Southwest Airlines shut down on Tuesday due to what it says is “intermittent technology issues,” just months after the airline suffered from a major meltdown over the holiday season.
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Just the News’ Golden Horseshoe is awarded this week to the Department of Transportation for awarding hundreds of millions of dollars in IT contracts that lacked adequate documentation or proper justification and were extended without oversight, according to a new DOT Inspector General audit.
“Counter to Federal procurement requirements, DOT’s contracting officers (CO) awarded multiple noncompetitive actions to ITSS [IT shared services] contract vehicles without proper justifications, beyond contract term limits, and despite prolonged contractor performance issues,” the audit summary read.
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Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg suggested that transitioning to a “monthly transportation payment” from monthly car payments could be in America’s future.
Buttigieg also said a “monthly mobility dividend” could lie further out in the future.
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The U.S. Department of Transportation’s “National Roadway Safety Strategy” includes promoting the use of speed cameras in cities and towns as a “proven safety countermeasure.”
DOT received $6 billion to issue grants to “help cities and towns” with road safety, which was part of the $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill that Congress passed.
“That law creates a new Safe Streets and Roads for All program, providing $6 billion to help cities and towns deliver new, comprehensive safety strategies, as well as accelerate existing, successful safety initiatives,” said Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg during a speech on Thursday about the launch of DOT’s National Roadway Safety Strategy.
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by Robert Romano The Department of Transportation could be on the verge of approving a $3.7 billion Railroad Rehabilitation & Improvement Financing (RRIF) low-cost loan to Virgin Trains USA, owned by the $100 billion market cap SoftBank Group based in Tokyo, to build a higher-speed train project on a freight rail line in eastern Florida owned by Grupo Mexico. The project would expand Virgin Trains USA from southeast Florida, currently operating between West Palm Beach and Miami, all the way to Orlando. Future phases include Orlando to Tampa and up the eastern coast to Jacksonville. The RRIF Loan would be more money than the Trump administration has received from Congress to date to build the southern border wall and that was only $1.6 billion to repair existing fencing. It would also be the largest RRIF loan in Department of Transportation history, beating out Amtrak’s $2.45 billion loan in 2016. Virgin Trains USA has already raised $1.2 billion in private equity from Fortress Investment Group, which Japan-based SoftBank Group bought in 2017. The Virgin Trains USA (formerly Brightline) project has been approved by the Build America Bureau (also run by the Department of Transportation) for $1.75 billion of tax-exempt private activity bonds, $600 million for phase one and…
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