The Federal Highway Administration plans to consider short-term exceptions to the fair market value (FMV) requirement for the temporary use of sidewalks and public parking areas in the highway right-of-way as additional restaurant seating or retail space; an initiative aimed at supporting state efforts to safely reopen their economies while adhering to COVID-19 social distancing […]

The Federal Highway Administration has extended the deadline for submission of Surface Transportation System Funding Alternatives or STSFA grants from June 15 to July 10. [Above photo by the Georgia DOT.] That grant money comes through a notice of funding opportunity for the STSFA program FHWA issued in August 2019 that provided a total pool of […]

In a letter to Congress on May 26, Amtrak requested an additional $1.475 billion in supplemental funding needed fiscal year 2021 so the national passenger rail operator can maintain minimum service levels across its network and continue with planned capital investments in spite of severe ridership declines due to the COVID-19 pandemic. [Above photo by Amtrak.] This is in addition […]

The Federal Railroad Administration disbursed $302.6 million in grants via its State of Good Repair Program to fund 12 projects in nine states. [Above photo via Wikimedia Commons.] The FRA noted this program funds capital projects to repair, replace, or rehabilitate publicly- or Amtrak-owned or -controlled railroad assets, to reduce the state of good repair […]

The Federal Transit Administration made two pools of grant funds available on May 28; one to support transit services for American Indian tribes and Alaska Native villages in rural areas and the other to support the development of “innovative technologies and designs” for improving the state of good repair for transit agencies. [Above photo by […]

The U.S. Department of Transportation and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security plan to provide 15.5 million cloth facial coverings to transportation workers across the United States. [Above photo by the Maryland Transit Administration.] Those facial coverings – secured by the Federal Emergency Management Agency – will be sent out over the coming weeks through […]

The National Transportation Safety Board and state department of transportation across the country are calling on motorists to practice highway safety with the same sense of responsibility they applied to reducing the spread of the COVID-19 as the country reopens. [Above photo by the Oklahoma DOT.] While it is too early to tell what will happen […]

The Federal Highway Administration released a video on May 7 touting the benefits of “Integrated Corridor Management,” which is a surface transportation strategy that targets major highway congestion events, such as truck overturns, chemical spills and multi-vehicle crashes. The vision of Integrated Corridor Management or ICM is to improve the efficient movement of people and […]

SAE International endorsed a “framework” for describing Advanced Driver Assistance Systems or ADAS technology developed by AAA, Consumer Reports, J.D. Power and the National Safety Council on May 12. That framework – a two-page document called Clearing the Confusion: Recommended Common Naming for Advanced Driver Assistance Technologies originally issued in November 2019 – clearly explains […]

A new survey of 1,200 American adults sponsored by Partners for Automated Vehicle Education or PAVE finds most continue to be “wary” of fully autonomous vehicles (AVs) – with that “skepticism and mistrust” rooted in a lack of knowledge about and exposure to AVs, rather than specific incidents such as the 2018 crash of an […]