The Site / The Fight

by Yonah Freemark
yfreemark (at) thetransportpolitic (dot) com

  • Le progrès ne vaut que s'il est partagé par tous.

Archives

Categories

  • General Topics
  • Places in Africa and the Middle East
  • Places in Asia and Australia
  • Places in Europe
  • Places in the Americas
  • Places in the United States
  • Transportation Mode
  • U.S. Government

Archive for the ‘President’ Category

Benefits and Pitfalls of a National Infrastructure Bank

» The European Investment Bank and Build America Bonds could serve as a model, but that strategy moves the burden of infrastructure spending to the next generation.

If you haven’t been following lately, it’s becoming increasingly difficult for members of Congress to get anything done. In terms of transportation, this fact is no laughing matter, because the nation’s ground transport systems is running on hot air — deficit spending — for lack of agreement about how to pull together financing for the next planned six-year transportation bill, now a year late.

What was once considered

Continue reading this post »

Obama Introduces Proposed FY 2011 Budget; Transportation Appropriations Stay Largely Intact

» President reaffirms trust in potential of national infrastructure bank, continues interest in high-speed rail.

As expected, the Administration released its budget for fiscal year 2011 today. The Department of Transportation has been awarded with a total of $78.8 billion in expenditures, compared to $77.0 billion enacted by the Congress in fiscal year 2010.

Transportation spending did not suffer much from the spending freeze Mr. Obama proposed for the overall non-defense discretionary budget in his State of the Union address last week. Nor, however, did it see much of an increase. Transportation spending has been relatively flat

Continue reading this post »

A Spending Freeze

» President Obama’s appeal to fiscal conservatives is likely to result in little substantial change, but it’s exactly the wrong message.

On Wednesday, President Obama will give his State of the Union address to the Congress, and next Monday he will release his proposed budget for fiscal year 2011. Late yesterday, staff aids leaked the news that the speech would include a pledge to veto any budget that didn’t freeze non-defense and non-security discretionary spending at $447 billion. The freeze would be set for three years, followed by spending increases limited by inflation. The goal would be to reduce federal

Continue reading this post »

More on the Federal High-Speed Rail Strategic Plan

Proposal reveals a little – and a lot – about how the administration wants to proceed with its rail programs

As many of you commented in the previous, and unfortunately inadequate, post on the administration’s high-speed rail strategic plan, the report – though significant – doesn’t tell us all that much more about how the U.S. government will spend the $8 billion approved for fast rail by Congress in the stimulus bill. On the other hand, I want to point out that the administration never promised such information: for god’s sake – the states haven’t even submitted their proposals for the use

Continue reading this post »

Joe Szabo will be FRA Administrator

Former mayor will lead future high-speed rail programs

National Corridors reports that Joseph “Joe” Szabo, currently Illinois state director of the United Transportation Union, will be the President’s pick for chief of the Federal Railroad Administration, which oversees freight rail movements, Amtrak, and most commuter railroads. Mr. Szabo is currently serving on the FRA’s Rail Safety Advisory Committee and before that he was mayor of the Village of Riverdale, IL.

Mr. Szabo has a strong background as an on-the-ground railroad worker, having been an employee of the Illinois Central and then of Metra, which is the public agency that oversees suburban Chicago’s commuter

Continue reading this post »

Coming Soon: Stimulus Number 2

Developing a broader vision for how to reshape the economy

Last month, I wrote that we’d soon need a second economic stimulus because the first one, at $800 billion, is simply too small to deal with the mounting crisis that’s quickly tearing down the capitalist system. The unemployment rate increased to 8.1% in February, a figure that does not include the millions of Americans who have simply decided to stop looking for work nor the many more who are working part-time even though they’d like – and need – full-time employment. Paul Krugman and and Josh Marshall at TPMDC explore the problem,

Continue reading this post »

Related Posts with Thumbnails

Featured

Linked In

Upcoming

2010 September
  • ▶ FTA Releases TIGER Round II Grants
  • ▶ 30th - FRA releases HSR FY 2010 Grants
December
  • ▶ 6th - Opening of Dallas Green Line Phase II
  • ▶ Opening of Los Angeles' Expo Line Phase I
2011 January
  • ▶ Opening of Sacramento Green Line to the River District
May
  • ▶ Opening of Hampton Roads Tide
Spring
  • ▶ Opening of Salt Lake City Mid-Jordan TRAX
  • ▶ Opening of Denton County A-Train
December
  • ▶ Opening of Pittsburgh North Shore Connector
  • ▶ Opening of Dallas Orange Line Phase I

Network

rss feed
comments feed
twitter feed
email update