Indiana’s Bankrupt Private Toll Road; ‘Pot Amnesty’ Plan Stalls in Vermont
The private operator of Indiana's toll road declared bankruptcy on Monday. PromesaArtStudio / Shutterstock.com
Also in our State & Local roundup ... stories from Harrisburg, Seattle and California's Central Valley.
Here is today’s State & Local news roundup for Tuesday, September 23, 2014 ...
HARRISBURG, Pennsylvania: After months of negotiations, the state House OK’d a legislative measure on Monday that would allow Philadelphia to create a local $2-per-pack cigarette tax to help fund the city’s cash-strapped public schools. Pennsylvania state senators could OK the tax legislation this week, according to Charles Thompson of The Patriot-News, who reports that Gov. Tom Corbett is expected to sign the bipartisan bill if it makes it to his desk.
KINGSBURG, California: Many drought-stricken farmers in the Central Valley say that environmentalists are their enemy No. 1: “They don’t believe we should be here. They’d like to turn the valley into what is was a hundred years ago. And for us to go elsewhere,” farmer Jeff Yarbro tells writer Alan Heathcock, who paints a stirring and complicated portrait of California’s water wars and new Dust Bowl on Medium. “Welcome to the Central Valley, ground zero of the water war. Outsiders take heed for this is a troubled land,” Heathcock warns.
A diagram of Seattle's proposed Center City Connector streetcar route, which would connect two existing streetcar lines. (via Seattle.gov)
SEATTLE, Washington: The Emerald City’s plan for its new Center City Connector streetcar route through downtown would stand out among other streetcar projects underway or recently completed in the United States: It will have dedicated lanes, a critical element that’s absent in other cities. As Nate Berg writes for CityLab, although there’s strong support for transit expansion in Seattle, not everyone is onboard with the Center City Connector concept, which would link two existing streetcar lines, both that operate mostly in mixed traffic. "They're making that connection, but it's very, very costly. It's taking a lot of service hours, a lot of capital, and they could attract more riders if they used those funds elsewhere in the city," says transportation planner Jack Whisner, who calls the project a “toy.”
ELKHART, Indiana: The private operator of the state-owned Indiana Toll Road declared bankruptcy on Monday and while that legal development won’t impact operations of the toll road, which carries Interstates 80 and 90 across northern Indiana and is a major east-west route connecting Chicago and the East Coast, it does raise big questions over what went wrong. As Tim Vandenack reports for The Elkhart Truth, the private operator says that the recession negatively impacted traffic and revenue numbers, which haven’t met expectations.
BURLINGTON, Vermont: Proposals on “marijuana amnesty” and allowing non-citizens to vote in local elections have certainly sparked a lot of discussion in Vermont’s largest city, but on Monday, they failed to attract “sufficient support” from city councilors, according to April Burbank of the Burlington Free Press. That means the proposals won’t go before voters in November. Even if they did get the public’s OK, both proposals would have to be approved by the state legislature.
(Top image via PromesaArtStudio/Shutterstock.com)
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