Congressman James Oberstar represents Minnesota’s 8th Congressional District. Now in his 17th term, he is the longest serving member of Congress in Minnesota history. In the 34 years he has served in Congress, Jim has become known as the body’s leading expert on transportation policy. From 1989 through 1995, he chaired the Subcommittee on Aviation, passing important legislation that has led to better maintenance and safer aircraft. Later, as the ranking democrat of the full Transportation Committee, he worked in a bipartisan manner to take the Highway Trust Fund off budget to ensure that gas taxes are used to fix roads and bridges and not to make the budget deficit look smaller. In January 2007, Jim was elected chairman of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. He is also the first member of Congress to have served both as a committee’s administrator and its chairman.
View this complete post...Archive for the ‘Congestion’ Category
Guest on The Infra Blog: Congressman James Oberstar (D-MN), Chairman, House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee
Monday, June 7th, 2010Guest on The Infra Blog: John Mica (R-FL), Republican Leader, House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee
Thursday, May 27th, 2010Rep. John Mica represents the 7th Congressional District of Florida, and he is currently serving his ninth term in the 111th Congress. Mica was elected to serve as the Republican Leader of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, the largest Congressional panel in Congress. As the House Transportation GOP Leader, Mica serves on all six Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittees. These subcommittees include Aviation; Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation; Economic Development, Public Buildings and Emergency Management; Highways and Transit; Railroads, Pipelines and Hazardous Materials; and Water Resources and Environment. He has been recognized as a national leader on a variety of transportation issues.
View this complete post...Guest on The Infra Blog: Congressman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), Member of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure
Tuesday, May 18th, 2010Congressman Jerrold Nadler represents the Eighth Congressional District of New York. He began his political career in 1976 in the New York State Assembly, where he served for 16 years. In 1992, following the death of Congressman Ted Weiss, Nadler was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in a special election and has served in Congress ever since. He is the highest ranking Northeastern member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, an Assistant Democrat Whip, and the New York State Congressional Delegation’s representative on the Democratic Steering and Policy Committee.
View this complete post...U.S. DOT’s Strategic Plan Creates Controversy With Its Emphasis on “Livability”
Tuesday, May 18th, 2010The Administration’s desire to impose its own vision of how Americans should live and travel represents a stubborn and in the end futile gesture. The gesture is futile for, as generations of political appointees before them have discovered, policies that do not resonate with the majority of Americans seldom survive after their authors have left office.
View this complete post...Transportation Facts
Tuesday, May 11th, 2010CENTER FOR TRANSPORTATION EXCELLENCE
-314 jobs are created for each $10 million invested in transit capital funding and more than 570 jobs are created for each $10 million invested in shorter projects.
-American families spend 18% of their household budgets on transportation, making it the second largest household expenditure after housing.
-Building more roads isn’t always the answer to this growing problem. Each of the cities in the TTI study would require an average of 37 more lane miles to keep pace with just one year of increased traffic demand.
Guest on The Infra Blog: Thomas Murphy, Senior Resident Fellow, ULI/Klingbeil Family Chair for Urban Development, Urban Land Institute, and former Mayor of Pittsburgh
Thursday, May 6th, 2010Thomas Murphy is a senior resident fellow, ULI/Klingbeil Family Chair for urban development, Urban Land Institute. Since January 2006, Murphy had served as ULI’s Gulf Coast liaison, helping to coordinate with the leadership of New Orleans and the public to advance the implementation of rebuilding recommendations made by ULI’s advisory services panel last fall. Prior to his service as the ULI Gulf Coast liaison, Murphy served three terms as the mayor of Pittsburgh, from January 1994 through December 2005. From 1979 through 1993, Murphy served eight terms in the Pennsylvania State General Assembly House of Representatives. He is an honorary member of the American Society of Landscape Architects; a board member of the Pennsylvania League of Cities and Municipalities; and a board member of the National Rails to Trails Conservancy.
View this complete post...TxDOT’s Beaumont District
Wednesday, May 5th, 2010TxDOTBeaumont on YouTube: What is the future for highway construction and transportation in Southeast Texas? Texas faces many transportation funding challenges in the years to come. TxDOT, state lawmakers and industry leaders are working to come up with ways of keeping our highway system one of the best in the world. This video, produced by […]
View this complete post...Full Speed Ahead: Creating Green Jobs Through Freight Rail Expansion
Wednesday, May 5th, 2010BLUEGREEN ALLIANCE & ECONOMIC POLICY INSTITUTE
Economic models estimate about 7,800 green jobs are created for every billion dollars of freight rail capital investment. Furthermore, the industry has nearly doubled the amount of goods it has shipped without increasing fuel consumption over the past three decades, and creates a fraction of the pollution of other transport modes such as trucking and aviation. Its continued growth will generate green jobs, reduce dependence on foreign oil and contribute to solving climate change.
Transportation’s Role in Reducing U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions
Thursday, April 29th, 2010U.S. DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION
Transportation GHG emissions account for 29 percent of total U.S. GHG emissions, and over 5 percent of global GHG emissions. Except otherwise noted, the estimates in this report account for “tailpipe” emissions from burning fossil fuels to power vehicles and do not account for greenhouse gases emitted
through other transportation lifecycle processes, such as the manufacture of vehicles, the extraction and refining of fuels, and the construction and maintenance of transportation infrastructure.
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