Whispering the T Word

John Latta - Dec 05, 2012

TAX! Nothing like shouting a three-letter word ending in X to get your attention. But no, we’re not talking income tax. The gas tax is back on a table in Washington. The 18.3 cents a gallon tax, un-indexed and unchanged in almost ...

Lattatudes

Better Roads Staff - Dec 01, 2012

Get 'em Dirty By John Latta From the days when SAFETEA-LU’s expiration was way in the future, until today, I’ve followed Washington’s every move on reauthorization and visited the capital regularly to talk to people that mattered, officially or unofficially, in the ...

MAP-21 and Transportation’s Fiscal Cliff: What does it all mean?

Tina Grady Barbaccia - Nov 15, 2012

The nation's economy is on a "fiscal cliff." But how does this affect the U.S. infrastructure system, namely the new highway bill, Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century, or MAP-21 for short? Jack Schenendorf, a transportation policy veteran who ...

Lattatudes

Better Roads Staff - Nov 13, 2012

Plays Well With Others By John Latta This is a little bit of a tightrope act. jlatta@randallreilly.com I am writing this before the election. Why? So that I don’t let election results skew or tilt what I write just a tiny bit to ...

GUEST BLOG: What the re-election of President Obama, Republican House majority, Democratic Senate majority means for the construction industry

Tina Grady Barbaccia - Nov 12, 2012

During the 2012 presidential campaign, President Barack Obama and Gov. Mitt Romney gave relative lip service to the subject of rebuilding America’s faltering infrastructure. Rather than positioning infrastructure as an integral part of the nation’s fabric, both treated construction funding ...

What ARTBA’s president thinks about the election results

Tina Grady Barbaccia - Nov 07, 2012

American Road & Transportation Builders Association (ARTBA) President and Chief Executive Officer Pete Ruane issued the following statement about the election results: “We congratulate President Obama on his hard fought victory. “The centerpiece of both campaigns was about growing the economy, creating ...

So, how are you guys splitting the tab?

John Latta - Nov 06, 2012

It's not as if everyone sat around the table looking the other way when the waiter came with the bill. We know the size of the bill to fund what we must do for our transportation infrastructure and we know Johnny ...

It’s Still Raining Obvious, Congressman.

John Latta - Oct 12, 2012

FLASHBACK -- Here's a paper from 2003. I stumbled on it and deja vu! It's simple title is A Dozen Reasons for Raising Gasoline Taxes. Reading it is weird: the 12 arguments are not old. All the way through the winding ...

For whom the toll bills

John Latta - Oct 09, 2012

We know that one of the key reasons that raising the gas tax was never considered an option as legislators (read: re-electable politicians) knew that the public doesn't trust them to use additional tax money purely for highways and bridges. So ...

Lattatudes

Better Roads Staff - Oct 09, 2012

Words and Laws By John Latta, Editor-in-Chief You know Parkinson’s Law and you know people who live it. jlatta@rrpub.com Cyril Northcote Parkinson, a 20th Century British civil servant (bureaucrat), naval historian and satirist famously wrote, after a lot of observation and experience, that ...

Kirk Landers, Editor Emeritus

Better Roads Staff - Oct 09, 2012

Politics with Earmarks kirk.landers@att.net While the citizenry and media of the United States focused on election polls and campaign rumors this summer, the U.S. Department of Transportation quietly announced that more than $470 million in unobligated earmark funds was being released ...

RoadWorks

Better Roads Staff - Oct 09, 2012

Inside the highway and bridge industries Stuck in Slow By John Latta There has been no “bump” yet from the new surface transportation legislation, MAP-21, says Alison Premo Black, American Road and Transportation Builders Association (ARTBA) senior economist and policy VP. At ARTBA’s ...

« Newer Articles

Older Articles »