Post Tagged with: "Transportation projects"

Stimulus Flows Into Patchwork of State Transport Projects

March 3, 2009 at 8:31 pm

(Source:  New York Times)

Kansas will widen U.S. Route 69 to remove a bottleneck outside Kansas City, along with three other expensive projects. Maryland will spend its money in smaller pieces, resurfacing dozens of rutted roads and highways. Colorado will build an interchange on Elk Creek Road in Jefferson County, complete with an underpass for the elk.

There is nothing monumental inPresident Obama’s plan to revive the economy with a coast-to-coast building spree, no historic New Deal public works. The goal of the stimulus plan was to put people to work quickly, and so states across the country have begun to spend nearly $50 billion on thousands of smaller transportation projects that could employ up to 400,000 people, by the administration’s estimates.

Stimulus for Transportation Projects

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Stimulus Puts High-Speed Rail On The Fast Track

February 24, 2009 at 1:16 pm

(Source: NPR)

A map of designated high-speed rail corridors

 

Morning Edition, February 24, 2009 · Among the winners in the $787 billion stimulus package that President Obama signed into law last week are backers of high-speed rail. The legislation included $8 billion for fast trains in the U.S. — the most ever allocated for rail at one time.

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood says high-speed rail could be a signature issue for Obama. “I do think this is the transformational issue for this administration when it comes to transportation,” LaHood said. “I think President Obama would like to be known as the high-speed rail president, and I think he can be.”

LaHood has sent Obama a memo outlining a half-dozen rail corridors across the country that could be in line to get some of the high-speed rail mon,ey.

The state that may be furthest along in planning is California, where voters approved a $9 billion bond issue last fall for high speed trains. Quentin Kopp, a former judge who is chairman of the California High-Speed Rail Authority, expects a lot of the federal money to wind up in the California system, which would link the state’s largest cities.

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