Highway Funding Affects You, Your Clients July 2010
Chamber members’ clients rely on more than a safe roadway to travel from home to a business for the service or product they seek. They also rely on household income to make their purchases. In light of current legislation, not only do transportation funding woes jeopardize your customers’ safe travel, newly introduced woes jeopardize customers’ pocketbooks with trickle-down effect from higher user fees. Here’s what’s going on with transportation funding, and here’s how it affects you whether you’re in the road construction industry or not.
On March 17 of this year, the Senate passed H.R. 2847, the Hiring Incentives to Restore Employment (HIRE) Act, by a 68 to 29 margin. Jay Hansen, the vice president of legislative affairs for the National Asphalt Pavement Association (NAPA), Lanham, Md., said the bill “marked the first significant piece of job-creation legislation to pass since President Obama and the Democratic Congress earlier in the year declared they would focus on reversing widespread unemployment.”
How Do Potholes Form? July 2010
Maybe you call it a chuckhole or a kettle, but the causes of potholes by any name are many. Asphalt repair done right can fix most of it.
Anyone who claims to know the number of potholes in America must think they can count all the French fries sold at McDonald’s. Not only are there a gazillion of them, but there are new ones every day. Potholes are, unfortunately, a fact of life in a world of roads, where people and things have miles to travel.
Some potholes are just little cracks. And some could swallow an Escalade. Which is kind of the point: potholes grow bigger the longer they are left unfixed. They are almost alive.
Asphalt Repair — Fixing the roads is possible, economically beneficial June 2010
Anyone who ever leaves home knows the problems with roads, highways, parking lots and driveways. Most aging pavement in America, due to use, time and neglect, is in dire need of asphalt repair. But highway maintenance is so lagging that many people assume it is a losing battle.
That assumption is wrong. Fixing any kind of pavement, public or private, as it begins to show the signs of deterioration proves the axiom, that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. The fact of the matter is that cracks left untended become potholes. Potholes not repaired, or patched poorly, can lead to complete road deterioration.
Young people driving less now – but what about in 5 to 10 years? June 2010
Advertising Age magazine reports (May 31, 2010) statistics from the U.S. Department of Transportation that show an overall decrease in driving by Americans under the age of 30. For example, in 1978 no less than 92 percent of 19-year-olds had a driver’s license; by 2008, that number slipped to 77 percent.
The magazine also reports the share of miles driven by younger people has fallen over the past 15 years. In 1995, the percent of automobile miles driven by people aged 21 to 30 was 20.8 percent. But by 2009, that share fell to 13.7 percent even while the demographic segment grew disproportionately (data is from the Federal Highway Administration’s National Household Travel Survey, released in 2010).
Seven things you should know about gas taxes in 2010 May 2010
American highway construction and repair is dependent on the Highway Trust Fund, which is largely generated through taxes on auto and truck fuel consumption. The tax has risen significantly in the past 30 years, but fuel taxes imposed by the Federal government date back to the Depression era.
This is a primer on how the gas tax works, where the money is spent, how gas taxes were used to reduce budget deficits – and may need to be reconfigured in the future as vehicles adopt ever more stringent fuel efficiency standards.
Who is on board with passenger rail in Florida? April 2010
Proposed commuter rail projects in Florida – SunRail (SR), linking Jacksonville with Orlando, and the Florida High Speed Rail (FHSR), which would connect Tampa with Miami via Orlando – offer a future vision of green travel in the Sunshine State. But several questions need to be answered before billions of dollars are spent to build either or both lines:
Future Transportation Funding: Road Repair vs. Special Roads for Bicyclists March 2010
Are these two interests in conflict? America’s 196 million motorists want smooth pavement and dependably flowing traffic. About 20.9 million people actively bike, about five percent of whom (1 million) use their bicycles to commute to work. Yet, as scarce federal transportation dollars are divvied up, some call for a full 10 percent to be allocated to accommodate bicycles and walkers.
Deceased hubcaps found across the Northeast! March 2010
Staten Island
“The “pothole blitz” is set to kick off soon to get an immediate jump on Island roads that that are already flattening tires and dislodging hubcaps at an alarming rate.”
Pothole Plotters February 2010
Visit two websites allowing drivers to pin-point potholes in their area.