TTD in the news

More than two dozen labor unions are calling on the federal government to rein in autonomous vehicles. In a letter to the Secretary of Transportation, the unions wrote that driverless vehicles are a menace to society. The unions say that federal officials should dig deep into the record and reliability of driverless vehicles.

Unions have “grave concerns”
The Transport Workers Union of America, Transportation Trades Department, International Brotherhood of Teamsters and about two dozen other unions outlined their worries to Pete Buttigieg, the U.S. Transportation Secretary, last Wednesday. “We write today to reiterate our grave safety concerns about the expanded testing and operation of automated driving system-equipped vehicles,” the letter read. “Given the recent surge in both the number of cities operating these vehicles on public streets and the number of crashes and safety incidents involving these vehicles, we urge you to take immediate action to bring long overdue federal leadership to this issue.”

On Nov. 8, 26 labor organizations asked the U.S. Department of Transportation and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in a six-page letter to “take immediate action” to “end the unsafe operation of [automated driving system]-equipped vehicles on our roads.”

Greg Regan, president of the Transportation Trades Department of the AFL-CIO, told Smart Cities Dive that there is a need for federal leadership “as opposed to a patchwork of state and local laws” governing autonomous vehicles. Labor leaders also asked the DOT to update the department’s automated vehicle policy and to “reject the Trump Administration’s hands-off approach to regulating automated vehicles.”

In 2021, NHTSA ordered manufacturers and operators of vehicles equipped with advanced driver assistance systems, such as lane-centering and adaptive cruise control, to report all crashes involving these technologies. The following year, NHTSA reported 367 collisions, including six fatalities, over a 10-month period.

WASHINGTON, DC – Pennsylvania U.S. Senator John Fetterman, along with fourteen Senate colleagues, today introduced the Transit Emergency Relief Act, a new bill to improve the Federal Transit Administration’s (FTA) Emergency Response (ER) Program. The bill would bring the FTA ER program into parity with the Federal Highway Administration’s (FHWA) program that serves the same purpose for America’s […]

WASHINGTON, D.C. — This week, Rep. Emilia Sykes (OH-13) led a letter with Reps. Seth Moulton (MA-06), Brian Fitzpatrick (PA-01), Don Bacon (NE-02), and 74 additional House members to House and Senate leadership calling for any upcoming government funding package to include robust funding for Amtrak and its passenger rail services. The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA, […]

Reported by Dan Zukowski for SmartCitiesDive.

As Congress stumbles toward a likely government shutdown at midnight on Oct. 1, state and local officials, including those responsible for law enforcement and transportation, are assessing how a shutdown would affect their operations. Depending on the length of any shutdown and the specific federal personnel and agencies it would affect, some impacts could be minimal but others may have serious consequences.

If Congress does not enact fiscal year 2024 appropriations or a continuing resolution to fund government activities at current levels before the midnight deadline, the federal government activities that depend on annual appropriations will come to a halt once their funding runs out. Only 10 times since 1977 has the federal government lacked legal authority to spend money; it went into shutdown mode nine of those times. The most recent and longest shutdown began Dec. 21, 2018, during the Trump administration and lasted 34 days.

Reported by Irving Mejia-Hilario for the Dallas Morning News.

Over 7,000 union workers in Illinois and Michigan joined other striking auto workers Friday as the United Auto Workers widened its work stoppage to win higher wages and benefits from Detroit’s Big Three automakers.

UAW President Shawn Fain called on workers at a Ford assembly plant in Chicago and a General Motors plant outside Lansing, Mich., to join about 18,000 other strikers across the country.

Reported by Joanna Marsh for Freightwaves.

On the surface, a government shutdown — which can occur if Congress can’t agree on how to handle the appropriations budgets — would have a limited impact on freight rail operations.

Freight railroads will keep running, transporting parts, materials and goods within North America and to and from the coastal ports. Ensuring safe operations will also be paramount, according to the Association of American Railroads (AAR).

WASHINGTON—Today, Senators Mike Braun, Jon Tester, Roger Marshall and Pete Ricketts introduced bipartisan legislation to enshrine a continued role for American farmers in the Food for Peace (FFP) program and increase accountability and transparency in FFP program functions. U.S. Representatives Tracey Mann (KS-01), John Garamendi (CA-08), Rick Crawford (AR-01), and Jimmy Panetta (CA-19) introduced the […]

The Coalition on Human Needs and 680 local, state, and national groups delivered a message to Congress Tuesday: do your duty and keep government running.  The groups delivered a letter to every member of the House and Senate urging passage of a clean, bipartisan continuing resolution (CR), including “emergency funding that supports current services and addresses urgent […]

 WASHINGTON, D.C. – Congressman Rob Menendez is leading a bipartisan coalition of 114 Members of Congress, urging the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) to immediately act on rulemaking required by the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act (FAST Act) to protect public transit operators from assault. The call to address America’s transit worker safety crisis is supported by the Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU), the […]