Railroads

Your daily transportation speed-read:

An AirTran Airways pilot in Minneapolis, Minn., was arrested for being drunk before his scheduled flight.

Hawaii is having some second thoughts about rail.

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood will be among the attendees at Rahm Emanuel's inauguration as Chicago mayor.

Washington state has a transportation budget.

An amendment to the intelligence authorization bill that would place a higher priority on making sure railways are secure was approved Friday by the House.

The amendment, sponsored by Rep. John Carney (D-Del.), was approved on a 221-189 vote that was scheduled after the measure failed on a voice vote Thursday.

Carney said it was important to direct the intelligence agencies to step up their efforts to secure railways in the wake of the discovery that terrorist Osama bin Laden was plotting attacks on them before he was killed by U.S. forces.

“Today’s legislation will ensure that the U.S. government places a priority on ensuring the safety of rail passengers around the country by working to prevent a terrorist attack on our rail system,” Carney said in a statement after the roll call vote Friday.

Your morning transportation speed-read:

Air traffic controllers haven't been just sleeping on the job. They've also been making more errors.

House Transportation Committee Chairman John Mica (R-Fla.) is pushing Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) to accept another railway in central Florida.

They can't decide what type of trains they want for high-speed rail in Texas.

Another bus crashed in Maryland.

Your morning transportation speed-read:

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood says Amtrak already has a terrorist watch list.

California's state auditor is saying not so fast on a proposed high-speed railway there.

Three-hundred Tampa area students are losing their school buses.

House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Rep. John Mica (R-Fla.) thinks Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University should locate its third campus in Illinois.

Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) eschewed pursuing newspaper endorsements during his campaign last year, but he is continuing to get support now from papers in states other than his own.

It's just not in the way most politicians would probably envision.

Earlier this spring, Scott emerged as the latest Republican governor to turn back federal money for high-speed rail. Now that the money has been given to states in the Northeast, Midwest and California, newspapers in those places are thanking Scott for passing on the money their states want.

The Bergen Record, New Jersey's second largest newspaper, editorialized Wednesday that it was thankful for Scott's "shortsightedness" on rail.

"Commuters on the Northeast Corridor are giving thanks to Florida Gov. Rick Scott," the paper's editorial board wrote. "If it weren't for his shortsightedness, Amtrak would not have been awarded $450 million to upgrade high-speed rail in New Jersey.

The New York Times, in a scathing editorial, said Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) was one of a crop of Republican governors "so rigidly opposed to the Obama administration that they are willing to harm their states to score points." 

The editorial was referring to Scott's decision to reject $2.4 billion in rail money — funds that were given to other states on Monday, including New York.

Scott has said he is protecting his state's taxpayers, arguing that the train that would have been built with those funds was a "federal boondoggle." But The Times argued he deprived his state of much-needed infrastructure.

"After Gov. Rick Scott of Florida thoughtlessly rejected $2.4 billion in federal aid for a high-speed rail line, he claimed last month that he was doing a huge favor for the national Treasury, which he expected would give away the money in tax cuts," the paper's editorial board wrote Tuesday. "That was nonsense, of course; Mr. Scott was really doing a favor for train passengers in the Northeast, Midwest and California, which were given $2 billion of his money on Monday for better service.

Your morning transportation speed-read:

Relatives are saying a man arrested for knocking on the cockpit of a Delta Airlines plane is not a terrorist.

Lawmakers from Florida blame Obama, Rick Scott for their state's rejection of high-speed rail money.

Wisconsin is wishing it got some of the high-speed rail love that was spread around to 15 other states this week.

Orbitz is getting in the European rail business.

The administration assured the traveling public that railways around the nation were safe after reports of al Qaeda plots.

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said Monday that Florida Gov. Rick Scott’s (R) objections were not indicative of residents' opinion about fast trains in the rest of the state.
 
"There are thousands of people that have been working on high-speed rail in Florida for 20 years and they are deeply disappointed that one guy decided they weren't going to accept the second largest amount of money," LaHood said during an MSBNC interview.
 
"This is one guy only, and eventually Florida will get in the high-speed rail business," LaHood said.

House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman John Mica said Monday that the Obama administration had gotten it wrong again on high-speed rail when it awarded about $2 billion to 15 states.
 
Mica (R-Fla.) said the administration was too focused on projects involving Amtrak, which he has frequently derided as a "Soviet-style" operation.
 
“Once again, the Administration has scattered funding to numerous slower-speed rail projects, and allowed Amtrak to hijack 21 of the 22 grants," Mica said in a statement.