The Transportation Funding Advisory Commission (TFAC) met on June 6 to discuss various modernization strategies for PennDOT to invest an additional $2 billion to $2.5 billion annually into Pennsylvania’s transportation infrastructure.
Read complete article – TFAC Making Progress, 6/9/2011 11:03:00 AM
For years, transportation planners and federal and state lawmakers have analyzed the congestion on Route 422 and the costs and benefits of restoring passenger rail service from Norristown west to Pottstown and Reading.
Newly appointed PennDOT Secretary Barry Schoch said the state, with inadequate funding, had to make a choice. “Obviously, we’re concerned about the smoothness of roads. But a bigger safety issue is the structural stability of bridges,” he said.
Read the entire article from Friday, June 10, 2011, By Jon Schmitz, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
The national debt and deficits at all levels of government mean the landscape for infrastructure funding has changed significantly.
Last month I spent three days at a transportation retreat along with about 20 other transportation policy wonks, discussing future funding alternatives for infrastructure projects. Unusually for such an event, the opening session was not about transportation at all. Rather, it was about the massively unsustainable path our federal government is on. This is not a short-term problem. It will provide the context for all federal policy debates for at least a generation.
U.S. investment in preservation and development of transportation infrastructure lags so far behind that of China, Russia and European nations that it will lead to “a steady erosion of the social and economic foundations for American prosperity in the long run.”
Article by Ashley Halsey III, Washington Post Staff Writer, Monday, October 4, 2010; 6:20 PM
Years of underinvesting in the nation’s transportation infrastructure are apparent in congested roads, freight bottlenecks, airport delays and overcrowded or nonexistent public transit operations.
President Obama highlighted the need to invest in transportation infrastructure this month as he announced his federal budget proposal.
A new study from the Texas Transportation Institute at Texas A&M University reports that after two years of slight declines in overall traffic congestion, traffic problems are rebounding along with the economy.
Read Gretchen Metz’s original article in the Journal Register News Service.
Our rush hours rank with the world’s worst. Andrew Coyne has the solution.
Allegheny County voters appear to be more concerned about Pennsylvania’s glaring transportation needs than people elsewhere in the state, based on results of a poll conducted for the Tribune-Review.
by Tom Fontaine, PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW, Saturday, January 8, 2011