Economics

Comparing the falloff in state tax revenue to shifts in total unemployment. (Chart: Moody’s) Credit-rating agencies — particularly Moody’s and S&P, the nation’s two premier shops — wield significant influence over the financial health of private companies. But state and local officials are often equally dependent on good credit ratings to borrow money for transportation … Continued

The freight rail industry yesterday claimed the top three awards in the Obama administration's competition for $1.5 billion in TIGER stimulus grants, with Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood singling out train shippers for an online shout-out:

Homeowners in car-dependent areas without access to alternative transportation are at greater risk of foreclosure, according to a report released yesterday by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) that calls for mortgage underwriting standards to begin taking so-called "location-efficiency" into account.

The U.S. Conference of Mayors released a report this week with some dire conclusions for the nation's cities: Even the payroll growth that many prognosticators anticipate this year won't make a dent in double-digit urban unemployment. Half of the 363 biggest metro areas won't return to their pre-recession jobs levels until 2013 or beyond.

The claim to a link between economic growth and vehicle mileage -- that, in other words, auto travel is essential to keeping U.S. productivity high -- remains controversial and much-debated in transportation policy circles.

Washington transportation policymaking can often resemble an unwieldy soup of anywhere between 50 and 535 local perspectives, as lawmakers from different states and districts vie for a fixed (or even shrinking) amount of federal funding.

That's the implication buried in a roundup of dismal news from urban transit agencies that ran in Saturday's Wall Street Journal. After noting the overall ridership decreases tallied by APTA and the specter of punitive service cuts in many cities, the newspaper noted:

Transportation reformers and status quo-lovers alike smacked their foreheads in frustration when the White House's first stimulus plan lowballed infrastructure to make room for tax breaks that had little demonstrable effect on job creation -- particularly the $70 billion adjustment of the alternative minimum tax (AMT).

Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell (D), who is in Washington today continuing his push for a "front-loaded" federal transportation bill, told Streetsblog Capitol Hill that he sees momentum building for a National Infrastructure Bank (NIB) to be created as part of the jobs bill now moving forward in Congress.