Free Republic

For years, we’ve been hearing from experts across the political spectrum about the need to invest more in our failing transportation infrastructure in Maryland. The D.C. region is at the top of the list of the most-congested cities in America, and Baltimore is not far behind. Almost half of Maryland’s roads and bridges are in poor or mediocre condition, and 55 percent of our urban highways are heavily congested. Maryland’s construction industry and its thousands of workers have been decimated by years of severe cuts in transportation investment. Despite what is clearly a growing need, Maryland’s transportation program is a...

Weekly FR Boating Thread ~ Vol. 3 ~ Feb. 10, 2012 ~ Boat Transportation Launching ~ Weekly FR Boating Thread ~ Vol. 1 ~ Jan. 27, 2012 Weekly FR Boating Thread ~ Vol. 2 ~ Feb 3, 2012 ~ “Off Season”Last week’s thread had 26 posts, including the source for this week’s thread – boat transportation. I have helped clients ship vessels of all sizes and types all over North America and overseas. Except for two small scratches, every shipping project was successful, albeit harrowing on occasion. To help ensure your boat shipping efforts are successful, I will provide boat...

Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley may be more skilled at implementing President Obama’s agenda than the White House itself. The Democratic governor is bringing the same big-spending, high-tax and class-warfare policies to the Free State. It’s going to cost residents a bundle. Tough economic times have forced ordinary Americans to cut back in order to get by. Not so Mr. O’Malley, who spends $35.9 billion in the budget released last month. That’s up from $34.2 billion last year and $32 billion the year before that. As Maryland Business for Responsive Government points out, the general fund budget fattened 11.4 percent last...

At first glance, the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee’s four-year surface transportation bill contains some wins for small-business trucking, but will those be enough to overcome possible deal breakers such as longer and heavier trucks on federal highways? Here’s a look inside the bill released on Tuesday, Jan. 31. For starters, the bill calls for approximately $260 billion in funding for surface transportation, but the exact amount for highways was not known as of press time. From OOIDA’s standpoint, the positives in the bill include provisions for truck parking and driver training, a study of crashworthiness in truck cabs, and...

WASHINGTON - A day after the governor of Maryland said he would like to institute a percentage tax on gasoline, the chief executive of Virginia said he would not seek any additional taxes during a recession, particularly on gas, despite a significant demand for more transit projects. Both states have looked to sales tax to resolve their transportation funding woes. On Monday, Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley said he would like to do away with a ban on sales tax for gasoline, to add to its existing 23-cent flat tax. Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell has a different approach. "I will not...

RAIL TRAFFIC PLUMMETS -9.3% TO START 2012 12 January 2012 by Cullen Roche Rail traffic has remained very strong in recent months despite concerns over recession. This week’s data doesn’t alter the trend, but is certainly an alarming decline that is worth keeping a close eye on. Overall intermodal traffic was down -9.3% while carloads declined -3.7%. This index has been somewhat volatile as of late and clearly one week doesn’t make a trend, but rail has served as a superb harbinger of recession over the last few cycles….More from the AAR: “The Association of American Railroads (AAR) today reported...

The new "Hours of Service" Rules are a drop in the bucket. We think of the world of transportation -- especially trucking and automobile manufacturing -- as being one of the most fundamental of Democratic Party constituencies. Detroit has long been a party stronghold, with the UAW and Teamsters among Democrats' most powerful union supporters. From the worker at the DMV to the driver he licenses, this is one solid chain of Democrats. But is this political loyalty deserved today, if indeed it ever was? Since the Democratic Party was taken over by environmental extremists a generation ago, there has...

Senate plans swift action on long-delayed transportation billBy Alexander Bolton - 12/29/11 02:14 PM ET Senate Democrats expect to pass a long-delayed surface transportation bill soon after they return to Washington next month. Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), chairwoman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, said her colleagues have identified a list of offsets that could be used cover the final $12 billion of the bill’s cost. Shortly before Congress left town for the holidays, Boxer told The Hill that Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) had put together a variety of proposals to push the legislation over the...

Where I live outside of Lansing, there are new bike paths sporting shiny asphalt, but the roads are crumbling. Motorists might be surprised to learn that of the 18.4 cents per gallon of federal gas tax they pay at the pump, only about 11 cents goes to maintain highways and bridges. According to federal law, about 10 percent of federal highway funds must be used for projects such as highway beautification and transportation museums. According to a new National Center for Policy Analysis report, “Paying for Pet Projects at the Pump,” the Federal Highway Administration also allocates gas tax revenues...

RICHMOND — An analysis by a nonprofit tax-policy institute says that Maryland and Virginia could have collected hundreds of millions of dollars per year since their last gas-tax increases if they had raised the tax regularly to account for inflation. The states, both of which are desperately trying to cobble together more money for transportation, had among the highest totals in the nation of unimposed gas-tax dollars, according to the D.C.-based Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. Maryland’s gas tax of 23.5 cents per gallon, in place since 1992, could have generated an additional $421 million per year in the...

HAIBO man, I mean really, it’s not fair. It’s not right. Haibo, angeke! (Hell no!) The thing is that we only earn so much money, and in my sector that isn’t very much at all, and we give so much of it to the tax man and the electricity man and the gas man and the pool man and the hair man and the mani-pedi man and the restaurant man and the education man and the church man and I can go on into a lot of et cetera. From whence comes this e-toll man, now? There is not space...

By staff reporter Yue Zhen 10.31.2011 18:38 Expressways of Excess Lu Dadao has long warned about the risks of highway, railway and airport overbuilding, and now people are listening "Excessive." That's the word Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) academic and National Planning Expert Committee member Lu Dadao uses to describe the scope and pace of transportation-related construction projects in China. In a recent interview with Caixin, 71-year-old Lu repeated his long-held concerns about the nation's vast transportation building program, referring specifically to a critical report written by a research team he headed and submitted to the central government one year...

ANNAPOLIS — A Maryland commission recommended Tuesday that the state raise its gas tax by more than 60 percent over the next three years, but members acknowledged that taxpayers facing a dire economy could find the increase hard to swallow. The proposed hike, approved by the state-appointed Blue Ribbon Commission on Maryland Transportation Funding, would raise the gas tax on wholesalers by 5 cents a year for three years, from the current rate of 23.5 cents per gallon. The move could generate nearly $500 million in annual revenue and is part of $870 million in annual tax-and-fee increases recommended by...

Amtrak made statewide news recently with its announcement that it has set ridership records in Michigan. But one frequent critic of rail transit says that isn’t necessarily a good thing. Wendell Cox, a public policy consultant with Illinois-based Demographia, says that Amtrak is a far more costly option when compared to Megabus, a private bus service that launched in April 2006 and operates in about 50 major cities. For example, Amtrak reported that its Detroit-to-Chicago rail service, known as the "Wolverine," had a 4.9 percent jump in usage. If someone were to purchase an Amtrak ticket for a Nov. 7...

ANNAPOLIS — A Maryland commission will likely recommend that the General Assembly gradually increase the state’s gas tax to help pay for transportation projects and road maintenance, its chairman said Tuesday. Members of the Blue Ribbon Commission on Maryland Transportation Funding tentatively agreed on a plan that would generate more than $800 million in annual transportation revenue by raising the state’s 23.5-cents-a-gallon gas tax and hiking several vehicle and transit fees. More than half the revenue would come from raising the gas tax by 5 cents for three consecutive years, bringing it to 38.5 cents a gallon. That rate would...

The other day our sister newspaper, the Gloucester County Times, reported on a raid at a fraternity house at Rowan University where — get ready for a shock — some college kids were drinking. About 100 of the kids were underage and will face charges. Believe it or not, that incident has its roots in the same problem that led to the controversy over the so-called "Bridge to Nowhere" in Alaska. That problem lies in the way the federal government distributes highway funding: poorly. It’s obvious in the case of the bridge that would have connected the city of Ketchikan,...

  A barbershop on the Street  

Increases to the gas tax, vehicle registration fees and the titling tax were among the options discussed to raise transportation revenues during a lengthy Senate Budget and Taxation Committee hearing Wednesday. The panel is examining ways to increase funding by $800 million a year for road projects, an issue that's likely to be one of several budget-related priorities in the 2012 General Assembly session. The legislature will also try to take another bite out of Maryland's persistent $1 billion structural deficit. Wednesday's meeting was the third in a series of interim hearings on potential tax increases to close various budget...

In his Saturday address, the president repeated that thousands of workers and their families would be hurt if infrastructure projects like highway construction, bridge repair and mass transit systems were put on hold. In the past, he said, renewing the transportation bill has been a “no-brainer,” and noted that Congress has renewed the bill seven times in the last two years. “But thanks to political posturing in Washington, they haven’t been able to extend it this time — and the clock is running out,” he said.

Inside the Beltway, George Will is considered quite a columnist. That sure doesn't carry over when he ventures north of I-495.Why is he writing nonsense like this about Chris Christie? Taxing the rich is popular, but Christie told New Jersey: “If I let my foot off their throat on the millionaire’s tax, they’re coming after you with the gas tax.� That is, the 24-cent increase in the tax the Legislature can’t get past him. Does this guy ever do any research at all?  The Democrats have not tried to get a 24-cent-a-gallon gas tax through the Legislature.  The bill in question, A-2718, was...

Release from VDOT: RICHMOND — The Virginia Department of Transportation today dispatched inspection teams to bridges and tunnels across the state soon after the 5.9 magnitude earthquake to assess any potential damage. Currently, no damage has been confirmed to bridges, tunnels or roads. Inspections are expected to continue for 24 hours. All four tunnels in the Hampton Roads area (Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel, Monitor-Merrimac Memorial Bridge-Tunnel, Downtown Tunnel and Midtown Tunnel), as well as Virginia's two mountain tunnels on Interstate 77 have been inspected with no sign of damage. VDOT's Culpeper and Fredericksburg Districts did report some minor damage to buildings....

After watching a two-week shutdown of the Federal Aviation Administration, transportation advocates and congressional staffers are concerned that the federal gas tax could become the next confrontational issue that Democrats and Republicans push to the brink. The Senate and House are in the process of considering a long-term highway bill. Passing a short-term extension while they work out the details of a longer measure would normally be considered routine, but so was a short-term extension of FAA funding. That all changed July 23, when 4,000 FAA workers were furloughed for nearly two weeks as the House and Senate could not...

WASHINGTON — The State Department is urging Americans in Syria to leave the besieged country immediately while commercial transportation is still available. The Syrian government is clamping down on a rebellion in the city of Hama, the center of anti-government activity. Thousands of protesters across the country are marching, demanding solidarity with the people of Hama and demanding the ouster of President Bashar Assad. On Friday, the State Department urged U.S. citizens who must remain in Syria to limit travel and warned U.S. citizens not in the country to avoid traveling there for now.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, announced Thursday that Democratic and Republican leaders have "been able to broker a bipartisan compromise between the House and the Senate" to fully fund the Federal Aviation Administration.

After all the pleading and partisan accusations over funding the Federal Aviation Administration, Democratic lawmakers and Obama officials found the answer to ending a two-week shutdown of the agency literally right under their noses. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood is sending a letter Thursday, saying a bill that the GOP-led House passed extending the FAA's operating authority through mid-September gives him the power to waive a provision Democrats opposed that cuts $16.5 million in air service subsides to rural communities.

This is a very sketchy report from a source that prefers to remain anonymous: According to an insurance company with operations in China, China's high-speed train accident resulted in 259 people dead, 183 injured, and 154 still missing. The numbers are set to increase, according to this insurance company.

Some national business leaders are outright opposing measures of fiscal responsibility. Fortunately, fiscal conservatives in Congress are fighting back. Case in point: reaction to House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee (T&I) Chairman John Mica’s (R–FL) proposed six-year reauthorization bill, which limits transportation spending to the federal fuel tax revenues flowing into the trust fund. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s reaction was to label the proposal “unacceptable.” Apparently in their view, the proposal doesn’t spend enough money on the business community. Chairman Mica quickly responded to the president of the Chamber on July 13, calling the reaction “most disappointing and a potential...

In September of 2009, Fisher Coachworks was mentioned in a press release from Gov. Jennifer Granholm as a “green technology” company that was part of the “new energy economy for Michigan.” Two years later, the state says Fisher Coachworks is out of business and the state has to write off $1.6 million it loaned the electric bus manufacturing company. Edgar Benning, general manager of Flint’s Mass Transportation Authority, said in an email that Fisher Coachworks went out of business in the development phase of making two $1.1 million electric buses that Flint was going to purchase with grants from the...

Will the governor sign the death certificate for his brainchild? The House unanimously voted late Monday to accept Senate changes to House Bill 1201, Rep. Lois Kolkhorst's legislation that would remove all references to the Trans-Texas Corridor from state statutes. And, oh yes, allow an 85 mph speed limit on certain roads completed after June. The bill now goes to Gov. Rick Perry for his signature, or his veto. For now, the only road likely to qualify for the 85 mph limit will be the southern 40 miles of the Texas 130 tollway, now under construction between the southeast outskirts...

Fewer than five months into 2011, New Zealand and Japan have been slammed by powerful earthquakes that in Japan’s case also led to a killer tsunami and potentially deadly damage to a nuclear power plant. Turmoil has erupted in the Middle East with seemingly solid regimes falling and civil war breaking out, while the United States and Europe have experienced unusually cold winters. There has been “slow steaming” on the world’s shipping lanes, all-freighter flights have been reduced or eliminated, and the shortage of qualified truck drivers is back, partly in reaction to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s new...

AUSTIN — The ceremony was brief and drew few mourners, but the Trans Texas Corridor is finally dead. The Senate unanimously passed a bill that strikes from state law any language, reference and authority once connected to the massive highway envisioned to slice a swath through Texas. The same measure already has passed the House. There are some minor differences that still need to be reconciled, but the bill is expected to go to Gov. Rick Perry, who will have to decide whether to join in the final rites for his once-prized project. Legislators did keep a provision that was...

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) — Southwest Airlines has apologized to a mother and daughter who said they got rough treatment at the airport. Kenlie Tiggeman, a 30-year-old political strategist and weight loss blogger in New York City, said it was humiliating, being told she was too fat to fly, reports CBS 2’s John Slattery. “It was rude. It was in front of lots of people,” said Tiggeman, who’s originally from New Orleans. Tiggeman said the incident happened in Dallas over Easter. She and her mother were told by a gate agent they each had to purchase two seats. “And said that...

SALEM, Ore. - Salem Police stopped an Amtrak train on Sunday afternoon after reports a woman threatened other passengers when they complained she was speaking too loudly on her cell phone. Lakeysha Beard of Tigard was charged with disorderly conduct after police said she got into a “verbal altercation” with passengers on the train. The other passengers complained she refused to put down her cell phone, even after train staff made repeated announcements for passengers to not use cell phones, according to police. When a passenger confronted her about her loud talking, police said Beard got aggressive. She had reportedly...

Subsidies: This week, Amtrak marks its 40th anniversary, which means that for decades it's wasted tens of billions of tax dollars. Naturally, Washington wants to reward this with billions more under the guise of "high-speed" rail. To say that Amtrak is a failed business is to be unkind to failure. Consider: • A Pew study found that all but three of Amtrak's 44 lines lost money in 2008, with an average loss of $32 per passenger. Even the heavily used Northeast Regional line was a money-loser. • Each year, Amtrak relies on more than $1.5 billion in taxpayer subsidies —...

A senator on Sunday called for a "no-ride list" for Amtrak trains after intelligence gleaned from the raid on Osama bin Laden's compound pointed to potential attacks on the nation's train system. Sen. Charles Schumer said he would push as well for added funding for rail security and commuter and passenger train track inspections and more monitoring of stations nationwide. "Circumstances demand we make adjustments by increasing funding to enhance rail safety and monitoring on commuter rail transit and screening who gets on Amtrak passenger trains, so that we can provide a greater level of security to the public," the...

While contending that “high gas prices are, on balance, good forAmerica,” President Obama vowed he would have his people “look into the matter to ensure that any wrongdoing is punished.” “If having to pay more to fill up the SUV encourages a driver to switch to public transit, that’s a good thing,” the President argued. “The fewer cars there are on the road, the cleaner our air is going to be. Who could be against cleaner air?” “But trying to profit from higher prices, well, that’s something entirely different,” Obama added. “Profit comes from charging prices in excess of costs....

Revelation that highway fatalities decrease by 2.3% for every 10 cent per gallon increase in the price of fuel has US Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood fired up. “For all the carping I have to listen to over high gas prices I’m happy to be able to point to a silver lining,” boasted a bubbly LaHood. “Driving their own cars is the most dangerous thing most people do. The more we can discourage this, the more lives we can save. Based on this latest study it looks like if we can get the price of gasoline up to around $9...

GALVESTON — The Port of Galveston is in final negotiations to lease its facilities to a major investment group, which could make it the first U.S. port to turn over its entire operation to the private sector. Several U.S. ports lease terminal operations to private operators, but "in this case it is the entire port structure, which is really a unique opportunity," said economist John Martin, who heads Martin Associates, based in Lancaster, Pa. Martin Associates had done work for every U.S. port and did the economic study for the proposed lease, a 50/50 joint venture of global investment firm...

In the week of March 7, the House will take up bills addressing the U.S. housing crisis, while the Senate will resume debate on reforming U.S. procedures for awarding patents. HOUSE HIGHWAY, MASS-TRANSIT PROJECTS: Voting 421-4, the House sent the Senate a bill (HR 662) to provide billions of dollars in funding for road and bridge construction, mass transit, and highway safety from March 4 through Sept. 30. A yes vote was to pass the bill. Judy Biggert: Yes Randy Hultgren: Yes “BRIDGE TO NOWHERE”: Voting 181-246, the House defeated a Democratic bid to strip HR 662 (above) of funds...

President Obama’s budget proposal for fiscal year (FY) 2012 is an unabashed attempt to grow government and add $1 trillion to the national debt. While a detailed review of the flaws in the President’s budget is beyond the scope of this paper,[1] one of the budget’s more fiscally irresponsible components is the proposal to increase surface “transportation” spending by more than 84 percent (from $58 billion to $107 billion) over FY 2010 spending levels.[2]

TAMPA - Luis Mercado was on his way from Tampa International Airport to Miami International Airport last week. Instead of heading to an American or Continental Airlines flight, he rode an elevator downstairs to board a RedCoach luxury bus. The half-million dollar coach is equipped with 27 individual leather seats in a bus designed to accommodate twice as many seats, a spacious arrangement with WiFi connections, LCD movie screens and a GPS tracking system. The amenities primarily target business travelers on intrastate trips to compete with air service bedeviled by baggage fees, security line waits and crowded airliners. "I have...

Pinky Khoabane: There's probably nothing worse than being repeatedly violated. And frankly, that's exactly how I feel about the news that you and I will have to fork out a couple of thousand rands each month on toll fees just so that we can use Gauteng's highways: 66c per kilometre is the figure mooted. It would seem that the abuse began the moment the World Cup was announced to take place in South Africa. A bunch of unscrupulous, greedy businessmen began turning the wheels of corruption, overcharging the taxpayer billions to build roads and stadiums. The Competition Commission has uncovered...

* The 15ft-high road ran from London to Exeter It was a route once trod by legionnaires as they marched across a conquered land. But, eventually, the Romans left Britain and the magnificent highway they created was reclaimed by nature and seemingly lost for ever. Now, some 2,000 years after it was built, it has been uncovered in the depths of a forest in Dorset. And, remarkably, it shows no sign of the potholes that blight our modern roads.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said today that he told his daughter to buy a Japanese car--a Toyota Sienna--and that she did so. LaHood's comment came as he announced the results of a 10-month long Department of Transportation study that was undertaken to determine whether electronic systems could have been responsible for reports of sudden acceleration in Toyota vehicles. The study determined that this was not the case. LaHood's statement that

Imagine if the government taxed you for food, then gave you the money back for groceries and told you what you had to buy, and where you could buy it. That's what the government is doing to states with transportation spending, and the new 112th Congress should restore sanity by returning fuel taxation and highway spending to the states. Congress levies taxes of 18 cents for gasoline and 24 cents for diesel, puts the revenue into the Highway Trust Fund, then returns it to the states to spend on transportation. States in the Northeast, the Pacific Northwest, the Rocky Mountains,...

The Arlington Chamber of Commerce wants to see a speedy end to the county's HOT lanes lawsuit, arguing that the cost of suing to stop the construction of high-occupancy toll lanes is damaging the county's reputation and hurting efforts to improve transportation on busy interstates. Chamber President Rich Doud said the lawsuit could undermine efforts to relieve traffic congestion in Arlington, damage the county's relationship with the private sector and drive up the HOT lanes project's cost as the lawsuit drags on. The chamber includes ending the lawsuit on its list of public policy priorities for 2011. The county spent...

A busload of people did nothing to stop a pack of teen girls from beating a pregnant teenager and her boyfriend despite pleas from the victims that she was carrying a baby. The behavior was caught on the bus' surveillance camera and later helped police in Seattle locate the five attackers. "I'm shocked," said Sgt. John Urquhart of the King County Sheriff's Department. "The video is shocking to look at. "The ferocity, the intensity, the unprovoked nature" is shocking, he said. "But what shocks me most is that these girls thought they could do this on a crowded bus with...

A rule change made by the Obama administration last May aimed at making it easier to unionize has put Delta Airlines squarely in union sights. The new rule approved by the National Mediation Board — the body responsible for ruling on labor issues in the transportation industry — makes it easier to organize by allowing a simple majority of those voting in a union election to decide its outcome. The board approved the new rule following a Sept. 2009 letter from the AFL-CIO’s Transportation Trades Department asking the board to make it easier for transportation unions to win elections. The...

Thought that new car was expensive now? Wait till the Department of Transportation implements its latest plan to protect Americans from themselves. Last week, the department announced regulations that would require all new vehicles to install video cameras on their back bumpers. The idea is to make backing up safer, and it’s not optional. “To meet the requirements of the proposed rule,” reads a DOT release, “10 percent of new vehicles must comply by Sept. 2012, 40 percent by Sept. 2013 and 100 percent by Sept. 2014.” Three years ago, Congress passed the Cameron Gulbransen Kids Transportation Safety Act, named...

— Africa can feed itself. And it can make the transition from hungry importer to self-sufficiency in a single generation.The startling assertions, in stark contrast with entrenched, gloomy perceptions of the continent, highlight a collection of studies published December 2 that present a clear prescription for transforming Sub-Saharan Africa's agriculture and, by doing so, its economy. The strategy calls on governments to make African agricultural expansion central to decision making about everything from transportation and communication infrastructure to post-secondary education and innovation investment.