February, 2010
New 3D City GIS Information Modeling to Enhance Design and Operation of Intelligent Cities
Leveraging Its Leadership in Information Modeling, Bentley Advances GIS for 3D Cities by Releasing V8i (SELECTseries 1) Versions of Bentley Map, Bentley Descartes, Bentley Geospatial Server, and Bentley Geo Web Publisher
With this plan, The Highway Users noted, the Administration would undermine the efforts of states to fully fund their highway obligations without a sufficient guarantee of where the funds will ultimately be spent.
“State highway programs are dangerously underfunded. One-quarter of our bridges need repairs and pavement conditions are rapidly deteriorating with the brutal winter, but the livable communities program proposed by the Administration would redirect the highway user fees paid by motorists and truckers to non-highway projects,” said Greg Cohen, Highway Users President and CEO. “By holding back funding that states use to address immediate and urgent highway needs, the Administration’s proposal shows more interest in dictating spending priorities from Washington than improving our ailing highway system.”
The current Administration’s bias against highway users is becoming a serious problem. Nearly 9 out of 10 trips taken by Americans are in a car and nearly 99% of daily travel occurs on roads. But DOT officials seem oblivious to the needs of the motoring public. This week, officials announced their earmarks from last year’s stimulus bill, also known as “TIGER grants.” Although more than half of the grants requested by applicants were for highway projects, only 42% of the grants were distributed for highways—in comparison to transit programs, where a mere 16% of applicants represent a third of distributed grants.
At a time when funding our roads has never been more important to economic growth and national competitiveness, actions like these are incredibly harmful to maintaining a safe and mobile highway system. Ignoring highway needs is not harmless. There are real human victims, like the ten people who have tragically and unnecessarily lost their lives in the past two years on one dangerous turn of less than four miles on Highway 56 in Georgia. Incredulously, funding shortfalls will prevent the Georgia Department of Transportation from fixing this perilous stretch until at least 2013. If these important needs continue to be overlooked, similar tragedies will become more frequent and more innocent Americans will become casualties of a broken political process.
“With over four billion dollars in the FY11 budget proposal proposed to go to discretionary earmarks for USDOT officials, the shortage of federal-aid to states for highway safety and congestion relief funding adds insult to injury,” Cohen noted. “If Congress is serious about building a safer and more mobile highway system that can allow the United States to compete in the world economy, then they will reject this dangerous proposal in the President’s FY11 budget proposal. On the way to ending needless deaths and keeping Americans moving, Congress has a chance to take an important and symbolic stop.”
With this plan, The Highway Users noted, the Administration would undermine the efforts of states to fully fund their highway obligations without a sufficient guarantee of where the funds will ultimately be spent.
“State highway programs are dangerously underfunded. One-quarter of our bridges need repairs and pavement conditions are rapidly deteriorating with the brutal winter, but the livable communities program proposed by the Administration would redirect the highway user fees paid by motorists and truckers to non-highway projects,” said Greg Cohen, Highway Users President and CEO. “By holding back funding that states use to address immediate and urgent highway needs, the Administration’s proposal shows more interest in dictating spending priorities from Washington than improving our ailing highway system.”
The current Administration’s bias against highway users is becoming a serious problem. Nearly 9 out of 10 trips taken by Americans are in a car and nearly 99% of daily travel occurs on roads. But DOT officials seem oblivious to the needs of the motoring public. This week, officials announced their earmarks from last year’s stimulus bill, also known as “TIGER grants.” Although more than half of the grants requested by applicants were for highway projects, only 42% of the grants were distributed for highways—in comparison to transit programs, where a mere 16% of applicants represent a third of distributed grants.
At a time when funding our roads has never been more important to economic growth and national competitiveness, actions like these are incredibly harmful to maintaining a safe and mobile highway system. Ignoring highway needs is not harmless. There are real human victims, like the ten people who have tragically and unnecessarily lost their lives in the past two years on one dangerous turn of less than four miles on Highway 56 in Georgia. Incredulously, funding shortfalls will prevent the Georgia Department of Transportation from fixing this perilous stretch until at least 2013. If these important needs continue to be overlooked, similar tragedies will become more frequent and more innocent Americans will become casualties of a broken political process.
“With over four billion dollars in the FY11 budget proposal proposed to go to discretionary earmarks for USDOT officials, the shortage of federal-aid to states for highway safety and congestion relief funding adds insult to injury,” Cohen noted. “If Congress is serious about building a safer and more mobile highway system that can allow the United States to compete in the world economy, then they will reject this dangerous proposal in the President’s FY11 budget proposal. On the way to ending needless deaths and keeping Americans moving, Congress has a chance to take an important and symbolic stop.”
Source: American Highway Users Alliance