Tag: funding: Page 20

Reauthorization Proposal Overview

Here’s a summary of the reauthorization proposal from the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee as it affects road and bridge industries. *Funding: Provides $230 billion over six years from the Highway Trust Fund – consistent with the amount of revenue deposited into the Highway Trust Fund during that time frame. *Better Leverage Existing Resources: Funds […]

July 7, 2011

A Small Bill

It’s the sort of story you don’t want to read because it will confirm the bad news you feared. Yet here it is in the Washington Post. Soon, maybe tomorrow, a bill to replace SAFETEA-LU will emerge from the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. According to the Post, and also to a lot of people […]

July 6, 2011

They cost how much! Are they worth it?

Checking out some British road building news and came across an interesting commentary by the architecture correspondent of The Guardian newspaper. It came packaged with an online story about two new, short, roads in Britain. The first in Scotland cost about $120,000 a yard ($210M a mile). The second is a road through a tunnel […]

June 27, 2011

We’re Marching on Congress, May 25

May 25 is the day, 11 a.m. is the time. Don’t bring pitchforks and torches, just your conviction that we need to do something more than we have been doing to get Congress off their assumptions and do the right thing for our industry. The “Rally for Roads” will take place on the National Mall […]

May 13, 2011

Yamaha OHV access initiative contributes more than $136,000

Yamaha’s Grassroots Program Begins Fourth Year of Supporting Safe, Responsible Riding and Open, Sustainable Access for Motorized Recreation CYPRESS, Calif. – May 11, 2011 – Yamaha Motor Corp., U.S.A.’s national OHV Access Initiative announced its pledge of more than $136,000 in GRANTs (Guaranteeing Responsible Access to our Nations Trails) for the first quarter funding cycle […]

May 12, 2011

Reauthorization and 85-yard field goals

It’s like everyone in Washington involved in trying to put a viable new surface transportation bill into action are playing the same silly game. Everyone knows its silly, but they keep on playing. Here’s an example from last week: A House transportation appropriations subcommittee hearing to examine the Federal Highway Administration’s Fiscal Year 2012 budget […]

April 5, 2011

Reading CONEXPO’s Upbeat Signs

The “official” stamp of success will come later when all the numbers are run, but CONEXPO certainly feels like we have reached the end of the beginning of the turnaround.I’m enjoying the upbeat feeling here. OEMs have presented numbers that are evidence of a slow but concrete upward movement and their lead executives’ press conference […]

March 25, 2011

Climate-controlled street and traffic lights

It’s Cornhusker common-sense. Nature is being called on to provide light at night for people using roads in Lincoln, Neb. The city is testing wind and solar power as a source of energy to power street and traffic lights. It’s a green initiative of course, but it’s also aimed at saving money. When we talk […]

March 9, 2011

Road funds low? Use Canadian money

Slowly, but inevitably, there are stories surfacing that show just how much our roads need work and just how badly underfunded are the agencies that would do that work. In Michigan, Canadian money will help kin the short term. It’s not a loan, it’s part of a new trans-border bridge deal. Creativity comes along with […]

January 24, 2011

Zen and the Art of Parachute Jumping

I wonder. If politicians, wearing government-issue parachutes, jumped out of airplanes (or were pushed, remember they’re politicians) and decided not to deploy the chute to show their voting constituents how reluctant they are to waste taxpayer dollars (remember, they’re politicians) would they pull the rip-chord when the ground got dangerously close? You bet your (fill […]

January 6, 2011

New highways create jobs. What if they are foreign?

Uh oh. Is this something we are going to see more of? The case is among the first brought by a union to stop a public project being handled by private investors, an area that is growing in the U.S. as cities and states struggle financially. That’s the Wall Street Journal and the newspaper is […]

December 8, 2010

Bye Jim; Hi John

I’m not surprised John Mica will become chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, but like most of you I am surprised that Jim Oberstar will not even be in the House. The turnaround adds more uncertainty to the existing uncertainty about reauthorization. Mica as ranking member of the committee and Oberstar as chairman […]

November 3, 2010

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