I’d borrow for infrastructure says leading GOP candidate

John Latta - Dec 19, 2011

Guess who said this? "You have to prioritize those things which are most important to you and infrastructure and having good roads and bridges and rail lines and air traffic lines and so forth are essential for a strong ...

Reading CONEXPO’s Upbeat Signs

John Latta - Mar 25, 2011

The "official" stamp of success will come later when all the numbers are run, but CONEXPO certainly feels like we have reached the end of the beginning of the turnaround.I'm enjoying the upbeat feeling here. OEMs have presented numbers that are ...

Texas’ transportation funding nightmare

John Latta - Mar 10, 2011

Here is a very scary prediction: "By 2025, only 21 percent of Texas' roads will be in good or better condition." It's not my prediction, it comes from the Center for Transportation Research at the University of Texas, and its contained in ...

Climate-controlled street and traffic lights

John Latta - Mar 09, 2011

It's Cornhusker common-sense. Nature is being called on to provide light at night for people using roads in Lincoln, Neb. The city is testing wind and solar power as a source of energy to power street and traffic lights. It's a ...

Build now, pay later

John Latta - Jan 24, 2011

A $1.8 billion road project in Florida is being done for the state without the state itself paying a penny for it. Yet. The repair and widening of I-595 will be finished before the contractor gets paid. It's a public-private arrangement ...

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 ...

Mike Anderson’s American Iron

Better Roads Staff - Dec 01, 2010

Walking out on a springboard By Mike Anderson If the past few months are any indication, we’re all going to be busier in 2011. I know, I know. Some of you have undoubtedly already said, “Well, it couldn’t get any slower.” In some ...

The Kansas Crunch

John Latta - Nov 02, 2010

I keep coming across scenarios that worry me because they could be the tips of icebergs. As funding for transportation projects at all government levels become harder to find and even harder to predict, more and more important projects have to ...

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 ...

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