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truth + creativity
Trans-Asian Railway Unlocks Laos Borders “Unlocking Laos” examines the mega Tran-Asia railway project through the perspectives of academics and rural villagers in Laos. By Ore Huiying August for Common Language Project VIENTIANE, Laos – Imagine a day when [...]
The agency spearheading California’s efforts to build a bullet train through the center of the state is plunging forward despite repeated warnings that it may be tens of billions of dollars short of the money needed to build and operate the system, records and interviews show. “There is an air of unreality” about the project’s $45 billion construction budget, a panel of experts warned the state Legislature [PDF] last year.
States spent an estimated $131 billion on transportation in fiscal year 2010, but many cannot answer critical questions about what returns this investment is generating, according to a new report by the Pew Center on the States and the Rockefeller Foundation. The study comes at a time when some members of Congress are proposing that the next surface transportation authorization act, the law that governs the largest federal funding streams for states’ transportation systems, more closely tie dollars to performance.
In a safety recommendation letter to the FRA dated two years before the collision in Graniteville ever happened, then-NTSB Chairwoman Ellen Engleman Conners wrote that “Safety Board railroad accident investigations over the past 30 years have shown conclusively that the most effective way to avoid train-to-train collisions is through the use of positive train control systems." If a positive train control system had been in place, Seeling would have received a warning that he was approaching a switch that was directing him off the main track.