NATIONAL NEWS

NY Times: Transit-Plan Prescription for Disappearing Detroit
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/08/arts/television/08blueprint.html
The biggest jolt in “Blueprint America: Beyond the Motor City” comes as the director of Madrid’s subway and light-rail system talks about the importance of infrastructure. (Maybe “jolt” is too strong.) Discussing Spain’s ambitious high-speed rail system, he says countries that neglect their infrastructure experience “a slow decline in importance and their weight in the world.” Cut to Detroit’s imposing Michigan Central Station, sitting in abandoned, broken-windowed splendor. It doesn’t look like decline — it looks like whatever comes next.

EDF: T4's Plan to Create Half a Million Green Jobs
http://blogs.edf.org/transportation/2010/02/04/t4s-plan-to-create-half-a-million-green-jobs/
Earlier today the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) released a report, The Labor Market Impact of Transportation for America’s Jobs Plan, which models Transportation for America’s (T4's) jobs proposal. The $34.3 billion proposal, focusing predominately on Fix-it-First transportation infrastructure repair and public transportation, would create 480,000 jobs.  These jobs would help out Americans who need it most. Low-wage workers, including workers without college or high school degrees, would benefit the most from this jobs package. In fact, 70% of these jobs would help Americans without college degrees.

STATE NEWS

Crain's Detroit Business: Can transportation funding get traction?
http://www.crainsdetroit.com/article/20100207/SUB01/302079969/1068#
New action is emerging in Michigan's long-simmering discussions over transportation funding. But how far newly proposed fuel tax increases and other proposals move down the road is an open question.

Denver Post: Towns' water and sewer needs are booming, but budgets, not so much
http://www.denverpost.com/headlines/ci_14337843#ixzz0exO0V9Ch
A new coalition of civic, business and environmental leaders is warning that Colorado's water and sewer needs are still growing, but the budgets to get the projects done are not.  WIN-Colorado, an acronym for Water Infrastructure Network, says the unfunded tab for projects statewide has grown $1 billion over two years to $4.3 billion, despite an infusion of infrastructure money from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act last year.