Government

WASHINGTON — Enhancing transportation technologies and establishing partnerships with investors to finance large-scale infrastructure projects are ideal ways for cash-strapped cities to boost their economies, Oklahoma City Mayor Mick Cornett told a group of transportation observers here Nov. 14.

During the Obama years, most conservatives were against fiscal stimulus and most liberals were for it. Now that President-elect Donald Trump has proposed a major boost in government spending, many commentators will feel urges to migrate to the opposite positions.

Two months and three days after Michigan’s Senate unanimously passed a bill allowing truck platooning in the state, the House followed suit Nov. 10.

The U.S. House will be prepared to craft legislation next year that would provide long-term infrastructure funding for freight and commuter corridors around the country, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said Nov. 13.

In the aftermath of Donald Trump’s win, trucking and transportation industry executives saw the president-elect’s bullish interest in modernizing the country’s infrastructure as a glass-half-full.

Voters in Illinois and New Jersey approved lockboxes for transportation funding while those in Washington State rejected what would have been the nation’s first statewide carbon emissions tax.

The re-election of senior Republicans on Nov. 8, solidifying the party’s control of the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate, is expected to help Republicans unify the divisions within their party and approve a long-term funding fix for freight infrastructure projects next year, the incumbent lawmakers and GOP leaders said.

Intermodal volumes declined in the third quarter because truck prices are lower than a year ago and that has diverted business away from railroads, the Intermodal Association of North America reported.