(Source:  Whitehouse.gov via Planetizen)

Just two weeks after signing that legislation, we’re about to start the biggest investment on our nation’s road, bridges, highways and tunnels since we built the Interstate Highway System over 50 years ago.  It’s a big deal.  The work is beginning now, with hundreds more projects getting underway in the next few months.  Some project will start this month, some won’t get going until the summer.  We’re going to do everything we can to get them moving as quickly as possible.  But Americans didn’t get in this mess overnight.  And unfortunately, unfortunately, it’s going to take some time for us to get out of this.

     Mr. President, you also made it clear that we have an obligation to the taxpayers of this nation to make sure their money is being used wisely, to make it accountable and transparent.  Folks, we’re going to ask of you a sense of diligence and transparency and responsibility as has not been asked before, because we’ve never made this kind of investment before.  This is a big deal.  Never before in the history of this country have the people been more able to see with such complete transparency how we’re going to put their money to work, not just in this agency but particularly here. 

Excerpts from President Obama’s address:

     Of the 3.5 million jobs that will be created and saved over the next two years as a result of this recovery plan, 400,000 will be jobs rebuilding our crumbling roads, bridges, and schools, repairing our faulty levees and dams, connecting nearly every American to broadband, and upgrading the buses and trains that commuters take every day.  Many of these projects will be coordinated by Secretary LaHood and all of you at the Department of Transportation.  And I want you to know that the American public is grateful to public servants like you — men and women whose work isn’t always recognized, but whose jobs are critical to our nation’s safety, security, and prosperity.  You have never been more important than you are right now, and for that we are all grateful.  (Applause.) 

     Now, in the coming days and weeks, my administration will be announcing more details about the kinds of transportation projects that will be launched as part of the recovery plan.  But today, I want to speak about an investment we are making in one part of our infrastructure.  Through the Recovery Act, we will be investing $28 billion in our highways, money that every one of our 50 states can start using immediately to put people back to work.  It’s an investment being made at an unprecedented pace, thanks in large part to Joe Biden, who’s leading the effort to get the money out the door quickly.  Because of Joe, and because of all the governors and mayors, county and city officials who are helping implement this plan, I can say that 14 days after I signed our Recovery Act into law, we are seeing shovels hit the ground.

 

(Source: Room for Debate, a New York Times blog)

(Photo: Librado Romero/The New York Times) In Times Square, pedestrians often find themselves maneuvering among cars blocking the intersections.

The pedestrian mall, the urban planner’s failed attempt to revitalize Main Streets during the 1960s and 70s, is back!

This week, Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced that cars would be barred from several blocks of Broadway, including Herald Square and Times Square. He said the changes would relieve traffic congestion and crowded sidewalks – far different problems from what spawned the pedestrian malls of the 70s. And it’s not just New York that’s rethinking this old idea. San Francisco is considering restrictions on private cars on Market Street, the city’s main artery.

When do these car-free zones succeed? And why have they left streets deserted and unappealing in the past?

• Robert Sullivan, author
• Sam Staley, co-author of “Mobility First”
• Alexander Garvin, architect and former Planning Commission member
• Steve Davies, Project for Public Spaces
• Randal O’Toole, author of “The Best-Laid Plans”

Click here to read more.

The U.S. Department of Transportation today awarded the United We Ride/Mobility for All Americans joint demonstration grants to the following recipients:

1.  Lower Savannah Council of Governments – $680,000 grant to provide enhanced, cost-effective transportation choices for older adults, people with disabilities and low-income populations in Aiken, SC.   The Lower Savannah Council of Governments is using the funding for planning and designing an expanded human service transportation network to include more human service transportation providers and vehicle tracking abilities such as global positioning systems (GPS) and to enable customers to receive information and manage their own trips through a toll-free number and web-based applications.

2.  Camden County Workforce Investment Board – $700,000 grant to provide enhanced, cost-effective transportation choices for older adults, people with disabilities and low-income populations in Camden County, NJ.   The Camden County Workforce Investment Board is using the funding for planning and designing a transportation brokerage system supported by a comprehensive set of transportation modes, and for promoting fixed-route public transportation usage for human service clients through accessibility improvement.

3.  Paducah Area Transit System – $1.4 million grant to provide enhanced, cost-effective transportation choices for older adults, people with disabilities and low-income populations in Paducah, KY.   The Paducah Area Transit System is using the funding for the expansion of an existing call center to cover a larger geographic area and provide around-the-clock access to traveler support.  The strengthened call center will add customer-oriented features, such as automated telephone and Internet-based trip reservations and management.

The United We Ride/Mobility for All Americans joint demonstration adopts a two-phased approach.  Eight sites were selected to in 2007 participate in Phase 1, which is system planning and design.  These three Phase 1 sites are selected to move forward to system deployment, the second phase of the program. 

Funding for the demonstration is provided by the Intelligent Transportation System Joint Program Office of the Research and Innovative Technology Administration in Partnership with the Federal Transit Administration

The U.S. Department of Transportation’s (U.S. DOT) Research and Innovative Technology Administration (RITA) today announced the first of two Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program solicitations for 2009.  Through this competitive program, the Department encourages the nation’s small, high-tech, innovative businesses to be a significant part of the federal government’s research and development efforts. Small businesses are invited to submit innovative research proposals that address high priority national transportation goals during the solicitation period, which runs from Feb. 13 through April 15.  The SBIR program is administered by RITA’s Volpe National Transportation Systems Center on behalf of the U.S. DOT’s Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization.  The solicitation is available at http://www.volpe.dot.gov/sbir.  Contact: Kim Riddle (202) 366-5128.

(Source: Forbes)

Smaller cars are coming, lots of them, but it’s far from clear that buyers want them.

Smaller cars are coming–we all know that. Domestic and foreign manufacturers are about to start a wave, pushed by expected higher fuel economy requirements. These smaller autos will crowd out new versions of the larger cars we have been buying. Automakers don’t have the wherewithall to build everything.

If your main concern is global warming or oil imports, this is good news. But here’s the problem: Americans have not had a love affair with smaller cars. As a rule they are less comfortable, less safe and less useful–carrying fewer passengers and a smaller load.

The danger here is that our auto sales could stay smaller for another decade if owners hang on to their old SUVs and Big Boy V8s, if they don’t like what the greens and government people say they should be buying.

The not-so-easy trick in small cars is making money off them. There are two ways. One is to make them expensive, like $30,000. But Americans think small cars mean cheap cars. Audi has a new small A1 for Europe but isn’t bringing it here, because at current exchange rates it would cost $25,000. Dealers say it’s too much: Small still means cheap.

Click here to read the entire commentary from Jerry Flint @ Forbes.

(Source: The Boston Globe)

(Source: Living on Earth)

Ridership on the nation’s mass transit systems; subways, buses and light rails, is at an all time high. But while the mass is up – transit, the number of stops and services is dropping dramatically, even while ticket prices are taking a hike. The federal stimulus package will infuse a massive 16 billion dollars into public transit, half of that for high speed rails.

And William Millar, President of the American Public Transportation Association says, the money is arriving right on time.

MILLAR: Well we like to say it’s the best of times and worst of times, as that famous writer once said. In – since that – in 2007 we had reached a modern high of about 10.3 billion times that year Americans used public transit, only to be eclipsed in 2008. Looks like there’ll be at least five percent higher than that . 

Eleven federally designated high-speed rail corridors have been in the works for years, but funding for the projects was not available until now. (Courtesy of the U.S. House of Representatives)

MILLAR: In most cases the revenue is not able to keep up with the cost. While people think of paying their fare let’s say when they get on the subway line, that fare is designed to only cover perhaps a third, maybe half the cost of the system. The rest comes from a combination of federal, state and local funds, and those funds come from the very sources that we’re seeing the down turn in the economy. So, sales taxes is a frequent way that it happens or property taxes, and, of course, property values are falling throughout the country. Sometimes gasoline taxes, but, of course, we’re using less gasoline than we did. So at the very time we ought to be increasing our public transit use to meet the new demand, we’re finding that many transit systems around the country are having to cut back, having to raise fares, because, of course, we have to balance our budgets just like everyone e/lse does.

(Source: Seattle Post Intelligencer)

(Source: TreeHugger)

Photo credit: Vivir Mexico

Mexico City’s minister of the environment, Martha Delgado, announced Friday that in August a pilot project requiring students to take school buses instead of private vehicles to school at 10 private schools would commence. The initiative was spurred by the success of a study carried out at the Colegio Oxford private school, which managed to get many of its 751 students to ride the school bus beginning in August 2008, El Universal (Spanish link) reported. As we’ve noted in the past, car use has doubled in Mexico City in the last seven years, complicating other efforts to cutpollution, so any initiative getting more cars off the road is a welcome change.

According to Víctor Hugo Páramo, director of air quality management for the ministry, the average velocity of cars circulating in the school zone increased from 16.8 to 25.7 kilometers an hour after the program began. The study also revealed reductions of 13% in the concentration of carbon monoxide and 8% in nitrous oxides around Colegio Oxford.

Click here to read the entire article.

(Source: Philadelphia Inquirer)

Occasionally, a wise journalism professor once told me, being a reporter is almost like not working because of the fun you can have. If you’ve covered transportation for decades, the best of those “are they really paying me to do this?” days have come aboard trains going almost 200 miles per hour.