(Source: Washington Post)

But the slow ride may soon be over. The project is one of dozens nationwide that are likely to benefit from President Obama’s initiative to fund high-speed and intercity passenger rail programs, including $8 billion in stimulus money and $5 billion more over the next five years in the administration’s proposed transportation budget.

(Source:  Associated Press via Forbes)

(Source: Reuters) 

 This is ugly.For a picture of how rapid and steep the decline in U.S. manufacturing and retail sales has been in this recession, there are few better sectors to look at than transport.

Freight volumes — everything from raw materials to durable goods — have plummeted virtually across the board, making forecasting demand near impossible.

“We’ve downgraded our forecasts several times already this year — and it’s only March,” said John Levine, president of Pinsly Railroad Co, which owns short-line railroads in Florida, Massachusetts and Arkansas. “Business has fallen off in a way that none of us have seen.”

To weather the slump, Pinsly has cut back hours for workers so all of its 150 employees are still working, he added.

According to data from the Association of American Railroads (AAR), rail carload traffic for the first two months of 2009 was down 15.8 percent.

Historical data shows the drop in U.S. manufacturing activity eclipses the recessions of the 1980s and 1970s and in terms of speed and scale it is comparable with — but not as bad as — the Great Depression before World War Two.

(Source: American.com)

How did India’s Huey Long become its Jack Welch?

(Source: StreetsBlog)

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

(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: 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.

(Source:  Wall Street Journal)

President Obama and Vice President Biden spoke with Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood Tuesday at Transportation Department headquarters, where they announced the first batch of stimulus funds getting distributed. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Mr. LaHood talked about spending stimulus money wisely, his opposition to an increase in the gasoline tax, new fuel emission standards and more. Below are edited excerpts from the interview.

* * *

The Wall Street Journal: What’s being done to ensure that the $48 billion going to transportation projects in the stimulus bill is spent wisely?

Mr. LaHood: Our people are in touch daily with these DOT secretaries. We generally, having worked with them for years and years and years, know what is fundable. It really falls under two categories. Projects that were started and then stopped because they ran out of money, and something that’s been sitting on a shelf in a DOT office because they didn’t have the money to fund it. Some of these, like the one we announced today (a road repaving project in suburban Maryland), have been in process…These are projects that these folks have known about and have been talking about for some time. This isn’t something brand new that’s been sprung up on them…I don’t think you’re going to see something weird pop up…It’s pretty traditional stuff. It really is.

WSJ: Are you concerned when you hear squabbles between mayors and governors over how to spend the stimulus money?

Mr. LaHood: [Cities] are concerned that 70% of the money is going to the states and they’re only going to get 30%…These disputes, look it, they’re going to take place….In the end, I’m not going to be able to change the idea that 70% of this is going to the states and 30% are going to them. I tried to make a case for them. But the way it’s designed here…it is what it is.

(Source: Washington Post)

Metro knocked down one of the bigger barriers to competition in the D.C. area’s wireless-phone market Friday afternoon by announcing thatall four nationwide wireless carriers would offer service in its subway stations and tunnels.

The  Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority’s press release led off with words that many Metro riders have been waiting for years to read: “Metro riders will be able to call home from any cell phone.”

Today, the only signal to reach Metro’s underground stretches comes from Verizon Wireless; Sprint users can roam on that signal, but AT&T Wireless and T-Mobile subscribers are out of luck. It’s an awkward little detail that I’ve had make part of my standard guidance to people shopping for wireless-phone service.

That Friday-afternoon release went on to explain that Metro’s board approved an agreement with AT&T Wireless, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon to “build a new wireless infrastructure in the underground rail system during the next four years.” The first results will appear pretty soon:

Click here to read the entire article.