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Archive for the ‘Highway’ Category

Lacking New Revenue, Will the Focus Shift to Spending Restraint?

Wednesday, August 18th, 2010

“Building America’s Future” (BAF), one of the more effective coalitions in the crowded field of public policy advocacy, held another of its forums aimed at rekindling interest in and drumming up support for increased infrastructure spending…”We have to wake up the American people to the challenge and make sure that the general public understands the urgency of action,” one speaker remarked. “We should reach out to the elected officials to make sure the nation’s infrastructure is a top priority in the next Congress,” another participant echoed. “Energizing and mobilizing public opinion should be our priority,” added a third panelist, “let us use this conference as the spark to light the fire.”

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Evaluating Public Transportation Health Benefits

Tuesday, August 17th, 2010
International Traffic Fatalities

AMERICAN PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION ASSOCIATION
VICTORIA TRANSPORT POLICY INSTITUTE
This research indicates that public transit improvements and more transit oriented development can provide large but often overlooked health benefits. People who live or work in communities with high quality public transportation tend to drive significantly less and rely more on alternative modes (walking, cycling and public transit) than they would in more automobile-oriented areas. This reduces traffic crashes and pollution emissions, increases physical fitness and mental health, and provides access to medical care and healthy food.

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Video: Philadelphia Skyline Sunset Time Lapse at Rush Hour

Monday, August 16th, 2010

Shot on the Spring Garden Street Bridge over I-76 over 90 minutes on Friday, August 6, 2010.
-ptm113 on YouTube

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Traffic Jams from Sea to Shining Sea

Thursday, August 12th, 2010
Dallas, TX

How can we put an end to this?

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Bridging the Gap: Restoring and Rebuilding the Nation’s Bridges

Wednesday, August 11th, 2010
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AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF STATE HIGHWAY AND TRANSPORTATION OFFICIALS

Almost a year ago, we as a nation were stunned and saddened by the tragic bridge collapse in Minneapolis that took 13 lives, injured 144 others, and disrupted the life of a great city.

In the intervening year we have watched with pride the way in which federal, state, and city transportation agencies, contractors, and construction teams have worked night and day to bring to life a new bridge, unsurpassed in technology and design.

Also in the past year we in the transportation industry have looked even more closely at the safety and sustainability of America’s 590,000 bridges for today and into the future.
This report was developed by the men and women of the state departments of transportation to share that inside look with you.

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Too Much Debt: Washington State Can’t Finance Major Highway Projects It Has Planned

Tuesday, August 10th, 2010
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COALITION FOR A SUSTAINABLE SR 520
SR 520 is one of two east-west roadways across Lake Washington. Approximately 115,000 vehicles carrying 190,000 people travel the SR 520 Evergreen Point Bridge every day.

Washington is dangerously close to its constitutional debt limit. SR 520 is dangerously close to the end of its useful life. The state is advocating a construction plan that can’t legally be paid for.

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Two Promising New Proposals For Solving the Fiscal Shortfall

Monday, August 9th, 2010

Both proposals stem from a conclusion that the obstacles standing in the way of enacting a new multi-year federal surface transportation program are of a long-term nature and will not be overcome any time soon. These obstacles include the inability of Congress to come up with a meaningful way to pay for the program; the increasingly shaky and uncertain status of the Highway Trust Fund; the pressure for deficit reduction in the fiscal and budgetary actions of the next Congress, especially in the likely event of a Republican takeover; and a low priority given to the reauthorization by the Obama White House (see our NewsBrief of July 16, “New Political Realities May Sidetrack the Transportation Reauthorization”).

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Gov. Ed Rendell: Rebuild our Infrastructure

Thursday, August 5th, 2010

PITTSBURGH POST-GAZETTE
By Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell
Most schools are out for a summer break after final grades were toted home in students’ backpacks throughout the country. Around the same time, America got its infrastructure report card — and the results aren’t good.

Imagine sitting around the kitchen table reviewing Junior’s grades. His last report card shows a cumulative average of D. As a family, parent, teacher or community, wouldn’t we do all we could to try to help this student improve? Of course we would.

It’s the same with the state of the country’s infrastructure. Consider some of these “grades,” as reported in the American Society of Civil Engineers’ most recent infrastructure report card: transit, D; energy, D+; dams, D; bridges, C; aviation, D; drinking water, D-; hazardous waste, D; schools, D; and wastewater, D-.

I’d say this defines our infrastructure situation as one in crisis.

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More Americans prefer transportation tolls than taxes, other funding options

Wednesday, August 4th, 2010
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HNTB CORPORATION
Despite a growing awareness that America’s aging network of highways, bridges and tunnels is in failing health, huge roadblocks are preventing Congressional action on a new national transportation bill: the lack of adequate funding sources and consensus on a vision that helps plan, prioritize and pay for U.S. infrastructure. A new America THINKS survey from HNTB Corporation suggests the answer may lie in a modern version of a solution that financed this country’s roads and bridges prior to the advent of a national gas tax more than 50 years ago: tolling.

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Video: Dangerous Crossing

Tuesday, August 3rd, 2010

BLUEPRINT AMERICA
In recent years a little noticed shift has been transforming suburbia: the home of the middle class has become the home of the working poor. As a result, roadways that were built for the car are now used by a growing population that can’t afford to drive. The consequences can be deadly.

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