“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.”
View this complete post...Archive for the ‘Innovation Newsbriefs’ Category
Lacking New Revenue, Will the Focus Shift to Spending Restraint?
Wednesday, August 18th, 2010Two Promising New Proposals For Solving the Fiscal Shortfall
Monday, August 9th, 2010Both 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”).
View this complete post...The Accidental Legacy of the High-Speed Rail Program
Wednesday, July 7th, 2010…the HSR initiative could turn out to be of considerable economic benefit to the nation — but not quite in the way the program has been sold to the public and not exactly in the manner it is still being envisioned by the Conference of Mayors and other passenger rail boosters.
View this complete post...The Rail Debate Intensifies
Monday, June 28th, 2010We think a strong case can be made that true high-speed rail will eventually be necessary in the U.S. between major city-pairs separated by less than 300-400 miles, in order to relieve unacceptable levels of airport and air traffic congestion. In Europe, air service between Paris-Brussels [162 miles], Paris-Lyon (246 miles) and Cologne- Frankfurt [94 miles] has already been totally replaced by high-speed rail service.
View this complete post...Is the High Speed Rail Program At Risk?
Wednesday, June 16th, 2010Ever since President Obama announced his high speed rail (HSR) program initiative and Congress approved $8 billion to fund it as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act in February 2009, many States have lined up to stake out a share of the new money. States that had been working on high-speed rail plans for years saw it as an opportunity to finally bring their projects to fruition, while others scrambled to get rail corridor planning underway so that they too could qualify for a share of the pie. The prize looked particularly attractive because the dollars will flow directly to the recipient states without requiring a local match.
View this complete post...Some Frank and Unscripted Comments from Capitol Hill
Thursday, June 3rd, 2010We have noted before in these pages that there seems to be no sign of a popular outcry about the stalled transportation authorization and no willingness on the part of the public to tax themselves to support a larger program of infrastructure modernization. Warnings by advocacy groups about “crumbling infrastructure” seem to fall on deaf ears. Nor is the Administration showing any desire to move a multi-year transportation bill this year.
View this complete post...Rail Transit Expansion Reconsidered — Commentary
Monday, May 24th, 2010…fiscal realities can do wonders to bring federal officials down to earth. The Transit Account of the Highway Trust Fund is barely solvent. The U.S. DOT budget will grow by only one percent in 2011. With commendable consistency and fairness, the Administration seems to have decided to apply the same investment standard to transit as it has preached and laid down for highways: Forget about massive capacity expansion; focus on getting the most out of the assets already in place by maintaining them in a state of good repair. To critics of the DOT’s new posture— and there will be some—a good answer could be: It’s just a different way of looking at what it means to be pro-transit.
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...Two Bold Predictions
Monday, May 3rd, 2010Two bold predictions concerning the future of the federal surface transportation program have caught our eye in recent days. Both have come from respected veterans of the transportation scene so they cannot be lightly dismissed as speculations of some anonymous bloggers.
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