best idea? Like most things related to infrastructure in Ohio, points of view vary. It's the...

“Friends don’t let friends drive I-70.” The tongue-in-cheek mantra is often uttered by Colorado skiers and snowboarders who frequent resorts far from the crowded mountain corridor, which funnels thousands of vehicles onto two lanes west of Denver every winter weekend. “It’s nightmarish. Hours and hours in the car. I think the last time I went to Keystone (typically a 90-minute drive from Denver), I spent four hours getting there and five hours getting home,” said Cole Capsalis of Denver. “There was more time in the car than skiing.”

Nearly a dozen stakeholders representing local governments and the freight and commuter sectors on Feb. 7 urged a House transportation panel to identify a sustainable source of funding for an infrastructure bill. As the panel prepares to craft legislation, lawmakers agreed infrastructure policy should top their priorities this year. Yet, they continue to differ on a way forward for ensuring the sustainability of the dwindling Highway Trust Fund. The idea that former Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood told the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee to consider is increasing and indexing the fuel tax by about 10 cents. Doing so, LaHood argued, would...

Professor of Finance for the College of Staten Island and Research Fellow at The University Transportation Research Center Johnathan Peters says if Connecticut lawmakers are looking to raise revenue for transportation, they might be better off looking somewhere else besides highway tolls. “Tolls, generally, are expensive to collect,” Peters said in an interview. “It’s not free. There’s a lot of technology and a lot of equipment, and that equipment will have to be maintained and replaced over time.” Peters -- whose area of expertise and study involves regional planning and road and mass transit financing -- says tolls are more...

ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. - The toll bills haven't stopped coming for some drivers in Central Florida after SunPass’ software meltdown last summer. In fact, state senators were told more than 4 million outstanding bills are still heading to mailboxes, adding up to an outstanding balance of $100 million. Related Headlines Last June, SunPass took its online payment system offline for a week of scheduled maintenance. At the end of the week, the system wouldn’t come back online. Almost 250 days later, people are still getting bills in the mail for the weeks of tolls that SunPass couldn’t process. Some drivers...