Highways, Bridges and Roads

Your morning transportation speed-read:

San Francisco — home of one of the world's most famous bridges, the Golden Gate — has more bridges that need repair than anywhere else in California.

While others are are talking rail, Nevada needs more roads to grow, a study says.

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood also went to Portland, Ore., while he was on the west coast.

North Carolina Republicans are working to put the brakes on a high-speed rail there after an agreement cleared the way for the state to receive $461 million in federal money.

Your daily a.m. transportation quick-fix:

They don't want to cross that bridge when they get to it in Illinois, where they said 8 percent of the state's 26,000-plus bridges are in need of repair.

They are still worried about bridges in Minnesota, too.

Transportation officials in Washington state are finding out how much money they will have to work with next fiscal year.

Miami had more international passengers than any other airport aside from New York's John F. Kennedy last year.

Portland, Ore., is another place getting some extra rail money.

Two Republican members of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee will visit an upstate New York airport this week to get feedback on the transportation bill pending in Congress.

Reps. John Mica (Fla.), the committee chairman, and Tom Reed, (N.Y.) will hold a listening session at the Rochester, N.Y., International Airport. The meeting had been scheduled for February but was postponed.

Reed hailed it as an opportunity to hear directly about transportation from the people most involved in the industry.

“Our federal government is operating in a debt-driven crisis, and I look forward to learning how we can increase efficiencies and expand private public partnerships to meet our transportation challenges," he said in a statement.

Congress is the middle of negotiations about a long-term version of the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users (SAFETEA-LU). The measure, which is the major transportation bill this year, has been extended through September while a longer deal is negotiated.

The Obama administration has proposed a $556 billion plan over six years, which would be a 62 percent increase over current transportation spending. However, Republicans have made clear they are unlikely to support the proposal.  

Mica on Friday will also visit Pennsylvania with Rep. Lou Barletta (R-Pa.).

The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) launched new standards for bridge inspections Monday, which Secretary Ray LaHood said would increase safety for American motorists.

Inspections will follow a specific 23-point list — instead of the narrative system the agency used previously — that would have to be approved before a bridge is OK'd.

"These areas include elements like bridge load limits, degree of foundation scouring and state inspection frequency," LaHood wrote Monday of the program on the Department of Transportation's "Fast Lane" blog. 

"This approach allows greater consistency in FHWA state assessments, making it easier to identify potential safety challenges and evaluate state bridge safety compliance."

FHWA will also increase its review of bridge data for errors and hold more workshops with state transportation officials to improve their inspection processes.

Your morning transportation speed-read:

One Florida city wasn't going to apply for rail money anyway.

New York state is cracking down on buses in the wake of two recent fatal accidents, as Congress gears up for hearings on the issue itself.

A California company doesn't like the bright lights of Boston's "Big Dig" controversies.

Aeromexico will provide free transportation of relief supplies for Japan on flights between Tijuana and Narita.

A speed-read on transportation as you rev your morning engines:

The Federal Transit Administration is investigating whether the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transportation Authority discriminated against minorities and low-income riders when it eliminated routes to save money.

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood takes on drowsy driving.

They're digging in Boston on communication problems about the "Big Dig" tunnel.

The transportation investment-starved metro Atlanta region is compiling wish lists for a big 2012 regional transportation sales tax vote.

The Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee will discuss NASA this week as the agency winds down its space shuttle program.

Just days after one of three retiring space shuttles returned from its final flight, the committee will hold a hearing titled “Realizing NASA's Potential: Programmatic Challenges in the 21st Century.”

Earlier this year, Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) criticized NASA for a report showing there had been waste and abuse in the agency’s Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program.

“Government-supported scientific research and innovation is one of the keys to our country’s future economic growth. We can’t afford to lose any of our precious research and development dollars to waste, fraud or abuse,” Rockefeller said in January.

Generally, however, the senior Mountain State senator has been supportive of the space program.

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood responded to repeated Republican attempts to score political points on the increasing cost of gasoline Thursday by saying President Obama's administration was "focused like a laser beam" on gas prices in the country.
 
"I was at the White House yesterday and we were talking about what we can do," LaHood said, during an appearance before the Senate Appropriations Committee's Transportation and Housing and Urban Development subcommittee. "The administration will be stepping up and providing leadership."
 
The national average price for a gallon of regular gas Thursday was $3.59, according to AAA. That's up from $3.17 a month ago and $2.76 a year ago. 

Republican senators tell Transportation Sec. Ray LaHood Obama won't get money for high-speed rail.

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood will be up on Capitol Hill again Thursday morning to field questions from lawmakers on President Obama's proposed $556 billion in new transportation spending in his 2012 budget.
 
LaHood has called the plan visionary, but some senators, like Senate Budget Committee ranking member Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), have disagreed.
 
Sessions told LaHood last week he was “flabbergasted” by the proposal, which he said would require an unspecified new $435 billion tax to pay for the new spending. The administration has not specified how the new spending would be paid for. In response to Sessions' questioning, LaHood only said, "We want to work with Congress on that." 

LaHood has ruled out an increase in the federal gas tax, saying President Obama was not interested in hiking the tax in a down economy.

LaHood has also said recently that the only way there is going to be any big federal investment in transportation is if it is this year, because next year is an election year.

“Of our opportunities, this is the year,” he said during a speech to the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials in Washington. “If we don’t get something significant done this year, I think it will be very difficult. … This is the time to do it.”

LaHood may have an easier sell Thursday with the Senate Appropriations Committee Transportation and Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies Subcommittee than he did with Sessions because the subcommittee's ranking member is Susan Collins (R), who is generally more moderate than the Alabama senator.