NATIONAL NEWS

DC Streetsblog: White House and Congress Take Issue With AP’s Transport Stimulus Claims
http://dc.streetsblog.org/2010/01/11/ap-story/
...Even transport reform advocates who found the stimulus bill something of a letdown emerged today to scratch their heads at the AP's work. Laura Barrett, executive director of the Transportation Equity Network, said in a statement:  In a perfect world, we could spend years constructing a perfectly efficient economic stimulus program. In the real world, people need jobs today. Most transportation jobs pay good wages and help build careers that lift families out of poverty. We need more transportation spending in the new jobs bill before Congress, not less — especially in the public transportation sector, which creates nearly twice as many jobs per dollar as road construction does, and helps protect our environment at the same time.

Infrastructurist: Update: TEN Responds to AP’s Claim That Transportation Stimulus Created Almost No Jobs
http://www.infrastructurist.com/2010/01/11/update-tes-responds-to-aps-claim-that-transportation-stimulus-created-almost-no-jobs/
Previously, we asked whether the first transportation stimulus was a bust, despite reports from the AP that it had resulted in virtually no change in unemployment rates. Now, the Transportation Equity Network has responded to the AP story... First, the story claims that stimulus spending on transportation infrastructure “has had no effect on local unemployment and only barely helped the beleaguered construction industry.” This is a misguided, apples-to-oranges comparison. Highway and road construction represents only a small percentage of the construction industry as a whole, and only a tiny percentage of the total national work force—0.2 percent—meaning that it cannot, on its own, be expected to transform unemployment trends.  Second, the story ignores decades of hard evidence about the jobs that transportation infrastructure spending creates—and fails even to mention the number of transportation-related jobs the stimulus has created or sustained: more than 210,000 direct, on-project jobs, plus another 420,000 indirect or induced jobs as of Oct. 31, 2009, according to the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.

Time: The (missing) road work/jobs connection
http://curiouscapitalist.blogs.time.com/2010/01/11/the-missing-road-workjobs-connection/?xid=rss-topstories
I've read through that headline-grabbing AP report on the impact of stimulus-funded road and bridge spending on employment about five times, and I'm still not entirely clear what the AP's reporters discovered. But I think it's this: That there was no correlation between the movement of county unemployment rates and the presence or absence of stimulus-related construction projects in each county.

USA Today: No Pants Day 2010: Subway riders strip down to their skivvies
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/popcandy/post/2010/01/no-pants-day-2010-subway-riders-strip-down-to-their-skivvies/1
Other bloggers may post pics of people in their underwear on a regular basis, but this is one of the few days of the year I'll do it.  Why? Because, as I mentioned this morning, scores of folks took part in a worldwide "No Pants Subway Ride" yesterday. The annual event was organized by Improv Everywhere and encouraged participants to shed their clothes on public transportation.

STATE NEWS

Reporter Herald: Sen. Bennet cites US’s deficient infrastructure, impact of stimulus
http://www.reporterherald.com/news_story.asp?id=26399
Saying the country needed to improve its infrastructure, U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet reviewed construction Tuesday on a Loveland interchange funded by federal stimulus funds...  “As a country, we are woefully behind in our infrastructure,” Bennet said. “We are going to have to figure out the right system to (fund) it.”

DC Streetsblog: Baltimore Rolls Out Free, Fully Funded Downtown Bus Service
http://dc.streetsblog.org/2010/01/12/baltimore-rolls-out-free-fully-funded/
Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon is on her way out of office, thanks to a deal with prosecutors pursuing a corruption case against her, but she's leaving something positive in place for local transit riders.  The city's new free bus line, dubbed the Charm City Circulator, started rolling through downtown yesterday after some delays, with plans to add two new lines as soon as this spring.  Baltimore, often viewed as the front lines in U.S. cities' battle with blight, chose to fund its bus with a move that would raise hackles in some of its Eastern seaboard neighbors: an increase in the parking tax.

Star Tribune: Funding change worries suburban transit systems
http://www.startribune.com/local/west/81106907.html?elr=KArksc8P:Pc:UHDaaDyiUiD3aPc:_Yyc:aUU
...After a year of meetings with the Metropolitan Council about bus purchases, fleet needs and transit funding, Simich, the chief executive officer of SouthWest Transit, says the regional planning agency is "over-regulating and micromanaging'' and pursuing policies that "tie our hands'' and undermine suburban transit success... Now, SouthWest, which serves Eden Prairie, Chaska and Chanhassen, can't afford to grow because of the way the Met Council is dividing state transit dollars, Simich said. "All the money flows through them, so they control us through the purse strings.'