Monthly Archives: October 2015

The Other High Speed Rail. Missed Deadlines. Over Budget. 5 Warning Signs.

The Los Angeles Times in a special piece dove deep into the California high speed rail project and found it likely over budget & late.

5 reasons why:

  • No Settled Route. The deadline for phase 1 is 2022, and there is no set route throught the mountains. To connect L.A. and S.F. via high speed rail will require 36 miles of tunnels into the mountains.
  • Rising Costs. The 1st phase, according to a confidential 2013 report, is 31 % over budget. The state has not used the state’s main project…

Rural Road Funding. 2 Reasons Funding Remains Inequitable. 4 Ways to Fix it.

Background

  • Oil producing counties are a state revenue source. Eagle Ford Shale counties alone contribute $323 million of severance tax receipts a year.
  • Unfair revenue exchange with oil counties. In the same year that DeWitt county contributed $57.5 Million in severence taxes, it received $112,000 from the comptroller for money generated from gasoline tax remittances and overweight axle fees
    • Now the oil producing counties are left with dangerous roads. This was the catalyst for a…

Trend: Hyperloops. Pods. Coming to Austin. Economic Development Looking

What, the Jetson’s have arrived in Austin? personal rapid transit pod proposal is making the rounds in Austin.

What proposal? its a 5 year old study that has been in the hands of the conomic development community that focuses on pod transportation in and around UT

Funding Options? Richard Garriott, USA PRT Inc., the group behind the Austin proposal, says private funding.

What’s the initial build cost? < $100 million

Austin Business Journal | Austin’s futuristic rapid transit pod…

Trend: Self Driving Cars. 2 Regulatory Hurdles.

  • “flow of traffic” programing for freeway/ highway driving, this means so the car goes with the flow of traffic at a rate of speed higher than the speed limit
    • How do you write a law to allow the car to move at the faster than the posted speed limit sign?
  • Tailgating
    • Self driving cars can be closer to the cars around it without causing accidents

The Recorder | The Road Ahead for Automated Cars

Sharing Economy: Ride Share Fee to Offset Cab Costs.

What’s the ride share surcharge proposal? A ride share comapny would pay 2 cent surchage per ride, for a total of 52 cents per ride

What’s the 2 cents per ride then set to go to fund? It would offset municipal revenue losses for a lower taxi regislation

Why the shift? The 2 cent fee is a trade to allow ride share at airports in Chicago & allow the cost of chauffer and taxi cab license fees to be reduced at the municipal level

State or Municipal ride share legislation? Municipal…

Legal & Lege Trend: Air Share Regulation

Ride share has come to air travel, welcome air share. 

What’s the court hubub about air share? FAA thinks air share is tantamount to an illegal sharter airline.

What’s Air Share reponse that they are a legal, new part of the sharing economy?  Federal regulations, long before the internet, have allowed pilots to share:

  • the cost of fuel
  • aircraft rentals
  • airport fees 

What happens next? The DC Cicruit will rule and either the case will be settled or will be appealed to the US…

Hyperloop Contest at Texas A&M. Who. What. Where. Why.When. How high Speed Rail is Involved.

Who? Elon Musk

What? Hyperloop design challenge , featuring US Secretary of Transportation Anthony Foxx, who supports high speed rail & issued a report that high speed rail will be instrumental in US transportation by 2045.

Where? Texas A&M

When? January 28 & 29, 2016

Why? The A&M “qualifying teams will get a chance to test the pods on a one-mile test track at the SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, Calif. in June 2016.”

How does high speed rail factor into this? In addition to…

Lege Trend: State Switches Away From User Fees to Fund Transportation to Rely on …

Michigan legislature is poised to approve a transportation funding shift from user fees to general revenue funded transportation.

What does Michigan’s new transportation funding bill look like?

  • $1.2-billion road funding plan
  • $600 million in general fund dollars being dedicated to roads each year, starting in 2020-21
  • It would “vault Michigan from 17th to 5th in the nation in terms of how much general fund money it earmarks for transportation”

 

What’s the opposition? Democrats, the…

Regulatory & Lege Trend: Cybersecurity. Auto Manufacturers. Regulatory Oversight.

What agency is talking cybersecurity & cars? The FTC

What committee heard from the FTC? Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing and Trade of the House Energy and Commerce Committee

What did the FTC testify to?

  • FTC is the “the nation’s lead privacy and data security enforcement agency”
  • Proposed legislation is weaker than the FTC rulemaking on “connected cars”
  • Proposed safe harbor for auto manufacturers that submit privacy policies to the Department of Transportation was too…

Lege Trend: Sales Tax for Road Funding. County Based Funding with Pros & Cons.

Utah voters will be asked to approve whether counties can add a 0.25 percent general sales tax, excluding food, to be used exclusively for transportation at the county level. 

Opponents Say:

  • Burdens  taxpayers
  • Taxpayers will soon pay more in fuel tax & property taxes
  • Utah should instead advocate for a Oregon-style vehicle-miles-traveled system. 
     

Supporters Say:

  • Necessary to help address population growth, deteriorating roads, and insufficient funds
  • A fuel tax increase alone…