Road funds low? Use Canadian money

John Latta - Jan 24, 2011

Slowly, but inevitably, there are stories surfacing that show just how much our roads need work and just how badly underfunded are the agencies that would do that work. In Michigan, Canadian money will help kin the short term. It's not ...

Zen and the Art of Parachute Jumping

John Latta - Jan 06, 2011

I wonder. If politicians, wearing government-issue parachutes, jumped out of airplanes (or were pushed, remember they're politicians) and decided not to deploy the chute to show their voting constituents how reluctant they are to waste taxpayer dollars (remember, they're politicians) would ...

New highways create jobs. What if they are foreign?

John Latta - Dec 08, 2010

Uh oh. Is this something we are going to see more of? The case is among the first brought by a union to stop a public project being handled by private investors, an area that is growing in the U.S. ...

Bye Jim; Hi John

John Latta - Nov 03, 2010

I'm not surprised John Mica will become chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, but like most of you I am surprised that Jim Oberstar will not even be in the House. The turnaround adds more uncertainty to the existing ...

Bridge Collapses in Minnesota II

John Latta - Oct 20, 2010

This is one of those stories I have to be careful with. The basic story is that a milling machine toppled partly into water when a section of the river bridge it was working on collapsed.It is not the I-35W ...

Congestion fighting then; and now.

John Latta - Oct 11, 2010

You knew these stories were coming. There have surely been others already that I have missed. They address the question: what do we do now, now that there isn't enough money for those grand congestion fighting highway expansion plans we ...

Upon further review — a Stimulus update

John Latta - Sep 29, 2010

The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) has released a new report on the Recovery Act, arguing with numbers and project stories that the Stimulus is working and working well. According to AASHTO executive director John Horsley ,"These ...

Yet more states are thinking outside the public funding box

John Latta - Sep 20, 2010

Wanna buy a road? Two more states are reacting to the inevitable. They must have money for roads but the usual sources are inadequate. Privatization and tolling are coming up again and again as the default option. As Congress leads the ...

We’ll drive further per gallon – but on what?

John Latta - Sep 08, 2010

So you know this story by heart. It goes like this: The Highway Trust Fund relies primarily on income from fuel taxes. Its hopelessly short of funds because the gas tax is too low and politicians won't raise it. And of ...

We’re moving towards more tolling

John Latta - Aug 04, 2010

Itr's possible that the (voting) public is begining to see what happens when there is too little money for highways and bridges. But the process moves like molasses in winter. Last week the Wall Street Journal picked up the movement in ...

Five-year highway construction program approved

Tina Grady Barbaccia - Jul 13, 2010

Missouri's five-year highway construction program was approved July 1, 2010, by the Missouri Highways and Transportation Commission, but it's only one-third the size of the 2009 program. The Missouri Department of Transportation (MoDOT) says the funding is barely enough in funds ...

California allocates to $897 million for transportation projects

Tina Grady Barbaccia - Jul 07, 2010

The California Transportation Commission (CTC) allocated $897 million to 170 transportation projects statewide, including $157 million from Proposition 1B, a transportation bond approved by voters in 2006, and $49 million from President Obama’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 ...

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