Environmental and neighborhood groups sued the U.S. Department of Transportation and Federal Highway Administration in federal court on Friday, claiming they approved an expansion plan for Interstate 5 based on a faulty report that said it would have no impact on the environment.
Read more
Harris County, home of Houston, sued the Texas Department of Transportation to block the expansion and widening of Interstate 45, claiming its concerns about the project’s environmental impacts were not addressed.
Read more
The Seventh Circuit ruled for Indiana in a challenge brought by truckers to a 35% toll hike on I-90. The state, like any private proprietor, may turn a profit from its maintenance of the toll road and is not required to reinvest all toll monies into road maintenance. The toll is neutral with respect to the origin and destination of the trucks so it does not discriminate against interstate commerce.
Read more
An articulated bus dramatically plunged off a bridge in New York City late Thursday, leaving its front half hanging over a highway ramp, its fall broken only by the road below.
Read more
The number of people killed on the nation’s highways rose 4.6% in the first nine months of 2020 despite coronavirus lockdowns that curtailed driving early in the year.
Read moreA federal court in California ruled in favor of Attorney General Xavier Becerra in a case challenging California’s Outdoor Advertising Act, which limits political ads on billboards near highways to 90 days before elections. Plaintiff NorCal Outdoor Media lacked standing to bring the suit, the court decided.
Read more
The Ninth Circuit gave California a green light Wednesday to move forward with a contested highway project through a majestic grove of ancient redwood trees, reversing a lower court ruling that halted construction pending further environmental review.
Read more
Italian mediation on Thursday helped resolve a long-running dispute between Kosovo’s ethnic Albanian government and the Serb minority, allowing a highway project that will bypass a historic Christian Orthodox monastery listed as an endangered World Heritage site.
Read more
German highway tolls are too high, the EU’s high court ruled Wednesday, calling out the country’s inclusion of policing costs in autobahn fees.
Read more
States cannot unfairly single out heavy vehicles in their operation of toll roads, a trucking association challenging Indiana’s toll system argued before a Seventh Circuit panel Monday.
Read more
California officials appeared in front of a three-judge panel at the Ninth Circuit on Tuesday to argue a highway construction project running through an old-growth grove of magnificent redwood trees would not harm the forest.
Read more
Deadly crashes on highways in the West Texas oil patch have ticked up even as oil production has slowed down, raising concerns about anxiety-fueled distracted drivers.
Read more
The U.S. interstate highway system covers 800,000 acres which are “doing nothing but holding up concrete,” an electric-vehicle advocate said at a “Transportation Revolution” symposium Tuesday, envisioning highways lined with solar panels delivering power directly to autonomous semitrucks.
Read more
The Trump administration on Thursday proposed scaling back a key environmental law to reduce the time it takes to assess the environmental impact of major federal projects like oil pipelines.
Read more
Daytime speed limits in the Netherlands will likely be reduced to 62 mph next year to combat nitrogen emissions.
Read moreA lawyer for Rhode Island faced stern questions Tuesday from the First Circuit while defending the state’s system of making only large trucks pay bridge and highway tolls.
Read more
Amid a growing dispute over climate change and vehicle emissions standards, the Trump administration on Tuesday threatened to withhold highway funding and other federal grants from California over its “chronic air quality problems.”
Read moreIn 2017, people driving to work in the Washington, D.C., metro area each paid an average of $1,840 in extra costs related to being stuck in traffic, wasted 38 gallons in fuel idling on freeways and spent an extra 102 hours on roadways, for a total of 248 million hours lost to congestion delays.
Read moreThe Trump administration has taken a step closer to relaxing federal regulations governing the amount of time truck drivers can spend behind the wheel, a move that was long sought by the trucking industry but opposed by safety advocates who warn it could lead to more highway crashes.
Read more