NATIONAL NEWS

JOC: President Expected to Award Rail Grants Thursday
http://www.joc.com/node/416301
...Earlier reports suggested the announcement might come this week. During an appearance Tuesday at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood was asked if the grants would be awarded Thursday. LaHood did not answer directly, but said they would come “soon, very soon.”

DC Streetsblog: Senate Weighs $14B for Roads, $7.5B for Transit in Jobs Bill
http://dc.streetsblog.org/2010/01/26/senate-weighs-14b-for-roads-7-5b-for-transit-in-jobs-bill/
Senate Democrats huddled behind closed doors this afternoon to assess their options for a new job-creation bill, with one option of around $80 billion making headlines even second-ranked leader Dick Durbin (D-IL) warned that no details are set in stone.  But as Democrats debate the wisdom of tax credits for new hiring and clean energy production, the bill's infrastructure spending provisions could be subject to less tweaking. So what do they look like?  A knowledgeable source tells Streetsblog Capitol Hill that the jobs bill outline currently under consideration in the Senate includes $14 billion for roads and $7.5 billion for transit.

NY Streetsblog: How Would Mr. Spock Design U.S. Transportation Policy?
http://www.streetsblog.org/2010/01/26/how-would-mr-spock-design-u-s-transportation-policy/
If U.S. transportation policy was a species from "Star Trek," you'd have to go with the Tribble: lacking any discernible purpose except to reproduce the same form with suffocating regularity. The result is a transportation network marked by car-dependence, exorbitant gas consumption, and high rates of crash-related injuries and death.  Would logical transportation policies have allowed New York's Champlain Bridge to deteriorate so badly it had to be demolished? What if our planning decisions had some Spock-caliber logic behind them instead? Some of the New York area's leading transportation officials and advocates gathered at NYU's Rudin Center yesterday to talk about the practical and political hurdles of adopting a purposeful transportation policy based on goals and measurable data.

STATE NEWS

SF Chronicle: Federal loan to help start Transbay center work
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/01/26/MNAK1BNOJD.DTL
A $171 million federal loan to help build a cutting-edge replacement for San Francisco's Transbay Terminal will keep construction plans on track, officials said, even as they wait to hear if they will receive $400 million in federal stimulus funds for a project expected to create 48,000 jobs.

Mlive.com: Michigan gas tax hike proposed to secure federal highway aid
http://www.mlive.com/politics/index.ssf/2010/01/michigan_gax_tax_hike_proposed.html
Michigan’s per-gallon gas tax would jump from 19 cents to 23 cents this year, and then to 27 cents in 2013, under a measure that seeks to avoid the loss of more than $2 billion in federal highway aid for state and local roads over the next five years.

AJC: Is metro commute nearing a change?
http://www.ajc.com/news/georgia-politics-elections/is-metro-commute-nearing-284435.html?cxtype=rss_news_128746
If metro Atlanta someday wakes up with regional mass transit, tolerable traffic and less sprawl, historians may point back to this month as a turning point... “We have no choice but to invest in transportation infrastructure in this state if we’re going to be the kind of state we want to be in the future,” Perdue said in his announcement, citing the study. “That’s clear, it’s compelling.”

Chicago Tribune: Privatize Illinois' tollways? Voters say no
www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chicago/ct-met-0126-tollway-poll-20100125,0,6256936.story
Politicians who hope to gain traction with voters by urging that the Illinois Tollway be leased to a private company might want to rethink their strategy.  By overwhelming numbers, Republican and Democratic voters alike oppose privatization of the tollway system and believe it would lead to higher tolls, according to a Tribune/WGN-TV poll.  The statewide poll of likely primary voters, conducted Jan. 16 to 20, shows Democrats opposing privatization 72 percent to 14 percent, with 13 percent undecided. Republicans oppose the idea 65 percent to 16 percent, with 19 percent undecided.  Why? Among Democrats, 71 percent say tolls are certain to increase if the tollway is leased to a private company; 68 percent of Republicans feel the same way.

DC Streetsblog: Transit Cuts Add to Economic Distress in Ohio
http://dc.streetsblog.org/2010/01/27/transit-cuts-add-to-economic-distress-in-ohio/
A few weeks back, we told you about the dire situation for transit in Lorain County, Ohio, part of Greater Cleveland that's been hit hard by the recession. At that time, county officials were threatening to cut all bus service after voters rejected a sales tax increase that would have gone in part to fund transit operations. A redeployment of unused stimulus funds managed to rescue a skeleton of the former service, but the remaining cutbacks are still painful -- as was noted by President Obama in his visit to Lorain County last week.