Feb. 10--OGDENSBURG -- It wasn't raining when Noah built the ark, but when the rain came he was ready.

As the city's waterfront steering committee returns to the long work of planning the future development of Ogdensburg, it doesn't want people to be discouraged by the lack of busy cranes and excavators in the city.

Jane E. Rice, a project manager with edr Companies, a Syracuse consulting firm hired to help the city with its Local Waterfront Revitalization Plan, told the steering committee that much of the plan won't necessarily lead to construction.

Feb. 10--When people hear the word "green" used to talk about sewers, they likely imagine the source of a foul stench -- perhaps one toxic enough to bestow superpowers on cartoon turtles.

A new plan from the city hopes to use green ideas to turn an underutilized wetland into an environmentally friendly, park-like asset to the city's sewer system.

Assistant Public Works Director Andy Clements told the City Council on Thursday about a project that would install retention basins along Northeast Parkway, north of Corby Pond.

WASHINGTON - A long-sought safety feature that Congress required after a deadly 2008 rail crash would be delayed for five years under legislation that the House is expected to take up next week.

Shortly after a train collision near Chatsworth, Calif., Congress required rail operators transporting passengers or toxic materials to install equipment by the end of 2015 that would automatically stop a train that is in danger of an accident.

Federal investigators cited the lack of such a safety system, referred to as positive train control, as a contributing factor in the Chatsworth crash that killed 25 people and injured more than 100.

Feb. 09--WASHINGTON -- After months of inaction, the House and Senate are moving forward with multiyear plans to shape national transportation policy.

Among the points of major contention is a provision in the GOP-penned five-year, $260 billion House bill that would shift mass transit funding from its traditional place within the federal Highway Trust Fund into an account tied to the general fund.

Some lawmakers and transportation officials warn that the change would mean the end of a guaranteed, stable stream of money for buses, trains and other transit.

Norma Merrick Sklarek, the first African American woman in the country to become a licensed architect, who helped produce Terminal 1 at Los Angeles International Airport and the American Embassy in Tokyo, died Monday at her home in Pacific Palisades.

Sklarek broke barriers from the beginning of her career when she passed the New York state exam in 1954 to become the first African American woman to earn an architect's license.

She was the first black woman to earn a license in California, in 1962, and the first to be elected a fellow of the American Institute of Architects, the highest designation bestowed by the professional group, in 1966.

Feb. 10--COMMONWEALTH TRANSPORTATION BOARD'S MAKEUP WOULD MIRROR CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICTS

That was the case in the House of Delegates on Friday as lawmakers narrowly voted to advance a bill that would change the makeup of the Commonwealth Transportation Board.

Legislators from urban and high-growth areas--particularly Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads--are in favor of the bill.

Feb. 10--RICHMOND -- The Missouri Highway 13 Corridor Coalition desires support from three more regional planning commissions to get a 30-mile section of highway between Richmond and Hamilton reclassified.

The Pioneer Trails Regional Planning Commission, consisting of Johnson, Lafayette, Pettis and Saline counties, endorses the change from a minor to a principal arterial road.

Reclassification is part of a long-range plan to upgrade the corridor to four-lanes from the Arkansas border to Highway 36 at Hamilton.

Feb. 10--SOUTH BEND -- The St. Joseph County Health Department and Regional Water and Sewer District plan to seek financing from the county to develop a water and sewer master plan aimed at improving water quality in the county.

Marc Nelson, director of environmental services for the Health Department, will present a proposal to the County Council during committee meetings Feb. 28.

The two are seeking upward of $100,000, some of which could come from state or federal grants, Nelson said.

Feb. 10--RANCHO SANTA MARGARITA -- The City Council on Wednesday gave unanimous support to Assemblywoman Diane Harkey's efforts to stop state funding for a high-speed rail project.

She said she will speak at other cities in the county in the following weeks to gather support.

The proposed legislation would create a rail line linking San Francisco to San Diego.

Feb. 10--HURST -- A panel of five transportation experts spent part of Friday morning briefing about 500 guests at a Northeast Tarrant Transportation Summit about a plethora of ongoing road projects, and the moderator couldn't help noticing that it was a diverse group.

"Three of the five are women.

Getting a road built in your neighborhood still requires lots of networking with an alphabet soup of agencies that control the big dollars -- the council of governments, Texas Department of Transportation, North Texas Tollway Authority, Fort Worth Transportation Authority.

Feb. 10--Stakeholders in a proposed full-size ice rink at the Latah County Fairgrounds identified concluded a two-day workshop Wednesday where costs, amenities and designs were hashed out in the hope of reaching a consensus.

Pavilion board member Tim Gresback said the results will provide a starting point for designing the NHL regulation ice rink by local architect and hockey mom Liza Morris.

Thirty community members comprising five groups of figure skaters, roller derby dames, hockey players, curlers and parents started Tuesday with prioritizing needs based on three design outlines with sizes and associated costs between $2 million and $3 million, said Morris.

Feb. 10--RICHMOND -- Tolls and sales tax revenue are off the table as ways to help fund maintenance of the state's deteriorating transportation infrastructure in the version of Gov. Bob McDonnell's omnibus transportation package approved Thursday by the Senate Finance Committee.

In their place, the committee called for "indexing" the gasoline tax so that it rises along with inflation.

McDonnell wants to fund construction and maintenance for the state's shoddy transportation system by creating a statewide the Virginia Toll Authority, which would have the power to impose tolls on bridges, tunnels and highways.

Feb. 09--Faced with the prospect of having to invest millions of dollars to upgrade its municipal water plant, Evans City is buying water from Pennsylvania American Water.

Norm Nelson, public works director, said the borough's water plant on Route 528 had been in operation since 1956 with another plant located elsewhere before that.

Pennsylvania American spent about $300,000 to extend a main line from Jackson about 1,200 feet to the borough.

Feb. 09--Adair trustees hired Melissa Crawford as court and water bill clerk at the regular meeting Monday.

"These people have got to get caught up and pay their water bills," Crawford said.

Water Superintendent Scott Martin is still processing water at the old plant.

Feb. 09--UC MERCED IS GROWING UP -- and out.

"It's a great step forward in our overall programming, adding 25 percent to our space inventory," said Thomas Lollini, campus architect and associate vice chancellor for physical planning, design and construction.

For example, a total of 27 construction firms have contracted with the university for the Housing 4 project, and 17 of those firms are from the Central Valley, said Patti Waid, UC Merced spokeswoman.

Feb. 09--America's top transportation official offered a spirited defense of high-speed rail plans Wednesday in Fresno but said that he and other supporters are aware of "serious concerns that people may have."

U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood talked to reporters after a downtown Fresno meeting with business owners, including some whose buildings would be displaced by California's plans for high-speed trains through the Valley connecting San Francisco and Los Angeles.

LaHood's visit to the San Joaquin Valley comes one day after Kern County supervisors voted to oppose the state's high-speed rail plans.

Feb. 09--The Pine Ridge Indian Reservation is one of the poorest pockets of the country, with unemployment rates hovering above 80 percent.

The South Dakota reservation that is home to the Oglala Sioux Tribe is facing a tremendous housing crisis, and a CU instructor and his architecture students want to help.

The students in Rob Pyatt's "Native American Sustainable Housing Initiative" will travel to South Dakota, beginning Thursday, to start designing housing for the reservation.

Feb. 09--DURHAM -- After some last-minute confusion, plans for a light-rail line between Chapel Hill and Durham got unanimous approval Wednesday from a bi-county transportation committee.

The approved route runs from UNC Hospitals to downtown Durham, and includes both alternatives for a segment between the Friday Center on N.C. 54 and a proposed development site on Farrington Road in Durham.

C1, favored by the planners: Through the Meadowmont community and across a pristine section of the Little Creek bottomlands, a "Significant Natural Heritage Area."

Feb. 09--Is transportation too expensive to pay for?

Gov. Corbett said Tuesday that he did not budget for rescuing troubled highways, bridges, and mass-transit systems because the problem is so vast.

But Corbett reduced transportation funding by about 9 percent in the budget he proposed Tuesday: $5.86 billion, down from $6.43 billion this year.

Sometimes it seems as if Capitol Hill has become its own country, a secular Vatican City severed from the reality of the 50 states.

That is the impression created by the introduction of two House transportation bills that cleared committees last week that are completely at odds with where the rest of the country is headed.

House Republicans unveiled their version of a five-year transportation funding bill that would eliminate dedicated funding for public transportation, reversing a decision made 30 years ago by President Ronald Reagan to fund mass transit out of a small share of gas tax revenues.

Feb. 07--Sonoma County supervisors Tuesday approved a small addition to the list of county roads targeted for long-term maintenance while signaling support for study of a possible property tax increase to boost road upkeep.

The $4.5 million currently allocated toward long-term upkeep is woefully short of the $120 million maintenance backlog saddling the county's 1,382-mile network.

Supervisors tentatively agreed the problem may require a tax increase, possibly in the form of a countywide road maintenance district.

Feb. 08--Pennsylvania's transportation problems are too big to be solved in a single budget, Gov. Tom Corbett said on Tuesday.

Although PennDOT Secretary Barry Schoch predicted last month that Corbett would detail his plan to increase transportation funding no later than his 2012-13 budget address, the governor didn't reveal much yesterday.

"Transportation must be confronted as its own distinct and separate topic," Corbett said in his address.

WASHINGTON - The Senate was scheduled to take up a bill to extend federal highway and transit programs later this week even though Democrats were still struggling Tuesday to find a way to pay for the programs.

The Senate Finance Committee approved a measure that raises about $10 billion to make up a shortfall between the $109 billion in spending authorized by the transportation bill and the amount of money projected to be raised by federal gasoline taxes, the principal source of highway funds.

The actual amount needed in those two years to make up the shortfall is less than $6 billion, but that would leave highway and transit programs without a financial cushion in case gas tax revenues turn out to be less than anticipated.

CHICAGO -- Amtrak passenger trains sped up to 110 mph for the first time Tuesday in western Michigan and northern Indiana on two routes serving Chicago, officials announced.

Trains operating on the corridor are the Amtrak Wolverine Service between Pontiac, Mich., and Chicago via Detroit and Ann Arbor; and the Amtrak Blue Water between Port Huron, Mich., and Chicago via East Lansing.

The increase in speed from 95 mph to 110 mph followed the Federal Railroad Administration's approval of a positive train control system.

Feb. 07--Dave Elgin figures Cedar Rapids gas-station customers pump about $50 million a year into the state's road-use tax fund.

Elgin, the city's public works director, says the state's formula for distributing road-use tax fund (RUTF) revenue shortchanges local motorists.

"If 75 percent of their miles are driven in the city and they're buying gas and they're only getting 25 percent of that back, that's not meeting the original intent of the formula," Elgin said, pointing out many Cedar Rapids streets see heavy truck traffic delivering loads to and from local ag processing plants.

Feb. 07--SMART SIGNALS Traffic signals that spot large groups of vehicles and tweak a road's signals to ease the congestion will soon debut in Ada County.

This could be especially useful after special events or on a Friday at mid-afternoon before a holiday weekend, said Terry Little, ACHD's traffic manager, adding that the technology can reduce delay by 10 percent.

"We're targeting the Eagle, Idaho 44, Glenwood and Chinden rectangle for the rollout, which could be as early as this fall," said ACHD Communication Director Craig Quintana.

Feb. 06--The federal government has granted a key approval that will allow the city to immediately begin up to $184.7 million in construction and other activities on the city's rail project, including erecting the first sections of raised guideway from East Kapolei to Pearl Highlands.

The approval announced by U.S. Sen. Daniel Inouye today allows the city to move forward with construction before the federal government has actually committed to contributing its proposed $1.55 billion share of funding for the 20-mile rail project.

The city hopes to obtain a final committment for federal assistance by October.

If you're planting a spring garden in the U.S. this year, you may want to set aside some extra seed money.

As the Associated Press points out, 18 of 34 cities listed on the old map are now in new zones, as are large swaths of some states, including Ohio, Nebraska and Texas.

"It is a good thing the government updated the map," Woodrow Nelson of the Arbor Day Foundation tells USA Today.

Because as important as our work together has been these last several decades, it's about to become even more important.

Around HUD, I'm known as a "numbers guy" and when it comes to the baby-boom generation, the numbers don't lie.

In 20 years, more than 70 million Americans will have reached retirement age.

Initial three-year course should also cover planning and landscape

Richard Rogers has called for an overhaul in architectural education to allow students to study a wider range of built environment subjects at degree level.

Rogers, speaking at an RIBA lecture this week with partners Ivan Harbour and Graham Stirk, likened his vision to how medicine is taught.

Feb. 05--SANTA CRUZ -- The city's long-delayed general plan update, a blueprint for how Santa Cruz officials will guide development, transportation and natural resource protection during the next generation, has returned to the fore.

The City Council will host a study session on the plan, which lays out land-use, economic and environmental goals through 2030, beginning at 7 p.m. Tuesday.

After an advisory panel met 77 times in two years to make recommendations on the state-required plan, the document has sat largely dormant for three years as city planners handled high-profile development projects, university growth negotiations and a climate action plan.

Feb. 05--When the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Selma-to-Montgomery voting rights march takes place in three years, Montgomery officials want their portion of the national historic trail to at least be in better shape than it is today.

"I will be sorely disappointed if we cannot have something in 2015 that we can be very, very proud of," Montgomery Mayor Todd Strange said this week about the trail.

Those ideas and concepts will be incorporated into an "action plan" that will be available in June, according to Bob Wilkerson with 2D Studio of Birmingham.

When it comes to California's plans for high-speed rail, scads of people have strong opinions.

As I noted in Wednesday's column, voters in 2008 approved a 520-mile train route that was supposed to cost $33 billion and be completed in 2020.

Those seemed like fair questions to put to Dan Richard, who served on the Bay Area Rapid Transit board for 12 years and has been picked by Brown to save high-speed rail.

ALAMEDA, Calif. - California's plans for a bond-financed high-speed passenger train system are in critics' crosshairs following the release last week of a critical report by the state auditor.

The California High-Speed Rail Authority was created in 1996 to plan a high-speed passenger train system to link the Los Angeles and San Francisco Bay regions.

Its importance multiplied in 2008, when state voters approved a $9.95 billion general obligation bond measure designed to be a significant down payment toward turning those plans into reality.

COOLIN, Idaho - Woodland caribou, rarely-seen creatures that with their antlers stand as tall as a man, are struggling to survive in the United States, precariously occupying one remote area of the Northwest as a final toehold in the Lower 48.

The federal government has proposed designating about 600 square miles in Idaho and Washington - roughly half the size of Rhode Island - as critical habitat in an effort to save this last U.S. herd of fewer than 50 animals.

Federal endangered species law requires that critical habitat be set aside for the caribou, and environmental groups went to court to force the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to comply.

WASHINGTON -- A key House panel late Thursday gave the back of its hand to California's embattled high-speed rail program.

In another sign of high-speed rail's political travails, the House committee writing a massive transportation bill included an amendment that prohibits new federal funds from going to California's proposed $98 billion project during the five-year life of the bill.

Denham, who has moved his California residence from Atwater to Turlock, offered the amendment during an excruciatingly long and sometimes contentious markup of the bill dubbed the American Energy and Infrastructure Jobs Act.

Related Stories:A national initiative to increase job and career opportunities in the transportation, aviation and aerospace industries rolled out its training and internship program in Tulsa on Wednesday with hopes for positive outcomes for both employers and workers.

The opening of the Transportation Connections WorkAdvance center at 907 S. Detroit Ave. will provide unemployed and underemployed students and workers with a career advancement program offering technical training and job placement opportunities in the transportation industry, officials said.

"The Transportation Connections WorkAdvance initiative is supporting job growth and providing citizens with the necessary skills for job placement in an industry that continues to grow in Tulsa," Bartlett said.

Feb. 03--After years of discussion on how to remedy the city's plague of vacant and often rotting properties, Councilwoman Maria Quinones Sanchez introduced a bill Thursday that would create a central land bank to collect and find better uses for empty parcels.

Each has its own policies and rules for disposing of parcels, Sanchez said, some of which require the properties to be sold at market value.

Rick Sauer, executive director of the Philadelphia Association of Community Development Corporations, said his group's members had been dealing with the bureaucratic tangle of city ownership for years.

In a boost to wind-energy proponents, the Department of the Interior announced Thursday that wind-energy projects off the Mid-Atlantic coast would cause no significant environmental damage.

The announcement in Baltimore by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar could lift efforts by the governors of Maryland, Virginia, New Jersey and Delaware to make offshore wind a reality.

The positive environmental review designates sections of water off those states for long-term wind-energy leases, which Salazar said he hopes to issue this year.

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- In an extremely unusual use of taxpayer money, the leaders behind California's $99 billion high-speed train quietly hired a lobbyist to sway the state Legislature -- the same politicians who appointed them to build the project in the first place.

Documents filed this week show the California High-Speed Rail Authority last year paid $161,103 to one of the country's biggest public relations companies to lobby the state's politicians as they consider spending $2.7 billion to launch the polarizing bullet train project.

Rail officials paid the lobbyists by issuing debt that will total about $300,000 with interest.

The rail line that passes through town is modest -- just 2.4 miles long -- and in recent years, it has been quiet.

But the rail spur -- the right of way and the tracks themselves -- could mean quite a lot to the town in the future, said First Selectman Edward McAnaney, which is why Suffield is moving to stop the railroad's abandonment.

At the end of December, Connecticut Southern Railroad, which owns the line, filed with the federal Surface Transportation Board for a petition for an exemption to abandon the track -- a process that could involve removing the steel tracks and ties for salvage.

Each stop on the planned SunRail commuter train through Central Florida is a potential concession stand, but what gets sold and for how much remains unknown.

The even bigger unanswered question for SunRail officials is if there would be enough money left over to help offset an expected operating deficit of nearly $8 million annually.

So far, a national bike-rental company and Orlando restaurateur Johnny Rivers have indicated they might be willing to set up shop on at least some of the 17 depots that eventually will dot SunRail's 61-mile system.

The frayed partnership between the Florida Department of Transportation and Tri-Rail took another hit as the South Florida Regional Transportation Authority last week rejected a proposal to take on train dispatching and track maintenance along the commuter line's 72-mile corridor.

The decision was the right one.

The department insists on its unwise Tri-Rail takeover in advocating for legislation giving Gov. Rick Scott and the FDOT secretary the power to appoint a majority of the authority's board and to shift control of the commuter rail's operations to the state.

WASHINGTON-Two senior Federal Reserve officials called on policymakers to take steps quickly to help ease the pain of the housing market to assist ongoing efforts to rescue the U.S. economy.

In two separate speeches, Federal Reserve Board Gov. Elizabeth Duke and New York Fed president William Dudley stressed the need to take forceful action to aid the real estate market, which has been a drag on the economy, but stopped short of offering a silver bullet solution.

"Given the severity of problems with supply and demand in the housing market, it is unlikely that any single policy solution will provide the full answer, but a number of different policies each have the potential to yield incremental improvement in housing and economic recovery," Duke said in a speech before the Virginia Bankers Association and state Chamber of Commerce.

A weather site powered by the Tulsa staff of the National Weather Service allows Tulsa World readers to receive weather alerts, forecasts and current conditions as the staff issues them.

How one day changed Tulsa's January from the driest month in more than a decade to just another dry month.

According to the National Weather Service, Tulsa's January, as of Sunday, was more than 5 degrees warmer than normal.

If and when California's high-speed train is built, how fast would it have to go, and how much cheaper would a ticket have to cost, for you to give up flying?

I went to Union Station this week, as well as the Burbank airport, to ask travelers those very questions.

Every time I consider booking a flight from Burbank to Oakland, I think about whether I'd prefer to drive instead.

As Congress returns, facing transportation legislation deadlines, U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) Secretary Ray LaHood urged local officials to push for Congressional action on a transportation funding bill and "put Americans back to work."

is through transportation bills" currently before Congress, LaHood told city leaders at the U.S. Conference of Mayors Winter Meeting last week.

LaHood reminded city officials that with the current aviation bill extension set to expire on January 31, Congress will have to reach an agreement on a program that has been extended 22 times already.

A proposal to rezone parts of east Miramar and encourage mixed-use redevelopment was met with skepticism by many residents at a recent public meeting.

The city intends to create a Transit Oriented Corridor by rezoning 440 acres, bordered on the south by County Line Road, on the north by Pembroke Road, to the east by State Road 7, and to the west by parts of Southwest 61st, 64th and 66th Avenues.

The city hopes to encourage multi-story development that makes use of the Mediterranean Revival architectural style seen across Miramar at locations such as the Town Center.

House Republicans will present a long-awaited plan to fund the nation's transportation system on Tuesday, a proposal that would shift more decision-making authority to state governments, dramatically reduce the time spent on environmental reviews and encourage private companies to expand the highway system by building toll roads.

The bill also would require that people convicted of drunken driving use ignition interlock devices for a year, a rare move to impose federal will in an area of state jurisdiction.

Spreading about $260 billion over a five-year span, the House proposal would continue to fund transportation programs at close to current levels.

Rising temperatures caused by global warming are cutting wheat yields in India, suggesting difficulties ahead for global food supplies, a researcher said.

On the Ganges plain, the breadbasket of India, winter wheat planted in November is harvested when temperatures rise in spring and the wheat turns from green to brown, a sign the grain is no longer growing.

Researcher David Lobell of Stanford University used nine years of images from an Earth-observation satellite to track when the change from green to brown occurs in the region.