“Transportation in the United States” on The Daily Caller

“Who’s Bogdan Dzakovic?” you may ask. “And why should I care whether he flies?” (more)

President Obama’s proposed $53 billion in additional spending for “high-speed rail” (on top of a previous $10 billion) is a testimony to the power of adjectives. (more)

In his recent State of the Union speech, President Obama waxed poetic about the need for speed — high-speed rail, that is. He sounded just like my liberal friends who passionately yearn for the wonderful railroads of Europe. It matters not that such systems are losing money, or that the U.S. is much larger and more spread out than any Western European country. (more)

On Thursday the blog Unsuck DC Metro reported that a gang of armed robbers boarded an Orange Line Metro train in the middle of the evening rush hour on December 23, forcing passengers to the ground and demanding their belongings. (more)

Your Metro-Card is worth less Thursday. Straphangers already weary from digging out now have to dig deeper to ride buses and trains, Kathryn Brown reports. (more)

It is no secret that unions reward longevity over performance, and protect employees from being disciplined for cause. Most collective bargaining agreements limit the ability for a hard worker to earn a raise or promotion unless they have reached a seniority based on time. The outcome of this paradigm is that workers are offered little incentive to achieve beyond the status quo. Bad employees are protected from dismissal while good employees are marginalized. (more)

As the executive director of the Association for Airline Passenger Rights (AAPR), as well as a passenger who has personally experienced just about every security screening technique employed by our federal government — including enhanced full-body scanners and aggressive pat-downs, to name a few – I feel compelled to address the recent TSA flap. (more)

Last Christmas, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab attempted to detonate plastic explosives on Northwest Airlines Flight 253, but was subdued thanks to the quick action of his fellow passengers. A shock to the American people — particularly given the otherwise peaceful holiday — the attempt has sparked an attention to airline security not seen since 9/11. (more)

The head of the Transportation Security Administration John Pistole said there would not be any immediate changes made to the TSA’s screening policy, but the administrator has been slowly walking back his defense of the invasive screening process since releasing a statement Sunday night. (more)

WASHINGTON — The head of the agency responsible for airport security, facing protests from travelers and pressure from the White House, appeared to give ground Sunday on his position that there would be no change in policies regarding invasive passenger screening procedures. (more)

How did an agency created to protect the public become the target of so much public scorn? (more)

House Democrats have asked the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) to “reconsider” agency screeners’ new invasive pat-downs of airline passengers. (more)

Transportation Safety Administration chief John Pistole and several senators from both parties defended the new, enhanced airport security screening procedures as necessary in the face of a persistent and evolving terrorist threat in a hearing Wednesday on Capitol Hill. (more)

When you ask a friend to join you for a nice weekend cruise from Miami, you don’t expect the friend to be hauled away by Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agents into a private room where she says she was practically strip-searched. But that’s what happened at Logan International Airport in Boston. (more)

On Oct. 29, a Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agent was going about his business when a middle-aged Jewish man in spectacles walked through his checkpoint at Baltimore-Washington International airport. Unlike most passengers, the Atlantic’s Jeff Goldberg wasn’t in a hurry. In fact, he was a little hard to get rid of. He wanted to talk to the TSA agent and his colleagues about the new x-ray machines they were using to screen passengers, as well as the alternative: A physical search that requires agents to grope passengers’ thighs until they meet resistance. (more)

OAKLAND — More than 100 protesters angered by the two-year sentence handed down to former BART police Officer Johannes Mehserle were arrested Friday night after marching from downtown Oakland into a residential area south of Lake Merritt, where mobs smashed about a dozen car windshields and a police officer’s gun was snatched. (more)

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Amtrak on Tuesday unveiled a $117 billion, 30-year vision for a high-speed rail line on the East Coast that would drastically reduce travel times along the congested corridor using trains traveling up to 220 miles per hour. (more)

Caltrain is replacing suicide prevention signs along its tracks in an effort to make it easier for people to reach help. (more)

After surging in size and profits during the post-9/11 era, the defense industry in metropolitan Washington is bracing for a major contraction and significant layoffs that economists said could produce a drag on the regional economy for years. (more)

After years of negotiations, a plan is afoot to wire New York City’s subway platforms for both cellular and WiFi service, a move that may see service extend into many of the subway system’s tunnels. (more)