October 8, 2021 – A new study by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office finds that “Under typical conditions, after receiving an additional dollar in federal highway [formula] grants, state and local governments spent 26 cents less of their own funds on highway capital projects than they would have otherwise.”
October 8, 2021 – In the U.S., higher project costs, finite financial resources, and a desire to minimize disruptions to local communities often leads projects sponsors to place rail lines in highway medians or other existing right-of-way. This approach, however, can fail to provide the best “bang for the buck” and often results in transit lines that miss key population centers.
October 8, 2021 – Rather than utilizing highly custom rolling stock and station designs on every project and line across regions, U.S. project sponsors should revisit their design approach and think more creatively about their system design.
October 8, 2021 – While we do not yet know the precise cause of the recent Amtrak derailment in Montana, the response was swift. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) immediately dispatched a team to investigate the incident which should take about a month. Coverage of the three passenger deaths is robust and spotlights an ongoing concern about railroad safety in the United States. But this type of wreck, while certainty tragic, is quite rare and most fatalities on the rails are the result of other causes.
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Wednesday, October 6, 2021 – Senate Environment and Public Works – full committee hearing on Corps of Engineers response to Hurricane Ida – 10:00 a.m., SD-406 Dirksen.
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October 1, 2021 – On September 28, T&I’s Highways and Transit Subcommittee held a hearing, titled “Examining the Role of Ferries in Improving Mobility.” On a subcommittee where most matters are starkly divided on party lines, this was a bipartisan, civil hearing.
October 1, 2021 – The benefits of unbundling outweigh the potential benefits of a single, large contract. This is reflected in the successful delivery of complex transit lines abroad and has become standard practice in countries outside of the United States.
October 1, 2021 – Yesterday, the full House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee held a hearing titled “Assessing the Federal Government’s COVID-19 Relief and Response Efforts and its Impact – Part II.”