Today’s Headlines

  • D’oh! "Cash for clunkers" is headed for the scrap bin, four days after it began (NYT)
  • Verizon, the nation’s largest wireless carrier, supports congressional ban on texting while driving (InfoWeek)
  • Two years after Minnesota’s fatal bridge collapse, the state’s riskiest bridges are missing out on stimulus money (AP)
  • Government investigators find 20 "living dead" … and they’re bus companies (Reuters)
  • Researchers working on a super-sensitive yawn detector for over-tired drivers (Wired)

ALSO ON STREETSBLOG

Behind the ‘Bridge in a Backpack’ That Could Go National

By Elana Schor |
Students at the AEWC, with a piece of composite "bridge in a backpack" cable in the background. (Photo: Bangor Daily News) It sounds like the start of a wonky transportation joke: Have you ever crossed a "bridge in a backpack"? Residents of Pittsfield, Maine, are doing so every day, and the concept could eventually be […]

Bike/Ped Funding Safe as Senate Rejects Rand Paul’s Amendment

By Tanya Snyder |
Bike/ped funding is pitching a perfect game in the Senate after Republicans swung (and missed) at the popular Transportation Enhancements program for the third time in two months. The final strike came this morning, when Kentucky Republican Rand Paul’s amendment to divert all TE funds to bridge repair failed spectacularly, garnering only 38 votes in […]

T4A: One in Nine American Bridges Structurally Deficient

By Angie Schmitt |
There’s a new report out on the state of America’s bridges, and with it a new raft of disturbing statistics. Nearly one in nine, or 11 percent, are structurally deficient — meaning a bridge inspector has rated a major component of the structure to be in poor condition. The average age of a bridge in the […]

Report: After MN Collapse, Bridge Repair Got Just 11% of D.C. Earmarks

By Elana Schor |
In the wake of the 2007 collapse of Minnesota’s I-35 bridge, Washington policymakers vowed a renewed focus on repairing the nation’s aging infrastructure. But weeks after the fatal collapse, Congress approved a transportation spending bill with 704 earmarked projects, at a total cost topping $570 million — and just 11 percent of those earmarks went […]