CTfastrak is the region’s first dedicated mass transit system in more than 50 years. Carrying more than 16,500 riders each weekday, the system centers around an exclusive 9.4-mile guideway dedicated to the BRT system that links central Connecticut communities. It reduces traffic congestion and shortens commute times for commuters in Hartford, West Hartford, Newington and New Britain, CT.
View this complete Infra Blog post...The American Council of Engineering Companies (ACEC) will offer Key Changes to the AASHTO Audit Guide: What It Means for Your Firm, a webinar led by members of the ACEC task force who reviewed and provided industry input on the modifications. This session, to be held 1:30 p.m. – 3:00 p.m. Tuesday, March 8, will provide essential insights into how the changes will impact firms that work for State DOT clients.
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Michael P. Melaniphy is president and chief executive officer of the American Public Transportation Association (APTA) and president of the American Public Transportation Foundation. Melaniphy’s entire career has been in public transportation, with more than 30 years of both public and private sector leadership experience.
“As a kid growing up you had a binary choice: you were either a bus kid or you were a car kid. You were one of the two. And you look at today’s environment and it’s a multi-modal environment. We have evolved as a society to understand that now it’s about mobility choices…So as we look at what are the best utilizations of our scarce resources in a community, people are looking at the full assortment of choices, and as we look at the unbelievable growth that’s going to come in the population set of this nation we’ve found that paving our way to a solution is not the best choice.”
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According to ARTBA, “There are nearly 204 million daily crossings on 58,495 U.S. structurally deficient bridges in need of repair.” The term structurally deficient refers to any bridge wherein “one or more of the key bridge elements, such as the deck, superstructure or substructure, is considered to be in ‘poor’ or worse condition.” The most-trafficked bridge on the list, in Los Angeles, CA, carries nearly 300,000 passengers each day.
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Transportation for America recently published The Scenic Route, a content-rich online guide to introduce the concept of “creative placemaking” to transportation professionals. The Scenic Route offers general information as well as specific approaches aiming to facilitate planners, public works agencies and local elected officials in utilizing the creative potential of their respective communities.
View this complete Infra Blog post...Innovation Newsbriefs
Vol. 27, No. 1
In a gesture that looks more like a political testament than a realistic budget proposal, the Obama Administration unveiled a $4.1 trillion plan to fund the federal government in Fiscal Year 2017. The budget includes a hefty $98.1 billion for transportation— a 60% increase over the current annual spending level. To partly pay for the new spending, the Administration is calling for a $10 per barrel tax on oil that would translate roughly into a 25 cent/gallon increase in the price of gasoline at the pump.
The American Association of Equipment Manufacturers (AEM) and the HeroX crowdsourcing platform are presenting a challenge to bring attention to infrastructure in the USA…The hosts hope to create “an incentivized platform for innovative ideas to thrive and help shape America’s growth in the 21st Century.” They hope to gather ideas, vote for the most impactful ideas and projects, and even enter a “build” phase in July 2016.
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2016 ACEC Convention and Legislative SummitThe 2016 ACEC Annual Convention and Legislative Summit is coming to Washington, DC this Spring. Attendees can expect a wide variety of presentations, forums, keynote speeches, educational sessions and much more.
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Richard Harnish is the Executive Director of the Midwest High Speed Rail Association (MHSRA), a member-supported non-profit organization advocating for fast, frequent and dependable trains linking the entire Midwest.
Here in Illinois we’ve been seeing a lot more interest in doing true high speed rail and we think we’re close to an important next step there. And I was out in Sacramento two months ago and touched the first car shell for that line. That’s something that most people don’t know: those trains really are under construction, and the stations are under construction. So we’re very close to a major tipping point.
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Jeff Morales is the Chief Executive Officer of the California High-Speed Rail Authority and has a distinguished record of experience managing large and complex transportation issues and projects. As the former Director of the California Department of Transportation, Morales managed a $10 billion program and more than 23,000 employees working to build, maintain and operate the largest state transportation system in the U.S.
“California, with the leadership of Governor Brown and the legislature—we’ve taken the position that we’re going to advance this program with or without additional federal support, and we’ve committed to doing that and are doing that, and we’ve got major construction underway in the Central Valley on the first segment.”
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