11/3/2011

HUNTINGTON, W.Va. (WSAZ) — The city of Huntington has been awarded nearly $500,000 in grant money to be used in ways that will directly affect residents.

City leaders were presented the grants Wednesday afternoon in Charleston.

A transportation grant of $300,000 was given to complete “phase 3″ of the Old Main Corridor Project on Huntington’s 4th Avenue. This phase consists of the area between 11th and 14th streets. The project includes new lighting, wider sidewalks and helps connect downtown Huntington to Marshall University.

A $130,000 grant was awarded to Southside Elementary School for safety programs.

Jennifer Williams, who helped secure the grant, told WSAZ.com the money will go toward bike racks and shelters for the school grounds, as well as safety education programs. Williams said eventually the school hopes to generate a “human school bus” — a group of students, with an adult leader, who walk or ride bikes to school together. That idea is two fold: clean air and healthy students.

Finally, $64,000 in grant money was secured for the Paul Ambrose Trail for Health. The money will go to pave a bike and walking path at Rotary Park.

The money was awarded from grants by the state of West Virginia.

11/3/2011

HUNTINGTON — Southside Elementary is a neighborhood school with just under 500 students and only requires two school buses. Many walk or ride their bike, and school officials want to make sure they can do that safely.

The school applied for and has received one of several 2011 Safe Routes to School grants. The school, which will partner with the city of Huntington, has $130,000 to use toward the repair of sidewalks and curb cuts in the neighborhood surrounding the school. Southside Elementary is located between 2nd and 3rd streets along 9th Avenue, and opened in 2010.

Heather Parker, co-president of the Southside PTO, also said the funds will be used to purchase a bike shelter that can hold more bike racks. She said there also will be an educational component that includes bike and walking safety.

The educational component is highlighted by the fact that a fifth-grade student was hit by a car in late August while walking to school. According to Huntington Police, the 10-year-old boy darted into traffic in the middle of 9th Avenue.

Charles Holley, Huntington’s executive director of Development and Planning, said $100,000 of the grant will be used for infrastructure upgrades. That will likely include, in addition to sidewalk upgrades, painted crosswalks between 1st and 5th streets and possibly a pedestrian light on 5th Street.

“There’s a few challenges like 5th and 1st streets,” Holley said. “We want to develop good crossing points and want to emphasize safety.”

Jennifer Williams got involved early on because she and her husband have children at Southside and want to see it truly be a neighborhood school. She said the neighborhood association will educate the community about the changes and also encourage folks to get involved.

“We want to get adults involved to come out and help man the route in the morning, more than just the block around the school,” Williams said.

Williams and others said they believe these changes will encourage more students to walk to school. Currently, said Joe Meadows, the assistant director of Transportation for Cabell County Schools, buses pick up Southside students who live on the east side of 5th Street. He said with the traffic lights and direct access to W.Va. 152, it is a busy route.

“Some kids don’t walk because of safety issues at 1st Street and 5th Street,” Williams added. “There’s a lot of potential for more walkers.”

School and city officials will meet with the coordinator for the grant to develop a plan of action that Holley said they hope to get started on in the spring.

In addition to Southside’s award, the city of Huntington also received two grants. One is a $300,000 Transportation Enhancement grant to continue work on the Old Main Corridor. The other is a $64,000 Recreation Trails grant for the Rotary Park section of the Paul Ambrose Trail for Health. Both required a 20 percent match, which Holley said the city was able to do.

10/27/2011

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Hurricane is planning to equip the entire city with new trails and green spaces to make biking or walking possible almost anywhere in the city.

Patrick Donovan, who works for the Rahall Appalachian Transportation Institute and is a Hurricane resident, said the project could be summed up as an effort to keep people out of their cars.

“Right now, there’s no mobility throughout the neighborhoods,” he said. “Little Johnny can’t go see little Billy without coming out of his neighborhood and going over U.S. 34.”

Donovan, who has a son in the fifth-grade and is an avid runner and biker, said he is constantly searching for places in Hurricane to run and ride that aren’t on concrete sidewalks.

The plan would attempt to carve trails that would connect schools, parks, neighborhoods, restaurants and other businesses throughout the city, “even the Walmart,” he said.

As president of the Putnam parks and recreation board, Donovan said he has been able to work closely with city officials. He said the plan has already been presented to City Council members.

“Hurricane is always looking for green space and recreational opportunities anyway,” he said.

Mayor Scott Edwards said he and other city officials are excited about the idea.

“It’s a win-win for everyone. There are no losers in the situation,” Edwards said. “It seems like our society is walking a lot more for health reasons and to get proper exercise. We see a lot of bikers in Hurricane, but there’s not a nice trail system in place here.”

The proposed map includes 1.5 miles of trails that would connect Hurricane High School with local neighborhoods, and also connect the school to Hurricane Creek. Two miles of trails would connect most of Hurricane, and include a trail that would run along the Interstate 64 corridor from Milton to Scott Depot.

10/3/2011

HUNTINGTON, W.Va. – Jeff Imel, founder of Air Robotics Airborne Vehicle Systems, will be the guest speaker in a Rahall Appalachian Transportation Institute (RTI) Transportation Seminar Series event Thursday, Oct. 6.

Imel will speak from 11 a.m. to noon in Room 276 of the Science Building on Marshall University’s Huntington campus. The event is free to the public.

Air Robotics is an aerospace company that designs and manufactures blended wing body Airborne Vehicle Systems (AVS) for use in remote sensing and airborne scientific applications. It offers payload-agnostic functionality by virtue of its patent-pending Modular Payload Lifting System (MPLS).

Customers using Air Robotics Airborne Vehicle System can swap payloads in just minutes, in the field, allowing them to perform multiple missions using a single airframe.

9/11/2011

Fit Fest is conducted Sunday, Sept. 11, 2011, at Ritter Park. Proceeds go to the construction and maintenance of the Paul Ambrose Trail for Health.

View the photo gallery >

HUNTINGTON, WV — Kids had the opportunity to take their imaginations to new heights this week during “Fun with Legos” at Cabell County Library branches this week.

The events were hosted by Linda Hamilton, a former Marshall University math professor, who works at the Rahall Transportation Institute. Hamilton, who is a LEGO specialist, provides the Legos, and participants use them to build places from around the world.

The event visited the Main and Gallaher branches on Thursday and Friday and it will be available at 1:30 p.m. Tuesday, July 19, at the West Huntington Library.

The library will also host three “African Drums and Dance” events Monday, July 18. Steve Hall, coordinator of percussion at Marshall University, will perform traditional music from West Africa using several drums and other instruments. The event will be at 10:30 a.m. at Gallaher Village Library, 12:30 p.m. at Guyandotte Library and 2:30 p.m. at Milton Library.

For more information on LEGO events, visit www.marshall.edu/LEGO, and for more information about the library, visit http://cabell.lib.wv.us.

CHARLESTON, WV — U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood expressed confidence Monday that the promise of jobs will help ensure passage of a funding measure this year for this aging chunk of the nation’s infrastructure, despite the divide in Congress over government spending and the federal debt.

LaHood also promoted President Barack Obama’s push for more high-speed rail as the keynote speaker at the International Transportation and Economic Development Conference in Charleston.

The former Republican U.S. House member from Illinois said his tenure on Capitol Hill saw several multi-year transportation bills succeed by wide margins.

“There are no Democratic and Republican roads. There are no Democratic or Republican bridges,” LaHood said. “Transportation is bipartisan.”

But several members of West Virginia’s congressional delegation who preceded LaHood touched on the largely party-line split over the federal budget.

Sen. Jay Rockefeller, who chairs that chamber’s Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, blasted the budget plan approved by the House last month. It relies too heavily on tax cuts for the wealthy, which it would offset with slashed spending at a time when the nation must replace 90,000 miles of highway, 70,000 bridges and a 1950s-era air traffic control system, he said.

“To put it bluntly, our transportation system is inadequate, and in some cases an embarrassment to what we aspire to as a nation and a global leader,” Rockefeller said.

U.S. Rep. Nick Rahall, the ranking Democrat on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, also outlined the country’s array of infrastructure needs.

“We have the technology to order a pizza online, for example, but trucks have to wait in line at marine ports because we don’t use a high-tech scheduling system for picking up cargo,” Rahall said.

He was also critical of the Republican plan, saying it would reduce federal transportation spending by $318 billion over the next decade. He argued that every $1 billion invested in transportation yields 36,000 jobs and $6.2 billion in economic activity.

“Without a doubt, the surest pathways to opportunity and success are America’s railways, roadways and runways,” Rahall said.

GOP Rep. Shelley Moore Capito, who also serves on the committee with Rahall, said the House-passed proposal aims to set national priorities at a time when Congress must decide whether to increase the federal debt limit.

“We’ve got to figure out a way together to get the heavy burden of debt and deficit off the back of our future so we can move forward with the projects that well all want,” Capito said. “The good news is, we all know that our bridges and roads, and airports and rail need repair, need development and need future expansion.”

LaHood predicted that Congress will find a way to balance tackling the debt with sufficient spending on transportation. He said the recent federal stimulus devoted $48 billion to 15,000 transportation projects, providing 65,000 jobs.

Calling Obama’s six-year, $560 billion proposal in this arena a “big bold vision,” LaHood focused on its call for a national high-speed rail system that would link 80 percent of Americans in the next 25 years.

“That will be the next generation of transportation for the next generation,” LaHood said. “The previous generation gave us the interstate system. It took us 50 years to do it, but we have a state-of-the-art interstate system. The last generation gave us a state-of-the-act freight rail system.”

Reception to Obama’s rail proposal has been mixed. Florida Gov. Rick Scott recently canceled a Tampa-Orlando high-rail project, rejecting $2.4 billion in federal funds. But LaHood said his department has since received $10 billion worth of requests for that withdrawn money.

Speaking to reporters after his speech, LaHood also praised Rockefeller for his efforts to target distracted driving. The secretary said accidents involving smart phone-using drivers killed 5,500 people in 2009, and injured 450,000.

Rockefeller, meanwhile, expressed support for the Corridor H highway and continued funding for the federal Essential Air Service program. It offers subsidies to air lines for less-profitable routes. These often involve airports in rural or remote communities, including four in West Virginia. The GOP-led House has sought to end the program, saying it serves too few people

“I’m a chairman of the conference committee” negotiating a compromise on that bill, Rockefeller told The Associated Press after his speech. “I’m not going to sign on to something that doesn’t have it.”

The Rahall Appalachian Transportation Institute organized the three-day conference, which began Sunday.

“Transportation is the tie that binds us,” said Transportation Secretary Rodney E. Slater during a March 8 rally of representatives from more than 30 organizations. Held to create support for National Transportation Week (NTW), which is May 14 through 20, the rally highlighted many of the successes so far of the planning group and encouraged participation in this year’s events.

“Transportation is about a journey,” Slater said. “National Transportation Week gives us an opportunity to say that…It is a wonderful time to give voice and form to that story.”

The rally also emphasized “Workforce Issues” as the focus of NTW this year. In a time when job opportunities outnumber the personnel available to fill them, NTW is sponsoring activities that will encourage young people to pursue careers in transportation.
“There is probably no other issue that reaches across all the modes [of transportation] in both the public and private sectors,” noted Joseph S. Toole, director of professional development for the Federal Highway Administration and one of the organizers of NTW. “This is an issue that very much unites all of the transportation community.”

A number of events and outreach programs are planned during NTW to reach young people. These complement the Garrett A. Morgan Technology and Transportation Futures Program, which is aimed at encouraging students from kindergarten to college to consider careers in transportation. The Garrett A. Morgan Program was initiated by Slater and has already reached more than 1 million children.

One NTW activity is a poster contest being sponsored for fifth graders. Students are invited to enter artwork that represents their thoughts on the theme, “Transportation…Taking You Where You Want to Go.” Prizes will be awarded to winners, and it is hoped that the winning artwork will be used in next year’s NTW program.

“One of our greatest desires is to use National Transportation Week as a way to generate interest in transportation throughout the country,” noted Stephen Van Beek, assistant deputy secretary (of transportation) for intermodalism and co-chairman of NTW 2000. “This is why we are encouraging so many organizations to work with their field offices and chapters to sponsor regional or local events.”

Another event planned during this week is the Design for Transportation National Awards, scheduled for May 16 at the National Academy of Sciences. The awards will be presented to facilities and for proposals that exemplify the highest standards of design and that have made an outstanding contribution to the nation’s transportation system.

Other activities planned for NTW include a discussion on “Transportation in the 21st Century,” featuring a panel of former secretaries of transportation, and a reception at which the historical, transportation-related paintings by artist and former Bureau of Public Roads employee Carl Rakeman will be displayed.

A tool kit that outlines how organizations can spread the word about NTW on a local level is available.

For more information, visit the Web site at National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.