Future roads may include solar panels, LEDs and electric buses

Amanda Bayhi - Mar 15, 2013

Two companies are shaping the future of transportation in the United States with innovations for safety, energy efficiency, longevity and more, Fast Company reported. One company, Solar Roadways, has introduced the idea of using glass panels and solar cells in place ...

President pushes transportation construction speed-up in TV meetings

John Latta - Feb 20, 2013

President Obama is set to sit down today for interviews with half a dozen television stations from major cities to push a plan that will speed up transportation construction projects. This has been a clearly-stated and much publicized goal of ...

Recognize quality asphalt paving projects, deadline now Oct. 12

Staff Report - Oct 02, 2012

The deadline for nominating Quality in Construction Awards to the National Asphalt Pavement Association (NAPA) has been extended by one week to Friday, Oct. 12. NAPA's Quality in Construction Awards nationally recognizes superior asphalt paving projects around the nation. The awards ...

Kirk Landers — Editor Emeritus

Better Roads Staff - Jul 03, 2012

Five Radical Concepts kirk.landers@att.net From traffic gridlock to sunbathing, summer brings most of us some long hours in which contemplative thought is possible. If you have trouble thinking of something to ponder, here are five possibilities … 1. It’s time for the ...

Transportation bipartisanship goes rank and file

John Latta - Dec 08, 2011

It might just stick. Bipartisanship in the quest for a new surface transportation bill arose from the depths of the summer of our discontent with SAFETEA-LU's sucessor; and it seems to be hanging on. When we get to January, probably February ...

They cost how much! Are they worth it?

John Latta - Jun 27, 2011

Checking out some British road building news and came across an interesting commentary by the architecture correspondent of The Guardian newspaper. It came packaged with an online story about two new, short, roads in Britain. The first in Scotland cost ...

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 ...

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. ...

It’s this simple. Good roads cost us less.

John Latta - Nov 30, 2010

Here is a very simple observation made by a newspaperman after the release of a new report. He points out that it costs us more to have bad roads than to keep good ones in good shape. Pennsylvanians are spending ...

TRIP: Show N.H. the money for failing bridges, roads

Tina Grady Barbaccia - Jun 21, 2010

One-third of New Hampshire’ major roads are deteriorated, 32 percent of the state’s bridges are structurally deficient or functionally obsolete, and more than half of the state’s roads are congested during peak travel times, but the state lacks adequate funding ...

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