With the holidays upon us, we’ll dispense with the usual chatter and simply forward the news links below.
It’s our last newsletter of the year. Our best wishes to you and yours, and may you have a prosperous and healthy New Year.
Be of (especially) good cheer,
–George Wolff
- Governing Magazine conducted five editorial roundtables across the country in an effort to understand regional differences and common threads in the national infrastructure discussion. At the top of the list for getting things done? Regional cooperation.
- In another Governing piece, a columnist asserts that fractured physical infrastructure usually reflected fractured political infrastructure.
- Gasoline keeps going down, down, down.
- The Commonwealth’s transportation improvement program is ahead of schedule, according to PennDOT Secretary Barry Schoch.
- The governor of Washington says he wants to tax polluters and pollution to raise money for transportation.
- A PA congressman and a Turnpike commissioner traveled to China to pitch investment in the proposed Turnpike-I-95 connection in Bucks County. Investors would receive permanent resident status as part of the deal.
- A bipartisan group of U.S. congressmen is asking colleagues to join them in advancing a long-term funding measure to replenish the federal Highway Trust Fund.
- Pennsylvania’s largest merger (so far) among public transportation agencies will save $4.7 million over five years. Commissioners of Berks and Lancaster counties approved the merger last month.
- WHYY’s NewsWorks took up the issue of inspecting and managing bridge projects more efficiently as the latest installment in its excellent series on transportation issues. Another story looked at how the state plans to rebuild bridges more quickly.
- Would you like to know how many structurally deficient bridges there are in your neck of Penn’s Woods? NewsWorks can answer that, too, with its interactive map.
- Our friends at SEPTA are transitioning from one of the oldest fare-collecting systems in the country to the leading edge. It’s much more than a token effort.
- According to an article in CityLab, the manner in which Congress has been funding (or actually, NOT funding) transportation since 2008 may not be legal.