December 2014 – Page 2 – InfoHive

US Funds Transportation like the UK and Germany

A new report compares the “ueser pay” transportation funding streams of the US, UK, Germany, Canada, Australia and Japan. The US has the lowest national gas tax rate of the countries examined.

[Eno Center for Transportation PDF] [Streets Blog USA]

High Speed Rail Meets Private Property Rights Supporter John Wray

Building High Speed Rail faces challenges aquiring property. Rail takes a lot of land. 97% of Texas land is private owned. To build rail between Houston and Dallas requires crossing land owned by many landowners.

Landowners are skeptical about eminent domain. They favor fairness and view eminent domain as inherently unfair. When eminent domain is exercised by a private company the skeptism raises to higher level like DefCon 1.

These challenges were highlighted in an inter…

Shale Roads: Lower Speed Limits. More Funding.

Roads in oil and gas producing areas of the state are receiving 2 new safety benefits:

By emergency rule TXDOT lowered the speed limits on dangerous roads in oil and gas producing areas of the state by as much as 12 mph.
- The process to lower speed limits can be lengthy and crash data shows higher accident rates on these heavily traveled roads.
15-20 % of the $1.7 Billion from 2014’s Prop.1 funding will go to the roads in oil and gas producing …

Ron Kirk joins Robert Eckels with Central Texas Railway AKA the bullet train comes to Texas

Ron Kirk will serve as senior advisor. He joins Robert Eckles and Tom Schieffer.

Central Texas Railway has been hosting public forums to discuss its projected Dallas to Houston route. Landowners along the route have raised concerns.

Building the bullet train requires land. Most land in Texas is privately owned by Texans, who love their land. Acquiring land presents challenges. [ Posted by adminDecember 1, 2014Posted ineminent domain, railways