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Hundreds of thousands of Bay Area commuters remain in limbo today as crews scramble to complete an emergency repair to the workhorse Bay Bridge. The 73-year-old bridge, crossed by more than 260,000 cars and trucks a day, was shut down for a larger, unrelated seismic upgrade project. Now, crews are working to fix a cracked steel link, called an eyebar, that helps hold up the east span. Inspectors discovered the problem Saturday afternoon, setting in motion a dash to fix a problem that - by itself - would have forced officials to shut down the bridge. "There's a lot of...

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration used economic stimulus money to pay for 50 airport projects that didn't meet the grant criteria and approved projects at four airports with a history of mismanaging federal grants, a government watchdog said Monday. Transportation Department Inspector General Calvin Scovel said he plans to examine the Federal Aviation Administration's process for selecting programs for the $1.1 billion in grant money. Among the projects that Scovel said didn't meet the FAA's minimum score was $14 million that went to Akiachak, Alaska, a town of 659 residents, to replace its airfield. The town has a seaplane and...

Transportation officials in Texas are scrambling to prevent hackers from changing messages on digital road signs after one sign in Austin was altered to read, "Zombies Ahead." Chris Lippincott, director of media relations for the Texas Department of Transportation, confirmed that a portable traffic sign at Lamar Boulevard and West 15th Street, near the University of Texas at Austin, was hacked into during the early hours of Jan. 19. "It was clever, kind of cute, but not what it was intended for," said Lippincott, who saw the sign during his morning commute. "Those signs are deployed for a reason —...

The United States will need $1.6 trillion to repair damage to its infrastructure from a massive influx of immigrants, a new report reveals. In his report titled, "The Twin Crises: Immigration and Infrastructure," prominent researcher Edwin S. Rubenstein examines 15 categories of infrastructure: airports, border security, bridges, dams and levees, electricity (the power grids), hazardous waste removal , hospitals, mass transit, parks and recreation facilities, ports and navigable waterways, public schools, railroads, roads and highways, solid waste and trash, and water and sewer systems. Rubenstein, a financial analyst and former contributing editor of Forbes and economics editor of National Review,...

US Department of Transportation study finds only five percent of crashes caused by excessive speed.As lawmakers around the country continue to consider speed limit enforcement as the primary traffic safety measure, the most comprehensive examination of accident causation in thirty years suggests this focus on speed may be misplaced.

Americans are driving our roads into the ground, and we can't find an easy fix. Highway maintenance lags far behind the need for it, while new roads (and transit options) linger in line for funding. Construction costs keep rising, but fuel tax revenue, which pays for most of the road work, is fading. The result is transportation gridlock. The best way out is to break the fuel-tax deadlock. Either we raise this tax -- which in the United States is low by industrialized-world standards -- or find another source of cash for building roads and transit. First, consider the sorry...

Make Your Mark In History: You Are Invited To Play A Role in the Creation of Barack Obama's Presidential Portrait From Ken Kragen, who brought America "We Are The World" and "Hands Across America," in partnership with Rock The Vote, JoinTheDot presents "What's Your Message to the Next President," which invites millions of people to get a dot in Barack Obama's Presidential Portrait and attach a message to their dot. The portrait is made from millions of tiny dots - one of them could be yours. Washington, DC-MD-VA-WV (1888PressRelease) November 12, 2008 - The traditional Presidential Portrait is evolving. It’s...

Unfair Demands On Boy Scouts http://www.theday.com/re.aspx?re=33a46ad1-5d62-4201-98b5-dd7602900835 By The Day Published on 7/29/2008 We are at a loss to understand why the state Department of Transportation wants to give East Lyme Boy Scout troops such a hard time over doing a good deed. For 25 years on Labor Day weekend the Scouts have served coffee and doughnuts around the clock to weary drivers at the weigh stations on Interstate 95 in Waterford. Drivers get a needed break. The Scouts take pride in providing a service. Donations collected help the Boy Scouts and other local groups. Who could object? Unfortunately, the bureaucrats...

Wisconsin motorists appear to be driving slower than they were this time last year, and a State Patrol official says the $4-plus cost of gasoline seems to be a major reason. And as speeds seem to have dropped, so have the number of traffic fatalities in the state - by 29% so far this year - while state troopers and sheriff's deputies are reporting that they are seeing fewer vehicles on the state's freeways. While some of it is anecdotal, evidence is beginning to mount that gasoline prices are having a marked effect on the driving habits of many Wisconsin...

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration issued a warning Thursday on the anti-smoking drug Chantix, advising medical examiners "to not qualify anyone currently using this medication for commercial motor vehicle licenses." The FMCSA oversees the interstate trucking and bus industry. Chantix, made by Pfizer, Inc., was attacked in a study by a non-profit group on Wednesday for possible links to seizures, dizziness, heart irregularity, diabetes and more than 100 accidents. The Department of Transportation alerted its agencies about the study, asking the office directors be aware of the report's warnings and recommendations. The Federal Aviation Administration banned the drug for...

Federal transportation officials today told Congress and Virginia Gov. Timothy M. Kaine (D) that they have approved the proposed 23-mile extension of Metrorail to Dulles International Airport, reversing their announcement in January that the project was unfit for federal funding. In a letter to Kaine and in a 10 a.m. conference call with the governor and Virginia congressional leaders, U.S. Transportation Secretary Mary Peters said the $5 billion project had finally met the Federal Transit Administration's standards for cost efficiency, construction and expected ridership. The project will now move into the final design phase, a major step toward receiving $900...

The life of 20-year-old Emine, and her 24-year-old husband Ramazan Çalçoban was pretty much the normal life of any couple in a separation process. After deciding to split up, the two kept having bitter arguments over the cellphone, sending text messages to each other until one day Ramazan wrote "you change the topic every time you run out of arguments." That day, the lack of a single dot over a letter—product of a faulty localization of the cellphone's typing system—caused a chain of events that ended in a violent blood bath (Warning: offensive language ahead.) The surreal mistake happened because...

Officials with the Spanish toll road operator Cintra have announced that the company has secured $430 million in loans from the U.S. government to build and operate two segments of a toll road in central Texas. Cintra officials announced the company’s financial plan for the $1.36 billion Highway 130 segments on Monday, March 10. OOIDA Senior Government Affairs Representative Mike Joyce told Land Line that the Association does raise red flags when federal dollars are used to subsidize private investors. Officials with the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association are not, however, categorically opposed to a state using future toll revenue to...

Mexican truck drivers allowed to travel throughout the U.S. under a Bush administration demonstration project may not be proficient in English, despite Department of Transportation assurances to the contrary. A brochure on the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration's website instructs Mexican truck drivers, "Did you know … You MUST be able to read and speak English to drive trucks in the United States." Still, at the Senate Commerce Committee oversight hearing Tuesday, Secretary of Transportation Mary Peters and DOT Inspector General Calvin L. Scovel III reluctantly admitted under intense questioning from Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., that Mexican drivers were being...

Teamsters General President Says U.S. Drivers at Risk to Unsafe Trucks From Mexico Washington, D.C. – Teamsters General President Jim Hoffa blasted the Bush administration today for its reckless indifference to the economic struggles of working Americans who are suffering under the North American Free Trade Agreement with more than a million lost jobs and billions of dollars in lost wages. “No matter how many jobs we lose, no matter how many foreclosures, no matter how many people die on the highways, the Bush administration just doesn’t care about the safety and security of American workers,” Hoffa said. Hoffa’s comments...

Driving down to Austin lately has become a real trip. I-35 is usually packed for most of the 185 miles, and what used to take three or four hours now can take five or six. Flying down can take almost as long, when you figure in airline security delays, more flight delays, and the time it takes getting into and out of crowded airports. But what if it took 45 minutes to travel from the Metroplex to Austin by train or an hour to make a trip to Houston? Advocates of high-speed rail lines are floating these ideas once again...

A federal panel today recommended a steep increase in motor fuel taxes and an increased emphasis on mass transit to meet the nation's transportation needs and repair its deteriorating infrastructure. In its report, the 12-member National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Study Commission, appointed by Congress in 2005, recommended increasing the federal gasoline tax by as much as 40 cents a gallon, at a rate of 5 to 8 cents per year. The current federal tax is 18.4 cents per gallon and the state tax is 20 cents. The price of a gallon of regular gasoline has hovered near $3...

The U.S. Transportation Department is using a new source to help determine potential airline protections: actual plane passengers. Passengers have been invited to offer DOT officials protection suggestions by Jan. 22. They could help the federal agency determine what additional efforts should be taken to improve U.S. air travel, The Denver Post said Saturday.

Ten ways to outsmart the airlines and not spend your holiday season at the airport Schlotzsky's. In the past year, I have flown on 110 flights—and 11 arrived on time. As awful as that performance is, it doesn't even reflect the worst travel nightmares of the year, including record numbers of lost bags, overflowing lavatories, and the infamous JetBlue odyssey... In the first half of the year, more than 93,000 flights were canceled, an increase of 44 percent over the first half of 2006, according to the Department of Transportation. 2007 will go down as the worst year in history...

Hindus upset over ban on holy dot By Amarnath Tewary BBC News, Bihar Mr Mishra has worn the tilak throughout his career A senior official in India's Bihar state faces suspension for wearing the Hindu red mark on his forehead at work. Lakshman Mishra, deputy director of the agriculture department, is accused of breaching a new government dress code. He says he has worn the mark, or tilak, on his forehead at work for 30 years and it is his religious right to do so. His colleagues support him - nearly all of them arrived at work on Friday wearing...

We've been had. In fact, the American people got the shaft last Friday evening. Twice, in fact, and it came from San Francisco's liberal federal courts. There were two decisions favoring illegal aliens, big business, border destruction and sympathetic politicians on both sides of the aisle.

A commercial truck driver from Monterrey who has crossed Laredos international bridges countless times was stunned earlier this month when he received a ticket from U.S. inspectors because he cant speak English."We were worried," said Samuel Tamez Treviño, owner of the truck that was driven by Rafael Segovia. "We consulted with attorneys. We were somewhat relieved when they told us it would be treated as a warning. But now what are we supposed to do?" Tamez Treviño, whose transportation company is in Montemorelos, is concerned that his drivers may be unable or unwilling to learn English, considering that even a...

ULY 23, 2007 -- Lawmakers and watchdogs are ringing the alarm on domestic carriers' use of foreign repair stations for aircraft maintenance and repairs. A U.S. Department of Transportation Inspector General report released last month said airlines increasingly are outsourcing aircraft maintenance, and gaps remain in Federal Aviation Administration supervision of some repair stations that they use. "We have emphasized that the issue is not where maintenance is performed, but that maintenance requires effective oversight," DOT Inspector General Calvin Scovel III said in the report. Based on a review of 19 U.S.-based carriers' maintenance vendor lists, the Inspector General found...

Despite evidence to the contrary, Vice President Dick Cheney says there is no "secret plan" to create a continent-crossing superhighway to help facilitate a merger of the United States, Mexico and Canada. "The administration is not engaged in a secret plan to create a 'NAFTA super highway,'" asserts Cheney in a recent letter to a constituent, according to a copy of the message obtained by WND. The vice president's letter quotes an Aug. 21 statement from the U.S. Department of Transportation that, "The concept of a super highway has been around since the early 1990s, usually in the form of...

NEW YORK - With his traffic-fee proposal all but dead, Mayor Michael Bloomberg lashed out Tuesday at lawmakers who blocked it, saying they were gutless and had jeopardized a "once-in-a-lifetime opportunity." ADVERTISEMENT A day earlier, the city missed a deadline to qualify for hundreds of millions of federal dollars for the so-called congestion-pricing program. Bloomberg blamed the state Legislature for failing to act on the proposal before adjourning. "New York City is today poorer because of Albany's inaction yesterday, and I think sadly it appears that we jeopardized, at best, and probably lost, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity," Bloomberg said. "And demonstrated...

More than 100 members of the U.S. House of Representatives have written to President Bush, asking him why the Department of Transportation apparently is ignoring what the legislators want. The issue was raised by U.S. Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., who circulated the letter dealing with plans to hurry along with a "demonstration" project to allow Mexican truckers access to U.S. roads. Specifically, the letter raised concerns about federal agency actions – apparently despite what Congress wrote into the law. "The U.S. Congress and the American people seriously question the ability of Mexican motor carriers and drivers to adhere to our...

McALLEN — A passenger riding in the cab of a semitrailer died after it rolled over on Expressway 83 near Jackson Road on Thursday afternoon, police said. Authorities are still investigating the cause of the crash, which happened about 3 p.m., said McAllen police spokesman Sgt. Joel Morales. The driver of the truck, which police say had Mexican license plates and was not towing a load, was transported to McAllen Medical Center. The crash took place just in front of the Boggus Ford dealership near the on-ramp. Expressway 83 westbound lanes between Sugar Road and Jackson Road were closed, as...

In an effort to ensure Mexican trucks will begin rolling across the U.S. on schedule, the Bush administration is pressing the Senate to not take any action on a bill passed overwhelmingly by the House that essentially would block the project. Sources within the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation have confirmed in background conversations that the panel has put on hold taking any action on the Safe American Roads Act of 2007, the bill the House passed May 15 by a vote of 411-3. At the encouragement of the White House, the senators on the transportation committee are...

Nearly 30 Mexican trucking companies have passed safety inspections that would allow them to make deliveries to the U.S. heartland, but it still will take months before the first trial of cross-border trucking can begin. "What we're waiting for now is for the Mexican government to review the applications they have for U.S. companies," said Brian Turmail, a spokesman for the U.S. Transportation Department. But those reviews won't allow the department to stick with a timeline it initially had proposed to implement a provision in the decade-old North American Free Trade Agreement. When it announced the cross-border trucking pilot program...

Many companies concerned about security, insurance SAN ANTONIO — Although more than 800 Mexican trucking companies are waiting for access to U.S. roadways under the cross-border trucking pilot program announced last month, fewer than 10 American companies are seeking the same access in Mexico. The U.S. government is optimistic more American truckers will come forward to join the program, but industry leaders are skeptical because they say the risks outweigh the benefits. "We believe we'll see more U.S. firms apply," U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Mary Peters said in San Antonio last week. James Hoffa, general president of the Teamsters...

The Department of Transportation pilot test designed to allow 100 Mexican trucking companies to run their long-haul rigs anywhere in the U.S. has encountered opposition, both in Congress and in Mexico. Meanwhile, plans to implement the test are progressing at the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, as announced by the Department of Transportation in February. Scott Gerber, spokesman for Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., confirmed to WND the senator's amendment approved by the Senate Appropriations Committee March 22 to block the test remains in the Emergency Spending Bill on the floor of the Senate. The amendment, co-sponsored by Sen. Patty Murray,...

The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) has banned Windows Vista, Office 2007, and Internet Explorer 2007 from its offices, and is considering switching its operations to Macs and PCs running Novell's SuSe Linux. The DOT enacted the ban in mid-January, according to one blogger, because certain applications essential to the agency's function can't run on Windows Vista. Microsoft has attracted intense criticism over its new operating system since it began shipping earlier this year, lacking proper driver software for a wide array of devices and utilizing a new user interface that closely resembles Apple's Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger system....

Security Stepped Up After Terrorist Threat Excerpt In Moscow, which was last hit by terrorist attacks in 2004, officials took the unusual step of ordering cell phone service shut off in the subway system. The measure appeared to be an effort to avert the possibility of explosives being detonated by the phones. Full article: http://www.times.spb.ru/index.php?action_id=2&story_id=20075

The Senate early Saturday confirmed President Bush's nomination of Mary Peters as the new secretary of transportation. Peters, a former federal highway administrator, succeeds Norman Mineta, a Democrat who resigned in July after six years in office. In a statement issued by the White House, Bush said Peters is "an innovative thinker who will work with state and local leaders to confront challenges and solve problems." Peters, 57, who spent most of her career in government highway jobs, is a strong advocate of privatizing roads. But highways are only a part of the Transportation Department's portfolio. The 60,000-person department also...

President Bush still hasn't decided whom to nominate as transportation secretary to succeed Norman Mineta, who left the job July 7 after six years on the job. Meanwhile, Washington is showing how it loves to fill an empty Cabinet seat with speculation. A Cabinet secretary, two federal transportation officials, a White House budget aide and a former governor are said to be under consideration. "As soon as he has a nominee to announce he will," said White House spokeswoman Dana Perino. "Secretary Mineta left the Cabinet only a few weeks ago, and a decision on a nominee will be made...

WASHINGTON -- Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta announced on Tuesday a White House initiative to relieve highway, aviation and freight congestion, largely with the help of private fees and tolls. "Congestion is not a fact of life. We need a new approach and we need it now," he said. The plan includes fast-tracking a modernized air traffic control system and building extra-wide interstate highways that could serve as "corridors of the future," he said. Because of "trucks stalled in traffic, cargo sitting on the dock at overwhelmed seaports (and) airplanes circling over crowded airports, congestion is costing America an estimated $200...

KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Missouri transportation officials approved a controversial contract Friday that will allow a private corporation to track signals from motorists' cell phones to map traffic snarls and highway congestion on major roads throughout the state. As early as next week, that company, the National Engineering Technology Corp. (NET), will start monitoring thousands of cell phones in Kansas City and St. Louis, using their movements to test how to relay traffic conditions to the public in real time. While officials say the program will make Missouri a national leader in "intelligent" traffic management, privacy advocates are concerned that...

NHTSA decided in 1996 to make FARS data easier to obtain by using Internet technology. This FARS Web-Based Encyclopedia offers a more intuitive and powerful approach for retrieving fatal crash information.

WASHINGTON, Nov. 9, 2005 – Military.com is taking its mission of connecting veterans to their benefits one step further with the official launch of the online Veteran Career Network on Nov. 11. About 250,000 people leave the military each year, Christopher Michel, president and founder of Military.com, said. A goal of the new network, found at www.military.com/network, is to help veterans capitalize on the training they received in the military by connecting them with employers who value this type of training and to make that connection more efficient. "Job searches have been traditionally inefficient," Michel, a former Navy lieutenant commander,...

Motorcycle Helmet Performance: Blowing the Lid Off Searching for the truth behind motorcycle helmet design, helmet standards and actual head protection By Dexter Ford Photography: Jim Brown How good is your helmet? Will it actually protect your brain in your next crash? These seem like easy questions, ones you probably think you can answer by reciting the lofty standards your helmet meets and the lofty price you might have paid for it. But the real answers, as you are about to see, are anything but easy. There's a fundamental debate raging in the motorcycle helmet industry. In a fiberglass-reinforced, expanded-polystyrene...

Children's literature is full of bad-tempered railway engines that get overheated, blow their tops and make angry whooshing sounds -- only to get their comeuppance in the end. Amtrak President David Gunn just did his best imitation of a huffy little engine, lashing out at Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta for saying that the railroad should become more efficient. All Mr. Mineta did was agree with a report by his independent inspector-general, who found Amtrak could save $1.2 billion in operating and capital spending over five years by eliminating costly sleeping cars and modifying food and beverage service. The splenetic Mr....

The Federal Air Marshal Association and its President Terry Babb, filed a lawsuit in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia against Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and Federal Air Marshal Director Thomas Quinn, challenging federal air marshal rules designed to prevent federal air marshals from speaking about any matter that pertains to the Federal Air Marshal Service, the Transportation Security Administration and the US Department of Transportation. The actions by DHS, TSA and other agencies amounts to a de facto gag order placed on air marshals. Recently, border patrol agents were also required to...

Boo. Hiss. The Legislature is missing an opportunity to pass a piece of meaningful performance-audit legislation. It has approved a watered-down bill instead, all but ensuring a citizens' initiative will tackle the job later this year. Performance audits are checks on government programs that find if they are getting desired results, are redundant or efficient. Right now, the state auditor's office audits agencies to make sure money is going where it is supposed to be going, but these financial checkups do not assess a program's worth or impact. Democratic State Auditor Brian Sonntag has done an exemplary job auditing the...

JACKSON -- A man opened fire Tuesday at a state Transportation Department maintenance garage, killing his wife and two others, and wounding two, authorities said. David Jordan was arrested a short time later, not far from the maintenance garage, police said. Two officers captured him and found an assault rifle, a 12-gauge shotgun and two pistols in his truck. Police gave no motive for the shooting. Police said Jordan first went to the garage's office, where he shot and killed his wife, Donna, a department employee. Then he walked back outside and killed a deliveryman and a Forestry Department employee...

WASHINGTON - The government now has a hotline for people to call with complaints about flight disruptions over the Christmas holiday weekend, the Transportation Department's inspector general said today. Thousands of travelers were stranded after US Airways and Delta subsidiary Comair canceled hundreds of flights because of computer and staffing problems. Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta asked Inspector General Kenneth Mead to look into the snafus at the two airlines, which grounded 1,100 flights on Saturday because of a computer problem.

Washington -- Transportation Secretary Norm Mineta, named Thursday to serve in President Bush's second-term Cabinet, vowed to press a controversial plan to overhaul Amtrak financing in order to end "a drain on the budget." Mineta, 73, the former Democratic mayor and House member from San Jose, said in an interview that he would work to win congressional approval for the pending plan to reduce federal spending on the government-subsidized rail system by shifting a greater burden to states served by Amtrak on the East and West coasts. [snip] White House spokesman Scott McClellan on Thursday announced Bush's decision to keep...

Oh my God ... how .. how could this be?

WASHINGTON, Nov. 8 - The Federal Aviation Administration is facing some of the same problems that are driving the airlines to bankruptcy, rising costs and declining income, and faces two expensive challenges in the next few years, as its essential computers wear out and half of its air traffic controllers reach mandatory retirement age. This is happening as the federal budget gets tighter, leading some experts to question how the agency will get through the next few years. The agency released a report card on itself on Monday and said that crashes had declined, in both airlines and general aviation,...