Stories worth reading – July 30, 2015

Good afternoon. Here are a few curated stories we’re reading and talking about this week.

First, did you catch these stories from the T4A blog:

Senate’s DRIVE Act Bypasses America’s Cities and Towns
From the T4A blog
While we’re thankful that the Senate has finally moved beyond short-term extensions and toward the multi-year funding certainty needed by states and cities to see their ambitious plans come to life, the final product needs to do much more. We look forward to working to improve it as the House drafts their bill and Congress seeks consensus on a multi-year transportation authorization bill before the recently-extended MAP-21 expires on October 29.”

Amendment to provide stable funding for TIGER program has a long list of Senate co-sponsors
From the T4A blog
In the week before tomorrow’s final vote on the Senate’s three-year transportation bill, Senator Patty Murray’s (D-WA) amendment to enshrine the TIGER program’s funding into law picked up at least 27 co-sponsors. The TIGER program represents one of the few ways local communities can directly access federal funds for their local priority projects.

Headlines

The old suburban office park is the new American ghost town
The Washington Post
There are 71.5 million square feet of vacant office space in the Washington region, much of it piled in office parks. That’s enough emptiness to fill the Mall four times over, with just enough left to fill most of the Pentagon, the granddaddy of office buildings. If office space was a commodity, we would make a killing by selling our excess in bulk to San Francisco, where it’s so scarce and costly, according to Quartz, that start-up employees are starting to work in shopping malls.

Aging Infrastructure Plagues Nation’s Busiest Rail Corridor
The New York Times
The [Northeast] corridor’s ridership has doubled in the last 30 years even as its old and overloaded infrastructure of tracks, power lines, bridges and tunnels has begun to wear out. And with Amtrak and local transit agencies struggling for funding, many fear the disruptions will continue to worsen in the years ahead.

“Uber now spends more on lobbyists in California than Wal-Mart, Bank of America or Wells Fargo.”
The Los Angeles Times
The stakes for Uber are high. Having to treat drivers like employees would pose huge costs and headaches for a company that says it only manages a smartphone app — and could dramatically affect the start-up’s estimated $40-billion valuation. Turning over troves of ride data could lead to even bigger headaches, opening the door to intense regulatory scrutiny of issues such as worker hours, traffic violations, accommodations for the disabled and service in impoverished neighborhoods.

As Congress delays, mayors across the country are taking transportation funding into their owns hands
The Modesto Bee/Associated Press
As Congress considers a long-awaited transportation funding bill, some Republican governors as well as Democrats say they aren’t waiting to raise or borrow money to fix or build roads, bridges and highways.

Rising fear of car hackers sparks action in Washington
The Hill
Cars are not safe from hackers. That’s what two security researchers showed this week when they commandeered a car from 10 miles away, forcing it off the road. The demonstration, profiled in a Wired article, caught fire and made the rounds among federal agencies, Capitol Hill and automakers. It brought fresh attention to long simmering worries, prompting lawmakers and the auto industry to scramble to get ahead of the looming threat.

Valley Metro: Development along light rail tops $8 billion
Phoenix Business Journal
Development driven by light rail now tops $8.2 billion, with nearly $5 billion in Phoenix alone along the 20-mile route, according to data compiled by Valley Metro and announced today by a coterie of local mayors. Almost $6 billion was put into play by the private sector, with an additional $2.2 billion from public sector development.

T4A in the news

Expanding mass transit in St. Louis calls for unified demand and diversified funding
St. Louis Public Radio
The first priority for expanding mass transit needs to be a regional decision about what project to put forward, said Beth Osborne at the St. Louis Regional Chamber Thursday. Osborne is a senior policy advisor for a nonprofit research group, Transportation for America, and author of the finance study.