Wednesday, December 11, 2013

Are Billionaires The New Driving Force In Improvements To Tranpsortation?


Crazy or inspired?
So we all realize by now that getting major projects done in the world of transportation is a slim chance at best. Look at the North Spokane Corridor. Even now that it's underway, it's not clear where the funding will come from to ever finish it. And installing light rail or high speed transit systems? Considering the economic and political climate, it's not looking good.

So, knowing that the government isn't going to foot the bill and public-private partnerships are drying up because businesses are being hit hard, who is going to build all this stuff?

Bring in the billionaires. More and more celebrities are now championing the transportation cause. Jeff Bezos of Amazon wants to use drones. PayPal lead-man Elon Musk has proposed the "Hyperloop" and Richard Branson has his own airline and wants to take people to the moon.

Are they crazy or the new force in getting things done? Politico looks at the reality of the situation and how feasible each billionaire's ideas are.

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About SRTC

SRTC is the federally designated Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) for Spokane County. Urbanized areas with populations exceeding 50,000 people are required to have an MPO. SRTC was formed to address the county's transportation planning needs. It provides coordination in planning between the public, cities, small towns, the county, the state, transit providers, and tribes.

SRTC offers services including transportation monitoring, transportation modeling, census information analysis, travel demand forecasting, historical traffic count analysis, geographic information systems, and trip generation rates.