INTERIM: 4 Pros for Self Driving Cars. 5 Legislative Proposals

The benefits of self driving cars:

  • greatly reduce crashes
  • reducing congestion
  • increasing mobility for the disabled
  • improving land use by converting existing urban parking spaces to other uses

Legislative Proposals:

  • Public-private partnerships with cities, like Somerville, MA’s partnership with Audi
  • Legislation needs to address the varying environmental conditions that self driving cars will face
  • Legislation should assure the reliability of the technology
  • Legislatures must fund investments in infrastructure communication equipment
  • Legislatures need to address  cybersecurity from cars being hacked to the data stored or transmitted to communication infratructure for self driving cars

Governing | Tailoring Our Transportation Systems for Self-Driving Cars

The Pitch From Business Leaders to Fund Transportation In a Mountain State

What’s the pitch? Colorado Business leaders are calling for a $3.5 billion bond measure.

What’s the organization backing the bond? Fix Colorado Roads

What happened to Colorado’s legislative proposal on transportation bonds in 2015? The bonds hit road blocks when Colorado Department of Transportation raised issues.

How did the agency kill bonds? CO DoT raised concerns that bond maintenance would take money away from road maintenance. 

The Durango Herald | Colorado business leaders propose transportation funding fix

 

3 Concerns Raised by Residents Against Texas Central Rail

Texas Central partners hosted an open house in Madisonville. Residents let their feelings be heard. Here’s what they said:

  • “We’re heartbroken, we’re shocked, my sons have been crying and it’s not right,”
  • “I would be upset about this issue even if it did not directly impact us, because this is the unlawful usurpation of Texans’ property.”
  • “All we wanted to do is become a part of the community and be left alone, and now we have to potentially fight this,”

Bryan College Station Eagle | Residents raise concerns over proposed high-speed rail at Madisonville open house

Lege Trend: Moving Forward with Road Usage Fees. 3 Takeaways from 1 State.

How the Fees are moving through Special Commission to Legislature:

  • A Commission in Washington State is moving forward with pilot programs and statewide recommendations for Road Usage Fees.
  • Usage Fees are referred to as a “potential long-term sustainable funding source for transportation infrastructure”
  • A full report to the Washington Legislature is due January 2016.

The road usage fee proposal:

  • 1.9 cents per mile
  • Average truck/suv = $6 per month
  • Average Car = $10.23 per month
  • Average hybrid = $10.67 per month
  • Average fuel efficient car =$6.50 per month

KIRO7 | State Transportation Commission looking at road usage charge

INTERIM Lege Trend: Self Driving Big Rigs & Trains. The New Self Driving Car. 5 Effects in Texas. 3 Companies Moving Forward.

Freight movement is entering a new, driverless world. Both 18 wheelers and train cargo are entering a new automated world. The future is now.

5 Ways driverless freight will impact  Texas:

  • it will change the economics of freight shipping
  • resolve truck driver shortages
  • reduce the cost of freight shipping
  • more fuel efficient freight shipping
  • safer freight shipping

The big truck companies testing driverless big rigs:

  • Freightliner/Daimler
  •  Volvo
  • Peterbilt

Forbes | Self-Driving Trucks Could Rewrite The Rules For Transporting Freight

INTERIM. Sharing Economy Meets Ride Share Meets Tort Reform.

Ride Share Contracts are a modern contract lawyer’s dream. Evolving, intrictate, and constantly litigated.

One ride share company is altering its contract with drivers to include fixes illuminated by a trial court judge concerning arbitration provisions. New provisions, familiar to those who read the Texas Civil Practices and Remedies Code for bed time reading are:

  • allows for severability of certain state law claims
  • removes the requirement that arbitration be kept confidential
  • amends the driver agreement’s effective date.
     

The Recorder | Uber Rewrites Driver Contract to Force Arbitration

Name that Billionaire Funding Traffic Congestion Studies

…Paul Allen.

Who teamed up with Paul Allen? Department of Transportation

What’s the project?Smart City Challenge

What’s the goal of the Smart City Challenge for traffic solutions?

​incentivize forward-thinking, high-tech solutions to the gridlock and inefficiencies that come part and parcel with urban living. T

What kind of traffic solutions are being grant funded?  

  • smarter cars
  • street lights
  • public transit
  • anything that makes transportation quicker, easier, and safer.

 

Japan Plans 2 Investments in US High Speed Rail.

Japan seeks to invest in 2 U.S. Projects:

  • Texas Central Rail, high speed rail between Dallas and Houston utilizing shinkansen bullet trains
  •  a Northeast Corridor Maglev train between Washington and New York.

Details about the Texas investment:

  • Funding will be from “Japan Overseas Infrastructure Investment Corporation for Transport & Urban Development”
  • Funding is via a public-private fund

Nikkei Asian Review | Japan’s high-speed trains gaining interest in US