Briefs

Ronald L 'Ron' Freeland, former chief executive of Maryland Transportation Authority (MdTA) the state toll agency is now on the Parsons Brinckerhoff payroll as a Principal Consultant. 

Confidex, an international supplier of specialty RFID tags is making moves to sell 6C toll tags in the North American market. It has completed OmniAir certification of its tags which it will offer in partnership with Impinj.

Barry Mickle, North Carolina Turnpike Authority acting executive director and head of operations has left to take a job at AECOM engineers. NCTA is being merged into the NC Department of Transportation so it is unclear if the executive director position is needed.

Mickle had been acting ED since David Joyner left.

Every day I get one or two, sometimes as many five or six "Join my network…" emails about LinkedIn or FaceBook. Some are from people I know, or know of, others are from strangers. I delete them all.  

There are  so many of them I have just assumed they are automatically generated by some matching algorithm deployed by these companies to expand their networks.

A marketing contrivance!

If anyone has personally invited me to their network I want to apologize for ignoring their invitation.

Pennsylvania governor Tom Corbett is proposing an 80%+ increase in the state gasoline and diesel tax from the present 32c/gallon to nearly 59c/gallon in 2018. Artfully calling it not a tax increase but "Uncapping the Oil Company Franchise Tax"  the proposed measure would raise the tax on motor fuels an average of just over 5c/year over the next five years.

The environmentalist movement is regarded by most as a kind of well-meaning special interest group that tends to carry issues too far. It needs to have its extremism curbed, but is essentially benign. Unfortunately it's not benign, it's on the dark side.

No-toll-increase groups are wising up to the doubletalk of opportunistic local pols! Republican state Delegate Joe May from the Leesburg area takes the prize for having it every which way gets him good press at the time.

Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell has told key legislators he's prepared to kill plans to toll southern I-95 in return for support for his plan to increase the state sales tax 16% and to increase motor registration fees to fund handouts to free or lossmaking transportation projects.

McDonnell also wants to abolish the state gasoline tax.

Listening to Mike Proudfoot CEO of TI Corp expound on the value of the toll-financed $3 billion Port Mann Bridge H1 highway upgrade in Vancouver BC made us think someone should compile a list of Champion Toll Promoters.

Your editor is traveling to Vancouver BC to see the Port Mann Bridge toll system, courtesy the system integrator Sanef ITS.

No more postings this week - editor

TOLLROADSnews 2013-01-30