Government

Trucking industry jobs declined by 1,400 in June as overall payrolls rose by 222,000, the Labor Department reported July 7.

Under legislation signed by Gov. Jerry Brown in April, California motorists will start paying higher gas and diesel taxes in November to provide funding for, among other state transportation projects, reducing the backlog of road and bridge repairs.

New guidelines for manufacturers, transportation agencies, and industry executives on the development and deployment of automated technology will be unveiled as early as this fall on Capitol Hill and at the U.S. Department of Transportation, lawmakers and senior administration officials announced recently.

Donald Trump’s election as U.S. president sparked warnings of damaging trade wars and an end to globalization as we know it. So far, those predictions haven’t played out.

A decision by federal trucking regulators to adopt sweeping recommendations of an elite academic panel’s study assessing the way truckers are safety-rated has been mostly well received by the industry; yet some truckers admit they are a bit baffled by the complex “item response theory,” or IRT, approach to revamp the federal Compliance, Safety, Accountability program.

As they approach the legislative calendar’s halfway point, Republicans have been unable to carve a path forward for President Donald Trump’s multiyear infrastructure funding plan, despite their control of the U.S. House and Senate.

The deadline to submit applications for new federal infrastructure grants is Nov. 2, the U.S. Department of Transportation has announced.

The joints had been fixed and fresh asphalt laid over 40-year-old concrete on Interstate 94 between downtown Minneapolis and Brooklyn Center. But before traffic even started to roll over the new multimillion-dollar freeway, the pavement buckled in five places from the 90-degree June heat, leading to higher costs and more delays.

Years of pleas from parents whose son was killed by a speeding tractor-trailer, buy-in from some truckers and the promise of fewer highway deaths convinced U.S. officials in September to propose requiring speed-limiting devices on all large rigs.

TT Managing Editor Lorrie Grant chats with government reporters Eugene Mulero and Eric Miller to recap the year so far in congressional and regulatory news that impact trucking, and looks ahead at the final six months. (Joseph Terry/Transport Topics)