If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
On Labor Day, President Obama announced a National Infrastructure Bank to direct our reinvestment in American infrastructure. In doing so, he returned...
Do we really need to focus on 150,000 miles of roads? They must be popping champagne bottles in the corner offices of the oil industry and at OPEC headquarters. What is it that our government doesn't get?
Vietnam, that little country we nearly bombed into extinction is building a high speed train from Hanoi to Ho Chi Men city at a cost of 50 billion dollars. Vietnam prepares for the future. The US isn't so sure about the future.
China no longer needs to worry about the U.S. as a green-technology competitor because the U.S. left the race. In today's globalized economy, rising powers like China are readily able to capitalize on America's missed opportunities.
While Scott Walker has taken the most audacious stance against federally-supported high-speed rail, California's Meg Whitman and Ohio's John Kasich have also announced opposition to projects in their states. Is this a trend?
Granting federal funds for HSR should be contingent on how well local communities are planning to accommodate increased density in a sustainable manner.
Borrow for "consumption," and you get "bad debt." Borrow for things that increase future economic growth, and that is "good debt." There is no "good" public debt.
On cutting-edge infrastructure issues such as solar, will we continue to be a nation of pilot projects? Or will we take any quantum leaps and achieve actual national policy?
France has the TGV; China is building its rapid rail system. It's time the United States joined the movement. We need to go back to the future and become a country that builds things.
Next year, the Lakers get a shot at tying Boston's record for most NBA title championships. When they do, I just hope that our fans comport themselves in a manner deserving of the victors and the city.
We will never be safe from oil disasters, domestic and foreign, until we reduce our consumption, and we can't do that until we finally invest in ways to ditch the gas pumps and drive less.
Americans transformed the notion of travel in the 20th century. They re-invented the form, just as they had re-invented themselves throughout their history.
This is the last of my 3 part installment of posts entitled Grand Theft Auto. In this post I will discuss inner city public rail transportation and automobile use in urban settings.
Detroit, like so many other American cities, had an excellent public transit system before the car became king and our railways plunged into a steep decline that continues to this day.
Transportation inequity leads to the government spending 80 percent of our national transportation budget on highways and only 20 percent on transit. That means massive subsidies for destructive sprawl.
Elected officials spend only as much time together as is absolutely necessary. And they only see each other in a single context: the ugly political and ideological clashes that end up dominating the daily talk radio shows.
