Today is Day 2 of my ride on Vice President Biden's "Road to Recovery" tour.
Yesterday, with Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, Pennsylvania's Gov. Ed Rendell and Sen. Arlen Specter, we visited a bridge project in Carlisle, PA.
As the AP reports:
The $1.7 million replacement bridge over Conodoguinet Creek is being financed exclusively with stimulus money. The main contractor says the project has allowed it to hire 30 additional workers a 10 percent expansion of its work force.
In Carlisle, we had a chance to talk with Matthew Yacobenus, project manager for the Conodoguinet Creek bridgework. He credits the stimulus for kickstarting his company's expansion.
Later in the day, we were off to Overland Park, Kansas, for the launch of a project widening U.S. 69 near what the Kansas City Star considers "one of the worst bottlenecks in Kansas."
Along with the Vice President and Sec. Sebelius, we were joined by Kansas Gov. Mark Parkinson, Kansas Transportation Secretary Deb Miller, and Overland Park Mayor Carl Gerlach. You can barely see me in the photo below, behind Gov. Parkinson--I'll have to talk to him about that.
When Deputy Secretary Porcari was in Wisconsin last week, we were able to gather similar impressions from Brandon Nesler, a Wisconsin worker rehired for a highway interchange project near Racine. We captured his story on video as well. You can hear his story on our website.
Today, we're on to Kalamazoo County, Michigan, where we'll be breaking ground on the 2000th transportation project--Oh yes, I did say "2000"--funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. This is the project President Obama and Vice President Biden announced in April when they visited our DOT headquarters.
By the way, since we announced the funding for the Kalamazoo I-94 project, we've announced funding for over 2500 more. If you're keeping score at home, that's a total of over 4500 ARRA funded transportation projects.
As VP Biden said in Kansas, "It’s not only important to get the money out, but it’s important to get it out in the right way.”
That's stimulus...working.
As VP Biden said, "it's important to get the funding out the right way". Back in July 1997, this writer met another VP, named Gore. At Lake Tahoe, we discussed a regional transportation, "that would be clean, and be able to haul passengers & freight". When I said, that's easy, Mr. Gore, you are talking about an electric railway. In California, we had a perfect example: The Pacific Electric Railway, ran on hydro-electric power. Hauled passengers by day, viactuals and necessities of life and general freight at night & off-rush hours.
As history records, strange events sometimes determine the fate of men & nations: subsequent happenings of 1997 eclipsed any Tahoe transport revelations.
Maybe the new VP could speak to the former VP, and hit the railway subject hard. Suggest seeing the ASPO (peakoil.net) website, note articles 374 and 1037 in the "Newsletters" link. Also, suggested read for old & new heads at DOT & FRA: "ELECTRIC WATER", by Christopher C. Swan (New Society Press,2007).
I wish to dialogue with interested Peaking Oil savvy policymakers & staff, regarding rail component expansion & extension, particualarly dormant rr branchline rehab program. Also need to talk about re-commissioning military Railroad Operating & Maintenance Battalions, for background rail asset, disaster recovery element, and seedbed for rail savvy personnel.
It is not complicated to understand the ramifications of year on year reduced availability of liquid motor fuel. US transport responsibles must emplace "Second Dimension Surface Transport Logistics Platform"-railway matrix expansion- ASAP. Local planning must see spv.co.uk for regional "US Rail Map Atlas" volumes, all 3000+ County Planning Bureaus need info on extant operating and legacy rail
corridor footprint.
Thank you for attention and due investigation. Please see that Vice Presidential advisor Jared Bernstein has copy.
Posted by: ASPO Article 1037 | June 16, 2009 at 01:46 PM
The stimulus money is going everywhere. Even to small cities.
In my town, they are extending a road with help from stimulus money!
Posted by: Wheel Bearings | June 30, 2009 at 12:00 AM