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INFRASTRUCTURES * USA - Obama lays out $50 billion infrastructure proposal
San Francisco,CAL,USA -MarketWatch, by Claudia Assis -Sept. 6, 2010: -- President, Barack Obama, unveiled Monday a $50 billion plan to upgrade the nation's roads, airports and railways, choosing a Labor Day rally in Milwaukee to announce the administration's latest proposal to revive the economy... The proposal includes an overhaul of the nation's highways, bus and rail systems, and air-traffic controls... President Obama unveils a new plan to upgrade American infrastructure, bring the country's highways and railroads into the 21st Century while creating jobs... The public-works plan is part of a larger effort to provide more jobs and help the economic recovery... The plan calls for investments over six years. Part of the money would fund an infrastructure bank to invest in projects critical to the economy, while also providing jobs... (Photo from t0.gstatic)* USA - Factory Group Opposes Energy Taxes for Transport. National Association of Manufacturers responds to Obama’s infrastructure proposal
Washington,DC,USA -The Journal of Commerce Online, by John D. Boyd -Sep 8, 2010: -- The National Association of Manufacturers, a major industrial lobbying group in Washington, D.C., launched an advertising campaign to head off new energy taxes after Obama administration officials suggested such taxes could pay for its transportation plans... The group said its ad launch "comes days after the Obama administration's announcement of a $50 billion infrastructure proposal that White House officials say could be offset by new taxes on the energy sector. A new tax increase on businesses will not help spur job creation or economic growth for our economy" ... The White House said it would work with Congress to find ways to pay for it. But some Obama aides reportedly said they were eyeing new taxes or removal of some tax breaks for oil and gas companies to raise the needed revenue... That has split some of the Washington-based trade groups that see such taxes on companies as unacceptable, even if they have supported boosting transportation spending. Some transport industry officials privately say they would support the oil company taxes, while others say it could be a deal breaker. In particular, groups whose members include energy companies are angry over the proposal, and the NAM has a number of energy companies represented on its board...* Perspective: When Infrastructure As Usual No Longer Gets the Job Done, It’s Time to Seek New Solutions
CAL,USA -Sierra Club Harbor Vision Task Force/The Cunningham Report, by Tom Politeo -6 Sept 2010: -- We can't be sure how long this recession will last or how deep it will be. But we can be sure that if we conduct business as usual, we'll have a hard time getting and staying out of it. It is business as usual that put us here, and trying the same thing over and over and expecting a different result - Einstein's definition of insanity - should not be among our options. Among other things, this is the time to regroup and take a serious look at improving how we go about providing our transportation solutions... The highways and rail lines we built since the industrial revolution have given us more than a century of good service... If it is modernized and electrified, rail has the potential to offer us a far more efficient system of moving goods that the freeways. This modernized rail system must include an option that can group railcars in any number, from long trains to individual railcars-and that can efficiently move single cars from point to point. Quite possibly this will involve parallel systems, one designed for flexibility which, along with trucking, would directly service and the other for long-distance hauls... Perhaps the biggest challenge we face is the sense of entitlement almost everyone has to subsidized highways and fuel, whether individual commuters or the goods movement industry. If we cling to it, it will take us down, as any serious addiction can... Perhaps a close second challenge is a government bureaucracy built up for 50 years that has codified the process of conducting business as usual through many layers of local, regional, state and federal regulation. What now seems to be the most secure method of proceeding, the low-risk option government seeks out, may instead be the highest risk option with the least promising future...* Georgia - Cobb Commute Eased By New Traffic Center
Cobb County,GA,USA -11AliveTV/Atlanta, by Kevin Rowson -26 Aug 2010: -- If you're driving in Cobb County, someone is watching over you. And that someone may be making your commute a little bit easier... Cobb County's Department of Transportation recently took a big step in alleviating some of the congestion by building this $4.4 million dollar Regional Traffic Management Center. Right now the center is staffed by two people who monitor as many as 32 traffic cameras at a time. They can also make adjustments to over 400 traffic lights around the county... The Traffic Management Center is monitoring traffic 12 hours a day from 6am to 6pm. Martin said they are hoping to staff it 24-7 in the future... Commuters can access real-time streaming video of traffic and road conditions from Cobb County's website...
* Alaska - New sensors on traffic lights keep vehicles moving
Anchorage,Alaska -JUNEAU EMPIRE, by Klas Stolpe -August 26, 2010: -- The Alaska Department of Transportation recently installed new video detection cameras on top of traffic signals in the Mendenhall Valley area... However, these cameras aren't there to catch drivers running red lights. Instead, they are being used to give motorists the "green" in a more efficient way... When a vehicle pulls up to an intersection that is equipped with video detection and the signal is red, the camera detects the presence and puts in a call for a green light... The experimental cameras are being used because many motorcycles or bicycles do not have enough metal to trigger the detectors set in pavement, Morehouse said. Those sensors, called inductive loops, emit a magnetic field to detect a vehicle and are currently used in Juneau traffic signals to detect the presence of vehicles and distribute green light time... They has had positive experiences with video detectors in the Northern Region, which includes Anchorage and Fairbanks... (Photo by Klas Stolpe/Juneau Empire: Juneau's Ever Electric employee Mark Bergey and Washington's Western Systems Director of Sales & Service John Brannan work together on the installation of a video detection camera Wednesday at the Mall Road and Atlin Drive intersection)
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