Highway Expansion
Basics
Ohio DOT Cedes Ground in Its Sneaky Highway Expansion Campaign
Opponents of a $1.4 billion highway expansion project outside Cincinnati have won some important concessions from Ohio DOT, but the agency's stealth campaign to build an "interstate to the sea" isn't over yet.
June 8, 2015
Putting TIGER Spending in Perspective
The House's current transportation spending bill calls for reducing the share of federal spending that goes to TIGER, a grant program for sustainable transportation projects in cities, from $500 to $100 million. The budget, meanwhile, holds highway funding steady.
May 1, 2015
Is the Lord For or Against a Texas County Road Bond? Opinions Mixed
Things are really getting heated in Montgomery County, Texas, just outside Houston, over a proposal to issue $350 million in bonds to maintain and expand roads. Like fire-and-brimstone heated.
April 9, 2015
Cincinnati’s Highway Revolt on the Verge of Victory
Could the end be near for the $1.4 billion Eastern Corridor highway project proposed for eastern Cincinnati? Language added to Ohio's transportation budget, which is being debated right now, would specifically "prohibit [Ohio DOT] from funding the Eastern Corridor Project in Hamilton County."
February 25, 2015
Americans Are Driving Less, But Road Expansion Is Accelerating
Americans drive fewer miles today than in 2005, but since that time the nation has built 317,000 lane-miles of new roads -- or about 40,000 miles per year. Maybe that helps explain why America's infrastructure is falling apart.
February 20, 2015
Wisconsin Dumps One Urban Highway Boondoggle in Favor of Another
One of the nation's most poorly conceived highway proposals will become slightly less ridiculous. Transportation officials in Wisconsin recently announced they will no longer consider double-decking a portion of Interstate 94 in Milwaukee. The billion-dollar project would have raised the highway to building height in the Story Hill neighborhood.
February 19, 2015
Washington Republicans: Put Seattle’s Highway-Borer Out of Its Misery
If nothing else, the politics of Seattle's deep-bore highway tunnel fiasco keep getting more interesting. With Bertha the tunnel-boring machine stuck underground and "rescue" efforts literally destabilizing city neighborhoods, a pair of Republicans in the Washington State Senate introduced a bill to scrap the project before any more money is wasted.
January 30, 2015
Cincinnati’s Eastern Corridor: The $1.4 Billion Road No One Seems to Want
The Eastern Corridor is an expensive state DOT highway project searching for a reason to exist.
January 27, 2015
Why a Broke State DOT Could Be Great for Missouri
In August, Missouri voters roundly defeated a sales tax increase supported by road building interests that would have dramatically boosted funding for the state DOT. During the run-up to the election, state leaders laid it on thick in their appeal for more road money, arguing that the fallout would be disastrous for public safety if voters didn't approve the 0.75 percent sales tax hike.
January 22, 2015
Can Seattle Stop Its Highway Tunnel Boondoggle Before It’s Too Late?
It's been one year since the world's largest tunnel boring machine, "Bertha," got stuck 120 feet beneath Seattle. Before it broke down, the colossal machine had excavated just 1,000 feet of the two-mile tube that's supposed to house a new, $3.1 billion underground highway to replace an aging elevated road called the Alaskan Way Viaduct.
January 5, 2015