Free Republic

High speed rail is a glamorous idea -- it's fun to imagine a train streaking through the cornfields from Chicago to St. Louis in four hours. Less glamorous are some of the fixes that need to be made to Chicago's notoriously slow freight rail system. Talk about projects like "signalize interlocking" and "grade separation," and eyes glaze over. But the promise of faster passenger rail is inextricably linked to the down-and-dirty business of freight. To make passenger and commuter trains move faster, you have to get the boxcars out of the way. And to do that, there needs to be...

Note: The following text is a quote: http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/presidential-proclamation-critical-infrastructure-protection-month Home • Briefing Room • Presidential Actions • Proclamations The White House Office of the Press Secretary For Immediate Release December 02, 2009 Presidential Proclamation - Critical Infrastructure Protection Month Click here to download PDF A PROCLAMATION Critical infrastructure protection is an essential element of a resilient and secure nation. Critical infrastructure are the assets, systems, and networks, whether physical or virtual, so vital to the United States that their incapacitation or destruction would have a debilitating effect on security, national economic security, public health or safety. From water systems to computer...

November 23, 2009 As Sewers Fill, Waste Poisons Waterways By CHARLES DUHIGG It was drizzling lightly in late October when the midnight shift started at the Owls Head Water Pollution Control Plant, where much of Brooklyn’s sewage is treated. A few miles away, people were walking home without umbrellas from late dinners. But at Owls Head, a swimming pool’s worth of sewage and wastewater was soon rushing in every second. Warning horns began to blare. A little after 1 a.m., with a harder rain falling, Owls Head reached its capacity and workers started shutting the intake gates. That caused a...

RZD President Vladimir Yakunin gave United States Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood a presentation on the program to develop high-speed rail transport in Russia. The presentation took place at the RZD Science and Technical Information Centre at Rizhsky Station, and was attended by the US ambassador to Russia, John Beyrle. The RZD president showed the high-speed Sapsan train to the delegation from the US Department of Transportation, and described the program to develop high-speed rail transport in Russia up to 2030. The US transportation secretary said he was impressed by the first Russian high-speed train, built jointly by German and Russian...

The Energy Department plans to announce on Tuesday a significant step toward building a new kind of nuclear reactor that could be used to replace the fossil fuels normally needed to complete high-temperature processing at chemical plants, fertilizer factories and oil refineries. Such facilities typically burn oil or natural gas — both of which contribute to global warming — to generate high-temperature steam needed for proper processing. Nuclear reactors, meanwhile, normally don’t run beyond 600 degrees, which is not hot enough for this purpose.

Supporters of a proposed maglev train from Pittsburgh International Airport to Greensburg wooed state representatives Friday with promises the project could create thousands of jobs in high-tech manufacturing, if the government could pay the $5.3 billion price tag. Building the 54-mile magnetic guideway between the airport, Downtown, Monroeville and Greensburg would create demand for an estimated 533,000 tons of steel and 712,000 cubic yards of concrete, and the precision-welding technology that would be used to turn the steel into the track could then be exported around the world, proponents told members of the state House Transportation Committee during a hearing...

TAMPA - Charlotte, N.C.'s mayor politely suggested Monday that the Tampa Bay area was behind its competition when it comes to the transportation networks necessary for job recruitment. Then Mayor Patrick McCrory shared with 300 community leaders the experiences that led to Charlotte's recent transit-oriented success. The strong turnout for the regional transportation session provided a further example the local transit movement is gaining momentum. Hillsborough County leaders are trying to get a 1-cent sales tax referendum for transit on the November 2010 ballot. "You are taking a very courageous political step," McCrory told elected officials advocating improved transit. "You...

After months of thinking it over, Sen. Paula Dockery is poised to kick-off her candidacy for governor, party insiders told the News Service of Florida on Friday. The Lakeland Republican is expected to open a campaign account early next week – as a prelude to a formal campaign announcement the following Tuesday in her hometown. It would set the stage for a potentially combative Republican primary contest with Attorney General Bill McCollum, who had seemed on an unimpeded path to the nomination. Democrat Alex Sink, the state’s chief financial officer, doesn’t appear likely to face a serious primary challenge. For...

Despite billions spent on homeland security, the Obama Administration is Bush-league when it comes to defending America’s vital power grid from home-grown terrorists. Known to experts as Sciurus carolinensis, these sly, suicidal saboteurs infiltrate transformer stations at will, denying thousands of loyal Americans their God-given right to power up their Chinese-made flat-screen TVs.October 24, 2009, Fulton, MO: “”Squirrel causes power failure in Fulton on Saturday,” Fulton Sun. October 19, 2009, Ogdensburg, NY: “Squirrel causes 8-hour outage,” Watertown Daily Times. October 10, 2009, Chico CA: “Squirrel causes power outage,” Chico Enterprise-Record.October 7, 2009, Anderson IN: “Squirrel blamed for power outage to southwest Anderson,”  The...

Eight billion dollars isn’t enough — not nearly enough. It’s not often you’ll hear this newspaper make a statement like that. Usually we are urging fiscal restraint. But if this country truly wants high-speed rail, we’re going to have to get serious about the effort. Eight billion dollars won’t get us there. That’s the amount of federal stimulus money promised by the Obama administration for high-speed rail. Already the administration has received requests from 24 states for projects amounting to $50 billion in high-speed projects. It also has received $7 billion in requests from states wanting to improve rail travel...

Express passenger trains linking America's major metropolises. It's an idea whose time has come and gone and, thankfully, come again. Just don't expect them to come to Utah any time soon. When the Federal Railroad Administration released its list of intercity rail corridors eligible for high-speed rail funding last spring, there was a hole the size of the Intermountain West on the map. It wasn't an oversight. When you start connecting the big-city dots in the Intermountain West, it's a long way between dots. Higher-density corridors in the Northeast, Southeast, Midwest and on the West Coast are more logical places...

PARIS — From the time the world’s first commercial nuclear power plants were switched on in the late 1950s, installed generating capacity rose rapidly over two decades. It leveled off in the 1980s as new building programs were scrapped in the wake of the accident at Three Mile Island, among other factors. Contractors generally designed plants to last for 40 years — a standard enshrined in the United States in the adoption by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, or N.R.C., of a 40-year licensing regime. A large part of the world’s installed nuclear power capacity is now coming to the end...

A scheme named “Developing of Traffic and Communication Network in NCR and Mega Cities and Model System of Traffic Management” has been included for implementation in 11th Five Years Plan with a provision of Rs. 200 crore. The scheme has two components viz., (i)Introduction of Intelligent traffic system (ITS) and (ii) Setting up of an Integrated Date communication Network (Cyber Highway). The scheme comprises a wide range of novel tools for managing transport networks, as well as services for travelers. The project broadly includes the state-of-art command and control centre, a city video surveillance system covering the maximum number of...

I am amazed that our candidates for governor, our representatives and the public's general discussion of transportation in Hampton Roads don't include building a "Junnel" under the James River for high-speed rail and commuting. Such would tie Southside to the Peninsula, Richmond, Washington, New York and points south and west together. As regards to the environment, it makes loads of sense and is something from which all concerns would benefit.

WASHINGTON — The Nuclear Regulatory Commission said Thursday that it had rejected a design by Westinghouse for a new reactor because a key component might not withstand events like earthquakes and tornadoes. The rejection raises the possibility of delays in building 14 planned reactors in the United States, including two twin-reactor projects in Georgia and South Carolina that are leading the pack. ~~~SNIP~~~ In a conference call on Thursday with reporters, David Matthews, director of the division of new reactor licensing in the commission’s Office of New Reactors, said staff members were not convinced that a crucial part of the...

Voters mixed on proposals for high-speed transportation The debate over which high-speed train would best serve Nevadans is a hot topic in the political arena, but a recent poll shows that, by a slim margin, most voters aren't overwhelmingly supportive of that particular mode of transportation. It's a showdown between a magnetic levitation train (maglev) and the steel-wheeled DesertXpress rail project. A poll conducted Tuesday through Thursday by Washington D.C.-based Mason-Dixon Polling & Research, Inc. showed that of 500 registered voters throughout the state, 42 percent supported the maglev train, which would ferry passengers from Las Vegas to Anaheim, Calif....

Prince William County decided not to join Arlington County in its lawsuit against high-occupancy toll lanes on Interstates 95 and 395, citing what it characterizes as race-baiting and class warfare in the suit. The county considered joining the suit because it shared concerns about the HOT lanes’ proceeding without a proper environmental study and their effect on traffic, but Board Chairman Corey Stewart, R-At large, said the board unanimously agreed Arlington’s suit raised too many concerns. “The board had a closer look at the suit and there are allegations in there about Pierce Homer, the secretary of transportation, and about...

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration said Tuesday it has received applications from 24 states seeking $50 billion for high-speed rail projects, more than six times the money designated in the economic stimulus plan. A decision on which projects will receive funds will be made this winter, Joseph Szabo, head of the Federal Railroad Administration, said in a statement. "Our selections will be merit-based and will reflect President Obama's vision to remake America's transportation landscape," Szabo said. In August, the agency received 214 applications from 34 states totaling $7 billion for corridor planning and smaller projects, which would include trains traveling...

The Texas Department of Transportation is pulling the last plug on the Trans-Texas Corridor, Gov. Rick Perry's embattled plan to build a toll-road network across the state. The agency said earlier this year it was scaling down the project and dropping the name "Trans-Texas Corridor." Now, transportation officials say it's fully dead. Transportation Commissioner Bill Meadows told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram of the decision in a report posted online Tuesday. The news comes a day after Perry's Republican primary opponent, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, secured the coveted endorsement of the powerful Texas Farm Bureau — a vocal opponent of the...

Itanagar, October 3 (Agencies): Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Saturday said a Rs.125 billion trans-state highway in Arunachal Pradesh would be completed by 2013, a step that would boost infrastructure in the strategic northeastern state bordering China. “The Trans-Arunachal Highway, rail and air connectivity, and construction of two small hydro projects would meet the requirement of many remote areas, especially villages located on border areas, suffering from isolation,” Manmohan Singh said, addressing an election rally at Pasighat in East Siang district. “The highway would be completed by 2013 and would go a long way in boosting infrastructure in the region....

If you have a look at the world of today from an economic point of view, you'll quickly find out that the Nordic countries (Scandinavia + Finland) is the richest part of the Globe (mesured by nominal GDP per Capita). This is not a matter of coincidence and neither is it a matter of oil, at least not to a large extent. For instance, the Danes earn the highest salaries on Earth and very few of them work for oil companies. The Nordic countries are immensely wealthy because we focus on things in life like R&D, economic growth, education, infrastructure,...

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...

ABOARD USS THACH, At Sea, Aug. 25, 2009 – The guided-missile frigate USS Thach has helped to protect Iraq's critical infrastructure since arriving on station in mid-July. The ship, assigned to Commander, Task Group Iraqi Maritime, is providing security for the Al Basrah Oil Terminal, an Iraqi oil platform that accounts for a significant percentage of the country's gross domestic product. "We're providing security here to help make sure that oil is able to flow freely from the platform to help Iraq's economy to continue to improve and flourish," said Navy Cmdr. David Haas, Thach's commanding officer. "If that stops,...

Infrastructure: The stimulus plan to turn America's electrical infrastructure into a so-called "smart grid" is a potential target for unfriendly hackers. It's also the fulfillment of a campaign promise rooted in socialism.There is $4.5 billion in the stimulus package to modernize the nation's electricity system. The whole idea is to monitor where and when electricity is used and to direct it to where and when it is needed. It is thought this will help utilities to adjust their rates to immediate supply and demand for power. It would supposedly allow consumers to adjust their consumption to the times when they...

Stimulus: Brazil, a leader in the use of biofuels such as ethanol and in the face of falling oil prices, still plans to spend huge sums to expand its offshore oil resources. Drilling rigs are infrastructure too.With oil prices scraping the bottom of the barrel, pun intended, there wouldn't appear to be much incentive to pursue the development of new oil resources. And in tough economic times worldwide, the necessary investment required would appear to be prohibitive. As the U.S. seeks to get its economy going by building roads, bridges and bicycle paths, Brazil has decided to create jobs and...

[Quix color emphasis added; with standing permission to post ATS docs here with URL refs.] A severe storm came through my town last night and it knocked out power in my local grocery store for a bit. This was no big deal, as it has happened before. There was, however, a bigger problem we discovered very quickly: The credit and debit no longer worked, and checks couldn't be used. Foodstamps and WIC did not work either. Coincidentally, there was a rush of people in the store at this same time, and the lines began to clog very fast. People...

WASHINGTON – Tens of thousands of unsafe or decaying bridges carrying 100 million drivers a day must wait for repairs because states are spending stimulus money on spans that are already in good shape or on easier projects like repaving roads, an Associated Press analysis shows.

Federal Spending: With the money spent on honeybee insurance in the stimulus package, the Army could buy nine utility helicopters and employ 1,200 skilled workers. Have we forgotten that the nation's interstate highway system was a defense project?The repairing of the nation's roads, bridges and infrastructure is touted by supporters of the stimulus package as a way of creating jobs that America needs to revitalize its economy. The interstate highway system initiated by President Dwight Eisenhower is cited as the kind of job-creating infrastructure work we need to do. What isn't noted is that when Eisenhower announced the program, he...

The social and economic costs of lost productivity and wasted fuel from traffic-choked streets are estimated to be $87 billion a year, according to the Texas Transportation Institute’s 2009 Urban Mobility Report. So far, federal, state and local efforts — focused mostly on expanding road capacity — have been largely unsuccessful at slowing the growing congestion on U.S. roads. Transportation experts now advocate a different approach, changing the emphasis from increasing supply to reducing demand. To reinforce smart growth policies, plug mounting transportation funding gaps and achieve immediate traffic relief, London, Stockholm, Singapore, Milan and three cities in Norway have...

THE WIDER VIEW: Taking shape, the new bridge at the Hoover Dam 04th July 2009 Creeping closer inch by inch – 900ft above the mighty Colorado River – the two sides of a £160million bridge at the Hoover Dam in America slowly take shape. The bridge will carry a new section of US Route 93 past the bottleneck of the old road which can be seen twisting and winding around and across the dam itself. When complete, it will provide a new link between the states of Nevada and Arizona. In an incredible feat of engineering, the road will be...

The state’s largest farm organization is in favor of legislation that would terminate the Trans-Texas Corridor (TTC) in both name and concept. Texas Farm Bureau President Kenneth Dierschke expressed support for HB 11 by State Rep. David McQuade Leibowitz (D-San Antonio), which repeals the authority for the establishment and operation of the massive transportation project. “We hope you will agree with us that it is finally time to kill the Trans-Texas Corridor,” Dierschke testified before the House Transportation Committee on April 21. Although the farm organization recognizes the need to build and maintain Texas’ infrastructure, Dierschke said Texas Farm Bureau...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Obama administration is expected to unveil its plans on Thursday for accelerating development of high-speed rail, a concept that in the past has had mixed political support and little public funding. "It will be broad and strategic," Karen Rae, acting head of the Federal Railroad Administration, told Reuters in an interview on Tuesday about the initiative described by officials as President Barack Obama's top transportation priority. "It's going to talk about how we begin to create this new vision for high-speed and intercity rail," Rae said. White House and transportation officials have spent the past several...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger went to the White House on Friday with Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg to press President Barack Obama for more federal aid for infrastructure projects. .. Schwarzenegger said a good response would be to increase government spending on roads and bridges and other projects. "This creates jobs," he said. "We had a terrific meeting." ... Schwarzenegger ... Obama "says he wants to pursue the same spread-the-wealth ideas that Europe had decades ago." .. California is "benefiting tremendously" from the economic stimulus package Obama has put together. Obama reciprocated, calling Schwarzenegger "one...

California may have to halt work on its high-speed rail project if it does not get an infusion of cash from the state's infrastructure fund. Aides told the state's high-speed rail board on Thursday that the project is out of money and unable to pay its bills. The problem is an outgrowth of the state's larger budget crisis. Some of the rail project's engineering and environmental review contractors have said they will not continue working without being paid. The rail board has asked the state's Pooled Money Investment Board for a $29.1 million loan to fund its operations through the...

MAHMUDIYAH — Leaders from the 2nd “Iron” Brigade Combat Team, 1st Armored Division, met here with nine shaykhs to discuss security and infrastructure progress in the area, Feb. 25. With Mahmudiyah being a largely agricultural area, the discussion focused on determining methods to create more jobs for locals by developing agricultural and rural industries, as well as refining the irrigation systems in their areas. “The meeting was designed to bring influential shaykhs of Mahmudiyah together to discuss the future, and to ultimately prioritize how we can help citizens of Mahmudiyah with the resources available to the Coalition without interfering with...

Tuesday, March 3rd, 2009 at 1:43 pm Renewing America's Infrastructure President Barack Obama addresses a crowd gathered at the Department of Transportation in Washington, D.C., to discuss infrastructure spending as part of the American Recovery and Investment Act, as Vice President Joe Biden and Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood listen.(White House photo 3/3/09 by Pete Souza) >   "Thanks in large part to Joe Biden....and because of all the governors and mayors, county and city officials who are helping implement this plan, I can say that 14 days after I signed our Recovery Act into law, we are seeing shovels hit the ground," President Obama...

President Obama said Tuesday that the country already is "seeing shovels hit the ground" on the first infrastructure repair project funded through the Transportation Department's share of the $787 billion stimulus bill. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said, "The work begins today in Montgomery County, Maryland, where a work crew is starting on a project to resurface Maryland State Highway 650 -- a very busy road that has not been fully repaired in 17 years." The resurfacing contract is going to a Pennsylvania-based family-owned company, America Infrastructure, LaHood said. He said the project will support 60 jobs. "And that's how we're...

Nissan has announced plans to cut its Sunderland workforce by 1,200. Thousands of unsold cars are stored around the factory's test track Honda is halting production at its Swindon plant in April and May, extending the two-month closure announced before Christmas to four months. Honda and Japanese rival Toyota are both cutting production in Japan and elsewhere. Pictured, Hondas await export at a pier in Tokyo Earlier this week Jaguar Land Rover said 450 British jobs would go The open car storage areas in Corby , Northamptonshire, are reaching full capacity Imported cars stored at Sheerness open storage area...

As it stands now, road maintenance is funded largely through the gas tax. It is a pretty fair way to allocate the tax burden since the more you drive and use those roads, the more taxes you pay. But our new Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood doesn't think we're getting enough cash as a result of the gax tax - or at least not enough for the Obama administration. So, instead of the gas tax, there are proposals to fund road building and maintenance by charging drivers for every mile they drive. How would the government know how much to bill...

The financial meltdown has produced a vast patchwork of foreclosed and abandoned single-family homes across America, accelerating the decades-long migration of our nation's poor from cities to the suburban fringe. In 2005, as rising property values reduced affordable-housing stock in inner-city neighborhoods, suburban poverty, in raw numbers, topped urban poverty for the first time. The trend will continue. By 2025, predicts planning expert Arthur C. Nelson, America will face a market surplus of 22 million large-lot homes (a sixth of an acre or more), attracting millions of low-income residents deeper into suburbia where decay and social and geographic isolation will...

This is awkward, like truly first-date awkward, when your hands brush and the other one pulls away. President Barack Obama speaking at the Caterpillar plant in East Peoria, Illinois Thursday afternoon on his economc stimulus plan (see video below) still before Congress: "When they finally pass our plan, I believe it will be a major step forward on our path to economic recovery. And I'm not the only one who thinks so. "Yesterday, Jim, the head of Caterpillar, said that if Congress passes our plan, this company will be able to rehire some of the folks who were just laid...

Bridges and highways and public works projects, oh my! Most of the stimulus package infrastructure spending involves construction-type projects. Have you noticed what nationality makes up the bulk of any type of construction crew lately? I’ll give you a hint: They don’t speak English very well, if at all, and most are probably not US citizens.

Congress is hell-bent on getting the $819 billion stimulus bill done as quickly as possible—and President Obama is just as eager to sign it. But a few last-minute additions last week show that there’s plenty of room to improve how this massive spending plan treats infrastructure. Devoting a few more weeks to thinking about what we’re trying to accomplish would be good for the nation’s recovery and beyond. The original bill, unveiled just two weeks ago, proposed little investment in transportation and mass transit. Yet these assets are the public backbone of our private-sector economy. Even where our roads, bridges,...

WASHINGTON - Five weeks before becoming president, Barack Obama urged passage of a massive economic stimulus package, vowing that it would "create millions of jobs by making the single largest new investment in our national infrastructure since the creation of the federal highway system in the 1950s. US faces difficult military decisions, Obama says Only 5 percent of $819b would go toward infrastructure Notebook: Panel backs Holder for attorney general Blagojevich asks to make argument at Senate trial But the bill passed by the House yesterday dedicates only about 5 percent of the $819 billion measure to highway, mass transit,...

CHICAGO (Reuters) - U.S. roads, airports, schools, levees, dams, and other infrastructure are in overall poor shape and require a $2.2 trillion investment to bring them up to par, an engineering group said on Wednesday.

Consider this: A near unanimous 94% of Americans are concerned about our nation's infrastructure. And this concern cuts across all regions of the country and across urban, suburban and rural communities. Fully 84% of the public wants more money spent by the federal government -- and 83% wants more spent by state governments -- to improve America's infrastructure. And here's the kicker: 81% of Americans are personally prepared to pay 1% more in taxes for the cause. It's not uncommon for people to say they'd pay more to get more, but when you ask them to respond to a specific...

You’ve heard it here, there and everywhere in the news media – the time is now for a big-government economic stimulus package, not only to revive the economy, but to salvage America’s crumbling infrastructure. That’s one of the selling points used over and over again by pundits, as they are paraded out repeatedly on broadcast and cable network news programs – that so-called “shovel-ready” projects will challenge economic woes by revitalizing something we need to do anyway. But only 3 percent of the Obama stimulus plan is slated for such projects....more...

I missed Clintonite moldy oldie-turned-Obama economic adviser Robert Reich’s testimony a few weeks ago on how the government should spend federal stimulus money. The Berkeley professor engaged in academic fantasy land talk about getting all the cash out to workers as quickly as possible — a pipe dream debunked by the CBO report I mentioned in my column yesterday. Even more noteworthy, however, were the comments Reich made about which workers deserve the stimulus bucks most. Reich’s proposal exposes the lie that the Obama administration is actually interested in revitalizing basic infrastructure for the good of the economy. No, what...

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,...

Two years ago, lawmakers went to war with Gov. Rick Perry over his push to privatize Texas toll roads, but their efforts to stop the idea largely failed. As they return Tuesday to launch the 2009 legislative session, lawmakers will be faced with a choice of either raising taxes – which both Perry and Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst have called a bad idea – or giving private companies a greater role in paying for, and operating, a fast-expanding network of toll roads. The two-year moratorium on private road deals that passed in 2007 slowed but didn't kill Perry's plan to...