Free Republic

I have driven through 46 states and all of the Canadian Provinces (never been to texas, alaska, florida, hawaii) This website is a wiki dedicated to US roads and accepts picture donations. A great bookmark and a memorial to what a great nation we might still be.

Christmas road trips this weekend might be challenging for those who are driving an electric vehicle (EV) an extended distance for the first time. While EVs are popular with certain groups even as they’ve been largely panned by the general population, inexperienced EV drivers could face some unwanted travel surprises this holiday season if they hit the road unprepared, Axios notes in a recent report. Nearly 104 million people are expected to drive at least 50 miles from their homes between December 23 and January 1, which is a little more than last year’s holiday season, according to the American...

States are scrambling to figure out how to keep making money to funnel into road maintenance amid economic struggles in President Joe Biden’s (D) America. Officials have historically spent gas taxes on roadways, but “the problem that has developed is those taxes are generating less each year due to inflation, fuel efficiency and the rise of electric cars,” Fox Business reported Sunday. Now, state officials are hoping to somehow replace those taxes, and charging drivers by the mile and not the gallon in the future is one among several proposals

Pete Buttigieg, our Transportation Secretary, hates roads.He has a point, though: roads are racist. They hate Black and Indigenous people. They hate Black people so much that they kill them at higher rates than White people.I think Ku Klux Krashsites would have worked better but alas, no edit button. 😢— Gordon "Soros-Backed" Kushner (@Gordon_Kushner) April 17, 2023Racism. Is there nothing it can’t do?Some wag on Twitter noted that the rambling discourse from Mayor Pete was so absurd that even Al Sharpton appeared not to buy it.Perhaps, but Sharpton always looks sour and I won’t pretend to be able to read...

Around 40 landowners are suing tribal leaders with the Lac du Flambeau Band of Lake Superior Chippewa to reopen four roads that have been blocked by barricades for a month. The landowners filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin. They're asking the court to require the roads be immediately reopened and that they remain open for public use. "(T)he Defendants took the law into their own hands and illegally barricaded public roadways, despite the fact that they must be 'open and available to public use' under federal law," the complaint states....

1. Rhode Island Share of major roadways in poor condition: 38.8% Share of major roadways in fair condition: 37.1% Share of major roadways in good condition: 24.0% Daily vehicle-miles traveled per capita: 17.8 2. New Jersey Share of major roadways in poor condition: 36.4% Share of major roadways in fair condition: 31.1% Share of major roadways in good condition: 32.5% Daily vehicle-miles traveled per capita: 20.5 3. California Share of major roadways in poor condition: 30.8% Share of major roadways in fair condition: 32.9% Share of major roadways in good condition: 36.3% Daily vehicle-miles traveled per capita: 20.9

Line painting and other finishing touches continued Tuesday at the new Fern Hollow Bridge in the city’s East End, with a dedication ceremony planned Wednesday and completion of bridge reconstruction work anticipated Thursday, officials said. A date for reopening the bridge to traffic has not been set, according to Pennsylvania Department of Transportation spokesman Steve Cowan, but it was anticipated it would be within a week. The busy, 500-foot Forbes Avenue bridge, which connected Squirrel Hill to Point Breeze and Park Place, collapsed onto a popular hiking trail about 100 feet below the road in Frick Park in January. Ten...

Jackson's water crisis is latest in history o Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg announced a large grant that'll be used to dismantle a highway built to destroy a Black community. And there's more. The Biden administration is capping off the president’s recent trip to Michigan, focused largely on worker rights and transportation innovation, by handing out its first federal grant to dismantle a highway built to perpetuate racial discrimination. The move is part of the Biden administration’s broader effort to remake America’s infrastructure to be more equitable, including addressing racist roads that were designed to facilitate white flight and deprive Black...

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg on Sunday responded to criticism over his recent comments about racist bridges and highways, saying "the point is not to make America feel guilty" but to fix what he believes are injustices in the country’s infrastructure. During an appearance on MSNBC’s "The Sunday Show," Buttigieg was asked to respond to critics who don’t believe his argument that some bridges and highways were built with racist intentions.

resident Biden plans to install a point-person in charge of infrastructure to ensure his administration properly implements its trillion-dollar legislation, two sources familiar with the plans tell Axios. Why it matters: Biden and his top aides know they need to flawlessly execute on their mammoth plan. It may be Biden's best - and, perhaps, only remaining - opportunity to show voters Democrats can deliver major changes to improve people's lives. The White House press office did not have an immediate comment. **SNIP** The goal is to streamline the grant-and-spending process and prevent fraud as the $1.2 trillion in funding is...

Pennsylvania may have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to make significant progress on a long list of needed infrastructure projects if the House passes the $1 trillion plan approved by the Senate and makes billions in federal dollars available to the state. Officials can’t squander this chance to upgrade roads, bridges, dams and other infrastructure areas statewide. In state-by-state estimates released by the White House, Pennsylvania stands to gain — over a five-year period — $11.3 billion in federal highway funding, $2.8 billion for public transit and $1.6 billion for bridge replacement. There’s also $171 million to add charging stations for electric...

During an interview with The New York Times‘ “Sway” podcast released on Monday, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot (D) stated that with the recent crime surge in Chicago, “all roads lead to COVID.” Lightfoot stated, [relevant remarks begin around 16:00] “Why do I think that this is happening in this moment here in Chicago and perhaps also across the country? To me, all roads lead to COVID. When you think about public safety, public safety is really an ecosystem. Public safety isn’t just cops on dots, meaning police officers occupying spaces in high crime areas across the city. Every part of...

Republicans are hesitant to endorse Biden's plan — and for good reason.Congress is expected to take action on President Joe Biden’s infrastructure plan any day now, but Republicans are hesitant to endorse the expensive plan, which is filled with Democrat agenda goals and progressive talking points.Biden originally said last week he would not sign the infrastructure plan that garnered GOP support unless the legislative body also passed a reconciliation bill littered with leftist agenda items. When Republicans promised to jeopardize Biden’s plan by pulling out of the “bipartisan” part of the deal in response, Biden walked back his statement and...

Jesus Torres can see a lot from his perch in the cab of a tanker truck. Cars with blown tires on the side of the pothole-scarred roads. Overturned tankers on exit ramps curved too sharply for large modern trucks to handle. And more often than not, red tail lights snaking into the distance. “They need to add more lanes to all the highways,” he said on a recent morning on Interstate 270 just after leaving the Phillips 66 terminal in Commerce City. Far too often, Torres said, accidents on this highway through Colorado’s industrial center will cause long delays that...

The Utah Department of Transportation (UDOT) recently released a list of some of the agency's most impactful road and bridge construction projects to drivers for 2021. UDOT will be working on 185 projects across the state in 2021, with a value of $3.45 billion over the life of the projects, many of which span multiple years. Planned improvements range from repaving rural highways and building freeway-style interchanges to widening and repaving interstates and demolishing and rebuilding bridges. The traffic delays from these projects range from overnight lane restrictions to full road closures with major detours. “These projects are an essential...

President Joe Biden’s proposed infrastructure legislation has the political class seemingly locked in a debate about what “infrastructure” means. Biden and Democratic leaders—backed by a majority of the U.S. population—believe that “infrastructure” is more than just roads and bridges and encompasses all the structures that help modern society function. Their new bill reflects that understanding, including improvements to water pipes and the electrical grid, universal broadband access, charging stations for electric vehicles, physical upgrades to schools and universities, and—perhaps most innovatively—home care for the elderly and disabled, support for families with children, and expanded access to health care. Republican elected...

Nowadays, the government needs more than gasoline taxes to fund its vast mission to expand, replace and preserve transportation routes in Washington state. Legislators have drawn up a menu of 33 tax and fee increases under the proposed 16-year Forward Washington plan, updated last week by Senate Transportation Committee Chair Steve Hobbs, D-Lake Stevens. That way, perhaps no single cost will provoke enough public fury to torpedo the plan. “Nobody likes to be taxed, but we also want to make this fair as we spread it across different sectors,” Hobbs said Friday. His approach holds direct gas-tax hikes to 9.8...

$3.4 billion. That’s how much bad roads and congestion in North Carolina costs its drivers in higher vehicle ownership costs, according to a report commissioned by the North Carolina Department of Transportation. Fixing those roads—as well as repairing and replacing bridges, building new highways and any other large projects the N.C. DOT has on its schedule—takes money, and lots of it. Steve Abbott, a spokesperson for the N.C. DOT, said that to bring every bridge in the state to “good” condition would cost $3.8 billion, roughly 71 percent of the department’s $5.3 billion budget for the year. “As of now,...

While FASTag was seen as a transformative step to overcome various toll hurdles, the initiative doesn't have everyone's blessings. Ever since, FASTag was made mandatory for vehicles, there have been frequent commotions between locals and toll companies over concession. There has also been a growing demands of locals wanting a toll-free service as another option. However, as such a drastic rule change seems far from simple, it has led to people taking matters into their own hands. Tired of paying toll tax, villagers in coastal Karnataka, used a bulldozer to construct a 'parallel' road to bypass the booth. The residents...

Amid a deepening stalemate over financing highways and public transit, Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf on March 12 proposed phasing out his state's gasoline tax, the second highest in the nation, and appointed a commission to recommend alternative ways to pay for the state's needs. Wolf ordered a panel of several dozen lawmakers, transportation industry representatives, transportation planners, government officials and others to deliver recommendations by Aug. 1 of funding alternatives to foot the extra billions of dollars deemed to be necessary. "Our economy, our communities and our future rely on a strong transportation system that supports our safety and growth,"...