(Source: Financial Times)

“History reminds us,” President Barack Obama told both houses of the US Congress on Tuesday night, “that at every moment of economic upheaval and transformation, this nation has responded with bold action and big ideas.” By “the nation”, Mr Obama means “the government”. We can tell by the episodes he uses to make his point: the establishment of universal public education, the GI Bill of Rights and – alluded to but not named – the Highway Act of 1956, at the time of its passage the largest public works project in US history.

Mr Obama’s praise for the Highway Act is disturbing. In arguments over his stimulus package and his preliminary budget released on Thursday, Republicans have made the lazy assumption that government intervention in the economy can never succeed. Mr Obama shows signs of the opposite error – believing it can never fail.

The Highway Act probably has more defenders than detractors. But Mr Obama should be among the latter. The act, which budgeted $25bn in federal money to build 41,000 miles of motorway, exacerbated the very problems Mr Obama has been most eager to solve – spoliation of the environment, dependence on foreign oil, overburdening of state and local budgets, abandonment of the inner-city poor and reckless speculation in real-estate development, to name a few.

A lot of people complain today about the rump of Republican disbelievers in Keynes, feckless though they may be, who fiddle while Rome burns. There was no hint of such heresy in 1956. The Senate passed the bill 89-1. Otherwise, the political climate bore some resemblance to our own: conformism bred of confusion. A 40,000 mile highway network had been on the wish list of the armed forces since 1944. Eisenhower was a big backer, and had hopes of justifying it as a stimulus during the recession of 1954. That downturn was long past when the bill came to a vote, but the vested interests remained, and so did the fear that one’s constituents might think it a bit communist to vote against a highway bill.

Click here to read the entire article.  (Free registration required at FT.com)

(Source:  National Journal’s Transportation Blog)

On Feb 26, the National Surface Transportation Infrastructure Financing Commissionissued its report on how to fund the next highway and transit bill. It called for Congress to enact a 10-cent-per-gallon increase in the gas tax (and 15-cent-per-gallon increase in the diesel tax) in the next surface transportation bill while preparing to convert to a system that, by 2020, would charge people according to how many miles they drive.

This blog is fortunate to have commission Chairman Robert Atkinson and members Kathy Ruffalo and Geoffrey Yarema among its expert contributors. This week, instead of responding to a question, expert bloggers are invited to post their questions about the report on the blog, and Rob, Kathy and Geoff have agreed to spend the week answering them. So fire away, everyone.

Click here to read the responses/questions on this bloggers “interactive” Q & A.

(Source: StreetsBlog)

We want mass transit in American cities, right? Right. So how are we going to pay for it?

The Connected Vehicle Trade Association in conjunction with the Michigan Department of Transportation and SAE International is hosting The FirstInternational Summit on the State of the Connected Vehicle with a Primary Focus on Policy and Strategy for Deployment. The first day will emphasis policy,funding, issues and strategies to accelerate deployments regionally andinternationally, and the second half day will address near term business opportunities. The Summit will be held on April 16-17, 2009 at Cobo Hall inDetroit, Michigan.  The Summit brings together senior executives and policy officials fromgovernment and industry with responsibility for the deployment and operation ofConnected Vehicle programs systems and products. Presenters from Europe,Asia and North America will provide perspectives from their respectiveregions. In addition, major corporate business leaders from automotive companies, the technology supplier community and communication companieswill discuss the business and partnering opportunities in this rapidly evolving environment. This event will bring together the international public and private sector leadership with responsibility for deployment in the connected vehicle environment. 

For more information, visit:  http://www.sae.org/events/scv/

(Source: Wired Magazine, Transportation for America, Streetsblog)

From Wired Magazine via Aaron of Streetsblog comes this amazing map and video that shows a day of air travel over North America. Using data from the Federal Aviation Administration and a service called FlightView that tracks airline travel each day, artist Aaron Koblin created this Google map that shows 24 hours of airline travel on August 12, 2008.

There’s also a breathtaking movie version of this same map, that shows the flights in real time through the course of the day.

The sheer number of airplanes traveling over the United States is simply mind boggling. On this day chronicled in the map, the FAA tracked 205,000 flights in U.S. airspace. Anyone who has ever traveled by plane knows that we have plenty of air above our country, but the problem is the fact that too many of them need to be in specific pieces of air at the same time. Or traveling through the same crowded airports.

Click here to read the entire article.

(Source:  Rocky Mountain Institute Via Tree Hugger)

State standards could be supplanted

(Source: Freep.com, Detriot Free Press)

(Source:  The Brookings Institution)

(Source: Associated Press)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The numerous safety violations that contributed to a deadly train crash in California last year have some federal officials asking whether the crash was an isolated incident or part of a more widespread problem, particularly with cell phone use by crew members.

A National Transportation Safety Board panel held a second day of hearings Wednesday concerning the crash that killed 25 people and injured at least 130. The crash occurred when a Metrolink passenger train failed to heed a red traffic signal and ended up on the same shared track with a Union Pacific freight train, officials said. The two trains collided head-on.

Federal investigators on Tuesday released the transcript of 43 text messages sent and received by the engineer of the Metrolink train, Robert Sanchez. The engineer also made four phone calls the day of the collision, federal records show.

Sanchez was killed in the crash.

Kitty Higgins, an NTSB board member, said that rules in place should have stopped Sanchez from using his cell phone while on duty. But inspections designed to deter cell phone use didn’t seem to have much effect because people change their behavior when they know they’re being watched.

“I think it’s very widespread,” Higgins said of cell phone use by train crews. “And I was not very impressed with the answer ‘we don’t know how to enforce this’ (ban). We know it’s an issue with the industry.”

She said that cell phone use has become part of everyday life, so dealing with the problem won’t be easy.

(Source:  LA Times)

A top union official representing Metrolink engineers told federal authorities this morning that the union opposes a key reform proposed by the agency in the wake of the Chatsworth rail disaster: installing video cameras inside locomotives.