Business Trend: Ride Share Co. $5 Per Hour Car Rentals.

Company: Uber

 Business Trend: Sharing economy meets car rentals. Uber will be offering $5/hr car rentals from designated pick up sposts around San Francisco.

How do regulatory and statutory issues factor into $5/hr rentals? $5/ hr covers insurance, gas and unlimited miles

Tech Crunch | Uber and Getaround to offer $5 hourly short-term car rentals for drivers

Sen. Huffines: 5 Reasons High Speed Rail Should have Eminent Domain Power.

  • Population growth requires that innovative transportation be accommodated
  • High Speed Rail proposal is privately funded
  • Private companies exercise eminent domain all the time in Texas with no gross mismangement
  • Private rail has exercised eminent domain for more than 100 years
  • Texas has property owner protections

Dallas Morning News | Why it’s perfectly appropriate to allow a private railroad to use eminent domain

Gas Tax or Roads? Cheese Head Republican Infighting. Transportation Funding.

State: Wisconsin

What are the 2 Republican Factions? Gov. Scott Walker v.s Legislative leadership

What does Gov. Walker transportation funding plan look like? Delay or cancel road work

What do legislative leaders want? To consider increased fees or taxes to cover the cost of necessary road work. 

Wisconsin Public Radio | GOP Lawmakers Ditch Walker’s Transportation Funding Plan, Will Start From Scratch

Comptroller: 5 Benefits to Texas. Expanded Panama Canal.

  • “any substantial increase in that trade could add billions to the state economy”
    • In 2015, $204 billion in international trade passed through Texas seaports
  • Greater efficiencies of Neo-Panamax ships could lower shipping cost by 30%
  • Lower costs can add 10% increase in Asian container traffic 
  • Capital Improvements. $48 billion on capital improvements during the next five years in Texas Ports to accomodate Neo-Panamax ships
  • New Development. $335 million marine terminal along the Houston Ship…

3 Issues with Ride Share to the Emergency Room

  • All emergency care facilities do not provide the same services
  • If a patient ride shares to the emergency room, and the patient needs a different hospital, then the person will be put in an ambulence
  • The extra 30 minutes of additional transportation can be a matter of life or death

WTOL 11 | More people are choosing Uber and Lyft for trips to emergency room

KTRK | ABC 13 Hou| GROWING NUMBER OF MEDICAL PATIENTS USING UBER OR LYFT FOR TRIPS TO THE ER

The Courts Work while the Legislature Works. Does high speed rail have eminent domain?

  • A lawsuit from 78 year old property owner and a countersuit by Texas High Speed Rail had a hearing this week
  • What put them into court was whether the rail could have pre-condemantion access to the property to survey it
  • What kept them in court, when Texas Central Rail, had dropped other similar lawsuits, was that this lawsuit wanted Texas Central Rail to admit that it did not have eminent domain authority

No ruling yet from the Court. 

KBTX | Leon County landowner meets high speed rail…

Hyperloop test track finished + proposed Texas Route business benefit.

The finished hyperloop test track:  DeveLop test track, the 1,640-foot long full-scale testing site

The proposed Texas route: Colorado and Texas will be brought together with a Cheyenne to Houston route 

The Texas business benefit: The route will be useful for the military, industrial and aerospace industries

Tech Crunch | Hyperloop One completes Vegas test track tube, reveals 11 proposed U.S. routes

Business Trend. Self Driving Big Trucks with Zero Emissions.

Company: Einride, a Swedish start up

The product:  ‘T-Pod’ , an electric vehicle with self-driving capabilities that can carry 15 pallets of goods 124 miles while producing zero emissions.

What would be th eimpact to roads?  T Pod total weight of 20 tons when loaded down fully with cargo, which is smaller than most transport trucks

Tech Crunch | Einride’s electric self-driving T-pod is a new kind of freight transport vehicle