Category: Transportation
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More Hidden Deficits: Bad Bridges and Bad Metro
Update on America’s hidden deficits: Nearly 56,000 bridges across the country are structurally unsound, according to the American Road and Transportation Builders Association (ARTBA), as reported by USA Today. More than one in four of the bad bridges are at least 50 years old and have never had major reconstruction work, according to the ARTBA analysis.…
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More P3s Coming. Taxpayers, Hang onto Your Wallets
by Randy Salzman The history of American transportation “public private partnerships” indicates that virtually all P3 shell companies go bankrupt before paying back federal loans and the “private activity bonds” which they sold to finance part of the debt. When these firms go bankrupt, who loses? Taxpayers. We get stuck (1) with paying back the…
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Who Needs Amazon Drones When You’ve Got a Starship Robot?
A robot developed by Starship Technologies, of London, can make deliveries in urban environments. Capable of carrying loads as large as two grocery bags, this “personal courier” can make deliveries of groceries, wine, flowers, whatever, within a three-mile radius. Customers can track the robot’s location location on a smart phone. “Our delivery platform will launch…
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MTR, Would You Take over Metro, Please?
Here’s an idea for readers to chew on while the Big Bacon is on vacation: How about privatizing the Washington Metro system? Honk Kong privatized its subway system in 2000, and it has worked out pretty well. Writing on the Cato Institute blog, Chris Edwards quotes a report by McKinsey: Hong Kong’s MTR Corporation has…
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Transportation Revolution Ain’t Slowing Down
Just a reminder of how rapidly technology is transforming automobiles and transportation, I submit two stories published yesterday…. From the Daily Progress: Perrone Robotics, a Crozet-based software company, is testing automated and fully autonomous vehicles on Virginia roads. Although driverless cars in Virginia must be manned, the laws regulating autonomous driving are more accommodating here than in…
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Who Will Champion Mobility as a Service?
Around the world, companies and muncipalities are experimenting with Mobility as a Service (MaaS). Fast Company describes how a new company, MaaS Global, is changing the thinking about transportation, in Helsinki, Finland: If you need to go somewhere, you pull up a new app, which calculates the best way to get there—public transit, a bike-share…
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Washington Metro Needs another $1 Billion… Fast
The train wreck of the Washington Metro keeps piling up higher. The Washington Post sums up the situation this way: Local governments are “alarmed” as Metro says it needs an extra $1 billion over the next three years from Virginia, Maryland and Washington, D.C. Metro General Manager Paul J. Wiedefeld has earned credibility as an…
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CTB Approves $4 Billion Interstate 64 Project
Wow! The Commonwealth Transportation Board approved yesterday a $4 billion plan to expand the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel and widen twelve miles of Interstate 64 from four lanes to six. Said Transportation Secretary Aubrey Layne after the vote: “Historic day for Hampton Roads and the state.” The Virginian-Pilot provides these details: The additional lane capacity in…
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Tesla Scores Big Victory in Virginia
First Uber, then Air BnB, now Tesla. Free markets in Virginia’s “new economy” are making steady ground. Uber and Lyft, the revolutionary ride-hailing companies, overcame the taxicab industry two years ago to win the right to compete in the Virginia transportation marketplace. Last year, the General Assembly legalized Air BnB, an online marketplace for short-term rentals…
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Privatization, Outsourcing and Risk
In negotiating a public-private partnership for building and operating improvements to the Interstate 66 corridor outside the Beltway, Transportation Secretary Aubrey Layne has created a new template for looking at privatization and outsourcing. Traditionally, when government perceives a public need — building roads, educating children, running prisons — it undertakes to do the job itself.…
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How the McAuliffe Team Saved $2.5 Billion
Transportation Secretary Aubrey Layne makes a strong case that Virginia’s overhaul of the public-private partnership law made possible $2.5 billion in savings on Interstate 66. On Nov. 3, Governor Terry McAuliffe made the audacious claim that his administration had saved taxpayers $2.5 billion on the Interstate 66-outside-the-Beltway project thanks to 2015 reforms to the Public-Private…
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Stick a Fork in Virginia Beach Light Rail. It’s Done.
The vote didn’t get much attention outside of Hampton Roads, but one of the big losers in state-local elections yesterday was Virginia Beach light rail. Voters decisively renounced a proposed extension of The Tide rail from Norfolk to Virginia Beach’s Town Center in an advisory referendum: 57% opposed the project, as opposed to 43% in favor.…
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Let Tesla Open in Richmond
By Stuart C. Siegel Tesla’s electric vehicles are often described as disruptive to the motor-vehicle industry, and understandably so. The U.S.-based company’s all-electric vehicles are well designed, transparently priced and environmentally friendly, and the company is setting high standards for other car makers to follow. Tesla’s sales model is disruptive, too. The company has never…
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Tesla’s Grand Plan
Tesla Motors, which wants to expand its retail presence in Virginia, is more than a manufacturer of high-end electric vehicles. It’s part of Elon Musk’s quest to transform the electric grid. by James A. Bacon Richmond businessman Stuart Siegel loves his Tesla Model X. The SUV is loaded with luxury options and its electric motor is as quiet as…
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Where Have All the Riders Gone?
by James A. Bacon Where have all the riders gone? That’s the question transit agencies are asking nationally, but nowhere more urgently than in the Washington metropolitan area. Rail and bus ridership for the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) fell 6% in the fiscal year ending July 31, a decrease of 20 million trips. Ridership…