Transportation Secretary Foxx scheduled to speak at council on foreign relations
Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx was scheduled to speak at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, D.C. on March 16.
The secretary, there to discuss his agenda, conversed about the Department of Transportation’s “Beyond Traffic” report. .”Traffic” is a 30-year outlook on transportation which includes a study that claims that trucks lose $27 billion on wasted time and fuel, noting that the country’s freight system is increasingly insufficient to meet the needs of the population and a changing economy.
Foxx also was scheduled to highlight the report at a forum hosted by National Journal Magazine March 19.
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Ohio Democrat leads four in urging Obama to work on road bill
Representatives Tim Ryan, D-Ohio, Peter DeFazio. D-Oregon, and Rosa DeLauro, D-Connecticut, called for President Barack Obama to focus on getting a multi-year highway bill passed before working on a trade agenda in a letter to the President of the United States.
“There are 70,000 bridges in the United States that are considered to be structurally deficient,” Ryan said in a statement issued by his office. “This is an opportunity to put hundreds of thousands of Americans back to work to improve our country’s infrastructure. There is no doubt it will cost more if we wait. This should be President Obama’s priority — and needs to be completed instead of a controversial and damaging trade agreement.”
The letter urged the president to handle the situation with the nation’s roads first.
“We believe it is imperative for you to focus your efforts on passing a long overdue surface transportation bill before turning your attention to a controversial trade agenda that divides Congress,” the four Democrats wrote. “America requires a robust transportation infrastructure to compete in the global economy. Around the country our crumbling roads, bridges, railroads and sewer systems urgently need improvements and repairs. India and China spend 7 to 9 percent of their GDP on infrastructure. We spend approximately 2 percent. If we want to remain the world’s leader in innovation, we need a safe and efficient surface transportation network in the United States.”
The current surface transportation legislation was scheduled to expire on Oct. 1, 2014, but Congress passed an extension that delayed the expiration through May 31, 2015.
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FMSCSA announces new smartphone app with safety data
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA), part of the U.S. Department of Transportation, released a smartphone app that will allow users more convenient access to online safety performance information for interstate truck and bus companies.
The app is expected to become a tool that can be used by state and federal law enforcement personnel, insurers, brokers, freight-forwarders, an others who have an interest in reviewing the U.S. Department of Transportation registration and safety performance information of motor carriers. Law enforcement personnel and commercial motor vehicle safety inspectors currently use custom software to log into national safety databases to learn safety information on interstate truck and bus companies.
Officials retrieving data from many different FMCSA sources and offering results summaries, law enforcement personnel can also retrieving more detailed carrier information covering their seven Behavior Analysis and Safety Improvement Categories (BASICs), which are a part Compliance, Safety, Accountability (CSA), part of the FMCSA’s safety program.
The FMCSA is currently working on a plan to implement the Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act (MAP-21), and on advancing safety initiatives such as the CSA program. CSA is designed to further reduce accidents, and the severity of those accidents, involving large trucks and buses, by providing law enforcement personnel, motor carriers, and professional truck and bus drivers with important safety information and triggering certain processes to implement corrective action.
The QCMobile app is available for Apple and Android devices through the iTunes App Store and Google Play.
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