John Hennessy III,
P.E.
METROPOLITAN COUNCIL
MZ STRATEGIES, LLC
In evaluating its regional solicitation process, the Met Council wanted to know how other regions manage this process, including the extent to which federal highway funds are blended, how preservation and maintenance needs (particularly for transit) are met, and what type of alignment exists between selection criteria and regional policies or goals.
Innovation Newsbriefs
Vol. 24, No. 13 (update)
In the longer run, greater state fiscal autonomy and financial sophistication could modify the federal-state relationship in transportation. There would be less need for direct financial aid to state DOTs and more emphasis on credit assistance to support transportation investments of truly national scope and significance. (High-Speed Rail in the Northeast Corridor comes to mind). At the same time, federal oversight of state transportation programs could be reduced to reflect the smaller federal fiscal footprint.
Innovation Newsbriefs
Vol. 24, No. 14
Robert Poole, co-founder of the libertarian Reason Foundation and its Director of Transportation Policy has produced a study that is bound to create more than a ripple inside the transportation community…The study makes only one major policy recommendation: that Congress allow tolling of Interstate highways “for the specific purpose of reconstruction and widening with toll revenue used only for those purposes.” The author concludes that permission from Congress is “the one needed enabler… to begin this transition.”
REASON FOUNDATION
Steady increases in vehicle fuel economy, the lack of inflation indexing of fuel tax rates, and political gridlock over increasing fuel tax rates all make it very difficult even to maintain current pavement and bridge conditions and prevent congestion from getting even worse. The transportation community agrees that we need to phase out fuel taxes and replace them with a more sustainable funding source, generally agreed to be mileage-based user fees of some sort. But no consensus exists on how and when to do this.
AIRPORT COOPERATIVE RESEARCH PROGRAM
Many airports are working hard to improve efficiency and to offer a positive passenger experience before and after security checkpoints. Why is this? According to J.D. Power, “Happy passengers are super spenders.” Loyal air passengers and increased revenues to the airport sponsors are among the top priorities for airport management.
“If the wind stops blowing in one place it’s most likely blowing somewhere else around that region and therefore across the region, and these are regional electricity markets that we have in the country. Across the region wind itself is not variable…if you spread it out with transmission across such a wide region.”
View this complete post...BROOKINGS INSTITUTION
Congress should establish a National Infrastructure Bank (NIB) capitalized with the proceeds from a onetime repatriation tax holiday. The primary barrier to an NIB—a targeted mechanism for financing infrastructure projects of national significance— is finding a way to build the loan fund. Untaxed overseas corporate profits, which currently provide little support to overstretched federal budgets, represent an untapped revenue source that could quickly fund an NIB, without a direct appropriation.
Time lapse construction of the Yellowstone River Bridge –MontanaDOT on YouTube.
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Transportation Issues Daily The newly-formed Los Angeles River Revitalization Corporation has announced the visionary, ambitious Greenway 2020 plan to create a 51-mile Greenway along the Los Angeles River. LA River Corp is a public private partnership, and will acquire public and private money to improve the existing 26 miles of bike paths along the river […]
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