Transportation Nation

Rendering of a future Metro station in Tysons Corner, Virginia (image courtesy of Fairfax County)

(Sharon Rae -- Washington, DC, WAMU) In a swift legislative turn of events, the Virginia Senate abruptly passed the $85 billion state budget Wednesday -- without including money for a Metrorail extension to Dulles Airport.

The bill had been voted down three times in the past two months.

One moderate Democrat, Sen. Charles Colgan of Prince William County, broke with his party and joined Republicans to give the budget the one-vote majority required for passage. Colgan had been pushing Gov. Bob McDonnell for $300 million for the Metrorail extension to Dulles Airport, but he said the need to pass the budget outweighed the need to secure funding for the Silver Line project.

Democrats had balked yesterday over the Republicans' refusal to grant the funding for the Metrorail extension to Dulles, saying the costs for commuters who use the Dulles Toll Road would rise from $2.25 to $6.75 one-way within a few years. They argued that the sharp increase was an undue burden that could stifle the economy of Northern Virginia — a region that provides 40 percent of Virginia's tax revenue.

The budget bill now goes to the governor for consideration.

Meanwhile, officials in Virginia's Loudon County are deciding whether or not it wants to go ahead and shoulder its share of the construction costs.

You can listen to the audio version of this story here. More TN coverage of the Silver Line can be found here.

Bayonne Bridge (chrastoslalu/flickr)

(New York, NY -- Janet Babin, WNYC) Port Authority officials are waiting to find out whether the federal government will allow a project involving the Bayonne Bridge to move through a faster permit process.

The bridge, which links New Jersey and Staten Island, is inextricably bound to the future success of the New York Harbor.

Upgrades to the Panama Canal means bigger ships will make their way through the channel and up the East Coast by 2014. But these mega container ships won’t fit under the Bayonne Bridge, which means they can’t enter New York harbor.

The Port Authority is spending $1 billion to lift the roadway, so the ships can fit underneath. But there’s a time crunch. The bridge won’t be completed until two years after the Panama Canal is widened.

Without the bigger cargo ships, the port industry is a risk of losing business to other regional harbors.

Faster federal permitting and reviews could shave up to six months off the project’s timeline. “Every day that a project like this is delayed results in additional accruals of financial costs, and every day and week and month that we can eliminate saves the project and the region money,” Port Authority Director Patrick Foye said.

President Barack Obama issued an Executive Order on Permitting and Federal Review last month. It was an idea he introduced during his State of the Union Address.

“We were first in the nation to take advantage of the process,” Foye said.

This will allow the Port Authority and other state agencies to designate projects of regional and national significance. Those projects, if approved by federal regulators, will be able to undergo concurrent as opposed to sequential reviews that would normally take months to complete. For example, the Order would allow approved projects to combine the process of an environmental review with an environmental impact statement.

Critics contend the fast-track review process fails to allow adequate time to assess the environmental or community impact a project can have.

Foye said the Port Authority will likely hear whether the Bayonne Bridge has been approved for the fast-track review process, within the next two months. He said construction on the Bridge is expected to begin early next year.

The details of the disaster have been revisited in countless articles and a dozen movies, including "A Night to Remember" and James Cameron's 1997 "Titanic," which is being re-released in 3D on Wednesday.

The sinking of the New York City-bound steamer off the coast of Newfoundland on April 15, 1912, continues to intrigue because it is epic, according to Paul Heyer, who wrote Titanic Century: Media, Myth and the Making of a Cultural Icon.

"It has a kind of tragic ore to it that we find in the Bible, Greek drama, Shakespeare, novels such as Moby Dick," he said. "It’s almost as if all these themes in literature have come to life in a real historical event."

Charles Haas, author of several books on the ship, recalls learning about the Titanic from his grandfather, with whom he would watch giant ocean liners float through the New York Harbor.

For a whole lot more on the Titantic, click here.

(photo by Rufus Q. Stripe)

(Rufus Q. Stripe, Transportation Nation) Ten percent of the population is left-handed -- but 100 percent of the turnstiles in the New York City subway system have been geared for righties.

Until now.

In what advocates are hailing as a major victory for the sinister side of transit, the MTA is quietly piloting turnstiles designed especially for lefties in certain high-volume subway stations. So far a handful of turnstiles at the 72nd Street 1/2/3 station have been specially retrofitted for a left sided MetroCard swipe. In the upcoming months these turnstiles will be installed at other busy locations, like Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn, Manhattan's Times Square, and Queensboro Plaza.

"We've been pushing for this for years," said Jenny Linkshander, the executive director of New Yorkers for Safe Sinistration, one of the largest left-handedness rights organizations in the region. "Since the inception of the subway system, a sizable portion of the New York City transit-riding public has been effectively forced into fumbling. That ends today."

NYSS had made "turnstile equity" a cornerstone issue. Other recent victories for the group include a recently installed bike lane located on the left side of Columbus Avenue -- a bustling commercial strip on the Upper West Side -- and an agreement by local office supply company W.B. Mason to increase the number of left-handed scissors it would stock.

Although no one from the MTA would comment on record, a source within the once rightie-dominated agency said it was widely known that the recently appointed chair, Joe Lhota, is himself a lefty, and has been vocal about his frustration with having to swipe his MetroCard at the turnstile with his less dextrous hand.

"It's really frustrating," said Linkshander. "Each fumbled swipe costs a transit rider .03 minutes. That adds up." The MTA estimates at least 87,000 of the 3.2 million awkward turnstile entries yearly are due to mis-sided swipe attempts. Plus, says Linkshander, "I have to fumble for my MetroCard with the hand I can't even write with -- it just feels wrong."

While there are no special designations at the turnstiles -- registered lefties have been given a specially ruled map -- some straphangers bristled at the change.

"This is ridiculous," said lefty Devon Recht, "and I feel like it sets the whole movement back. I don't need special accommodation."

 READ last year's post from April 1, 2011.

(Soterios Johnson, WNYC -- New York) New York City's "Taxi of Tomorrow" will be making a kind of early appearance starting this week.

(Kyungjin Lee, San Fransisco Bay Area -- KALW) Fewer yellow school buses are crisscrossing San Francisco. State budget cuts have forced the school district to cut its bus services to 98 percent of high school students. Only five middle schools still get busing. Even elementary schools have been losing service. And deeper cuts are promised for next year.

As a result, Muni, San Francisco's bus and streetcar service, has become the primary mode of transportation for most students. But the routes aren’t always direct. Many students take two or three buses. Some have to leave their homes by 6:30am to get to school by 8. And others sometimes can’t make it to school at all, because they can’t afford the fare. San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee has said he’s working to reduce transportation costs for students.

At 7:30 on a chilly Wednesday morning, Manuela Esteva is bustling around her house, getting her two kids ready for school. She says, “They’ve already told us they’re planning to cut the school bus. There’s not going to be the school bus by May of this year.”

Esteva’s children are aged 6 and 10. They attend Gordon Lau elementary school in Chinatown. And right now, there’s a yellow bus that takes them directly there from Esteva’s home in the Mission. Esteva says, “The advantage of taking the school bus is that I can drop off my daughters at 7:40. They’ll get there before classes start and it’s free.”

But when the yellow bus disappears, she’ll have to go with them to school. It’s a 40-minute trip, on two Muni buses – if she times it right. And it will cost her $7 every day – quite a lot for a single mom.

“Another disadvantage of taking the MTA bus is that I have to go with them and I have to return back to my job and I lose time in doing my work,” says Esteva.

The school district is aware of the problem. “We now have 38 buses that are transporting students this year,” says San Francisco Unified School District spokeswoman Gentle Blythe. “And next year we’re looking at having 25 buses.”

Blythe says almost 1,000 students lost school bus services this year. Next year’s cuts will dig even deeper: the district expects to lose more than 30 percent of its transportation funding.

The district already has some idea of what can happen when school buses disappear: For the past four years, most San Francisco high school students haven’t had them. Only special needs students get access to buses.

Devoriea King is a junior at John O’Connell High School in the Mission. He says he sometimes ends up spending two and a half hours a day on public transit. It doesn’t help that he has to commute from Treasure Island. “There’s not enough buses to come out there,” he says. If he misses the bus, he misses 30 minutes of school. “And so with that being said, I’m truant because of it. And it’s affecting my grades,” says King.

Downtown High School principal Mark Alvarado says it’s often hard for students to pay for Muni. He says he gets hit up for bus fare several times a day. In the middle of the week, Alvarado had already leant out $6 to students.

Alvarado says another concern is safety. While most of his students get to school and back home safely, he’s also dealt with serious incidents in the past. “The bus is often a violent place,” says Alvarado. “And the students who are concerned with taking the bus – it’s [been] hard on them for a number of years.”

Though violent crime on Muni has dropped recently, just last week, a teenager was shot while riding a Muni bus in the middle of the afternoon. “We’ve had fatalities, we’ve had serious injuries. There’s a lot of stuff that happens. So the danger is real,” says Alvarado.

The school district is seeking workarounds. It set up programs to encourage group walking where possible, as well as bike-to-school days and a ride share website for parents.

Some city officials are also trying to improve the situation. Along with several community organizations, San Francisco Supervisor David Campos has been calling for free Muni passes for all youth between the ages of 5 and 17.

He says the program would serve several purposes. “For the public transit system in San Francisco to be sustained long term, you need to actually make sure people ride Muni," he says. According to Campos, instilling the habit in young people will ensure that they continue to ride the bus. Free passes for youth would also be an investment in education. "We believe that kids should go to school and not being able to afford it should not get in the way of them going to school,” says Campos.

Campos estimates that the proposed two-year pilot will cost about $17.5 million. An alternative plan currently on the table calls for a $5-dollar monthly youth pass.

O’Connell High School student Devoriea King says he hopes the free youth pass is implemented. “It would be easier for me to wake up in the morning myself knowing I don’t have to burn money out of pocket just to go to school.”

In the meantime, parent Manuela Esteva says she and her neighbors are working together to figure out how to get their kids to school. “We need to organize among our mothers, and among neighbors, to get our kids to school. In our community we can support each other by having a day where one of us takes a group of children and we split it up that way.”

Muni’s board of directors will vote on the free youth pass April 3rd. Even if it passes, it might be months before the program is fully implemented. Until then, San Francisco youth and their families will have to keep digging in their pockets to get to school.

Tanker Truck in rural DeWitt county, Texas. (Photo: KUHF)

(Dave Fehling -- Texas, StateImpact/KUHF) Just about everyone I talked to for this story wanted to make one thing very clear: "I want people to understand, we are happy to have the energy industry in Texas," said John Casey of the Texas Department of Transportation.

Why would John Casey think anyone might believe otherwise? Because Casey sees firsthand what the energy industry is doing to his roads. "There'll be a crater in the road, it might be five or ten feet wide and it could be a foot deep, all of sudden just appears."

He's talking about the rapid deterioration of state-maintained roads and highways, even freeways, in the Corpus Christi area. That's where Casey is the district engineer for TxDOT.

"Roads that used to have five vehicles a week now have a hundred trucks rolling on them in a day, or an hour. So it's a pretty significant change," he says.  The trucks DeWitt County, (like the one heard in the audio version of this story rolling down a rutted road) are going to and from drilling rigs. In the past several years, energy companies have been drilling thousands of new oil and gas wells here and elsewhere in Texas. The drilling operations use truckloads of water, sand and chemicals. According to TxDOT, drilling the average well now requires over a thousand truck trips.

In the farm and ranch areas of south Texas, the roads were built for pickups and produce trucks, not tankers. Yet, while the drilling boom here may be ripping up roads, it's also a huge boost to local economies, tripling sales tax revenues in just one year for some local governments. It's happening in other parts of the state as well.

"There are homes that have drilling activities going on within 600 to 1200 feet," says Mayor Robert Cluck of Arlington.

Large hole on FM road in Karnes County (Photo: KUHF)

Mayor Cluck and the city council began to worry. With 340 gas wells now drilled in Arlington and more on the way, what would happen if one of them had a blowout, resulting in an explosion and fire? The city decided to create a special team within its fire department.

"We approved the other night an emergency response center. It would have six new officers specially trained in gas drilling incidents," he said.

To pay for it, council approved a fee: $2,400 dollars per year per well to be paid by energy companies. Fire chief Don Crowson explained, "that's how this fee has materialized. It's kept the responsibility for the safety of these sites on the industry, not necessarily on the taxpayer."

Arlington was in essence copying what already is happening in South Texas: counties there are charging the energy companies thousands of dollars per well to pay for road damage. And now, Texas may be getting in on the act. TxDOT has just formed a task force to meet with energy companies. TxDOT says it has to find a way to fund what could be hundreds of millions of dollars to fix damaged state roads. Mari Ruckel represents the drilling industry.

"The Texas Oil and Gas Association is well aware of the road conditions and concerns that have emerged alongside incredible economic activity and commerce in Texas," he said.

Ruckel says it'll likely be up to the Texas legislature to come up with a way to charge the industry for repairs. The oil and gas industry points out it pays over seven billion dollars a year to Texas and local governments in taxes and royalties. But, the industry has also benefitted from big state tax breaks enacted as the drilling surge began a decade ago. A surge that has brought riches to some communities, but cost them as well.

FURTHER READING: For more on oil drilling's impact on American roads, read this post on Montana's crunch to find more drivers of trucks serving oil companies.

This story was produced by StateImpact a local news reporting project in conjunction with NPR and member stations. 

(Annapolis, MD -- Matt Bush, WAMU) Maryland governor Martin O'Malley spent a day in front of lawmakers in Annapolis pushing his plan to apply the state sales tax to gasoline, and he got an earful from lawmakers who expressed worries about the proposal.

Before both House and Senate committees, O'Malley defended his plan as not the most popular, but as necessary to fund road and mass transit projects in a state the governor now says has the longest average daily commute in the nation

"A couple of days ago, I was talking to a businessman from southern Maryland," said O'Malley. "And he said to me 'Governor, I'm against all taxes. But we pay for that too.'"

O'Malley went back to that point several times as he pushed for approval of the new gas tax to lawmakers who are very wary of constituents who have loudly protested the plan. The most vocal concern is that if the tax is approved, there are no guarantees that the money will actually be spent on transportation -- as the transportation trust fund has been raided in the past. O'Malley said he would support any number of ways to ensure that, even a constitutional amendment.

Republican delegate Ron George of Anne Arundel County took a different tack in opposing the plan: "There's a lot of perception issues that the public has about a disconnect between their government, the spending, and what they're going through. As you say, sharing the pain."

George suggested O'Malley "share the pain" with citizens by cutting his staff, or at least their salaries. O'Malley did not respond to George's statement.

Another concern is that, since Maryland is a small state, it's not difficult for drivers to go out of state to get gas. Republican delegate Kathryn Afzali is from Frederick County says her constituents will do just that: "My district borders three states: Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia. And I have people in my community saying that they will go fill up their trucks and their vehicles in Pennsylvania."

Others criticized the plan for focusing too much of the new revenue from the tax on mass transit, as the overwhelming majority of state residents commute by driving.

South Florida Bikes (Photo courtesy Diego Quiros)

(Miami, FL -- Ruth Morris and Arianna Prothero, WLRN)  This is a place that’s sunny, warm, and flat. It seems like it should be a pretty perfect place to ride a bike. It’s not.

Last month, the 36-year-old father, husband and amateur triathelte Aaron Cohen was hit and killed by a car while riding on the Rickenbacker Causeway. The tragedy revived an old debate about how drivers and cyclists share—or don’t share—our roads.

WLRN in Miami asked riders and cyclists to to talk to each other -- the conversation made a dynamite podcast, which you can listen to here.

And read the comments -- much food for thought.

One of the approximately 200 wheelchair accessible cabs in the city. (photo by Kate Hinds/WNYC)

(New York, NY -- Kathleen Horan, WNYC)  Sometime in the fall, many more New York cabs will be wheelchair accessible, and it will be much easier to hail a cab in northern Manhattan, and in the other four boroughs.  New York City will also start collecting on what it hopes will be $1 billion in revenue from the new medallions sold.

But multiple layers and flaming hoops lie ahead.

There's the $20 million the Taxi and Limousine Commission will need to pay for grants to make cars wheelchair accessible -- a full third of its $60 million budget.

At the City Council Transportation Committee budget hearings on Tuesday, Commissioner David Yassky testified that it’s still unclear whether the grants will be distributed up front or if they’d be spaced out.

Yassky added “There’s a big difference between a $1000 dollar grant on day one and then $14,000 a few years from now-- versus $15,000 up front.”

The Bloomberg administration’s 5 Borough Taxi Plan calls for the sale of 18,000 HAIL licenses or permits over the next 3 years. 20% are required to be accessible. The first 6000 are scheduled to be sold this June.

Yassky said that the HAIL licenses will be sold on a first come, first serve basis.

But only licensed for-hire vehicle operators in good standing will be able to purchase them.

The Commissioner is standing by the Mayor’s and his agency’s estimate that the yellow medallion auction, also scheduled in the upcoming budget, would bring in a billion dollars in city revenue. At the hearing, some council members expressed concerns if that was realistic.

But the city has its work cut out for it. The TLC has to re-write existing rules, and go through the required public comment period before putting the HAIL permits up for sale. After that, it's legally permitted by the state to start selling medallions. Even then, only 400 can be auctioned. After the initial sale, the city must submit its long term accessibility plan to the State Department of Transportation for approval before moving forward with the rest of the auction.

Then there’s the pending federal lawsuit.  A judge ruled in December that the TLC must assure that its providing meaningful access to wheelchair bound New Yorkers. The city is appealing that decision but Yassky conceded that sometimes it's prudent to spend more money than policy dictates.

“If down the line you see us spending money and you say its not worth that level of expenditure—I would say to you that we also have the courts to worry about.”

(Martin Di Caro / WAMU)

(Washington, D.C. -- Martin Di Caro, WAMU) While the New York City council is considering a crackdown on electric bikes, and Las Vegas officials are buying them up with federal money, in Washington D.C. it's commuters who are abuzz about them.

Right now it's rare to see electric bikes on the roads around D.C., but Joe Reyes thinks they may not be so rare much longer.

Reyes, the owner of The Green Commuter in Takoma Park, Md., has traveled from one extreme to another. He once worked as a mechanic for a Ferrari racing team working on engines that would achieve fuel efficiency of about 5 miles per gallon. Now he sells a mode of transportation that is as eco-friendly as it gets: bicycles. But Reyes also sells bicycles for non-bicyclists.

"We call it an electric-assist bicycle," says Reyes. "You get 25 percent of your assist from the electric motor, 75 percent of it comes from you. It's kind of an electric human-hybrid, if you will."

An electric bike looks like a regular, sturdy road bike, except for the lithium-ion battery pack on the rear frame.

"If your commute is say eight or 10 miles one way, you get to your office, you just plug it in there and you have plenty of juice to get back home," he says.

As of now Reyes is lucky to sell one electric bike per week, which can cost as much $1,000 to $3,000.

"When we first opened in 2010, we sold between April and December about 12 units of electric bikes," says Reyes. "In 2011 we sold approximately 34 units of electric bikes."

Electric-assist bikes can go up to 20 m.p.h.

(Washington, D.C. -- Sharon Rae, WAMU) Northern Virginia Rep. Jim Moran (D) thinks D.C. area Metro has gone too far permitting a contentious political ad to run at the Clarendon Metro station.

The ad, which is placed on one of the lit displays on the train platform, advertises a movie that targets President Obama and contains the phrase "Go to Hell, Barack." Moran fired off an angry letter to the transit agency asking for the immediate removal of the ad, which he calls "disrespectful."

Metro spokesman Dan Stessel says Metro advertising has been ruled by the courts as a public forum protected by the First Amendment. "We may not decline ads based on their political content," Stessel says.

But Moran says the ad, which advertises for the film "Sick & Sicker" about Obama's health care policies, are inappropriate. "It troubles me that Metro allows it to be shown," Moran told NBC Washington. "People of whatever political persuasion should not have to deal with ads that are clearly over the top."

Metro says it doesn't endorse any of the ads on the system, and the advertising does not reflect the position of the transit agency.

What do you think? Should the public nature of Metro make the messages free speech in a public forum? Or is there something about the nature of a subway station that should keep potentially offensive messages away from weary commuters?

Some riders clearly share Moran's views. ARL Now has a photo up on their site of the portion of the ad that says "Go to hell, Barack" with graffiti that responds "That's President Obama to you."

Here's Moran on NBC Washington (after an ad):

Taxi TV (photo by Kathleen Horan/WNYC)

(New York, NY -- Kathleen Horan, WNYC) New York City is planning to offer passengers a quieter ride by taking the TVs out of the backs of some yellow taxis.

"What we're trying here is a credit card screen that won't have advertising or entertainment content on that”, said Taxi and Limousine Commissioner David Yassky at a meeting of the Taxi and Limousine Commission.

New Yorkers reaction has been mixed to the TV’s that can blare in the backseats but Yassky defends the current system—adding that some passengers do enjoy the entertainment content.

Gas Prices, February 2012

(New York, NY -- Stephen Reader, It's a Free Country.org) With gas prices on the rise—over $5/gallon in some places—Republican presidential candidates hammered the Obama administration this week for over-regulating domestic energy production.

In a new 30-minute (yes, minute) Super Tuesday super-ad, Newt Gingrich blamed the President's policies for the recent spike in gas prices, and complained that reliance on Middle East oil has left American markets open to shudders in the wake of the Arab Spring.

"This is the most expensive gas on average we've ever had," Gingrich opined.

We're not sure where the former Speaker is getting his numbers. The Daily Fuel Gauge Report from AAA shows the highest recorded average as $4.114/gallon, which was in the summer of 2008. The current national average is almost 50 cents less at $3.64/gallon.

Still, such a high number is not good news for Obama. Whether or not rising gas prices are the President's fault, incumbent parties tend to fare poorly in elections when consumers feel like they're paying an arm and a leg at the pump.

But that doesn't mean incumbent parties fare poorly because of high gas prices, per se. Over at the New York Times' FiveThirtyEight blog, Nate Silver has found that "higher gas prices mean a poorer performance for the incumbent party," but the argument that there's a direct cause-effect relationship between the two was "fairly weak statistically."

Silver wrote these words about a year ago. Today, we know that the economy isn't growing as much as 4 or 5 percent (at least not yet); while unemployment may be declining, most Americans probably wouldn't call the changes "significant."

But Obama can take some comfort in the fact that at least the picture doesn't seem to be getting worse. The economy is still growing: Nate Silver points out that in 1980, when Jimmy Carter lost re-election, gas was at an inflation-adjusted $3.37/gallon and GDP was shrinking at a rate of 3.7 percent. In 2008, when John McCain failed to keep Republican control of the White House and gas was $3.81/gallon, GDP was shrinking at a rate of 2.3 percent.

Obama also has some ammunition against the kind of charges leveled by Newt. Read the rest of the post here.

Construction at the WTC site (photo: Stephen Nessen/WNYC)

(New York, NY -- Bob Hennelly, WNYC) Last week’s audit calling the Port Authority dysfunctional and running up billions of dollars in cost over-runs made eye-catching headlines.

The audit called the bi-state authority a "dysfunctional organization suffering from a lack of consistent leadership." That void, the report concluded, manifested itself in "insufficient cost controls" and "a lack of transparent and effective oversight" when it came to managing the World Trade Center's site's re-development.

But to long-time observers of the Port Authority and many of those involved, it was more like a Captain Reynault moment in Casablanca.

They were hardly shocked to find gambling in this establishment.

Instead, the latest 50-page report from Navigant is just one more critical audit and fact-finding volume in a library generated over decades by state comptrollers by former and current state lawmakers.

This particular audit was commissioned by Governors Andrew Cuomo and Chris Christie, who found themselves in political hot water after backing a toll-hike to pay for rising costs at the bi-state authority. Both men had been elected on platforms that pledged to make government, even independent authorities like the Port Authority, more accountable.

But former Governor David Paterson says the audits findings were hardly a secret to those close to the World Trade Center project.

“The truth has to be told about this," Paterson says. After September 11th there was tremendous political tumult in both states. Sex scandals toppled a Governor in each state. The instability at the top had repercussions.

"Five governors of New Jersey, four governors of New York, changes to the Chair of the Port Authority and the executive director," recalls Paterson. "Every stakeholder, every real estate person within 150 miles wanted to be involved. What started out as a demonstration of vigilance and response to the terrorists turned into a real estate boondoggle."

Paterson says then-Port Authority Executive Director Chris Ward, in an attempt to get the 911 Memorial completed by the psychologically important tenth anniversary, did not sugarcoat the site's overall status.

"In the memorandum written to me by Chris Ward he says there are likely to be cost overruns and delays. And there were," says Paterson.

“While significant progress has been made, that memo said, the schedule and cost estimates of the rebuilding effort that have been communicated to the public are not realistic. In fact, as other reports by the FTA and LMCCC/LMDC have already suggested, the schedule and cost for each of the public projects on the site face significant delays and cost overruns,” the memo said.

"And the whole issue that there could be toll hikes -- all that was discussed before the project was even built," says Paterson. "When we started putting this together we knew that the costs that were assessed were way below what the actual price to build those structures would be."

There was something else driving up costs, the former Governor said. “Every dime that was spent to rebuild the World Trade Center was assessed in the Port Authority Board room as a New York contract for which the New Jersey members wanted equal value. I am not blaming them but it becomes a cesspool driving costs up."

Paterson says the Federal government should have shouldered the entire multibillion dollar burden of re-building the complex not the Port Authority.

"They did not attack the Port Authority on September 11th nor did they attack the states of New York and New Jersey. They attacked America."

Check back soon for Part 2 of this story...how the Port Authoiry, once a national model, found itself adrift in a sea of red ink.

(photo by spotzilla via flickr)

(Laurie Johnson -- Houston, KUHF) For the fourth straight year, the city of Houston is the leader in the amount of green energy it buys and uses.

In fact, the top three municipalities in the renewable energy arena are Houston, Austin and Dallas.

Houston Sustainability Director Laura Spanjian says the city also beats out companies like Starbucks and Hilton and even the U.S. Department of Energy. "Thirty-three percent of our energy comes from wind farms in West Texas," she said. "And we're looking to see if we can increase that percentage over the next year or so to maybe 50 percent. And if you add in the private sector, we're number six in the country."

Houston's contract with Reliant Energy is up next year. The city will put out a request for proposals for a new contract, either with Reliant or another energy provider. Spanjian says part of the contract negotiations will involve upping the amount of green energy the city buys.

She says it's not a coincidence that Houston, Austin and Dallas are the top municipalities on the list.

"What's great about Texas is actually that wind is extremely affordable and it's extremely cost-competitive," she said. "You know, solar is not for this state. California is the solar leader and Texas is the wind leader. In fact, if Texas were a country we would be the sixth largest wind producer in the world."

Texas produces 10,000 megawatts of wind every year. The number one purchaser of green energy across all sectors is Intel Corporation.

(photo by Markette Smith)

(Markette Smith -- Washington, DC, WAMU) Gas prices in the D.C. Metro area are up nearly 10 cents from a week ago, and the threat of a conflict in the Middle East may be driving prices up.

In the nation's capital, the average cost per gallon is $3.70, causing people to grumble as they make their regular trips to the pump.

At a gas station on M Street in Northwest, motorists are filling up for $4.49 per gallon for regular fuel. It's one of the highest priced stations in the area.

While fuel prices are traditionally low during the cold weather months, several issues in play at this time may translate into higher gas prices.

"There are three things right now going on that might be driving up oil prices, or that could in the future," says Jeff Colgan, an International Relations professor at American University. (WAMU is licensed to American University).

"One is the U.S. and European embargo on Iranian oil," Colgan continues. "Second is the possibility of an Israeli attack on Iran and the third is the Iranian response to all of that, which is the threat to close the Strait of Hormuz and therefore cut off a huge portion of the world's oil supply."

That would include oil from Saudia Arabia, Kuwait and Iraq, according to Colgan.

"19 million barrels of oil per day flow through the Strait of Hormuz and if it gets restricted that could drive up gasoline prices around the world, including obviously here in DC," Colgan says.

But John Townsend of AAA-Mid Atlantic says the situation in the Middle East cannot be blamed, because crude oil prices are at a six-week low.

"There's demand destruction out there," he says. "People aren't driving as much and this time of year, they're all working and all nestled down in their jobs, so what, then, would be the reason for gas prices at record highs for this time of year other than pure greed?"

Townsend says D.C. area consumers can expect to pay record high amounts for gas in the coming spring and summer.