pork
AASHTO prez/MsDOT chief Brown says frustration, not booze, led to name-calling LaHood
By Peter Samuel on November 8, 2010Lawrence (aka Larry, Butch) Brown AASHTO prez/Mississippi DOT chief is saying frustration, not booze, led to his dissing of LaHood - that produced an extraordinary reprimand from federal Highway administrator Victor Mendez in New Orleans recently. see: http://www.tollroadsnews.com/node/4967
Bill to make Oklahoma Turnpike give free rides to non-emergency ambulance & fire and off-duty cops
By Peter Samuel on February 12, 2010
Oklahoma Turnpike Authority would be required by law to exempt "emergency vehicles" from tolls under a bill proceeding through the Oklahoma House of Representatives. The bill HR2533 also bars tolls on police even when not on duty.
Mass Pike "tourism" pork cut - pols defied by CEO LeBovidge
By Peter Samuel on August 17, 2008
For more than a decade the Turnpike Authority has been a regular dispenser of political pork in Massachusetts. Each year since 1996 for example under the guise of tourist promotion it has provided scores of handouts to groups around the state. By Washington DC pork standards the Boston pork has been pretty trivial - tens of thousands from Beacon Hill compared to multi-millions from Capitol Hill.
The Turnpike Authority's tourism grant program is required by law to be:
West Virginia Turnpike legislated to hand out $100k/year to Republican leader's favorite horse park
By Peter Samuel on March 6, 2008
West Virginia pols must be among the country's most shameless favor traders to do business in any state Capitol. Loud in their denunciations of the state's Turnpike authority for the condition of the Turnpike, and louder against any move to raise tolls - they've remained the same in depreciating dollars since 1981 - they nevertheless continue to find inventive new off-road uses for the Turnpike's revenues.
Mass Turnpike chiefs calling for legislators to cut pork
By Peter Samuel on February 1, 2008$500k must be spent on the Turnpike west of MA128/I-95 and $250k east of it in the Boston suburbs. The AP reports that the money has gone for pedestrian walks, websites, tourist promotion, visitor bureaus, performing arts, and tourist branding campaigns.
Center for Instrumented Critical Infrastructure - Murthamoney
By Peter Samuel on September 10, 2007
The Center for Instrumented Critical Infrastructure (CICI) sounds like an outfit that would promote sensors built into roads and bridges and might be of interest to tollroads. Tollroads are leaders in road instrumentation - with electromagnetic and fiberoptic loops in the pavement, light curtains in toll lanes, laser and optical profilers overhead, radar detection and tracking of vehicles, weigh in motion gear, pavement modules to predict icing, weather stations, video surveillance, and more.
Governor working to strip WV Turnpike of pork
By Peter Samuel on April 16, 2007In the past year there has been mounting criticism of financial mess made by the authority's decade and a half long involvement in tourism and economic development - political euphemisms for putting money into marginal business projects most of which turn out to be lossmakers.
