Free Republic

All you toll road haters, limber up your fingers for the flaming responses to this column.Because the toll road story here in Central Texas that I’m about to tell you, based on usage and revenue, is a good news story. The simple fact is that the nine toll roads here, other than the privately run section of Texas 130 south of Mustang Ridge, are being heavily used and are financially healthy.This is certainly not the uniform case around the country, where a number of toll roads in the past decade have gone bankrupt. In Central Texas, well over 1 million TxTags...

Instead of handing $13,240 a student to the State Department of Education and trusting them to manage it (which they obviously aren’t doing well), put that money into an educational savings account controlled by the family (it’s the people’s money anyway) that could only be spent on education Then let all schools, public and private, compete for the best teachers and compete to earn clients (students) by the quality of their product. If parents want their children to be taught social justice, climate change and transgenderism, they can send their kids to those schools. For parents that prefer quality reading,...

Six Kentucky community banks that could be competing for business have agreed to work together as charter members of the specialty $150 million Commonwealth Infrastructure Fund to finance public-private partnerships (P3) in Kentucky.In the next few months, CIF is expected to reveal one or more inaugural deals.“We are looking at five to 10 potential projects that should start sometime in 2018. We expect to make loans to two or three projects in 2018 after the underwriting process has been completed,” said John Farris, who manages CIF. “We believe we will lend out all $150 million over three to five years...

Is anyone wondering how a group of high school students managed to pull off a huge, highly organized, multi-million dollar rally involving hundreds of thousands of people across the country, all in a matter of weeks? Debbie Wasserman Schultz Mark Kelly & the Gifford Foundation Michael Bloomberg & Everytown for Gun Safety MoveOn.org Planned Parenthood George Soros & Open Society Institute, the Tides Foundation, Women’s March, Louis Farrakhan Friends Committee of National Legislation American Federation of Teachers Jeri Rhodes & Greenpeace Friends Committee on National Legislation Saturday’s March for Our Lives event, which was supposedly organized “for kids and by...

March for Our Lives is funded by Hollywood celebs, it’s led by a Hollywood producer and its finances are routed through an obscure tax firm in the Valley. Its treasurer and secretary are Washington D.C. pros. And a top funder of gun control agendas is also one of its directors. None of this has much to do with Parkland. The mass shooting by a mentally ill man who should have been committed and arrested long before he carried out his massacre was a political opportunity.

The liberal mainstream media widely publicized the protests as being student organized. But, of course, this was complete rubbish. The well-planned events against the Second Amendment were organized and funded by outside groups – including the Democrat Party.

Republican leadership is going to fund sanctuary cities in the must-pass spending bill next week, giving Democrats a huge victory while simultaneously undercutting conservatives who put them in power, a senior GOP aide told The Daily Caller News Foundation. “House and Senate leadership has rolled over and played dead on border security. When it comes to a border wall, they say it is not our problem. When it comes to funding sanctuary cities, they say it is not our problem. What they are essentially saying is we are going to pass bills with more Democrats than Republicans,” the aide told...

“MASON CITY: To get there you follow Highway 58, going northeast out of the city, and it is a good highway and new.” — Robert Penn Warren, “All the King’s Men” (1946) WASHINGTON — Appropriately, Warren began the best book about American populism, his novel based on Huey Long’s Louisiana career, with a rolling sentence about a road. Time was, infrastructure — roads, especially — was a preoccupation of populists, who were mostly rural and needed roads to get products to market, and for travel to neighbors and towns, which assuaged loneliness. Today, there is no comparably sympathetic constituency clamoring...

Donald Trump’s first budget recommendations help pay for a bigger military with lower expenditures for other promised programs. His recommendations for infrastructure disappointed local officials across the nation, and his plan to revive Nevada’s Yucca Mountain also received limited funds. Trump’s plan calls for $1.5 trillion in infrastructure projects, with just $200 billion supplied by the federal government. It was widely assumed, including in conservative circles, that the program would force local governments to raise taxes. In the Unification Church publication Washington Times, economist Peter Morici wrote, President Trump’s infrastructure plan puts a heavy burden on the states and will...

In the wake of the recent horrific shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, a number of proposals involving federal grant programs have been offered in Congress to try to address the critical issue of school safety. Empowering states and localities to implement evidence-based programs that meet their needs represents a sensible approach. Among the proposals under consideration is the Students, Teachers, and Officers Preventing (STOP) School Violence Act of 2018, which has been introduced in the House by Rep. John Rutherford, R-Fla., a former sheriff, and in the Senate by Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah. Both House...

MILWAUKEE -- Milwaukee drivers will deal with orange barrels on the freeways for the next 10 years even if Congress passes a trillion-dollar infrastructure plan, the head of the a Wisconsin transportation group said. Pat Goss, executive director of the Transportation Builders Association, says the state hasn't put itself in a position to use the federal money for two Milwaukee County freeway projects eliminated in 2017. That year, Gov. Scott Walker delayed construction on Interstate 41 north of the Zoo Interchange and abandoned plans to rebuild Interstate 94 past Miller Park because of a funding shortfall. Don't expect a $1.5...

The final leg of Interstate 69 from Martinsville to Indianapolis will cost nearly $1.6 billion.ThatÂ’s according to the Final Environmental Impact Statement for I-69 Section 6 the state released Thursday. The analysis says construction could start in 2020 and wrap up within six years.Section 6 will run along the existing route of State Road 37. That means some of the many businesses that line the highway in Morgan, Johnson and Marion counties will have to move.The FEIS says more than 80 businesses, including a non-profit and fire station, will need to relocate. ThatÂ’s in addition to nearly 200 residences that...

Although the Colorado Department of Transportation has its eyes on the future, as seen in its advocacy of the Rocky Mountain Hyperloop project that recently won a global challenge, the agency is also trying to innovate when it comes to current highways. Hence the planned installation of variable speed limit signs in Glenwood Canyon that can either speed up or slow down traffic in response to weather and traffic conditions. VSL has already gotten a tryout near Boulder, and if the system works in Glenwood, among the trickiest sections along the Interstate 70 corridor, after installation set to begin during...

A coalition of local leaders backed by the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce wants voters to approve a sales tax increase on the November ballot to pay for projects like the widening of Interstate 25 and the buildout of bike lanes. The group filed four ballot measures with the Secretary of State on Thursday that would raise between $500 million and $1 billion for transportation projects, according to the chamber, and allow that money to be used to pay for bonds, which would generate even more upfront cash. A booming population across the Front Range has created traffic snarls on...

MYRTLE BEACH, SC (WBTW) - The South Carolina leg of a proposed interstate that would end on the Grand Strand may benefit from President Trump's infrastructure plan. Some leaders say Interstate 73 construction could be approved sooner, but paying for the highway could change. The president's plan says the federal government would pay for 20 percent of a project, with more costs shifted towards local governments, the private sector and people. That means if I-73 is built, it will likely include tolls. "I think the odds for I-73 are looking better and better," says Brad Dean, president and CEO of...

Imagine you open the faucet of your kitchen sink expecting water and instead out comes cash. Now imagine that it comes out at the rate of $1 million a minute. You call your plumber, who thinks you’re crazy. To get you off the phone, he opines that it is your sink and therefore must be your money. So you spend it wildly. Then you realize that the money wasn’t yours and you owe it back. Now imagine that this happens every minute of every day for the next three years. At the end of the three years, you owe back...

COBB COUNTY, Ga. - The largest road construction project in state history is nearing completion, and relief for commuters is almost here. Georgia's Department of Transportation program manager for the project told Channel 2's Steve Gehlbach even after delays for weather and after the I-85 collapse, the new 75 express lanes should open by the end of summer. “It’s the longest land bridge in the state of Georgia," program manager for the project, Stephen Lively said. Northern sections above the 75-575 split and through Marietta are mostly complete, including one 6,000-foot raised section. Lively said the goal is to have...

MARTINSBURG, W.Va. — The widening of Interstate 81 from West Virginia into Maryland remains on track to be finished in 2020. "Work is still continuing in the cold," Stephen Bucy said Wednesday. Bucy, an engineer with the Maryland Department of Transportation, reported on the project and other Interstate 81 work Wednesday afternoon during a meeting of the Hagerstown/Eastern Panhandle Metropolitan Planning Organization's Interstate Council in Martinsburg. The current I-81 work is widening the highway from two to three lanes in each direction from about U.S. 11 (Exit 23) in West Virginia across the Potomac River to Md. 63/68 (Exit 1)...

WAYNESBORO — President Trump's national infrastructure plan announced Monday that calls for a $1.5 trillion investment in roads, bridges and the rest of America's crumbling infrastructure, provides for about $200 billion in federal funds. The remainder of dollars would have to come from state, local and private sources. For the Shenandoah Valley, the good infrastructure plan news includes funding to help with the maintenance backlog in the national parks, including Shenandoah National Park, where there is a $56 million maintenance backlog. However, a couple of local government officials and one of Virginia's U.S. senators interviewed expressed doubt about the trickle...

HARRISONBURG, Va. (WHSV) -- A group of 16 Virginia lawmakers has penned a letter to Virginia's Congressional Delegation (comprised of Senators Tim Kaine and Mark Warner and Representatives Bob Goodlatte, Barbara Comstock, and Morgan Griffith) asking for federal assistance to improve Interstate 81. The interstate has long been a source of frustration for people in the Shenandoah Valley, with the Virginia Department of Transportation reporting at least a 12-percent increase in traffic in just the past five years and a 55-percent increase of delays from crashes, construction, or bad weather. In 2014, Delegate Steve Landes introduced a state budget item...