All posts from the month of July 2011
Today’s Headlines – 7/29/11
July 29, 2011By Transportation for America
House Republican leaders now say they expect a vote on Speaker Boehner’s debt ceiling plan this morning, after failing to secure the necessary support late last night. (The Hill)
If the debt ceiling is not raised, most all funding for transportation could be halted. (Infrastructurist)
Secretary Ray LaHood called on Congress to compromise on renewing FAA authorization. (WP)
The EPA Smart Growth Office is a on the chopping block in the House. (Streetsblog Capitol Hill)
Congress is cutting the wrong kind of spending, Ezra Klein argued. (WP)
And, bicycling is up 14 percent in New York City. (Transportation Nation)
Innovative federal financing is expanded under House bill
July 28, 2011By Sean Barry
The House has not yet released the full text of a transportation bill proposal, but the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee has released an outline of the principles that will be included in the bill. We posted an analysis of the outline here. This is one in a short series of posts looking into some of the provisions with a little more depth. – Ed.
A major recurring theme of the House’s transportation bill proposal has been to “do more with less.” One of the ways that they propose to do that is with a once fairly obscure and small federal loan program known as TIFIA.
The Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act, or TIFIA, would be greatly expanded under Chairman Mica’s bill. TIFIA is a federal loan program that provides direct loans, loan guarantees and lines of credit to finance transportation projects of national and regional significance. The program has long enjoyed strong bipartisan support, as evidence by its inclusion in Mica’s draft.
An expansion of TIFIA can play a constructive in leveraging both public and private sector dollars in support of innovative projects. As an example, Los Angeles would receive immediate benefit by being allowed to proceed with a suite of transit projects approved voters under a recent ballot measure. L.A. taxpayers have already voted to tax themselves to build these projects, but the innovative financing in TIFIA is one way that L.A. could meet their goal of building 30 years of projects in 10 years — by getting low-cost federal loans or bonds up front that would be paid back with dedicated tax revenue, speeding up project delivery.
Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa called TIFIA a “key component” that “has proven to be a powerful tool in getting worthwhile projects launched from the drawing board to their construction phase.”
More details are needed to determine what kind of projects would benefit more broadly under the House plan. Will an array of transit projects be able to meaningfully participate in new financing options? Will projects with the greatest returns on investment and benefits for a community be prioritized? What kind of incentives will exist for the kind of comprehensive planning that Los Angeles undertook? And, what role would private sector participants play in both the financing and planning aspects?
The House proposal does not create a national infrastructure bank, which has been endorsed by President Obama and a bipartisan group of U.S. Senators. Instead, the bill would make additional federal funds available for states to create their own infrastructure banks. Currently, 33 states operate federally-funded state infrastructure banks, and according to AASHTO, have entered into 579 project agreements with a total dollar value of $5.56 billion. South Carolina’s state infrastructure bank, for instance, accounts for 56 percent of the total dollar value.
Today’s Headlines – 7/28/11
July 28, 2011By Transportation for America
Deteriorating infrastructure could cost the U.S. more than $3 trillion down the road. (HuffPost, WP, Reuters)
House Speaker John Boehner exhorted fellow Republicans to get behind his debt ceiling plan in a vote slated for this evening. (WP)
Car and Driver Magazine — not a mainstay of mass transit support — called for more alternative transportation options. (Streetsblog Capitol Hill)
The expiration of the federal gas tax on September 30 could be a Congressional vote worth watching. (Politico)
House Democrats are pushing for a clean short-term extension of FAA funding. (The Hill)
And, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel touted the hire of 50 full-time police officers set to patrol the city’s rail and bus system. (Tribune)
Raquel Nelson will fight on, but should she have to?
July 27, 2011By David Goldberg
Yesterday was an inflection point in Raquel Nelson’s horrific journey, but the case and its ramifications are from over. Ms. Nelson, you’ll recall, is the Georgia mom convicted of vehicular homicide because her four-year-old was killed by a hit-and-run driver as they crossed the road from a bus stop to her Cobb County apartment.
The judge yesterday declined to give her jail time, and instead granted her the right to a new trial, which Ms. Nelson has said she intends to pursue in order to clear her name. Our view, of course, is that a grieving mother who didn’t even own a car should never have been charged with vehicular homicide in the first place. We would hope the Georgia board of pardons and paroles and/or Governor Nathan Deal would see fit to spare her the agony of a retrial and simply absolve her — and by extension the other pedestrians and bus riders who are put in a similarly dangerous situation every day.
Sign this petition urging her full pardon, or a refusal to try her again in a retrial.
That would be one positive outcome of this troubling case. One of the worst would be if the deadly conditions that confront people like Raquel Nelson, in Cobb County and across the nation, are allowed to persist. Over at Grist, Sarah Goodyear writes hopefully that the case could be a turning point for pedestrian rights.
We hope that’s the case. Absent sustained public pressure, however, there seems to be a very real possibility that nothing will be done to address the dangerous conditions in Cobb County and elsewhere.
Austell Road looking north and south at the scene of the incident. From Green Building Chronicle video by Ken Edelstein.
Yesterday we called the director of the Cobb County department of transportation, Faye DiMassimo, to ask whether there were plans to review the situation. She replied that she could not talk about that bus stop or any other because the county attorney had warned of the “possibility of pending litigation.”
The county appears to be in a Catch-22 at this point: To fix this, or similar, problems would be a tacit acknowledgment of negligence in the placement of the bus stop and the lack of a safe crossing. To leave conditions as they are would be to invite further tragedy and the possibility of yet more “pending litigation.”
The latter course is exactly what Cobb County and the Georgia DOT took the last time a Cobb prosecutor convicted a grieving mother in the death of her own child as they crossed a road between a bus stop and home. In 2008, Altamesa Walker was charged with involuntary manslaughter because a driver hit her and her children, and her four-year-old daughter died. She took a plea deal and never went to trial, which is why her case is less famous than that of Ms. Nelson. That tragic case should have triggered a review of bus stop placement and the provisions for safe crossings, but the Nelson case is vivid evidence that did not happen.
One would hope that the Raquel Nelson story – and the outpouring of outrage and anguish it engendered across the country – would prompt transportation officials everywhere to conduct such reviews of their roadways, and to view them through new eyes – the eyes of the pedestrian.
Indeed, vast swaths of the landscape we inhabit were designed by, and for, people who have little or no experience other than as motorists.
Most have not been forced to walk along roaring arterial roads where the “walkway” is an eroded rut occasionally blocked by utility polls or vegetation. They haven’t waited for public transportation alongside these speedways, and they haven’t been asked to walk half a mile or more out of their way to traverse one of them after being let off a bus. They haven’t experienced the skinny sidewalks with no planting strips or parked cars to buffer a person from 50-mph traffic. They haven’t experienced traffic signals timed so that a child or an elderly person can’t make it all the way across five, six, eight lanes before the light changes.
All six of the jurors in the Nelson case appeared to fit this description, and that is no doubt one reason for the draconian outcome of the first trial. Interviewed on Fox and Friends this morning, Raquel Nelson spoke with charity and understanding of those who convicted her, saying she could see how, “If you haven’t been there and haven’t experienced it up close and personal it’s hard to understand.” (Streetsblog Capitol Hill pointed out yesterday that the jury pool comes entirely from people holding drivers’ licenses.)
Thanks to her bravery and willingness to stand up and speak out, millions of Americans have had the chance to view these roads that are dangerous by design “up close and personal”, through her eyes. If she must face another trial, we can only hope that the next jury pool will include citizens endowed with the insights gained from the intensity of the reaction around this first trial.
Support her innocence by signing this petition urging her full pardon.
Raquel Nelson on Fox and Friends
July 27, 2011By Stephen Lee Davis
If you can’t see the video below, watch it here: http://video.foxnews.com/v/1081516528001/no-jail-for-jaywalking-mom-in-tragic-hit-and-run-case/
Today’s Headlines – 7/27/11
July 27, 2011By Transportation for America
Raquel Nelson was offered a new trial after 140,000 people signed a petition opposing her conviction. (Change.org)
Speaker John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid may try to move closer on their debt ceiling proposals. (WP)
Other reports indicate Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell as the key to finding an agreement. (ABC News)
The funding dispute over the Federal Aviation Administration is being overshadowed by the debt dispute. (Reuters)
Diminishing federal transportation resources mean local governments need to take more responsibility, argued Yonah Freemark. (Transport Politic)
And, the potential for a government shutdown fight over the 2012 budget looms. (Roll Call)
Raquel Nelson sentenced; no jail time, new trial possible
July 26, 2011By Stephen Lee Davis
| “I feel like her sentencing, it doesn’t just criminalize her, but people in like circumstances whose sole transportation is their feet”
- Lisa Cupid, South Cobb resident who delivered 17 letters from Nelson’s supporters to the judge today. |
Updated 7/26 5:41 p.m.: Raquel Nelson told the AJC that she has opted for a new trial. No details yet on when or where, but her attorney has made it clear that she will fight the charges once again in a new trial.
Raquel Nelson had her moment in Cobb County court this morning. After an emotional defense from her attorney and tearful witness testimonies defending Nelson’s character and requesting leniency, Judge Katherine Tanksley sentenced her to 12 months probation and 40 hours of community service, suspended the fines, and according to the Atlanta Journal Constitution, gave her a choice between accepting that sentence or having a new trial.
A few outlets, including the AJC and the Marietta Patch, are reporting that Nelson will continue to fight these charges and seek a new trial.
In case you haven’t been following, Raquel Nelson is an Atlanta mother who was convicted of vehicular homicide when a hit-and-run driver killed her youngest son while she was crossing a street with her three children from a bus stop to her apartment complex. Read our initial post here.
Almost 140,000 people signed a petition asking the judge for leniency (and for Cobb County to install a crosswalk) in the case. The judge mentioned that she had gotten letters and petitions from across the state and the country. And several letters the defense received were read on Nelson’s behalf.
We’re elated for Raquel Nelson and her family that she won’t receive any jail time or be taken away from her other two children, but continue to be astounded that she was convicted for vehicular manslaughter in the first place. We’ll have more information and a detailed post soon. Should she seek a new trial and keep fighting? Should she be pardoned and cleared of all charges instead?
Check #RaquelNelson for updates on twitter.
Today’s Headlines – 7/26/11
July 26, 2011By Transportation for America
Georgian Raquel Nelson faces a sentence today six times longer than the time served by the driver whose car struck her son. (CNN)
A government default would likely put the brakes on infrastructure projects. (Transpo Issues Daily)
President Obama struck a centrist tone while Boehner veered right in their speeches on the debt ceiling last night, E.J. Dionne wrote. (WP)
With 4,000 workers furloughed, Secretary Ray LaHood is pushing Congress to restore FAA funding. (The Hill)
Key House Chairman John Mica made the case against a national infrastructure bank. (Roll Call)
And, Chicago now has its first protected bike lane. (AP)
Raquel Nelson tells her story on Today; sentencing tomorrow
July 25, 2011By David Goldberg
This morning Raquel Nelson got to tell a little of her own story on national television, thanks to a Today show piece, embedded below. The Georgia mom faces sentencing tomorrow of up to 36 months in jail on charges of vehicular homicide in the death of her son, who was killed by a hit-and-run driver as Nelson and her three kids crossed a five-lane road.
Despite the enormous pressure she must be feeling, she was poised and articulate. Listening to her, it was hard to imagine the horror that this past year has been for her, to lose a child and then be faced with such a heartless prosecution.
“You’re always going to relive the moment. It’s hard to explain if you’ve never been through something like this. But you can’t let it dictate what you do. When I’m at work I have to push it away. … My other two daughters are the only way I could have survived this situation, giving me a reason to push forward.”
We were a little disappointed that the Today piece did not give viewers a better picture of the conditions that Nelson and her children faced that day in April 2010. Ken Edelstein of Green Building Chronicle in Atlanta helps to fill that gap with this video he sent us a little while ago:
Today’s Headlines – 7/25/11
July 25, 2011By Transportation for America
The conviction of Raquel Nelson, whose son was struck and killed by car as they crossed the street, received continued coverage. (Streetsblog Capitol Hill, South Cobb Patch, Sightline Daily)
Bipartisan debt ceiling talks faltered yesterday, with House and Senate leaders now working on separate proposals. (The Hill)
U.S. mayors are concerned about how default would impact cities. (WSJ)
This weekend’s partial Federal Aviation Administration shutdown resulted in 4,000 furloughs and halted dozens of construction projects. (AP)
Complete Streets will make the city stronger, the Billings Gazette editorialized. (Gazette)
And, a Winston-Salem woman is fighting the city’s transportation department over injuries sustained on a crowded bus. (Winston-Salem Journal)
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February 7, 2012 - T4 coalition announces opposition to House energy and transportation bill
February 6, 2012 - House committee ignores broad opposition, decimates transit funding anyway
February 3, 2012
- The more they see, the less they like: 10 reasons why opposition to the House transportation bill is growing
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