Greater City ProvidenceThe TransportPolitic: Making Sense of Amtrak’s Vision for the Northeast
Let it be known: Amtrak’s focus is on the Northeast Corridor. While Congress may require it to provide long-distance, cross-country services, the public company owns most of the rail corridor between Boston and Washington and it intends to exploit it fully… If it gathers sufficient resources to do so.
Planetizen: More Vehicles Than People
Historic Massachusetts towns have reached a new milestone — the number of vehicles on the road have outnumbered the population of people. Ann Sussman looks at this “demographic” shift, and what it means for people living in the shadow of Emerson and Thoreau.
The Hill: Feds allow northeast states to compete for Florida high-speed rail money
“Given the Northeast Corridor’s strong track record with high-speed rail and the region’s high gross domestic product, improvements to the Corridor’s rail service would be a smart investment of Florida’s rejected high-speed rail funds,” senators from New Jersey, Delaware and Connecticut wrote this week in a letter to Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood.
Transportation Nation: Who Regulates Chinatown Buses?
A second fatal bus crash in as many days has sparked renewed calls for increased regulation and safety oversight on so-called Chinatown buses. There just isn’t that much oversight to begin with now.
The Providence Journal: Chafee: Borrowing to fix R.I. roads is costly
The Department of Transportation is paying more than $40 million in debt service per year on its borrowing, which Chafee said is no way to pay for building and repairing roads and bridges.
The state depends heavily on the federal government for most of its transportation projects, such as the bridge, with federal highway programs paying 80 percent and the state putting up a 20 percent local share. The state borrows the local share. The debt service – the principal and interest – is paid for from the DOT budget. The amount of debt, officials said, is growing, so the cost of debt service is also growing.
ProJo 7 to 7 News Blog: Update: IBM picks Providence to be a Smarter City
[alert type=”muted”]Wednesday morning in City Hall, Mayor Angel Taveras and Governor Chafee, among other officials, announced Providence has been selected to participate in the IBM Smarter Cities Challenge. The city, one of 24 globally and one of 9 nationally, will receive $400,000 in IBM technology and services.
The most immediate application of the grant and the partnership will be the development of a computerized land-management model for the efficient redevelopment of the city’s Jewelry District, after the relocation of Route 195.
Shameless Plug: We’ve been nominated, now it is time to vote. Please feel free to vote for us as Best Blog in the Phoenix’s Best of 2011. You could also ask your friends, your mom, and your cat to vote for us if you like.[/alert]
Jef Nickerson
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