highway expansion

After yesterday's electoral drubbing, the Obama administration will have to deal with a starkly different Congress when they make their expected push for a multi-year transportation bill early next year. We know that some influential House Republicans, like John Mica, don't necessarily believe that bigger highways will solve America's transportation problems. And we know that some pro-transit voices in Washington originate from the right. But no one expects the GOP ascendancy to make transportation reform any easier.

This is the fourth installment of Streetsblog Capitol Hill’s series on key governor’s races. Earlier we brought you stories about a candidate who likes bikes but isn’t sure about transit in Tennessee, the choice between light rail and bus rapid transit in Maryland, and how bike paranoia is cutting the GOP off at the knees in Colorado. Here we turn to Texas.

Maybe Ara Najarian has been reading the news about New Jersey Governor Chris Christie canceling the ARC Rail Tunnel Project because of concerns about cost over runs.

Imagine two drivers leaving downtown to head home. Each of them sits in traffic for the first ten miles of the commute but at that point, their paths diverge. The first one has reached home. The second has another twenty miles to drive, though luckily for her, the roads are clear and congestion doesn’t slow her down. Who’s got a better commute?

We don't often discuss issues effecting the Northern parts of L.A. County.  But as a freeway expansion project moves through the environmental study phases towards construction; it's worthwhile to check in on one of the few new highway projects in Southern California, the High Desert Corridor project.  With $33 million in Measure R funds to pay for the environmental studies already secured  for the $6 billion highway project, Caltrans is moving forward with a series of public hearings in the North County this month.  A copy of Caltrans' postcard announcing the meetings is available at the end of the article.

While clean port advocates are celebrating a federal court ruling allowing the Port of Los Angeles to go forward with its Clean Trucks program, the push to widen freeways partially to help these trucks move through our region remains strong.  While there's little doubt that "clean trucks" are better for the region than "dirty" ones, it's also evident that the best thing for air quality would be "less trucks."

While much of the Measure R talk these days is about the Wilshire Bus-Only Lanes or the Westside Subway meetings, the non-progressive portion of the "transit sales tax" is also moving forward.  This month's meeting of the Metro Board's "Measure R Project Delivery Committee" is dominated by talk of highway expansion.

Today, the Los Angeles Times reaffirmed their support for "completing" the I-710 by tunneling for another four and a half miles to connect the freeway with Highway 134 and Interstate 210.  This is hardly the first time the Times has voiced concern for highway expansion, the local paper of record could double as the public relations arm of the AAA.

The umbrella group for America's state DOTs, the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, has started a major new push for, you guessed it, more highways. The new campaign argues for highway expansion in urban areas as if fifty years of similar policies hadn't led to a dead end of sprawl, pollution, and oil dependence.