• America 2050 has created a video depicting a fictional White Sox fan’s 300-mile journey to Detroit’s Comerica Park, as part of its “A Better Tomorrow” project to visualize America’s future communities and transportation systems. (America2050)

• The epic Burj Dubai-cum-Burj Khalifahas unexpectedly closed just a month after its elaborate opening, causing doubts about whether the permanent occupants will be able to move in as scheduled. The reason for the quick closing? Partly electrical problems, but the chief cause remains a mystery. (AP)

• But things aren’t all bad in the UAE: Dubai residents Elizabeth Monoian and Robert Ferry have created the Land Art Generator Initiative and launched an international design competition for the best “outdoor public art work that is conceptually engaging while at the same time produces real, usable renewable energy.” In other words,they’re looking for designs for “aesthetic power plants.” (Treehugger)

• TSA debacle of the day: A security breach this morning led officials to taser a man and shut down and evacuate the McNamara Terminal at the Detroit Metro Airport. The breach was reportedly a passenger who passed through security gates but had no luggage or ticket.  (Freep)

• And a mysterious person scaled the massive Manhattan Bridge today! Here’s wishing him/her a safe climb. (Gothamist)

Still, the concept isn’t without its problems. And the biggest problem, in fact, is right there in the name: Bank. If it’s a bank, then it needs to generate revenue, and therefore make investments that repay themselves. And of course, not all infrastructure projects worth funding are ones that will be rolling in profits. Ken Orski sums up the issue thusly:

[A]s [a recent]press conference and most NIB proposals have urged, the Bank would fund a broad range of public infrastructure projects, some of which, such as schools, public housing and mass transit facilities do not generate a revenue stream that could be used to repay the bank loans. Hence, the NIB would require periodic federal appropriations to cover grants for non-revenue producing projects. And indeed, in its FY 2011 budget request, the White House proposed to launch the bank with a small $4 billion appropriation. Of that amount, $2.2 billion would be for grants, which prompted one former member of the National Infrastructure Financing Commission to observe, that “institutions that give away money without requiring repayment are properly called ‘foundations’ not ‘banks.’” That could be the reason why the White House renamed the NIB in its FY 2011 budget request as the “National Infrastructure Innovation and Finance Fund” (NIIFF) — a clumsy but more accurate designation.

So basically what we’re talking about is a federal organization that injects large amounts of capital on an as-yet-to-be-determined basis, while still trying to convince investors that their money will be reserved for projects that could turn a profit. As Pa. Gov. Ed Rendell told us in a recent interview, there could be safeguards written into the legislation creating the bank to avoid a Fannie/Freddie repeat, and care could be taken with the type of people appointed to it — I.E. make sure every appointee has substantial experience in infrastructure development, such as state secretaries or former DOT employees. Still, the plan leaves plenty in the air as to how and whether necessary but non-profitable projects will be financed.

Then there’s the small matter of political power. As Orski puts it:

What is the likelihood that Congress would be willing to turn the power of decision over large-scale capital projects to a bureaucratic organization lodged in the Executive Branch? Probably not very great. Many lawmakers, including the powerful chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT), believe that Congress must not abdicate its authority to decide how public capital should be spent. As one Senate aide remarked to us, one cannot “depoliticize” the project selection process, as NIB advocates would urge, because major public infrastructure investment decisions are inherently and fundamentally political in nature.

In other words, as it does with so many potentially good ideas, can Congress kill the National Infrastructure Bank even before it’s born?

• Check out the new PBS special, “Blueprint America: Beyond the Motor City” tonight at 8 pm ET, for a fascinating discussion of how to save Detroit by reviving its now almost-nonexistent public transportation system.

• Behold the Power of LaHood! The Transpo Secretary caused a firestorm when he issued a statement suggesting that consumers stop driving Toyota vehicles until they had been repaired altogether — a remark that also caused Toyota’s stock to plunge 5%. (Oz)

• La Hood has also come out against the increasing numbers of gadgets and gizmos that are popping up on new car dashboards. (Wired)

• Alas, football season is over. But transportation plans are already underway for the 2011 Super Bowl, according to the North Texas Super Bowl Host Committee. And yes, commuter rail will play a heavy part. (DallasNews)

• So Las Vegas (And Nevada in general) missed out bigtime on high speed rail. What should they do now? (LVSun)

• And do densely urban cities necessarily equal more sustainable cities? Let’s hope so, for high-speed rail’s sake. (CUNYSustainable)

• Yup, lots of other countries have really cool high speed rail.

• To recap, America 2050 director Petra Todorovich and Infrastructurist editor Melissa Lafsky took to the cable news networks to talk high speed rail. Some discussions were fair and reasonable…others less so.

• California was the clear stimulus winner…so which corridor in CA will get the bulk of the cash? One CA High-Speed Rail Authority board member thinks Los Angeles-to-Anaheim is clearly winning. (MercuryNews)

• So what happens when the $8 billion dries up? Many states have been less-than-forthcoming about how they plan to pay for the completion of HSR projects. Experts say most are counting on the feds to cover at least half of their costs over the next few decades. (ABC News)

• The California High Speed Rail Authority is looking abroad for planning advice, and is is expected to approve a memorandum of understanding with Korea, which has had a high-speed rail network since 2004. (SFExaminer)

• A former councilman in Waterloo, Wis., argues that that a high speed rail line passing through could harm small towns more than help, by lowering property values near the tracks.  (NBC)

• And what of Amtrak? The wayward passenger rail system says it needs $11 billion in new rail equipment during the next 14 years. Where that money will come from remains undetermined. (BusinessWeek)

The electromagnetic spectrum, and the ways we use it, affect the everyday lives of almost everyone on Earth. Governments allocate the use of radio waves for innumerable commercial, non-profit, and public uses, with the goal of improving communication speed and ease around the world. Indeed, every piece of technology that involves wireless transmission — from televisions to cell phones to Wi-fi — is taking advantage of these waves as we speak. But as the image above shows, the airwaves are getting more and more crowded, to the point where big moves are necessary if we want to continue expansion.

Now, the U.S. government is making a move that could both expand available airwaves and raise much-needed funds. In his fiscal 2011 budget released this week, President Obama proposes allowing the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to continue auctioning off parts of the radio spectrum until 2020 — an authority that was set to expire in 2012. In addition, the budget calls for allowing the FCC to sell the rights to small parts of the spectrum that are still not used; in total, the new fees will bring in an estimated $6 billion or more for the feds.

In addition to the money, these changes will bring important new capacity to the increasingly-overburdened airwaves, adding to last June’s conversion of all U.S. television broadcasting to digital signals — a monumental move, since it meant the government opened up a massive new block of transmission at frequencies of 700 MHz. The TV stations that had once broadcast at channels 52 to 69 were simply moved to lower channels, leaving the space open for other use.

Why are these specific frequencies so crucial? Unlike many other parts of the radio spectrum, they are ideal for transmitting information to pretty much anywhere — they can travel long distances and penetrate thick walls (which is why they were used for TV in the first place).

For the most part, the spectrum’s complexities are hidden from the public eye, with devices just seeming to “work” for most people, until problems arise. Baby monitors sometimes project the sound of pressing the keys on a cordless phone, for example, or computer speakers can erupt in static when cell phones receive calls. The cause of these strange occurrences is electromagnetic interference (EMI) along the radio spectrum: These devices are producing signals in overlapping sections of the airways, and the result is reduced reception quality and unwanted information interconnections.

The TV frequencies that were abandoned/freed in the move to digital have not been ignored — in fact, in 2008 the FCC auctioned off their use in preparation for the switch to digital TV. They were sold in small portions at a total price of almost $20 billion, mostly to Verizon Wireless and AT&T, after a contentious debate in which Google threatened major action. But neither telecom company has divulged how exactly it plans to take advantage of its respective part of the pricey airwaves, and the 700 MHz frequencies have been mostly silent over the past few months.

The possibilities for using them are vast, and U.S. consumers are likely to benefit from easier access to quick Internet on mobile devices in the short term. While the Japanese and Koreans are able to watch TV without a problem on their cell phones, that technology is only arriving slowly in America. The new open space on the spectrum will clear faster connections to such content, making dreams of wireless Internet access from anywhere more realizable, since the affected waves are easy to catch.

Plus, the FCC ruled that access to the frequencies will be open, so devices and applications from all sorts of individuals, companies, and non-profits will be able to connect.

But the willingness of Verizon and AT&T to invest billions in this part of the spectrum clearly means they hope to see material gain from their use — and they recognize that there is only limited space on the available airwaves. Consumers can expect to be charged big bucks in the future for the services the companies will provide over the 700 MHz frequencies.

A new advance from industrial giant Alcatel-Lucent announced today, however, may dilute the importance of the President’s opening of empty frequencies to use or the reuse of the former TV wavelengths. The company’s new product will allow cell phone service providers to handle multiple network technologies on the same frequency, multiplying the opportunities to use the limited space currently available and will lower prices on the market by encouraging more competition.

Image from U.S. Department of Commerce

• “Unpaving” — recycling asphalt into gravel roads — is how some states are cutting maintenance costs. (USA Today)

• NY’s MTA estimates that it will receive $350 million less than expected from the state this year because of that payroll tax debacle, so they’re going ahead with a $650 million bond sale. (Bloomberg via Business Week)

• 681 miles of bike infrastructure in Portland will cost $613 million over the next twenty years, but the mayor insists it would be “very difficult” to pursue livability, affordable transportation, and the reduction of greenhouse gases without it. (CSMonitor)

• The TSA scrapped its plans to impose strict security regulations on the private air travel industry. (NPR)

• A confidential report from a commission on Radiation Safety says women and children should not be put through body scanners at airports because of “extremely small” doses of radiation–less than the cosmic rays absorbed while airborne. (Business Week)

• And a blogger suggests that for Milwaukee to be successful in the 21st century, it must look to its past for inspiration and take advantage of the incredible vistas that distinguish it from so many midwestern cities. (Urban Milwaukee)

Laura Barrett, the executive director of the Transportation Equity Network, issued the following statement:

The USDOT has disclosed that only 2% of the $48 billion in federal stimulus funds spent on highway construction has gone to disadvantaged and minority contractors. This number is absolutely shocking. Secretary LaHood is encouraging state DOTs to increase allocations to minority and disadvantaged contractors, but this number proves that encouragement is not enough. The old boys network that locks out minority contractors was built on the state and local level, and it needs to be fought at that level to reverse this outrageous inequity.

Job one is recording and publicizing detailed demographic information on exactly who is winning these contracts and who is actually performing the jobs. We also have to apply the TEN workforce equity model, which was a huge success in Missouri, across the country. Minority and female workers performed 26% of the workforce hours on Missouri’s $500 million I-64 highway project, and the project was finished three weeks early and $11 million under budget. The Missouri DOT proved that when you make diversity a priority, everybody wins.

Finally, we need to ensure that federal stimulus funds spent on public transit—which has been proven to create twice as many jobs as highway construction—have strong workforce equity requirements as well. Public transit is not only an economic lifeline for low income and minority communities, it is a way to build lives and careers.

What do you see if you go 100 feet directly below New York’s Grand Central Station? WNYC has put together an impressive gallery of pics offering a sneak peek inside the construction of the MTA’s new commuter rail terminal, which is scheduled for completion in 2016. When it’s finished, the system will connect four out of eight Long Island Railroad tunnels, sending them to a central hub in the West Wing of Grand Central Terminal.

Image Courtesy WNYC

• Is it ironic or just sad that the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality thinks that tightening emissions standards is “arbitrary, unnecessary and unachievable”? (NYTimes)

• A fashion photographer, a writer, a former mayor, and the chair of London Food share their visions of London in 2030. One imagines compulsory cycling, and lots of white ghost-bicycles. (Guardian)

• New York unveiled “Active Design Guidelines,” an overlay to the livability initiatives of several departments that aims to “promote physical activity and health through design.” (Urban Omnibus)

• “If Texas had had its act together,” said Ray LaHood, “It would have gotten some high-speed rail money.” Zing! (Houston Chronicle)

• A writer at GOOD gives a guided tour of what it’s like to turn a city street into a bicycle corridor. (GOOD)

• And not to be an alarmist, but as it turns out, every hour spent driving takes 20 minutes off your life expectancy. (This is a terribly convoluted way of thinking about things.) (MSN)

Infrastructurist: Given all the heated partisan debate that has crippled Congress in other topics like healthcare, can infrastructure really be bipartisan?

Lind: Yes. There should be a nonpartisan non-ideological consensus in favor of adequate infrastructure. From the conservative perspective, the federal government has two and only two legitimate functions: national security and infrastructure. The first bill passed by the first Congress was an infrastructure bill. With government involvement in canals and railroads and highways, the federal government has been involved in infrastructure from the beginning. This is consistent with a free market economy, because the markets only work if there is adequate infrastructure.

More specifically to the current time, conservatives do not enjoy being stuck in traffic any more than liberals. We may be in a Mercedes or Jaguar instead of a Neon, but [traffic] still isn’t fun. So when high quality transportation is offered — meaning rail, not bus — conservatives are using it. If you look at the demographics of rail transit riders. what you see is that a lot of the people on board are conservatives. if you look at the ridership on Metra around Chicago, in some counties the average income of people on trains is higher than people driving alone to work. You are turning waste time into time when you could be productive. So the fact is that where high quality transportation is provided, conservatives use it. But there isn’t much rail transit in this country for us to use.

I: It sounds like your definition of “conservative” basically means “wealthy people.” What about conservatives who aren’t necessarily Jaguar-drivers?

L: The fact is that most conservatives own cars. They have sufficient money that they own cars. which means that if they ride transit they ride from choice, not necessity. Which means they want high quality transit, not just something to get around. So the transit that is relative to conservatives is that which is relevant to people with cars — I would rather take transit than drive to work.

I: Does your support for trains extend to high speed rail?

L: High speed rail is an entirely different question. We’re talking commuter trains, light rail, and streetcar. We are very much in favor of inner city rail. But high speed is a chimera. High speed means 250 miles an hour. All the other countries that have created true high speed rail have a dense network of passenger trains. We have nothing. We have Amtrak, which is almost useless — one train passing through, usually in the middle of the night and running late.

What we want to see is building up a network of higher-speed regular trains that becomes dense enough that you can actually use it, and then adding bus service that would connect the largest part of the county to the nearest train — so, like at one time in the U.S., you could get from any point in the country to any other point in the country without driving or getting on a plane. Seventy, eighty years ago a number of steam railroads were running at over 100 miles an hour. But after World War II the government slapped speed limits on passenger trains. We want to make trains that are time competitive with the automobile - we’re not interested in competing with air travel. Our fuel dependence is seated on cars, not planes. So we want trains running at speeds of up to 110 miles an hour — all of which we had with steam trains in the 1930s.

I: So what you’re advocating is more, and faster Amtrak.

L: More passenger trains, more Amtrak trains, on more routes, more trains on existing routes, running at speeds that make the time competitive with the automobile.

I: Do you think this plan should have greater bipartisan support at the expense of the high speed rail proposals?

L: We think there should definitely be bipartisan support for bringing back streetcars. Every city in the U.S. with over 5,000 people once had a streetcar line. We would like to see most cities have commuter trains — the infrastructure is already there. And we would like to see an expansion of light rail. We think all of these should be electrified and this is an important part of energy security. We would like to see a national consensus going across left and right. It’s simply a matter of bringing back what we had. We threw it away –  we subsidized national highways and taxed electric railways, and we think that was an unwise move, and we need to bring it back. Not put enormous amounts of money into a few lines that would serve geographically only a small portion of the country.

• Someone at the Reason Foundation says HSR in the U.S. won’t reduce greenhouse gases, petroleum dependence, or congestion.  (National Journal)

• The editors at a St. Louis paper are disappointed that the $1.1 billion they received in HSR funding won’t go to area passenger rail systems. (STL Today)

• A damning report from the MTA’s Inspector General in New York reveals that the agency fails to determine which contractors are lousy, and therefore wastes millions awarding them one job after another. (AMNY)

• New Orleans’s City Planning Commission approved a long-awaited master plan, which includes among its priorities “aggressive city leadership in redeveloping 60,000 vacant and blighted lots.” (NOLA)

• A former CNN correspondent thinks a light-rail system in Detroit will bring the crowds downtown once more. “It’s been proven,” he says. “If you build it, they will come.” (Hour Detroit)

• In a New Hampshire town hall meeting today, President Obama reportedly appeared to be caving to the Senate’s demands that the carbon cap be dropped from his proposed energy bill. (Mother Jones)

• And over at the New Republic, The Avenue blog does a nice rundown of Obama’s proposed infrastructure spending in the 2011 budget. (TNR)

• U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has pledged that the review of defects in Toyotas will continue, writing “We’re not finished with Toyota” in an emailed statement. (Reuters)

• In demolition news (we just writing “in demolition news”) Howard Button, chief executive of the National Demolition Training Group and National Federation of Demolition Contractors, is fighting with a group of reticent contractors to get them to recognize the Demolition Supervisor qualification devised and delivered by the NDTG. (DN)

Granted, train travel doesn’t bring the same inherent security concerns as air travel — as Obama noted in a recent speech, you can’t fly a train into a building, or take over a train and turn it into a makeshift pressurized missile. Still, the bombings in Madrid and London have driven home the fact that rail travel is hardly immune from terrorism. And as Politico’s Josh Gerstein noted, “given that Obama was announcing that the federal government is awarding $8 billion in stimulus money for the planning and construction of high speed rail projects, wouldn’t it be unwise to allow an Al Qaeda operative to blow up a chunk of that investment?” In fact, there’s the possibility that HSR security could become a Catch-22 — in order to get it built, we need to make a big deal of it in the U.S., but the bigger deal we make of it, the more likely it is to become a target for terrorists (a possibility that could hinder it getting built in the first place). And round and round etc.

So it’s clear that U.S. HSR will need security. The questions are, how much, and who will be charged with providing it? TSA’s long string of unabashed failures doesn’t exactly make a case for government agency control. And the absence of shoe-removal hassles are one of the main benefits of taking the train — inputting them in HSR might drive passengers back to air travel. Robert Cruickshank at the California High Speed Rail blog had the following suggestion:

Certainly you don’t want to turn HSR into a target by boasting about how it has less strict security than airplanes. But one doesn’t have to create a big and unnecessary security theater system to deal with potential threats. Instead, the US needs to take cues from its European counterparts when it comes to HSR security.

Despite people who think the US is constantly under threat of terrorist attack (the reason we haven’t been attacked by overseas terrorists since 2001 is because they just don’t pose the kind of ongoing threat many believe they do), Europe actually has FAR more experience with actual terrorism than the US has. Countless terror attacks targeting transportation infrastructure in Europe since the 1970s have shown them the threat is very real. Yet their HSR security isn’t anywhere close to what the TSA operates at US airports.

Granted, given the U.S. propensity for guns guns everywhere, we’ll likely need a few more metal detectors than your  average European train station. But the presence of smart security, with the absence of security theater, could make HSR trains a safe and attractive way to travel.

Image via Flickr

• South Korea’s National Pension Service has paid $160 million for a 12% stake in the U.K.’s Gatwick airport, in an effort to increase its international investments. (NY Times)

• The cause of last year’s crash of Flight 3407 in Buffalo will be announced today by the National Transportation Safety Board. (13Wham)

• New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has said he will rule out raising/adding tolls or hiking gas prices…meanwhile the state’s budget crisis continues to loom. (BW)

• And if you’re flying anytime in the near future, or have any trepidation about flying, we highly recommend you not read this. (USA Today)

Image: Isamu Sanada

• An ordinance in L.A. would require new homes, larger developments and some redevelopments to capture and reuse the runoff water generated in rainstorms, in an effort to improve water quality and recharge groundwater. (LA Times)

• In Brazil, infrastructure projects may require as much as $85 billion in financing over the next decade to meet the country’s expanding transportation and boosted energy production. (BusinessWeek)

• Are foreign governments hacking our infrastructure? A new study reports that more than half of the operators of power plants and other “critical infrastructure” say their computer networks have been hacked — and in many cases, the suspects are foreign governments. (Baltimore Sun)

• Where should the HSR money have been spent? The Washington Post opines — and sure enough, their vote is for the Northeast Corridor. (WaPo)

Fox Business anchor Brian Sullivan asks an interesting question: Who will be making our HSR trains? Thankfully, it likely won’t be U.S. trainmakers, none of which have ever produced high speed trains with the level of sophistication and technology that a shiny new HSR line will require. Watch Sullivan discuss this issue with Infrastructurist editor Melissa Lafsky.

• Here’s a clip of Petra Todorovich, the director of America 2050, defending U.S. high-speed rail plans against a contentious trio of talking heads. (Fox Business)

• And tune in this afternoon to hear Infrastructurist ed-in-chief Melissa Lafsky discuss high-speed rail and stimulus funding on Fox Business at 1:15 ET.

• President Obama will propose permanent Build America Bonds in the budget plan to be announced today. Treasure Secretary Geithner says they will continue to make credit available for infrastructure projects that, according to the Milken Institute, will create more than three million jobs in everything from air traffic control to offshore drilling. (Reuters, Occupational Health & Safety)

• A new study indicates that cell-phone bans for drivers may not result in a significant decrease in accidents. (WSJ)

• A “futurist” says that many suburbs are unsustainable, and that the debate of cities vs. suburbs “is the political conflict that will define the next decade.” (Grist)

• In spite of everything, Dubai will spend billions to expand its airport and build another one; the CEO of Dubai airports says that aviation generates up to a whopping 25% of the emirate’s economy. (Business Week)

• An “accidental transportation upheaval” is taking place, as electric bicycles are gaining popularity are around the world. “It’s miraculous,” says a 78 year-old New Yorker. “It takes the hills out of riding.” (NYTimes)

• And here’s another extraordinary historic proposal for a massive public works project in New York. This one would have connected Brooklyn to Staten Island with a 10,000 foot tunnel.

• Were the stimulus funds for HSR awarded free of partisanship? Joe Biden thinks so. Still, StreetsblogDC points out that the bulk of the funding went to 22 states,  nine have GOP governors, versus 13 with Democratic governors. (Streetsblog)

• Can high speed rail succeed in the U.S.? Time’s Bryan Walsh sounds off. (Time)

• Illinois Governor Pat Quinn said at a news conference that the state’s high-speed rail project will provide an estimated 6,000 jobs for three years. (BND.com)

• In the category of “less-good news”: Transportation officials say the $590 million in money given to Washington state will only cut about 16 minutes off the Portland-Seattle trip, and not until 2017, at an average speed of only 90 mph — which comes out to $36,875,000 a minute. (NWCN)

• And the award for Biggest Shaft on HSR Federal Funds goes to…Nevada! The state’s application for $83 million was denied when their plan was deemed ineligible for funding. (Review Journal)

Plus, as Puentes states, Florida has the potential to be a national showcase project: “One lesson our European competitors have taught us is that it is important to get the initial investment right. Then demand for additional investments increases, political and public support follows, and the national system is built incrementally.”

As for Florida’s economic impact, Adie Tomer at the New Republic brings up some good points:

The Tampa and Orlando metropolitan areas, along with their sandwiched neighbor Lakeland, were home to almost 3.4 million people in 2008. That year their economies produced $230.6 billion of economic output, more than the Czech Republic. A huge part of this is the vibrant tourist industry: Few places in the world give visitors simultaneous access to many top theme parks, multiple world-class beaches, and bona fide big city culture all within 120 miles. A pleasurable and useful train ride won’t just benefit Floridians, and could become an additional beacon to visitors across the country.

And as an added bonus, the state projects to have the corridor built by 2015 — over a decade sooner than California. And if it becomes the first completed HSR line in the country, just imagine how a successful line could motivate other states to complete their own. And heaven knows, with costs in the multi-billions, motivation will be much needed.

• The American Society of Civil Engineers says it will take $2.2 trillion to bring our national infrastructure up to speed. What exactly is the point of that figure? (Nasdaq)

• A look at the new guidelines for transit funding suggests that cities like Cincinnati, Boise and Fort Lauderdale, who are close to implementing streetcar programs, might be the big winners. (Wired)

• GOOD has a great infographic displaying commuters’ waste of time and fuel in major U.S. cities, as well as the remedies those cities are working on to ease the pain. (GOOD)

• In Long Beach, a sculpture outside City Hall declares, “Long Beach, the most bicycle friendly city in America.” Thoughts? (LATimes)

• And a creepy weirdo played with a chicken on the 6 train in New York yesterday. (NY Daily News)

Fortunately, the conversation is getting underway. On February 23rd, a two-day conference titled “Financing High Speed Rail USA” will be hosted by American Business Conferences at Chicago’s Marriott Midway. Speakers will include Judge Quentin L. Kopp,
 Board Member of the California High Speed Rail Authority; William Glavin
, Chief Of Rail Division
 of the Texas DOT

; Andy Kunz, President & CEO of the US High Speed Rail Association; and Francis P. Mulvey, Commissioner Surface Transportation Board
. A press release from the conference organizers describe its goals as follows:

The Summit, sponsored by Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer US LLP and French High Speed Rail Operator SNCF will provide a timely opportunity for participants to network with the financing community, (including investment banks, private investors and financial advisory firms), rail operators, engineering and construction companies, rolling stock firms, suppliers, State DOTS and federal agencies, as well as providing an important forum to expedite the formation of new regional partnerships.

This Summit is the only one that dissects the project costs for both incremental and new-build HSR projects. Capital costs will be discussed, and detail provided about the relative costs of different speeds, what makes these speeds necessary, and importantly, the economic environmental and social benefits they entail.

Interested in going? Click here for registration information.

NOTE: This post is sponsored content, though we fully advocate the conference and the greater discussion at large.

• Iowa governor Chet Culver has “expressed his disappointment” that applications for proposed HSR routes from Iowa City to Chicago and Dubuque to Chicago got the shaft in the federal funding spree. (BusinessWeek)

• For a thorough analysis of all the HSR grants announced this morning, click here. (TTPolitic)

• New England walks away with just 2% of the HSR money, meaning that several applications were rejected, including a $1.9 billion request from Massachusetts to fund the proposed South Coast commuter rail project that would link Boston, Fall River and New Bedford. (Globe)

• A conservative opines on why Republicans have traditionally been against mass transit (and Democrats for it). (Politics Daily)

The announcement has been made, the results are in, and the biggest winner is…California, which will receive $2.25 billion to build a line from Los Angeles to San Francisco with trains running up to 220 miles per hour. The Chicago-St. Louis route will get $1.1 billion, while Minneapolis-Milwaukee-Chicago will receive just over $800 million for a variety of functions including refurbishing existing stations and track improvements. Sure enough, the Tampa-Orlando-Miami camp is getting a big chunk, with $1.25 billion, while New York-Albany-Buffalo is a surprising loser with just $148 million for improvements to existing routes and new track construction. Another $112 million will go towards improvements on the existing Northeast Corridor. For a full list, click here.

Ray LaHood has written a blog post hailing the funding, and the plans for high speed rail, a “historic…game changer for American transportation.” Meanwhile, Curt Pringle, Chairman of the California High-Speed Rail Authority, released the following statement:

This award is fantastic news for California and for our state’s high-speed rail project. It is an award that will lead to the creation of tens of thousands of quality jobs in the near-term and to continued economic strength and enhance our transportation network in the long term.

This award will go toward specific projects, but it will benefit every single section of our planned high-speed rail system by moving this entire vision closer to reality – closer to being the first true high-speed rail system in the United States.

California’s success in winning a significant portion of this federal funding, for which there was tremendous competition, is a tribute to our partnerships with our Legislature, with local governments, and to the hard work and leadership of Governor Schwarzenegger and California’s senators and congressional delegation. A California high-speed rail system truly gives each of us the opportunity to change the future of California for our children and grandchildren.

Image courtesy of DOT

CLICK THROUGH FOR A LARGER MAP

CLICK FOR LARGER VERSION

• Yes, the iPad launched today, burning up the Internet. But on the streets of Brooklyn, far more was on fire. Last night a woman in Brooklyn witnessed an exploding manhole, and captured it in a series of short videos. The cause was later determined to be a spontaneously combusting transformer. (Gothamist)

• While the federal gas tax remains at its stymied level, states are hardly as confined. Now Michigan lawmakers are introducing a plan to raise the state gas tax by 2013. (DETNews)

• The World Resources Institute sums up “Next Steps After Copenhagen: Opportunities and Challenges in the Transport Sector,” which was part of the Transforming Transportation 2010 conference, held last week in D.C. (WRI)

• The defense rested today in the trial of former Transportation Secretary Bill Nighbert and influential contractor Leonard Lawson, who are accused of conspiring to rig some $130 million in highway bids. (WLKY)

• Is Peak Oil the mother of all risk management scenarios? (Oil Drum)

• And StreetsBlog San Francisco celebrates its first birthday with a stellar video. (StreetFilms)

Unfortunately, it’ll cost a lot more than a few billion to complete any high speed rail project, let alone multiple ones across the country. And so states have been scrambling to nab as much of that precious federal money as possible — the Federal Railroad Administration said it received a total of 45 applications requesting $50 billion in aid. The trick has been prioritizing which states/regions deserve funding, and how much.

So who are the biggest contenders to walk out with big grants tomorrow? Here’s a quick list, ranked by likelihood of their nabbing funding:

1) FLORIDA

The location of the president’s speech can only be read as a surefire tip-off: The Tampa-Orlando-Miami line will get a federal check in the mail. You may recall that Ray Lahood even stepped in to give the state’s fund-winning effort a jolt in October, when he made a speech castigating state lawmakers for failing to secure money for a proposed Orlando-area link and an existing South Florida commuter rail system that was short of cash when the state’s 2010 budget passed.

2) CALIFORNIA

The state’s impressive proposal for an 800-mile-long rail line from Sacramento to San Diego will need money. Lots of money. Far more than $8 billion. The government will give it something — but whether the cash-strapped Golden State can get it together to complete the job is another matter entirely. Still, the public support for the project so far has certainly been encouraging.

3) ILLINOIS

There’s been plenty of anticipation and planning for the proposed Chicago-Milwaukee-St. Louis route, and the Midwest High Speed Rail Association has been hard at work submitting a thorough plan. And Joseph Szabo, Obama’s railroad czar, dropped a heavy hint the other day, praising the region’s “comprehensive plan for high-speed passenger rail service” during a conference in Chicago.

4) NEW YORK

It has the passengers, and it has the demand. The Northeast Corridor (which includes Boston and D.C.) is crying out for a HSR line. There’s the rest of New York, including Albany and other cities in the western and norther part of the state, which have been isolated for years — and some of them have been suffering through delayed service for decades. In some areas, New York State has been quietly begging for rail improvements for years — in part because it would facilitate New York City commutes, and let businesses move to cheaper parts of the state.

Most Likely to Get the Federal Shaft: TEXAS

Sorry, Lone Star State — the chances are good you’ll walk away without a cent. At a speech in Austin earlier this month, a top federal rail administrator charged with managing the distribution of the new grants said your application lacks “a central vision,” and  the kind of political support from the governor and the Legislature that would help it compete against other states gunning for HSR cash.

• With indefatigable strength, Oakland’s MTC board members will push through their plan for the Airport Connector, despite their own admission that the project is “stupid” and “crappy.” (SF Weekly)

• Reliance on urban green spaces as carbon sinks may be misguided, as a new study indicates that the materials that go into maintaining city lawns produce more emissions than the spaces absorb. (Dot Earth)

• After 9/11, New York’s MTA said it would install surveillance cameras and other security measures across its systems; nearly ten years later, it has no way to pay for the $833 million project. Apparently 8,700 tickets issued to people hogging more than one seat on the subway wasn’t enough! (City Room)

• To those of you who ride CTA in Chicago: Sorry, guys. You have less than two weeks left of a functional transit system. (NBC Chicago)

• Communities built to accomodate only a single mode of transportation are myopic, says a design expert, and designing good, multi-modal infrastructure is like designing a user interface: deliberate, unobtrusive, appropriately timed. (GOOD)

• EconStories has released a new video “Fear the Boom and Bust,” illustrating the ideological differences between Depression-era macroeconomist John Maynard Keynes and the free-market advocate Friedrich von Hayek. (EconStories)

• Thursday’s the big day! Expect announcements of the lucky winners of that federal high speed rail money. We’ll be covering the news here at Infrastructurist - stay tuned. (CHSRB)

• A startup called Better Place, which develops infrastructure for charging electric cars, has raised $350 million in a Series B round of financing – arguably one of the largest feats of clean-tech venture capital ever. (SFBT)

• A portland poet and essayist posts a list of “Ten things I’ve learned in six months of commuting by bicycle.” Our favorites: “1) Most drivers are extraordinarily kind and accommodating if they see you. 2) They see you about half the time.” (Mole)

• And finally, the International Center of Photography has compiled pictures from the last fifty years on the New York subway. (FIAF)

So what’s the right course of action to create jobs? The National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) and think tank the Milken Institute (chaired by Michael Milken)  have released their ideas for a solution in an economic analysis, “Jobs for America: Investments and Policies for Economic Growth and Competitiveness,” holding the manufacturing sector up as the foundation for economic growth — and offering a few steps they claim will be a boon to job creation and the GDP.

Here’s what they say: To improve competitiveness in manufacturing, we need to make a series of tax and policy changes, as well as some key infrastructure investments. Unsurprisingly, step one is reducing the already-unpopular corporate income tax rate to match the current average of OECD countries (22 percent versus the current 35 percent in the U.S.) Right now we have the 2nd highest corporate tax rate of all the industrial countries in the OECD — just barely below Japan.

Step two is enacting a permanent R&D tax credit to promote innovation (it’s been temporary on and off for the past 29 years).  According to the Institute’s analysis, this tax credit could boost GDP 1.2% — translating into about 316,000 manufacturing jobs by 2019.

Step three is modernizing U.S. export controls on commercially available tech products. The U.S. is vastly underrepresented in India and China relative to its world share, so, the argument goes, we should recognize that other OECD companies are selling tech products to these countries — if we can close the market share gap by half, we could increase exports by $56 billion within the next decade.

Step four is understandably our favorite: infrastructure investment — which could, according to their analysis, create 3.5 million jobs each year over the next 3 years (relying on the statistic that for each $1 billion invested in infrastructure, you get 25,000 jobs created across the economy once you incorporate all the ripple effects). So what projects should get the most funding? Here’s a breakdown from the report of the 10 areas that should get priority:

According to the report, “These 10 projects were chosen because they affect energy security or involve
infrastructure upgrades and expansion, which create the type of high-value jobs that bolster the economy.”

Their analysis concluded that these 10 investments have the potential to create 826,000 manufacturing jobs by 2019, 3.4 million jobs directly and, including all the ripple effects, 10.6 million jobs in total (an average annual increase of 3.5 million across three years), and could generate direct earnings of $147.1 billion (and total earnings of $420.6 billion, including all ripple effects). On the funding front, many of these would be public-private partnerships. Here’s a rundown of the highway and transit investment they’re calling for:

• $36 billion in stimulus funds for roads and transit have created a quarter million jobs, but more than 40% of transportation construction companies anticipate layoffs this year. Municipalities are deferring capital spending projects that drive the industry. (CNN Money)

• Infrastructure projects are “notoriously illiquid, making them less appealing to investors during a liquidity crunch.” This partially explains why infrastructure funds were down 57% in 2009 from the previous year. (Reuters)

• The federal DoT is still honing legislation that would control how truckers and bus drivers use computers while driving, but it’s given texting the ax on interstate commercial routes. (Bits Blog)

• An editorial says voters in LA need to pay up if they want better transit, and that spineless politicians are enabling the cycle of tapping reserves in deficits without addressing the “structural” problems like low fares and transit subsidies. (LATimes)

• Will President Obama tell Floridians on Thursday that they’ll be the recipients of high-speed rail funds? Tampa’s mayor is sure feeling good about it. (WUSF)

• And a pro-Nazi group in Colorado adopted a highway as a “good PR move” and a “recruiting tool.”   (KDVR via Jalopnik)

Image of relief operations at Toussaint Louverture International Airport via Navy.mil.

• Central Japan Railway Company is forming an American subsidiary in conjunction with a venture capital firm, in an effort to get into the competition for U.S. high-speed rail (TTPolitic)

• Meanwhile the Progressive Policy Institute has released an action agenda on high speed rail for the Obama administration, anticipating the FRA’s announcement (which should come any day now) on which HSR projects will receive stimulus funds. Read the full report here.

• The trial of alleged September 11th mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed may cause a total of over 2,000 hours stuck in traffic each weekday, which translates to $30 million in lost time for motorists, truckers, taxi riders and bus passengers. (StreetsBlog)

• The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is speeding up the licensing process — it’s now expected to take three to four years, as opposed to the past, which could be up to 14 years. (Midatlantic Construction)

I found the progression of the discussion in the comments section following the “How Often is the Gas Tax Raised?” article to be extremely interesting. Our public assessment research into vehicle mileage fees (VMT fees, mileage fees, road user charges, etc.) as well as the research of the Minnesota DOT has found that this lack of understanding about the fuel tax is a major barrier in getting people to talk about real reform to the nation’s transportation funding and financing system. Whenever we have gotten people to really look at:

1. How the tax is actually assessed;
2. The tax’s history with regards to increases;
3. Trends in vehicle fuel efficiency and the long term implications of these trends;

We find that people are willing to at least move beyond the old “Alaskan Bridge-to-Nowhere” discussion, which is based on the need to spend existing revenue sources more efficiently, and at least consider the need for some alternative revenue mechanism.

It seems that this topic is getting more and more coverage from transportation related media, and as a fan of the Infrastructurist I wanted to call your attention to a Web site that we here at the Texas Transportation Institute have been putting together that is aimed at collecting research on the topic of vehicle mileage fees. The site started out as a site for the first ever symposium on mileage based user fees, but we are attempting (pending some additional funding) to turn it into a one-stop-shop for all vehicle mileage fee related research.

Are user-based fees and road-use charges a better alternative? Certainly they could work to incentivizing less fuel use and greater efficiency, and could provide a solution to funding all the long-term transportation projects that the U.S. desperately needs. For a thorough discussion of the topic, check out Baker and co-author Ginger Goodin’s full summary here.

Image courtesy of MCT.

• A critic tells the history of Houston in four types of garage, which have helped the atypical city grow from a vast sprawl to a tight urban network. (Houston Chronicle via Planetizen)

• High-Occupancy Toll lanes in Miami are driving down the commute times for the 95 Express bus and driving up ridership, but service cuts and fare hikes across mass transit in general have left the area with a net zero change in usage. (Streetsblog)

• Both the Obama administration and Republican leadership are responsible for the clumsy and drawn-out handling of Errol Southers, which ended last week with his withdrawal from contention for the post of TSA chief. (NYTimes)

• A major budget shortfall in LA’s MTA won’t affect major capital projects, which are covered by grants and specific tax increases; this means that commuters who rely on buses and trains will feel the impact the most. (LATimes)

• The Yorkville Tennis Club will make it once again possible to play tennis in Grand Central Terminal, opening a court on the fourth floor above Vanderbilt Hall. (NYTimes)

• Some think that an anthropologist’s plan to live in an airport for a year to study human interactions there is a “complete waste of money.” To achieve their goals, says a rep for the Taxpayers Alliance, “All they needed to do was to rent the Tom Hanks film [The Terminal].” (Daily Mail)

• And in Moscow, stray dogs have evolved to the point where one group, “beggar dogs,” can recognize the names of different train conductors on the subways, streamlining the process of finding food. (PopSci)

• Here’s a visual tour of the proposed California high-speed rail line, complete with snazzy soundtrack. (CAHSR)

• Scandal in Florida! A letter sent Thursday to DOT Secretary Stephanie Kopelousos put the state on notice that Amtrak is terminating the 2008 memorandum of understanding with the state — raising speculation that, without an agreement,  Florida may not be able to collect any federal commuter rail money. Read the full story, updated, here. (TampaBay)

• Meanwhile, rumors are flying about the purpose of the president and vice president’s visit to Tampa or St. Petersburg next week — specifically, whether the reason for the trip is to announce federal funding for a Tampa-Orlando high-speed rail route. (TBO)

• In embattled Detroit, a  state legislative task force is calling for more study on a potential high-speed rail between the city and Lansing, saying they need more details on where the money would come from. And we’re not talking any small numbers here — the estimated cost is $10 million per mile. (WHTC)

• Around 200 people turned up for a public meeting in Palo Alto on the California High Speed Rail plan. The discussion was led by state senators Joe Simitian and Alan Lowenthal, both of whom sit on committees concerning the project’s planning, funding and construction. The greatest concern was that a proposed bullet train linking the Bay Area to L.A. was poorly planned, and would lose funding as a result. (KLIV)

• And across the pond, expansions to Spain’s HSR service are imminent, including a train from Madrid to Frankfurt, Amsterdam, and a route to London that could have travelers there in eight hours. (Guardian)

Now, Planetizen has a spellbinding gallery of scenes from the base and surrounding area, as well as a look inside the lobby and, finally, views from the 124th floor observation deck. Note the new metro station (the details of which we’ve covered before) as well as the nearly 500 acres of new development surrounding the building, forming a new “Downtown Dubai” that cost around $20 billion. You can also see the 1,200,000 square-foot park built around the structure. Among other amenities, the park features six huge fountains, gardens, palm lined walkways, and flowering trees (which, in the middle of a desert, involve no easy feat to maintain).