Reuters reports that Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said on Thursday that U.S. government could issue debt to help underpin infrastructure bank financing for priority highway, transit and other big-ticket projects. LaHood again ruled out a gas tax hike to boost construction upgrades, saying the Obama administration and Congress must shift away from traditional funding mechanisms.
The Federal Times reports that Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood said Wednesday the department has a backlog between $80 billion and $100 billion in high-priority infrastructure improvement projects that it cannot afford to fund.
Simulation shows a typical streetcar running on Colfax Avenue at Columbine Street.
RTD and other agencies that are planning transit projects will have to wait for new rules to be drafted to see if the Obama Administration’s decision last week removing Bush Administration restrictions on funding transit will bring more money into FasTracks corridors or projects like the proposed Colfax Streetcar.
U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said last week that making transit grant funding decisions based solely on bottom-line mathematical calculations of, essentially, cost over travel-time savings failed to take into account whether projects improved a community’s livability.
As a result, the DOT will draft new regulations for its New Starts and Small Starts grant programs for transit corridors to allow consideration of such things as lowering carbon emissions, promoting economic development and relieve congestion.
RTD says it’s way too early to know the impact any changes might have on FasTracks corridors that didn’t meet the old threshold for funding.
The Bond Buyer reports that Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said the Obama administration is working with Congress on a multi-year transportation bill that it expects will cost between $400 billion to $500 billion,
“President Obama wants a robust, comprehensive transportation bill that meets the needs of America. The problem is that project, that bill, costs between four or five hundred billion dollars,” he said at the Transportation Research Board’s annual meeting.
The administration wants to “pursue more flexible partnerships with states,” metropolitan planning organizations, and local governments, LaHood added.
The Boulder Daily Camera reports that on Tuesday, city officials were invited to a private meeting with U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood on Friday to discuss the U.S. 36 corridor.
Boulder Mayor Susan Osborne said the city received a request to send a delegation of City Council members to the meeting, sparking “an enormous flurry of excitement” that LaHood might have been sent to announce that the U.S. 36 improvement project had received a much-sought-after federal grant.
Associated Press reports that the Obama administration will convene a summit of experts to figure out what to do about the problem of texting while driving, a practice studies and a growing number of accidents show can be deadly.
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