John Hennessy III,
P.E.
NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF AREA AGENCIES ON AGING
Two powerful phenomena have come face-to-face this year, demanding urgent attention. One is demographic: the rapid and dramatic aging of the U.S. population. In 2011, in communities across the country, the leading edge of the Baby Boom generation reached age 65. By 2030, more than 70 million Americans—twice the number in 2000—will be 65 and older. At that time, older adults will comprise nearly one in five Americans.
TRANSPORTATION RESEARCH BOARD
The U.S. transportation system serves hundreds of millions of travelers and handles millions of tons of freight each day to help ensure the efficient movement of people and goods in support of personal goals and domestic and international commerce. A well-functioning transportation system is essential for business travel and tourism, yet no national data have been collected on long-distance, intercity passenger travel by surface transportation modes since 1995.
Kathleen Mulligan-Hansel is the Deputy Director of The Partnership for Working Families. She has deep roots in accountable development work, having served as a founding co-chair and primary staff lead for the Good Jobs & Livable Neighborhoods coalition in Milwaukee while a coordinator of the Working Families Project at the Institute for Wisconsin’s Future.
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UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE
Recipients continue to report using Recovery Act funds to improve the nation’s transportation infrastructure. Highway funds have been primarily used for pavement improvement projects, and transit funds have been primarily used to upgrade transit facilities and purchase buses. Recovery Act funds have also been used to rehabilitate airport runways and improve Amtrak’s infrastructure. The Recovery Act helped fund transportation jobs, but long-term benefits are unclear
TRANSPORTATION RESEARCH BOARD
Transportation planners and traffic engineers are faced nowadays with immense modeling challenges arising from several emerging policy, planning, and engineering developments. Hence, interest has grown in applying traffic analysis tools capable of analyzing travel activities and dynamic network performance for a corridor or region over peak hours or even extended daily hours.
PEDESTRIAN OBSERVATIONS
House Transportation Committee Chair John Mica (R-FL) has finally come out explicitly in favor of privatizing the Northeast Corridor and letting private consortia bid for high-speed rail construction. Mica’s rationale is that Amtrak is an inefficient government provider, and its proposal for spending $117 billion over 30 years to build high-speed rail in the Northeast is deficient…Not mentioned anywhere in the article is the FRA, which is the real obstacle to modern rail operations. Mica has to my knowledge said nothing about the FRA, which is too bad, since it could feed into the Republican narrative of bad government and the need for privatization and deregulation.
Increasing the movement of people, not cars should be the goal of any public transit initiative.
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LOS ANGELES COUNTY METROPOLITAN TRANSPORTATION AUTHORITY
The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Metro) recently began studying the ways in which bicycling, for transportation and in combination with transit, can reduce automobile use and lower greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions…The purpose of this study is to establish the benefits of providing an integrated transportation system where bicyclists are accommodated at train stations and on trains.
GOOGLE.ORG
Our need for energy must be balanced against the often competing interests of the economy, environment, and national security. Clean, sustainable, safe, and secure sources of energy are needed to avoid long-term harm from geopolitical risks and global climate change. Unless fully cost-competitive with fossil fuels, the adoption of clean technologies will either be limited or driven by policy. Innovation in clean energy technology is thus needed to reduce costs and maximize adoption. But how far can energy innovation go towards meeting economic, environmental, and security needs? This analysis attempts to estimate the potential impact clean energy innovation could have on the US economy and energy landscape.
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