Talking Headways Podcast: Giving Away TIGER and Transit Money to Wall Street

This week Beth Osborne of T4America and Kevin DeGood of The Center for American Progress join us to discuss infrastructure and the new administration. We talk about the budget process — “skinny” or “thick”? — the possible benefits and drawbacks of public-private partnerships, and the difference between funding and financing.

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Virginia's HOT lanes were held up in the U.S. Senate this week as an example of public-private partnerships done right. But is this what you really want out of the transportation system? Image: VDOT Office of Public-Private Partnerships

Public-Private Partnerships Will Not Save U.S. Infrastructure

By Stephen Miller | May 17, 2017

A panel of experts told Congress that, even with perfectly executed public-private partnerships, the federal government still needs to provide its own support -- especially for projects, like transit lines, that aren't guaranteed to generate toll revenue for profit-seeking investors.

Talking Headways Podcast: A Better Measuring Stick for Transportation

By Jeff Wood | Jun 6, 2016

Kevin DeGood of the Center for American Progress and Deron Lovaas of NRDC join the podcast this week to talk about rules proposed by U.S. DOT to measure congestion and greenhouse gas emissions. These rules matter because they’ll create new feedback loops for transportation agencies — the feds can create incentives to reduce car trips and carbon pollution if […]

Amtrak, Virginia Railway Express, and the Future of Privately Run Transit

By Elana Schor | Nov 4, 2009

Virginia Railway Express (VRE), the commuter network that links northwest Virginia to Washington D.C., today refused a challenge by Amtrak to its decision to switch operating providers to the U.S. arm of Keolis, a private French transit company. Chicago’s earliest rail transit line, pictured here, was run by a private company. (Photo: Franzosenbusch Project) Although […]

Transportation for America Calls on Congress to Fix Nation’s Bridges

By Kathryn Reid Moore | Mar 31, 2011

Residents in New York and Vermont were shocked in 2009 when the Champlain/Crown Point Bridge was suddenly closed without warning. At the time, the bridge carried about 3,500 cars between the two states daily. Today, those trips have to be taken by ferry or over the next closest bridge, 100 miles away. Few people think […]

A Federal Transportation Bill Is Coming… But When?

By Elana Schor | May 12, 2009

Speaking to members of the National Retail Federation earlier today, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood sidestepped what’s becoming one of the peskiest unanswered questions on the Hill: Will Congress delay the federal transportation bill until next year? In his address to the retailers’ group, LaHood stuck mostly to his department’s progress in allocating its $48 billion […]

A Transportation To-Do List for the Next President

By Angie Schmitt | May 11, 2016

How can the next president improve American transportation policy? Without wading into the spectacle that is the election, Beth Osborne, a former top official at U.S. DOT who’s now a vice president at Transportation for America, lays out a presidential agenda for transportation reform at The Century Foundation. National transportation policy hasn’t fundamentally changed since Eisenhower, and Osborne says […]