Our news link gathering activities had been limping along recently and finally came to a screeching halt a couple of weeks ago, temporarily derailing our ability to produce this newsletter. I’m pleased to report that we have found a new bookmarking platform that puts us back in business, helping to gather links for this newsletter and to regularly populate the Coalition website with fresh headlines. Other than that, still no completed state budget, and we await House consideration of the automated work zone speed enforcement bill, which overwhelmingly passed in the Senate.
Transportation Issues Update
- Ride-hailing companies such as Uber and Lyft already have struck a financial blow to their competitors in the taxi industry. Now many officials fear they may take a big bite out of airport parking revenue.
- We’ll believe it when we see it, but Elon Musk is working on building an underground, high-speed transportation system connecting New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington, D.C.
- The Albany Times Union says there’s an E-ZPass border war going on, with Maryland, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Maine all charging higher tolls for E-ZPass users from out-of-state.
- Our latest installment of Thanks to Act 89 takes us to Susquehanna County, where a nine-mile stretch of Interstate 81 is set to get a major overhaul in both the north and south bound directions.
- In passenger rail news, PennDOT is looking at public-private partnerships to refurbish Amtrak stations to better serve communities along the Keystone route.
- PennDOT Secretary Leslie S. Richards was elected chairwoman of the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission. In other Turnpike news, tolls will increase another 6 percent next year.