October 31st, 2008 | 
The House and Senate, and we’ve discussed in a recent post, has been considering a major infrastructure bill that would provide a massive new source of funds for improvements to the nation’s roads and railways. I asked a few questions to Jim Berard, Director of Communications for the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, which is headed up by Congressman Jim Oberstar. He also sent me a handy PDF of the letter sent yesterday by Oberstar and Representatives John Mica and Peter DeFazio to Henry Paulson and Ben Bernanke in reference to the recent AIG transit funding disaster. You’ll note that the
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Philadelphia hasn’t won a baseball World Series in 25 years. So last night, what did the fans do to celebrate their achievement against the Devil Rays? Destroy a SEPTA bus shelter. A video of the moment was duly recorded by Philly.com. Today, people in Philadelphia are so happy about the event that they have completely overwhelmed SEPTA and PATCO commuter trains into downtown. Philadelphia, which does have a pretty extensive train network, has been truly awful at maintaining and updating its system, so perhaps it is no surprise. Perhaps people knocked down that bus shelter because they were so horrified by the Last night, Rachel Maddow spoke to Senator Barack Obama on MSNBC. The discussion turned almost immediately to infrustructure spending, though the two also talked about Afganistan and other not-as-interesting topics. You can watch the entire interview over at the Huffington Post, but I’ve transcribed the relevant stuff here: Rachel Maddow: “There may be some policy fights ahead… if we are looking at economic stimulus, is there a possibility that you can see in your first term if you are elected, that we’d need an economic stimulus program that felt to Americans a little bit like a public works program, a little bit I missed this in this morning’s post: looks like Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, looking to find alternatives to the current crisis in funding for infrastructure projects that we’ve discussed several times here, will propose next month a $100-$300 billion bill to pay for such a program. Senator Barbara Boxer, head of the Senate’s Committee on Environment and Public Works, similarly is looking to provide funding for such a program. This is excellent news and proves that Democratic leadership is looking for an effective antidote to not only the current economic crisis but also the overall infrastructure problems currently facing The Second Avenue Subway has been planned and replanned in New York City at least four times. Each time, the city’s subway planners announced that they would be able to commence construction, but ultimately were forced to delay and then cancel the project because of a lack of money and economic recessions. In the 1970s, the Transit Authority built a number of track sections for the line, tunnelling from 99th to 105th streets and from 110th to 119th streets. But then the city came incredibly close to declaring bankruptcy, President Gerald Ford metaphorically told the city to “Drop Dead,” and the 
Los Angeles is the second largest city in the country, and the county that includes it, with over ten million inhabitants, is larger than New York. And yet this growing metropolis is served by little more than a skeleton of a transit network, with two short metro lines, three light rail lines, three busways, and a decent rapid bus system. A relatively small percentage of the population lives within a half-mile distance of a transit stop, which is generally considered the longest walk people will take to get to a station. And huge sections of the city –  |
 
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