John Hennessy III,
P.E.
Polly Trottenberg is currently the Assistant Secretary for Transportation Policy at the U.S. Department of Transportation. She was previously the Executive Director of Building America’s Future, a new non-profit organization dedicated to bringing about a new era of U.S. investment in infrastructure that enhances our nation’s prosperity and quality of life.
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Thomas 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.
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Janice L. Tuchman is editor-in-chief of Engineering News-Record, where she directs the editorial operations of the Engineering News-Record enterprise online, in print and at in-person events. In 2002, she became only the sixth woman to be elected to membership in “The Moles,” a prestigious heavy-construction industry leaders organization. She also serves on the Industry Advisory Committee of the Department of Civil Engineering at Columbia University. She co-authored a book on Exposed Structure in Building Design and won McGraw-Hill Corporate Achievement Awards for Information Technology and Editorial Excellence.
View this complete post...TxDOTBeaumont 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...Two 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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AMERICAN ROAD & TRANSPORTATION BUILDERS ASSOCIATION
Some political speculators have suggested that an increase in the federal gasoline tax to meet the nation’s staggering highway and mass transit capital investment needs as part of SAFETEA‐LU reauthorization is “politically undoable.” Their theory is that those who would advocate or support such an increase would do so at great political risk. A survey of state legislative actions on the motor fuel excise since 1997 conducted by the American Road & Transportation Builders Association’s Economics Department demonstrates that facts do not support these claims.
AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF STATE HIGHWAY AND TRANSPORTATION OFFICIALS
Soon, members of Congress will be asked to decide “What makes a ‘livable’ community?” Since the U.S. Department of Transportation is making livability a top priority for future transportation funding, this is an important concept to define. While some would suggest livability means a life without cars, this definition really doesn’t work for the millions of Americans who have chosen the lifestyle that an automobile affords…If enhancing livability is the objective of transportation legislation or regulation, then it must work for those who live in rural Montana just as much as it would for those in downtown Portland. Equating livability only to riding transit, walking and biking, limits its relevance and excludes a wide range of improvements and community needs.
Hoping to sustain interest in the Committee’s efforts to enact a new multi-year transportation bill during this session of Congress, Reps. James Oberstar (D-MN) and Peter DeFazio (D-OR), leaders of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, convened a hearing on April 14 to explore innovative ways of financing highway and transit investments. But while the hearing provided a useful survey of available financing tools and programs, it produced no new answers to the key question that has bedeviled transportation advocates for many months and remains as the chief obstacle to moving the legislation forward— the question of how to pay for the proposed multi-year surface transportation program.
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Falling behind global competitors, the United States struggles to gain traction in planning and building the critical infrastructure investments that are necessary to ensure future economic growth and support a rapidly expanding population.
Recent federal stimulus spending addresses some pressing repair needs for transport- and water-related systems and provides seed funding for high-speed rail in important travel corridors, as well as new energy infrastructure. But recession-busted government budgets, entitlement and defense expenditures, and ballooning health care costs push infrastructure down most political priority lists—leaders continue to procrastinate when it comes to new investments as stressed taxpayers balk at more spending.
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