Posts tagged Fta
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Breakfast links: governmental lameness edition
Bye, bye pedestrian pie: DDOT bows to ANC pressure and reconfigures the Morrison Street pedestrian signal into a classic traffic light. Keep reading…
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Dinner links: Kansas outdoes everyone else edition
Buy a Chrysler now, and lock in your destructive lifestyle! A great Tom the Dancing Bug satirizes Chrysler’s offer to lock in $2.99/gallon gas to new buyers. How long until they go bankrupt? Who cares! Since when did US automakers think about the future? Via Richard Layman. Keep reading…
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Oberstar tweaks transit’s federal funding formula
When the federal government decides which transit projects to fund, they use an arcane formula called the CEI, or Cost-Effectiveness Index. In theory, this tells which projects are the best and which aren’t, so that scarce transit funds (only 3% of federal transportation money goes to transit) can build the best projects. Keep reading…
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Silver Line back on track
The Post is reporting that DOT Secretary Mary Peters will approve the Metro extension to Dulles, reversing her and the FTA’s earlier surprise objections. It must be because I asked her about it on Monday! Keep reading…
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Peters: promote local control and eschew silos, except on transit and gas taxes
US Secretary of Transportation Mary Peters spoke at the Brookings Institution today, giving an overview of her thoughts on the future of transportation. Peters has been courageously promoting new ideas, like congestion pricing, that we really need or at least need to thoughtfully consider. Her market-oriented solutions are a potentially revolutionary alternative to the build-more-roads… Keep reading…
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New Partners: Frustrating Transit Administrators
I jumped in to a panel on streetcars fairly late. It featured people from Portland, Tuscon, and other cities that have recently deployed streetcars. When I came in, they were expressing major frustration with the FTA and its decisionmaking. Keep reading…
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Maryland worried about new transit-hostile FTA
According to the Post, Maryland officials are nervous that the Federal (not-so-excited-about-)Transit Administration will reject the Purple Line or the Corridor Cities Transitway (along I-270) as it did (or at least delayed) the Silver Line to Dulles, even though the Purple Line will cost significantly less. Maryland already delayed the Purple Line application process one… Keep reading…
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Dulles rail decision from a backroom deal?
Is the DOT and FTA trying to force Virginia to sell the Dulles Toll Road? Did the FTA work out a deal with private investors ahead of time to reject public financing? BeyondDC picks up on an interesting angle from the Post’s report that private investors are floating an idea to finance the Dulles rail extension by privatizing the Dulles Toll Road (which will require raising tolls). Keep reading…
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Chicken, meet egg on Dulles rail line
Yesterday, many wrote about the FTA and DOT Secretary Mary Peters’ decision to deny funding for the Metro extension to Dulles, at least unless the project meets a new set of criteria over and above the many hurdles it’s already surmounted. Some are livid. Others doubt the project’s wisdom. But Peters and FTA chief James Simpson advance unreasonable chicken-and-egg… Keep reading…
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The federally tilted playing field on transportation
The Washington Post recently ran an article exploring the impact of the Federal Transit Administration on transit projects. Fierce competition for the FTA’s limited transit funding and strict criteria mean that states are forced to make many changes, wise or unwise, to their projects to qualify. Virginia had to drop plans to put the Tyson’s Corner segment of the planned… Keep reading…