Free Republic

MYFOXNY.COM/AP -Transit officials in New York are preparing for a total shutdown of subway, bus and train service as Hurricane Sandy continues to bear down on the metropolitan region. All service will be suspended at 7 p.m. on Sunday. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo ordered the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to start planning for an orderly suspension of service. New York City subways and buses will start phasing out service at 7 p.m. Metro-North Railroad and the Long Island Rail Road will suspend service at 7 p.m. Sunday. The city's mass transit system is the nation's largest. The subway alone has...

Amtrak announced a $151 billion improvement plan on Monday that includes 37-minute trips from New York to Philadelphia at speeds approaching 220 miles per hour (354 km per hour). However, the U.S. passenger railroad will need substantial financial support from both state and federal governments to make its ambitious plan to transform rail travel in the Northeast a reality. The railroad predicted that super-fast train trips along the East Coast could be a reality by 2040. Travel times from New York to either Washington or Boston—both about 200 miles (350 km) in distance—would also be slashed, to 94 minutes, the...

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....

Maryland’s top transportation priority should be a $5.8 billion project to widen the entire Capital Beltway, from the Woodrow Wilson Bridge to the American Legion Bridge, a leading national transportation group said Wednesday. The first step would be the investment of $800 million to relieve the weekday congestion between Interstate 270 and the American Legion Bridge by widening the roadway, adding High Occupancy Toll (HOT) lanes and designating lanes where the direction of traffic could be reversed to accommodate the flow of the morning and evening rush hours. The Beltway recommendations topped the list of 40 Maryland transportation projects prioritized...

Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley may be more skilled at implementing President Obama’s agenda than the White House itself. The Democratic governor is bringing the same big-spending, high-tax and class-warfare policies to the Free State. It’s going to cost residents a bundle. Tough economic times have forced ordinary Americans to cut back in order to get by. Not so Mr. O’Malley, who spends $35.9 billion in the budget released last month. That’s up from $34.2 billion last year and $32 billion the year before that. As Maryland Business for Responsive Government points out, the general fund budget fattened 11.4 percent last...

IN THE MAELSTROM of tax increases proposed by Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley (D), it’s easy to lose track of which are most critical. For a start, it’s useful to identify which needs have been most and longest neglected — and near the top of that list is transportation. It’s been 20 years since Maryland raised its gasoline tax, the largest source of transportation funding. As construction costs have risen, the revenue it yields has plummeted in real terms. At this point, Marylanders (like Virginians, who last saw a gas tax increase when Ronald Reagan was president) are not paying for...

The California High-Speed Rail Authority has created a set of models and scenarios to answer the objections to its earlier models and scenarios. These will be parsed in much more detail than I can do here, but it is best to note the assumptions. First, its model assumes that the rail passenger fare will always be cheaper than airfare or driving. A ticket from San Francisco to Anaheim will be $72 in 2005 dollars. This is projected out to 2030. Second, the ridership will be immense — anywhere from 28.6 million to 37.1 million. This admittedly may appear realistic compared...

More realistically, Sacramento’s Legislative Analysis Office calls the Central Valley starting point a “big gamble.” In the all-too-likely event that funding for the rest of the system never materializes, the report adds, “the state will be left with a rail segment unconnected to major urban areas that has little if any chance of generating the ridership to operate without a significant state subsidy.” It would be a train to nowhere, but at least it would go nowhere fast. As questionable as this project is, we would have less business objecting if the only money at risk was California’s. But the...

With the Golden State nearly broke, it now plans to secure funding largely by borrowing more, the Associated Press reported, though specifics were unclear. About 20 percent would come from the private sector. Until now, the state had been relying on more than $15 billion from the federal government, $10 billion from private investors and $5 billion from local governments. But the state hadn't gotten any closer to raising the money in the three years since voters approved the plan. The bullet train project, which would link San Francisco and Los Angeles with the nation's first high-speed rail line, has...

ANNAPOLIS — A Maryland commission recommended Tuesday that the state raise its gas tax by more than 60 percent over the next three years, but members acknowledged that taxpayers facing a dire economy could find the increase hard to swallow. The proposed hike, approved by the state-appointed Blue Ribbon Commission on Maryland Transportation Funding, would raise the gas tax on wholesalers by 5 cents a year for three years, from the current rate of 23.5 cents per gallon. The move could generate nearly $500 million in annual revenue and is part of $870 million in annual tax-and-fee increases recommended by...

A study released earlier this month by the Cascade Policy Institute questioned whether pricey mass transit options in Portland, Oregon are really being used by the public. The city has been a leader in securing funding for various forms of passenger rail and trolley systems. The Obama administration, for example, pledged $745 million in federal gas tax dollars to pay for the construction of a $1.5 billion, 7.3 mile light rail project connecting Portland to Milwaukie. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has singled out the city’s priorities as for praise. “By adding innovative transit opportunities, Portland has become a model livable...

Ask most conservatives what they think about public transportation, and they’d probably tell you that they don’t like it. And it’s not just because of the smell and the gum stuck to the seats. Most of us conservatives, deep down inside, at least in some subconscious way, feel that mass public transportation is just a little bit communist. After all, we conservatives like our freedom. That’s probably a lot of the reason why we’re in love with the automobile. With the wide open spaces and abundant road system we enjoy in America, conservatives would never dream of trying to force...

California’s liberal Ninth Circuit rejects a specious civil-rights lawsuit.This February, the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals—widely seen as one of the more liberal federal courts in the nation—issued its ruling in Darensburg v. Metropolitan Transit Commission, a lawsuit brought by poor, largely minority riders of public buses in the San Francisco Bay Area. The plaintiffs had alleged that, since a large majority of the city’s bus riders were nonwhite, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission’s preference for rail-expansion projects over bus-expansion projects was racially biased and a violation of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The court ruled against the plaintiffs and...

The crash occurred Saturday in Bihar state when the three-wheeled taxi, also called an auto-rickshaw, got in the way of a New Delhi-bound Rajdhani Express... as many as 15,993 rail-crossing gates remained unguarded ... India plans to post guards and build subways and underpasses at such locations in the next five years, officials said. The country's rail-safety record is also marred by dozens of wrecks every year.

MILLIONS of commuters in London endured a grim journey to work today after staff on the Underground train network walked out for the second time in a month, sparking calls for tougher strike laws. People were forced to walk or cycle in heavy rain, squeeze on to packed buses or brave heavy traffic by driving as only 30 per cent of the Tube trains were running in the morning rush hour, according to operator London Underground. The strike follows a walkout in early September as part of a dispute between trade unions and London Underground managers over the planned axing...

Federal Funds Pay For ServiceKOKOMO, Ind. -- For the first time in more than four decades, Kokomo launched a new public transportation system Tuesday. People can ride on the two new red and green buses, designed to look like trolleys, for free, at least for now, 6News' Julie Pursley reported. "For me, we're just getting on to see where we go and how it works," said Christina Marshall, who rode Tuesday morning. The buses ride along four routes that include more than 100 designated stops, such as at hospitals, universities and shopping centers. "This is going to help the citizens...

Public transit ground to a halt across France and on the London Tube on Tuesday, with tourists and commuters bearing the brunt of a wave of discontent over government austerity measures. French unions challenged unpopular President Nicolas Sarkozy with a major nationwide strike over plans to raise the retirement age from 60 to 62, shutting down trains, planes, buses, subways, post offices and schools.

VIRGINIA BEACH Two former Hampton Roads Transit employees were indicted by a special grand jury Thursday, charged with embezzlement, money laundering and state income tax evasion in connection with money missing from bus fare boxes. Karen Yvonne Watkins, 23, of Portsmouth and Latasha Kiana Boyd, 22, of Virginia Beach have agreed to turn themselves over to police next week, said Macie Pridgen, spokeswoman for the Virginia Beach commonwealth's attorney's office. Pridgen said the charges stem from funds that were discovered missing between January and October 2009. The investigation is ongoing and more indictments are possible, Pridgen said. Last year, HRT...

RALEIGH — North Carolina’s traffic congestion could double in the next couple of decades, with Charlotte drivers facing the same types of delays Chicago drivers face now. That was the conclusion of a 2007 John Locke Foundation report. It recommended $12 billion of spending to clear North Carolina’s congested urban roads and prepare for future traffic growth. Many traffic problems outlined three years ago continue to cause concerns today. Randal O’Toole, senior fellow with the Cato Institute, recently tackled the issue from a national perspective in the book Gridlock: Why We’re Stuck in Traffic and What to Do About It....

The federal government would have an additional $10 billion a year to spend on crucial highways if it stopped diverting federal fuel tax money to projects with no national benefits... The federal gas tax was supposed to be used to build and maintain the Interstate Highway System. Today auto and truck drivers pay federal gas taxes that are diverted to ferryboats, trails and mass transit programs... The 18.4 cents a gallon federal fuel tax should be refocused on rebuilding and modernizing vitally important Interstates... It is time to rethink and refocus the federal transportation role more on core federal purposes...