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A report by U.S. Department of Transportations’s Inspector General titled “Review of Congressional Earmarks Within Department of Transportation Programs” has determined that the Fiscal Year 2006 surface transportation appropriation contained 7,808 earmarks with a total amount of $8.08 billion or over 15 percent of highway appropriations and 28 percent of transit appropriations. This compares with 2,094 earmarks in FY 2005 ($3.27 billion), 2,282 earmarks in FY 2004 ($3.36 billion) and 1,493 earmarks in FY 202 ($3.22 billion). During the 10-year period from FY 1996 to FY 2005, the number of earmarks within the U.S. DOT appropriations increased by more than 1,150 percent. The common definition of earmarks is that they are Congressional pork projects directed to a specific district for Read More ›

An editorial yesterday by Vancouver, Washington’s daily newspaper, The Columbian, celebrates support voiced during a Portland-region visit last week by U.S. Rep. James Oberstar, U.S. House Transportation Committee Chairman, for the I-5 Columbia Crossing bridge improvement project. It’s a major regional priority due to congestion and safety problems on the current I-5 Interstate Bridge connecting Clark County, Washington and Portland, Oregon. Columbia Crossing and other projects bundled into a three-state proposal from California, Oregon and Washington last week won a $15 million federal “Corridors Of The Future” grant, the bulk of which is essentially planning money for innovative approaches to financing the up-to-$6 billion cost of Columbia Crossing. Project options include replacing the current six-lane bridge with a wider one; Read More ›

A flurry of developments suggests passenger-only ferries are gaining momentum in Puget Sound. In recent months there have been seven routes in operation: the state’s Vashon Island to downtown Seattle run; King County’s West Seattle to downtown Seattle water taxi; Kitsap Transit’s Port Orchard to Bremerton foot ferry; and four longer, privately operated routes to the San Juans Islands and Victoria. Now, add another local water taxi, and – it appears – another major regional passenger ferry route. From today through late November, the Electric Boat Company will run reservation-only water taxis connecting neighborhood docks along Seattle’s Lake Union, as KOMO4-TV reports. Here’s the schedule. In addition, the Port of Kingston – in northeast Kitsap County across Puget Sound from Read More ›

Recently, The Wall Street Journal provided a rosy update on Amtrak service and an increasing federal budget, particularly for the New York-Boston corridor. Airplanes are getting stuck in lots of traffic jams this summer, but Amtrak is on a roll. Ridership on the passenger rail system is up 6% so far this year, the biggest jump since the late 1970s. On the Acela Express, trains that run at higher speeds between Washington, New York and Boston, the number of riders has surged 20% over the past 10 months. That’s enough new passengers to fill 2,000 Boeing 757 jets. Ridership is up, according to the article, as business people – wary of endless hassles at Northeast airports – increasingly turn to Read More ›

Did anyone miss the headlines? The much anticipated I-5 closures produced no traffic catastrophe. Instead, usage dropped 50% during the 2 week period. And apparently no one knows why. Was it the bikes? The transit? Flexible work hours? Signals? Here’s another theory: it was also a coordinated effort by all levels of government in Puget Sound. It proved that when a major project is orchestrated at a regional level, the payoffs are substantial. Some of the planning I read or heard about: an additional Sounder Commuter Rail train, additional Water Taxis, extra parking at Park and Ride stations all the way to Tacoma and Kent. Extra shuttle services between communities and drop-off points for transit. Increased vanpools and more bike Read More ›

The bridge collapse in Minneapolis stressed the precarious state of the nation’s infrastructure, and has made infrastructure financing a tempting subject for an election-year policy debate. First to react publicly was Rep. James Oberstar (D-MN), chairman of the powerful House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. He said a temporary 5-cent/gallon gas tax extending over 3 years might be necessary to finance his proposed trust fund to repair structurally deficient bridges in the National Highway System; that would raise roughly $28-30 billion. He’ll hold a hearing on the state of the nation’s bridges on September 5. Ranking Member John Mica (R-FL) was next to react. He called the chairman’s proposal inadequate, “a band-aid solution” which ignores the larger problem of the deteriorated Read More ›

News that federal DOT officials have accepted the offer by Puget Sound transportation leaders to toll a new State Route 520 bridge by September of 2009 in exchange for $139 million in new bridge-rebuild cash from the feds will accelerate a much needed debate about the eventual need for system-wide tolling here. This dialog is coming despite two state gas tax hikes in recent years, and a hard-to-get-your-mind-around $17.8 billion regional Roads and Transit vote on November 6. The new federal money for rebuilding the unsafe and congested SR 520 bridge – money explicitly conditioned upon supplemental tolling of the bridge – comes in response to a successful Urban Partnership grant application to USDOT from a team including WSDOT, the Read More ›

Add the concept of “shadow tolling” to the roster of innovative road financing methods. Introduced in the United Kingdom some ten years ago, the concept of shadow tolling has crossed the Atlantic and is being considered by the Florida Department of Transportation in its I-595 corridor project. The state is inviting the private sector to help finance, build and operate a 10.5-mile stretch of elevated toll lanes intended to relieve congestion in the busy I-595 corridor that connects I-75 with the Florida Turnpike and I-95 in Broward County. I-595 currently carries about 180,000 vehicles/day in the busiest stretch of the corridor, and the volume is expected to rise to 300,000 by 2035. The state is ready to commit $900 million Read More ›

In a Puget Sound Business Journal op-ed published this morning, our Cascadia Center’s Director Bruce Agnew posits that tolling and private investment could pay for replacement of the shaky Alaskan Way Viaduct on State Route 99 in Seattle – and for reconfiguration of badly-congested Interstate 5 in the city, as well. Neither are included in a multi-billion-dollar roads and transit ballot measure facing Central Puget Sound voters in November. …two crucial transportation projects relevant to the Minnesota tragedy are partially on hold — replacement of the central waterfront section of Alaska Way Viaduct on State Route 99, and full funding for reconstruction of the 40-year-old stretch of Interstate 5 from Northgate to Tukwila. ….any notion that the viaduct’s 110,000 daily Read More ›

My colleague Steve Marshall, a senior fellow at Discovery Institute’s Cascadia Center For Regional Development, has authored a new white paper, for the Third Annual Conference On Renewable Energy In The Northwest. It’s titled, “Replacing Oil with Electricity and Biofuels in Transportation: The Convergence of Technology and Public Policy.” The pdf file is here. Marshall cites data showing transportation plays a major role in greenhouse gas emissions, especially in Washington state, and argues that clean electricity and biofuels used to power vehicles can yield substantial environmental, economic and political benefits. Marshall provides a detailed factual narrative of commitments to test and develop plug-in hybrid vehicle technology by vehicle manufacturers, electric power utilities and technology companies. He also highlights the potential Read More ›