Bernanke: House Transport Bill is Budgetary Sleight of Hand
The House voted Thursday to pay for planned highway construction by drawing on the Federal Reserve’s capital. The idea of using Fed capital to pay for government spending, which comes up periodically,...
View ArticleFrench, Chinese, Japanese All Want Piece of Texas HSR
Despite its car-is-king reputation, Texas has emerged as a hot market for international rail firms betting the state is ripe for a boom in high-speed rail projects.
View ArticleA “Helicopter Drop” for the Asphalt Socialists
The House of Representatives has hit on a clever new strategy for funding the bankrupt Highway Trust Fund: raid the Federal Reserve.
View Article28 Transportation Fees Paid by Seattle Residents
Everyone’s heard of the gas tax—and with Congress debating how to pay for a big highway bill, you’ll be hearing a lot more in the coming weeks—but it’s far from the only transportation fee that...
View ArticleAmerican Transit Faces $102B Repair Backlog
America’s highway are in terrible shape, but when it comes to this maintenance crisis its aging transit systems can give U.S. roads a run for their money. A run worth about $102 billion, to be precise.
View ArticleHouse Amendment Shifts Money to Washington State
Last week, the U.S. House of Representatives approved a $325 billion transportation bill–that is, after a flurry of votes on nearly 270 amendments. One of those amendments, which passed by a...
View ArticleLooming Transit Funding Breakdown
While federal transit funding stagnates, the nation’s largest rail and bus systems have been delaying critical maintenance projects.
View ArticleReasons HSR Money Shouldn’t Go to Roads
For the increasingly desperate opponents of California’s high-speed rail project, one bad argument deserves another.
View ArticleMaryland Receives Four Proposals to Build Purple Line
Maryland just moved another step closer to building a light-rail Purple Line in the Washington suburbs.
View ArticleHow Transportation Funding Fails to Work the Way Anyone Intended
As the Senate and House are finalizing touches on the first new transportation authorization bill in more than 10 years, everyone agrees there are major problems with our transportation systems in the...
View ArticleFeds Threaten Honolulu Rail Funding Unless Revenue Guaranteed
Honolulu Mayor Kirk Caldwell on Monday urged the Honolulu City Council to move quickly to approve a bill that would extend the 0.5 percent surcharge on the general excise tax after he made public a...
View ArticleUber Costs MTA $10M Per Year
Ride-hailing apps like Uber and Lyft are costing MTA about $10 million a year, according to Robert Foran, the transportation agency’s chief financial officer.
View ArticleAtlanta Transit Expansion Gathers Momentum
Perhaps the biggest takeaway from the recent Georgia Transportation Summit is the remarkable speed with which transit has taken a seat at the grownups’ table. And that was at a conference catering to...
View ArticleNo Easy Solutions for Funding US Transit
“It is costing the U.S. so much more than it costs other countries around the world to build rail infrastructure,” said Eric Jaffe, New York bureau chief for CityLab. Jaffe moderated a session at the...
View ArticleFederal Transit Policy Focused on Capital Funding is Failing Us
There’s an old joke about a drunk who loses his keys in a park, but decides to look for them on a nearby sidewalk under some streetlights. When asked why, he responds, “It’s brighter here.”
View ArticleUnexpected Funding Needed for Transportation Ills
The world of transportation is innovating and shifting at a clip no mere mortals can expect to follow easily, but one would never know it by simply glancing at the flat and seemingly unexcited way...
View ArticleTime to Stop Thinking Roads Pay for Themselves
If nothing else, the current round of federal transportation legislating should end the myth that highways are a uniquely self-sufficient form of infrastructure paid for by “user fees,” a.k.a. gas...
View ArticleInfrastructure and the Need for Regional Clout
Some new approaches are emerging that could help booming and struggling areas alike.
View ArticleAdvice for DOT’s Looking for More Funding: Spend Wiser
The Oregon Department of Transportation is in a tough spot after it tried to justify highway expansion projects by saying they would cut greenhouse gas emissions.
View ArticleConsultant: T Got Snookered on the Green Line
THE STATE ENABLED A MAJOR CONTRACTOR GROUP to take advantage of it, leading to ballooning Green Line Extension costs, according to a consultant brought in to assess what went wrong.
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