Complaints about Louisiana's roads and bridges are usually loudest in the places where drivers find themselves sitting in stand-still traffic. But those infrastructure concerns don't stop in the cities. The state's aging system of roads and bridges is putting a pinch on Louisiana’s largest industry — agriculture. On a wet and foggy morning, 90 days into harvest, the flow of trucks into the Louisiana Sugarcane Cooperative is constant. Mike Melancon has been growing sugarcane f

WASHINGTON — Recommendations for upgrading the nation's public works that a bipartisan group of House lawmakers released this week underscore the difficult budget math Congress will face coming up with the money for any eventual White House infrastructure plan. The Problem Solvers Caucus, a group of 48 lawmakers, outlined their recommendations in a report issued Wednesday. Reps. John Katko, a New York Republican, and Elizabeth Esty, a Connecticut Democrat, led a caucus workin

President Trump urged Congress to bring back lawmaker-sponsored project "earmarks" and use them to build support for legislation, at a time his administration is weighing how and when to roll out a long-delayed infrastructure investment plan. Trump made his earmark comments during a White House session with members of Congress from both parties to negotiate an immigration issue that is holding up budget talks. But the congressionally designated appropriations for individual p

Despite Gov. Rick Scott turning down $2 billion in funding in 2011 from the Obama administration to create a high-speed rail line between Tampa and Orlando, super fast train service is about to make its debut in the Sunshine State. All Aboard Florida, a wholly owned subsidiary of Florida East Coast Industries, has built Brightline, a new South/Central Florida rail line utilizing specially built diesel-electric locomotives and rail cars. Tickets went on sale Thursday morning f

A state transportation panel has dropped a plan to eventually add a pair of toll lanes to Interstate 35 from San Antonio to Austin, removing it and every other proposed tollway from its 10-year, $70 billion outline of 15 major road projects. The stretch of I-35 in Central Texas is annually listed among the most congested in the nation. The 5-0 vote Thursday by the Texas Transportation Commission illustrated how the state’s political system continues to eliminate options to de

Legislative sessions are almost always about the money — how much is available, and who is going to get it. The next session of the Texas Legislature will have the usual suspects in line —school finance, border security, pensions, etc. — but a new entry will be at the front of the line. His name is Harvey. This year’s regular and special legislative sessions were marked by financial wrangling, and by some analysts’ reckoning, lawmakers dug their successors a deep hole. The Te

Dive Brief: Costs for the 119-mile stretch of a high-speed rail line planned through California's Central Valley are $1.7 billion higher than expected, so far, at $8 billion, according to the Los Angeles Times, citing a June report that was recently made public. The California High-Speed Rail Authority (CHSRA) said the overruns are due to the increasing cost of land acquisition, the need to move underground utilities and discussions with freight rail companies around logistic

President Trump’s point person in his push for deregulation has sent regulatory officers at all agencies instructions to submit a budget for fiscal 2018 that produces “a net reduction in total incremental regulatory costs.” In a Sept. 7 memo, Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs Administrator Neomi Rao called on agencies to plan implementation of Trump’s executive orders on easing regulatory burdens by better controlling regulatory cost allowances. The director of the

Americans who travel abroad sometimes wonder why many of our airports are lacking in comparison to the best international airports. Or they want to know why other nations seem to do a better job with public transportation and the management of other public assets, from ports to parks. The answers we are tempted to give are that we do not invest as heavily in public infrastructure as many other nations and that a market-oriented American ethos with an entrepreneurial culture p

Like a growing number of cities, Austin, Texas, is getting ready for the arrival of autonomous vehicles. On any given afternoon, self-driving test models can be seen darting along a Formula One race track. More than 500 electric vehicle charging stations are already spread throughout the city. (Autonomous cars are expected to utilize electric drivetrains.) In March, the city council adopted a resolution prioritizing plans for self-driving vehicles. Austin’s transportation dir