Article source: http://feeds.stateline.org/~r/StatelineorgRss-Transportation/~3/nLn5b_GQLZc/news.php

All of South Florida’s highways and even some of its major roads may one day offer tolled express lanes if the recommendations of a study released Tuesday are carried out.

The study calls for adding toll lanes over the next 20 years. Offering a faster commute, the lanes would be similar to the current Interstate 95 express lanes in Miami-Dade County. Even some stretches of toll roads, such as Florida’s Turnpike, would get higher-priced premium lanes.

Tolled overpasses or underpasses would be built at 79 intersections on 14 major roads in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties, among them Broward Boulevard, Pines Boulevard and Southwest 10th Street in Broward; South Dixie Highway (U.S. 1) in Miami-Dade; and Glades Road and Boynton Beach Boulevard in Palm Beach County.

The study’s authors say toll lanes would give drivers a choice as well as boost mass transit by allowing rapid transit-style buses to run faster on major corridors.

“We’re reinforcing some of what the state is already doing and saying we can do a lot more,” said Robert Poole, lead author of the report and director of transportation at the Reason Foundation, a libertarian public policy think tank.

Poole will present the study at a Miami Chamber of Commerce transportation forum Wednesday that will include Gus Pego, secretary of the Florida Department of Transportation’s Miami district office, and Javier Rodriguez, executive director of the Miami-Dade Expressway Authority.

Officials are not bound to carry out anything in the proposal. But Poole, a Plantation resident who advocates road improvements and bus rapid transit over passenger rail, is one of Gov. Rick Scott’s transportation advisers and served on his transition team.

Jim Wolfe, secretary of the DOT’s district office in Fort Lauderdale, said the department is reviewing how tolls could be applied on roads that are not part of the expressway system.

Over the next 23 years, transportation agencies in South Florida plan to spend $58 billion on road and transit projects. Poole said his analysis shows rush-hour speeds will be 20 percent slower

Article source: http://feeds.stateline.org/~r/StatelineorgRss-Transportation/~3/-8eoslwAlWY/tolled-express-lanes-proposed.html

BY TOM HESTER SR.

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

The state Department of Transportation Friday announced 376 cities and towns will share $78.4 million in aid for street and public works improvements.

The bulk of the Local Aid grants were awarded under the Municipal Aid program, with 374 grants totaling $76,126,200, another 10 Local Aid Infrastructure grants worth $1,810,000 and 3 Safe Streets to Transit grants worth $500,000.

Competition is always robust for the aid with 57 percent of the 661 applications garnering the aid.

“The Christie administration strongly supports funding for Local Aid because it understands how important it is for government at all levels to provide safe streets and roads for motorists and pedestrians alike,” NJDOT Commissioner James Simpson said. “These grants advance local projects without placing a burden on local property taxpayers.”

Including the Municipal Aid grant awards announced Friday, the NJDOT will award approximately $193.5 million in state funds this year under several different Local Aid grant categories. An additional $101.2 in federally funded grants will bring the total value of the Local Aid grant program to $294.7 million.

Municipal governments maintain 29,408 centerline miles of streets and roads, or 74 percent of the statewide total. The Municipal Aid grant program covers a variety of projects, including road resurfacing and reconstruction projects. However, towns are encouraged to submit applications for projects that support safety, walking and biking and streetscape improvements. A total of 8.5 percent of the projects selected for Municipal Aid funding are of that type.

“New Jersey’s Local Aid program provides significant support to municipalities throughout the state,” Bill Dressel Jr., New Jersey League of Municipalities director, said. “Now more than ever, alternate revenues other than property taxes are needed and appreciated by mayors and residents alike.”

Under the Municipal Aid grant program, each county is apportioned a share of the total funding based on population, the number of local centerline miles and other factors, and municipalities compete for portions of their county’s share. NJDOT provides 75 percent of the grant amount when a town awards a contract and the remaining 25 percent upon completion of the project.

To learn how much aid your city or town is

Article source: http://feeds.stateline.org/~r/StatelineorgRss-Transportation/~3/6etBYDippJU/njdot-awards-784m-for-road-repair-mass-transit-pedestrian-safety-improvements

Gov. Chris Gregoire signed a transportation budget with nearly $800 million in new spending Friday but vetoed a section that called for a study of the State Patrol’s radio upgrade.

The patrol is cutting down on its use of the radio spectrum to comply with a federal “narrowbanding” deadline of Jan. 1, 2013, while also upgrading to digital technology and buying Motorola Solutions radios that will allow it to use a federal law-enforcement network.

Rep. Reuven Carlyle said the $40 million project wasn’t properly vetted before the Legislature approved the money last year, and he called for more study. But fellow Democrat Gregoire rejected that idea, saying in her veto message that there’s no money for it and that external review has already taken place.

The radio study was among several elements Gregoire nixed before approving the remainder of the transportation budget, which includes new and increased fees on drivers and vehicle dealers, including an 80 percent increase in the cost of a driver’s license and a $100 annual fee on electric cars.

The new money in the two-year, $9.8 billion budget approved last year is a far cry from the $3.6 billion increase in transportation funding over the next decade that Gregoire called for in January.

“I congratulate the Legislature for doing what they could do this year,” the governor said. “But let me be clear. Tomorrow we’re going to have to step up to this challenge as a state.”

New fees will raise $240 million in the next three years, with much of the money going to the state ferry system. Shipyards will be able to start work in December on a new 144-car ferry, Democrats said.

The rest of the new money will be spread among several uses, including the potential state Route 167 extension to the Port of Tacoma, which gets a modest $3 million for planning. Another $5.9 million in planning money goes to studies of six congested Interstate 5 interchanges in Thurston and Pierce counties near Joint Base Lewis-McChord.

RADIO UPGRADE

The supplemental budget includes $9.5 million for the State Patrol over the next year, including money for an extra class of

Article source: http://feeds.stateline.org/~r/StatelineorgRss-Transportation/~3/G6L-7S5R58s/transportation-budget-loses-items.html

A Vermont Superior Court judge has rejected the latest legal challenge to the breath testing equipment used to determine whether drivers are under the influence of alcohol.

Judge Robert Bent in Newport ruled the so-called Datamaster DMT — which measures the alcohol in a human being — was properly approved under Vermont Health Department regulations in 2010 by then-Commissioner Wendy Davis.

Bent turned down a motion to exclude the breath alcohol tests against 18 criminal defendants in Orleans County. They are represented by St. Johnsbury lawyer David Sleigh, who lost a similar battle in Washington County in September 2011.

Sleigh said Sunday that he was disappointed by how the Health Department gave the approval.

“It was a casual conversation between a lawyer and a soon-to-be-retired state employee,” Sleigh said.

Bent in his 6 1/2 page single-spaced decision, said the steps taken in 2010 by Davis and her deputy, Dixie Henry, were proper.

Henry was the assistant attorney general assigned to the department in 2006 when the approval was initially given for a similar machine known as the Datamaster BAC.

Robert Drawbaugh, who supervised the breath alcohol testing program from the mid-1980s until he retired in August 2010, had found the DMT model had met all the performance criteria, Bent said.

As Drawbaugh retired, Essex County State’s Attorney Vince Illuzzi Jr. requested the Health Department issue a new certification to cover the DMT model. Defense lawyers were filing pre-trial motions trying to exclude the breath tests because they believed the new equipment had not been properly certified as required by law, Illuzzi said.

“The Health Department got my email and reviewed everything and concluded it was identical for both machines,” Illuzzi told the Burlington Free Press on Sunday.

That did not stop the defense bar from filing more motions to exclude breath tests. He credited Orleans County Deputy State’s Attorney Kirk Williams and Washington County State’s Attorney Tom Kelly with taking the lead in the courtroom battle.

“The point is the Datamaster DMT uses the identical technology that was used in the older Datamaster BAC,” Illuzzi said. He said prosecutors in all 14 counties were concerned that an adverse ruling would

Article source: http://feeds.stateline.org/~r/StatelineorgRss-Transportation/~3/-DkVYQqwcG0/DUI-testing-Vermont