(Source: Transportation for America)

Do you know how transportation policy affects housing? Oil? Climate? Economic opportunity?

Here is your chance to find out.

Transportation is the second biggest federal discretionary spending category — second only to defense spending. Where and how we choose to invest in transportation will have deep impacts on our housing and job markets, public health, energy needs, climate, economic competitiveness, and nearly every other pressing issue facing our country today.

The first four sessions are open now, so visit the webinars page to see the list of sessions and sign up for one today. Open sessions include:

Transportation and Economic Opportunity

Speakers will explore how the transportation sector drives the economy and creates opportunities for American workers. Topics will include the transportation sector’s ability to create jobs and sustain global growth, and the use of transportation as a driver of neighborhood revitalization.

March 19th at 1 PM EST / REGISTER NOW

Transportation and Social Equity

Social equity activists, labor groups, and community development professionals will examine how transportation access and mobility affects basic needs such as healthcare, education, and economic opportunity for millions of Americans.

March 24th at 4 PM EST/ REGISTER NOW

Transportation, Climate Change, and Energy Security

Within the United States, transportation is one of the largest sources of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Webinar attendees can learn how various modes of transportation impact the environment and energy security, and how our land-use patterns affect vehicle miles traveled (VMT) and air quality.

April 2 at 2 PM / REGISTER NOW

Transportation, Housing, and Development

Real estate development professionals and affordable housing advocates will explore the linkages between transportation and housing development, the shift in housing and real estate preferences and value, and the creation of affordable mixed-use development near jobs and transit.

April 16 at 4 PM EST / REGISTER NOW

Transportation and Public Health and Safety

Transportation influences the health and safety of communities by affecting physical activity levels, traffic speeds, and air pollution. This session will investigate the needs of paratransit and transit-dependent populations, the success of Complete Streets and non-motorized transportation programs, and the connections between transportation and active living.

Transportation in Rural Areas and Small Towns

Click here to read more

 (Source: Reuters) 

Florida Deal With Spanish-Led Group Serves as a Model for Cash-Strapped States

(Source:  Wall Street Journal)

 (Source: CNN)

One dentist in Iowa found an ingenious way of keeping his chair filled with patients.

You may not have the answer for how to thrive in a lousy economy. I may not have the answer for how to thrive in a lousy economy. But the truck stop dentist figured it out a long time ago.

“When your dental practice is in a truck stop, you don’t have a lot of patients coming in for their six-month cleanings,” said Dr. Thomas P. Roemer. “You have people walking in holding their jaws in pain. Treatment is not optional — they need to see a dentist, and they need to see me now.”

Dr. Roemer’s one-man dental office is inside the Iowa 80 Truckstop, at Exit 284 of Interstate 80, near the small town of Walcott. The complex proclaims itself to be the world’s largest truck stop, and if you’ve never been there — well, the truck stop itself is probably a story for another time. Suffice it to say that the establishment is spread over 200 acres, that it features its own movie theater, a 300-seat restaurant with a 50-foot salad bar, the Super Truck Showroom (more than 75,000 truck-related items for sale, festooned with enough gleaming chrome to make you reach for your sunglasses).

Click here to read the entire article.  (Video is not from the CNN article.  I found it on YouTube)

(Source: Courant via Jalopnik)

We have to hand it to Freddie Mitchell of Hartford, Connecticut for inadvertently discovered a new way to wheelie dump trucks: by leaving their beds raised then ramming overhead signs at highway speeds.

Mitchell, 62-years young, pulled out of a roadside construction site along I-84 with is bed fully raised in “dump” mode. Accelerating hard for 3/4 of a mile, he made contact with the sign for Exit 63 at highway speed. The impact lifted the truck’s cab 20-feet into the air for a truly epic wheelie, but because the sign failed to give way, Mitchell was then stuck in an extremely precarious position.

(Source:  Guardian.co.uk)

Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai survives car crash but wife Susan killed

Susan and Morgan Tsvangirai during the 2005 elections. Photograph: Desmond Kwande/Getty Images

Zimbabwe‘s prime minister, Morgan Tsvangirai, has survived a car crash that killed his wife, Susan, near Harare today.

Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) said the prime minister was injured but not critically in the collision with a lorry. He was taken to a clinic in the capital. The driver of his official vehicle was seriously injured. There was no word on the condition of the lorry driver.

The party said there was no immediate reason to believe the accident was suspicious, but it was awaiting full details. An MDC official said that from information at the scene it appeared the lorry driver fell asleep at the wheel.

MDC officials said the couple had been heading to Mr Tsvangirai’s home town of Buhera for a political rally. Mrs Tsvangirai died at the crash scene.

The couple were married for 31 years and had six children.

Mrs Tsvangirai was widely respected in Zimbabwe as the antithesis of President Robert Mugabe’s extravagant and free-spending wife, Grace, who showed little concern for the plight of the many hungry and poor in her country.

Susan Tsvangirai largely avoided the limelight but did speak out on women’s rights and Aids. She was deeply religious.

Zimbabwe’s roads are notoriously dangerous, having deteriorated in recent years through lack of maintenance. Drivers are forced on to the wrong side to weave around potholes. Many vehicles drive without proper lights and brakes because of the difficulty and expense of obtaining spare parts.

Click here to read the entire article.

(Source: Bizjournal.com)

The federal stimulus funds, furnished through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, will help the state proceed with 29 construction projects throughout the state. The Texas Department of Transportation will leverage the $1.2 billion in stimulus spending to build more than $2.6 billion in new transportation projects throughout the state.

In San Antonio, the state will proceed with the construction of new interchange lanes along U.S. Highway 281 and Loop 1604. The total project will cost $140 million to build. TxDOT will combine $60 million worth of stimulus dollars with $80 million worth of existing funds to proceed with construction. TxDOT also is combining $8.1 million in stimulus funds with $4 million in existing funds to construct new roadway lanes along Loop 1604 from FM 78 to Graytown, which is located near Randolph Air Force Base.

(Source:  Jalopnik)

Another gem from our brilliant folks at Jalopnik/Gizmodo.  Read the article below and don’t forget to drop your comments at the parent site. 

From New York to San Bernardino, drivers in America’s cities live in their cars. Below we use Google Earth to take an in-depth look at the intersections of the nation’s 20 most traffic-congested cities.

The good news is 2008 saw a major decrease in traffic, with drivers in the 100 largest metropolitan areas dealing with a 29% decrease in congestion on average. The bad news is we’re seeing it because of an increase in gas prices, which led to less driving and more carpooling, and a decrease in jobs, which led to more people sitting on the couch hoping their unemployment doesn’t run out so they can afford to keep their benefits. It’s a vicious circle. Much like the pain we’re seeing in these community-by-community breakdowns of the most congested intersections in these 20 most congested metro areas.

Click the images below to view traffic information on each city up close

1. Los Angeles	2. New York	3. Chicago	4. Dallas Fort Worth
5. Washington, D.C.	6. Houston	7. San Francisco	8. Boston
9. Seattle	10. Minneapolis-St. Paul	11. Philadelphia	12. Atlanta
13. Phoenix	14. Miami	15. San Diego	16. Denver
17. Baltimore	18. San Jose	19. Detroit	20. Riverside-San Bernardino

Though traffic does correlate to population rank, with the top four metropolitan areas also in the four worst cities for traffic, there are some anomalies. The Washington, D.C.-Arlington-Alexandria area is only the eighth most populous region in the country but is the fifth worst when it comes to traffic due to its high capacity of employment in the area and the lack of good housing stock for middle class families within “The Beltway” area.

Click here to read the entire article.  

Related Forbes article.

(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)