InfoHive – Transportation – Page 230 – Just another WordPress site

Drivers License on your Phone- State Contract to Write the App

Iowa Department of Motor Vehicles is releasing an app that will function as your driver’s license. No more getting ticketed for not having your driver’s license with you, unless your phone battery is drained.

State officials assure that the app and driver’s license will be secure from data security breeches. [Des Moines Register]

Gas Tax Legislation Tour, Maine Edition

Raising the gas tax. Indexing the gas tax. Multiple states are wrangling with it.

Highlights from Maine:

Gov. LePage says he’ll veto any bill raising the gas tax
Gas tax (federal and state) makes of 3/4 of funding for transportation (including bridges)
Maine’s gas tax is 30cents
Maine use to index the gas tax, but stopped, proponents say indexing helped Maine keep up with transportation funding needs. [Maine Public Radio]

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 interview with Representative-Elect John Wray, whois concerned about private entities exercising eminent domain. [Waxahatchie DayLight]

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 parts of the state. [Texas Tribune] [TXDOT Minute Order]

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. [Dallas Morning News]

Sen. Schwertner Bills End Highway Fund Diversions

SB 184 and SJR 15 seek to:

Increase budgetary transparency
Add millions to highway coffers
No new taxes, tolls, fees or debt [Austin Business Journal]

Gas Tax is Complicated When Governor Eyes Presidency

New Jersey needs more funding for transportation. Its a common refrain. New Jersey has the nation’s 2nd lowest gas tax at 10.5 cents.

New Jersey has a Transportation Trust Fund, but the funds go to pay transportation bond debt. Sounding familiar?

To fill transportation funding gaps, NJ raised its toll prices. It’s not enough.

The head of the Assembly’s Transportation Committee wants to increase the wholesale gas price. The cost to people in NJ will be about 80cents per day, but it will raise $1.25 Billion per year for transportation funding.

A couple weeks ago there was an election, and a lone Republican Governor lost his re-election bid in Pennsylvania’s. He had signed a nearly 30 cent increase in the gas tax. That’s on Chris Christie’s mind as NJ grapples with funding transportation. [NorthJersey.Com]