Ohio Award of $1.8 Million for broadband mapping project will show, help close gaps in IT coverage

December 23, 2:29 PMColumbus Government ExaminerJohn Michael Spinelli

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Gaps in access by citizens, business to IT must be closed for Ohio's dreams of future to come true.

(Photo/Connect Ohio)

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COLUMBUS, Ohio -- The announcement of the award by Gov. Ted Strickland that Ohio will receive $1.8 million for a broadband mapping project is good news, because when the data is collected and the map is drawn, it will show just how far, when compared to other states or countries, Ohio is behind the curve of deploying broadband connectivity technology to its citizens and business community.

Strickland administration works to close IT gaps

Prepared remarks from Strickland's office said stimulus funding from the Recovery Act Washington passed earlier this year will again be the source of cash to finance this project. Development of important state infrastructure projects, like the expansion of information technology infrastructure sufficiently that all citizens and business have access to it, is a must if Ohio is to be ahead of and not behind the technology curve other states and even countries have vaulted with success, enabling them to be future competitive.

The award is to help implement the Strickland Administration’s plan to compile and map broadband availability in Ohio, including location, available speed and type of technology delivering the service, said a media release.

Strickland said Connect Ohio was created in 2008 to determine "where Ohio’s broadband infrastructure exists – and where it doesn’t exist – to better target the investments that will help us reach our goal of providing broadband access to all Ohioans.” He said the grant will accelerate efforts to expand economic and educational opportunities to more Ohioans.

The guts of the project will increase broadband access and adoption through better data collection and broadband planning. The data collected is to be displayed in the National Telecommunications and Information Administration’s national broadband map, a tool the announcement said will "inform policymakers' efforts and provide consumers with improved information on the broadband Internet services available to them."

Two years and one week ago, Strickland, who had just finishing his first year on the job, launched the public-private partnership known as Connect Ohio, whose mission was to expand broadband services across the state by working with local communities and providers to map gaps in access.

At the time, Strickland said this on the goal of Connect Ohio: "The digital divide in Ohio takes many forms – from lack of access to computers and broadband services to a lack of technological skills necessary for the jobs of the future,” Strickland said. “The goal of Connect Ohio is to create customized support for local communities to meet their individual technological needs while helping expand broadband service to all residents and businesses

Strickland said partnering with "cable and telecommunications industries and their workers to build demand for their services and deploy broadband to areas of the state that are currently underserved” was worth the $6.8, paid out over four years or two bienniums, needed to run Connect Ohio.

Program administration falls to the Ohio Department of Administrative Services, working in collaboration with Connect Ohio.

“We are pleased to be working with the Strickland Administration to help create and enhance a comprehensive broadband map in the state of Ohio, and we’re particularly pleased to provide continuing broadband planning efforts to local communities across the state,” said Tom Fritz, executive director of Connect Ohio. He applauded the National Telecommunications and Information Administration for "working diligently to create a national broadband map and are honored to continue the work in Ohio to provide tools that will enable economic, social, and educational benefits to residents and businesses across the state.”

Since 2008, Strickland's office noted that Connect Ohio has benchmarked Ohio’s broadband availability and usage through the use of surveys and data gathered through its relationships with broadband providers across the state. It's detailed information is available at a statewide and county level for businesses and residents regarding broadband availability, access, subscribership, barriers to adoption, computer ownership and average subscriber rates.

Follow me on Twitter @ohionewsbureau. Read more stories on people, politics and government in Ohio here.

Tin Cup Governors

Tin Cup Governors

Will Alms from Washington Be Enough?

Ohio Asks for Funding for Road, Bridge, Rail Projects

with John Michael Spinelli

Columbus, Ohio: Governors and mayors from across the nation, especially from the 44 or so states that have widening budget deficits with no shovel-ready sources of money to close those gaping gaps, are rattling their tin cups, hoping soon-to-be President-elect Barack Obama will shower them with tens of billions of federal dollars so they don't have to choose between shedding services, raising taxes or both.

The closer Obama comes to his inauguration day, the more intense will be the call for stimulus funds -- wasteful bailout funding to some, especially fiscal conservatives -- to flow like flash-flood waters to thirsty states whose budget cups are leaky and dry.

Republicans, who never batted an eye when President George W. Bush ran up record deficits to pay for expensive wars and who defined not spending massive amounts on supporting the troops as un-American and un-patriotic, have switched back to traditional anti-tax arguments.

They are warning that Obama's proposed stimulus package, designed to produce millions of jobs to replace the millions lost just this and over the course of the two terms of out-going President Bush and his tribe of fiscal and social conservatives, shouldn't be too big because it will necessarily shift the burden of repayment to future generations.

But as the debate escalates over how big the economic recovery package should be, governors of states like New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Wisconsin and Ohio, among others, are indeed the Chicken Little's of our time. Only in their version of this classic children's tale, the sky really is falling.

In Ohio, for example, a Republican-controlled state since 1992 that elected Democrats in 2006 and went for Obama last year, the projected budget deficit so far is about $7.1 billion, the greatest budget gap in history.

Strickland, Ohio's first Democratic governor since the early 1990s, said in early January that the situation facing the state of Ohio is so dire that in order to balance his state’s budget, he would have to fund every state program at 75 percent of its current level, according to Politico.com. “If I were simply to flat fund the operations of this government, I’d end up with $7.3 billion in deficit,” he said, adding, "We’re just trying to keep afloat.”

The governors have collectively requested Obama and a new expanded Democratic-led Congress for $1 trillion. Hard hit by jobs losses across the board, manna from Washington would be spent to prevent cuts in social services and education, as well as “shovel ready” infrastructure projects that could begin with 18 months, according to published reports.

In the Buckeye State, jobs numbers are grim. Numbers from the Department of Job and Family Services show that employment decreased by 26,600 jobs, while goods-producing industries were down 29,330; manufacturing was down 22,100; and construction lost 7,500 jobs. For a state that never recovered from the Bush recession of 2001, losing 95,000 in the past 12 months, pushing the unemployment rate to 7.3 percent, is shock and awe of a different kind. In some areas of the state, like Lucas County, home to Toledo, the unemployment rate is 9.5 percent. In nearby Ottawa County, it is 10.3 percent.

As dire as conditions are, Republicans are being taken to the wood shed on the efficacy of tax cuts versus direct government spending. Obama's economic team says alms for poor states pack a bigger bang when spent directly than through tax cuts, which recipients might save instead of spending.

For a state like Ohio, which experienced $1.2 billion in state budget cuts in 2008, the hundreds of millions can't arrive soon enough.

In one region, Cuyahoga County and four other northeastern Ohio counties, the cost of their proposed projects are at $197 million, published reports say. County leaders, the report says, have added tens of millions of dollars more to the list.

Howard Maier, executive director of the Northeast Ohio Areawide Coordinating Agency, which funnels federal money to local transportation projects says, explaining the sum to a central Ohio newspaper, said: "We have to be ready the moment a stimulus package is approved." He added, "It's not just the direct jobs; suppliers are involved. There's a multiplier effect of the construction."

Columbus Mayor Michael Coleman is using the opportunity to get his push for light rail back on track. Coleman wants $200 million to build a 13-mile transit system. Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson wants $730 million to fund road and bridge projects.

But as this page has reported before, so-called "shovel-ready" projects may not be "future-ready" projects.

Which alms flow in what amounts to which states will be a fierce contest for sure. With consumer confidence just one point above an all-time low, doors will be open for the greenback cavalry when ever it arrives.

John Michael Spinelli is an economic development professional, business and travel writer and former Ohio Statehouse political reporter. He is also Director of Ohio Operations for Tubular Rail Inc. To send a tip or comment, email ohionewsbureau@gmail.com

Shovel-Ready Infrastructure Not Necessarily Future-Ready Infrastructure

Shovel-Ready Infrastructure Not Necessarily Future-Ready Infrastructure

Funding Shovel-Ready Projects May Only Dig Nation's Car-Centric Hole Deeper

with John Michael Spinelli

Columbus, Ohio: Even though Washington has approved $17 billion in TARP funding to Detroit's Big Three car makers to tide them over to spring, the news that one renowned billionaire investor has dumped his considerable holdings in Ford, whose stock has plummeted this year and now resides at about $2, should be a tale of caution for public officials, from president-elect Barack Obama and a new Democratically controlled congress who want to open the flood gates on massive spending on infrastructure to under-gird its economic recovery plan, to consider the best interests of the nation as it chooses between infrastructure projects ready for a shovel and projects that are ready for the future.

Economic development professionals and public policy makers have rounded up thousands of conventional infrastructure projects, the vast majority of which are about roads and bridges and by extension cars, as projects that but for the lack of a shovel could create jobs quickly.

With the American economy in a tailspin of such velocity that nearly 2 million jobs have been lost in 2008, it is clearly appetizing that car-centric projects involving roads and bridges move to the front of the class ofObama's stimulus package. But the question being raised by a growing chorus of economy watchers is whether throwing billions of dollars into convention projects is wise? The need for the nation to find a better, more affordable and realistic road to mass transit, which is growing in popularity as family and community budgets tighten in the wake of job losses from companies that have thrown in the towel, is clear.

In Ohio, for example, the state department of transportation proudly announced it performed 493 road and bridge projects this year. The same can probably be said for the other 49 states when it comes to road versus non-road projects. A new report issued by a 62-member task force to Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland about the "crisis" state of state transportation efforts, offers guidance on spending. But the guidance, sadly, is for conventional, past-ready projects that some critics of "shovel-ready" projects would say spends good money on old infrastructure that will only gobble up more funds in a handful of years because their life-span is short and repair and maintenance will soon be needed.

Chester Jourdan, executive director of the Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission and a task force member, said the report represents a long-overdue attempt to "move the state beyond its traditional role as builder and fixer of highways to one as a strategic creator of interconnected public transit, rail, road and water routes that can boost economic development," according to Columbus Business First (CBF).

“Not everything in the report will be put into law, implemented or passed tomorrow,” Jourdan told CBF. “But there are some tremendous opportunities for Ohio to do some things that are significant, bold and innovative.”

High sounding as the report is, it reflects many of the committee's agendas, which appear mired in expanding on conventional, old-school technology. One would be hard pressed to find language in the report that opens the door to include or embrace outlier technology like Tubular Rail or PRT or Monomobile . All three of these "unproven" technologies, as their critics would say of them, are advancing to proof-of-concept [PRT will soon be seen at Heathrow Airport outside London, England]. For supporters of "proven" technology like steel-wheel-on-rail trains, which is proving that building tomorrow's transportation infrastructure based on yesterday's technology is outrageously costly at a time when Ohio, among other states and the nation, is using a straw to breath because its budget is so far under water, with little expectation that new jobs can roll in any time soon.

So while a specific infrastructure project may be "shovel ready," by its very nature it may not be "future ready." Building advanced transportation systems that avoid the pitfalls of current, conventional technologies -- costly, difficult to build and environmentally unfriendly -- seems a wiser, more prudent tact to take for the tsunami of funding Washington will wash over the nation in 2009 to reclaim prosperity and the middle class jobs that are key to it.

Both Tubular Rail and Monomobile represent outlier technologies that have an uphill climb before them. State bureaucrats, totally risk averse by nature, only seem interested in fully baked cakes -- late stage commercialization in program talk -- and don't seem too eager to help start-up companies gain the traction they need to show their technologies may be eminently cheaper than conventional transportation infrastructure, not to mention quicker to be built which translates into new, sustainable jobs. But as Malcolm Gladwell points out in his trilogy of books on the unforseen phenomenon of why new, small events can suddenly bloom into game changers [Tipping Point, Blink and Outlier], a new idea like Tubular Rail, prominently featured in the Discovery Channel's episode on future trains that will air in January, that uses readily available existing technology in a new way isn't shovel-ready but it is "future-ready."

Hungry lobbyists representing the infrastructure status quo will use their sharp elbows to eat up as much of Obama's infrastructure stimulus package as it can, despite the fact that putting money into their agendas may only dig us into a deeper hole because it furthers our dependence on cars and the roads and bridges they need to operate. The same will be true for rail, which is using its capacity for freight. High speed rail on conventional tracks, while it sounds good, is just too expensive. California voters who approved a $9.5 billion bond package this November for only a quarter of the state's projected 800-mile system [close to that of France] will find out that build out costs will be double or triple the cost sold to them, and that's after they settle lawsuits with the Union Pacific railroad over use of their tracks.

The Wright Brothers invented heavier-than-air, controlled flight in 1903. If Orville and Wilbur were to show up today to ask Ohio development officials for money for their outlier technology, the Wrights would be wrong in thinking Ohio would give them a dollar since their invention wasn't in the "late stages of commercialization" and they couldn't bring $3 in investments for every $1 of state funds. So while Ohio, which worries over loosing more of the 250,000 jobs directly or indirectly tied to the Big Three of Detroit, claims itself on its license plate as the "Birthplace of Aviation," it hasn't recognized that a new industry, like Tubular Rail, which can be every bit as powerful as planes or cars, can be had for a song, creating many new jobs in Ohio for former Chrysler, Ford or General Motors employees who have either lost their jobs or soon will be seeking state unemployment benefits.

John Michael Spinelli is an economic development professional and former Ohio Statehouse political reporter and business columnist. He is also Director of Ohio Operations for Tubular Rail Inc. To send a tip of comment, email ohionewsbureau@gmail.com

On Making Our Own Stuff Again

On Making Our Own Stuff Again
Import Substitution Factor in Economic Recovery Plan

Spending on Right Infrastructure Good First Step

with John Michael Spinelli

Columbus, Ohio: The foreign trade goal of third-world countries who want to graduate to emerging economies is to substitute imports with goods made at home instead of in foreign nations. American manufacturers, spurred on by tax policy that paid them to outsource millions of middle-class jobs over a decade and more, have turned the one-time butcher into the fatted calf that China and Pacific Rim nations, where labor is cheap, have been feeding on for quite some time.

Having lost millions of jobs due to policies like NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement, that a political outlier like Ross Perot, running as a third party candidate in 1992 against then-president George H.W. Bush and a young, brash governor of Arkansas who would twice be elected president, said would produce a great "sucking sound" as jobs crossed the Rio Grand, was the tipping point of American manufacturers who used to make goods with American labor, making goods with low-cost foreign labor that were then imported to a hungry nation of consumeroids trained to buy not to save.

But America is now caught in a a fierce recession that could take it down like the La Brea Tar Pits did to once-mighty creatures who inadvertently got caught in and succumbed to its sticky ooze. To extricate ourselves from the fate that met Saber-toothed Cats and other creatures of prey whose bones are testament to their misguided misfortune, maybe its time America starts doing what emerging nations have done to keep their hopes alive, their money at home and their jobs from wandering abroad: start making our own stuff again.

It might not be the best for corporate bottom lines and the shareholders that enjoy them, but it sure would be good for the top lines of American families and the communities whose survival is dependent on their incomes. Would you rather pay a dollar less for something and create a job overseas or pay a dollar more and create a job for your neighbor? The answer to me is no contest.

The nation could loose 3.5 million jobs and unemployment could be 9 percent or higher, according to Lori Montgomery of the Washington Post. Speaking on the News Hour on PBS, she said 41 states face budget deficits now, among them Ohio, where a potential $7.3 billion gap is the largest in history. Montgomery said Obama's spending payout could last two years due to the fierce recession facing the nation. Montgomery said fixing rather than building would get more money more quickly percolating through the economy. For the construction trades, who she said have the highest rate of unemployment of any sector, over 10 percent, traditional infrastructure spending would be best. But she said a "green stimulus" may well be part of the estimated $775 billion Obama's economic team is talking about now. If the plan is good "economic medicine and not just a grab bag" for politicians, she said it would be viable.

Economist Robert Frank, also interviewed for a segment on infrastructure spending, said that if the "government doesn't spend, we're in for a terrible downturn." New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine rattled off projects like the Hoover Dam, the TVA, the Golden Gate Bridge, the George Washington Bridge and the Holland and Lincoln Tunnels as WPA projects that made a tremendous contribution to reducing employment in the 1930s and still serve the nation nearly 80 years later. He said such spending won't be a panacea, but it will contribute to putting idle hands to work.

The first thing we can start making is our infrastructure. Weeks ago I wrote "Pax Obama Stars in Rebirth of a Nation," my opinion about President-elect Barack Obama's need to fix, repair and build infrastructure systems like water, sewer, roads, bridges and rail that can put lots of people to work quickly. But he also needs a grander strategy for continued job creation. World War II saved the bacon of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, whose turn to conservatism in 1936-37 nearly quashed his mighty works programs like the WPA and CCC that created much-needed jobs for the nearly quarter of the workforce out of work. Obama and the new Democratic Congress must overcome the vortex of forces driving our current economic meltdown by playing their infrastructure trump cards early and smartly.

Newly minted Nobel Prize winner and New York Time's columnist Paul Krugman seems to echo my prognosis to prosperity in his Monday column. In it Mr. Krugman opines that more will be needed than the Obama's expected pursuit of $800 billion or more in deficit spending to turn the economy around.

In so many words, Krugman appeared to endorse the Spinelli plan of "lets make our own stuff again."

"A more plausible route to sustained recovery would be a drastic reduction in the U.S. trade deficit, which soared at the same time the housing bubble was inflating. By selling more to other countries and spending more of our own income on U.S.-produced goods, we could get to full employment without a boom in either consumption or investment spending...Despite rising trade in services, most world trade is still in goods, especially manufactured goods — and the U.S. manufacturing sector, after years of neglect in favor of real estate and the financial industry, has a lot of catching up to do." [Paul Krugman, New York Times]

A growing chorus of advocates who want to see more federal and state investments in infrastructure cautions that not all infrastructure is created equal. This piece posted on the progressive Web site Daily Kos said that investments in roads and bridges, while why might be "shovel ready" would only harden America's dependence on cars and become magnets for more public spending because they don't last that long.

"The last thing, the absolutely last thing, that America needs now is more miles of highway. Pave another half a million miles of road, and you end up repaving up to fifty thousand miles of that a year. And the costs of infrastructure goes up sharply when that new highway starts to attract housing development.

"A hundred billion dollars invested in new highways is no investment at all. It's a commitment to spend another ten billion a year. Forever. Recreating the employment and energy of the WPA is a great idea. Replicating the outcome is begging for a white elephant we can't afford." [Daily Kos ]

The growing interest in rail-oriented infrastructure, as attested to when the lion's share of public transportation projects on the November 4 ballot passed, shows that America is ready to consider and pay for alternatives to cars. This may not be good for Detroit's Big Three car manufacturers, but if they got behind the ball on this, as I said they should do in "Time Right to Shake Up Detroit," they too could benefit, as could their suppliers who are thirsty for new systems and the new components needed to build them.

Making our own stuff again starts with conventional infrastructure, including roads and bridges, but must expand to new public mass transit systems that can create a bounty of middle-class jobs, the lifeblood necessary to rebuild our urban cores.

John Michael Spinelli is an economic development professional and former Ohio Statehouse political reporter and business columnist. To send a tip of comment, email ohionewsbureau@gmail.com

Republican Senators Intercept Hail Mary Pass to Detroit

Republican Senators Intercept Hail Mary Pass to Detroit

Can Train Innovation Like Tubular Rail Ride to the Rescue?

Transportation Infrastructure Key to Jolt Economy

OhioNewsBureau

with John Michael Spinelli

Columbus, Ohio: The news late Thursday that a handful of southern Republican senators, whose political motivation was nothing less than busting the United Auto Workers Union, were able to quash a meager $14 billion bridge loan to Detroit's Big Three automakers Democrats and a lame duck White House were able to arrive at despite President Bush's reluctance to help the industry from driving off a financial cliff is bad news for middle class families.

The inability of General Motors, Chrysler and Ford to receive even bare basic funding begs the question of can America invent a new industry, equal to planes and cars, that can revive a nation now that domestic car makers may be soon asking for their last rights.

As Director of Ohio Operations for Tubular Rail Inc., the "trackless train technology" company from Houston, Texas, the news that Senate Republicans successfully stiff armed Detroit, while disheartening to states like Ohio and Michigan because it means more workers, families and the communities they live in will be further harmed, is the latest sign that new industries offering new jobs must be found to keep the very fabric of our society together.

This report, therefore, continues my exercise in advocacy journalism. The the rising tide of interest by federal and state officials to jolt our cardiac arrest economy to life, through large and immediate investments in transportation infrastructure, amplifies my arguments advanced in previous posts like "Time Right to Shake Up Detroit," "Living La Vida Local" and "Columbus to Paris: Attitude Not Miles Key," a trio of essays that advocate for smarter, affordable alternatives to our car-centric transportation system.

Cars haunt and hinder us as we look to upgrade or build from scratch effective, energy efficient mass transportation systems that don't abandon past technology but don't overlook, discount or block future technology either. Previous civilizations constructed huge, massively impressive and functional infrastructure. For China it was the Great Wall. For Rome it was networks of aqueducts. We must do the same. But what will be our great infrastructure achievement be? Energy or transportation? Or both?

The weekly announcements of hundreds of thousands of Americans are loosing their jobs is as painful to the body politic as passing a kidney stone is to an individual. Claims for unemployment benefits surged to their highest in 26 years, according to the US Labor Department, which reported that jobless benefits in the week ending Dec. 6 rose to a seasonally adjusted 573,000 from an upwardly revised figure of 515,000 in the previous week. This figure is 48,000 in excess of what Wall Street economists expected. With total job losses in 2008 nearing the 2-million mark, President-elect BarackObama's plan to create 2.5 million during his first term, principally through massive investments in infrastructure - roads, bridges, water and drainage systems - is both bold and necessary.

As recently as yesterday, Gov. Ted Strickland of Ohio, where about 250,000 auto-related jobs hang in the balance, gave his residents a bitter pill to swallow, as he explained what cuts he would have to make if the state is confronted with balancing a budget for 2009-10 that could be more than $7 billion, the highest budget gap in state history.

Spending more money at a time when America is broke seems the only remedy to put the nation back to work, echoing what was done by Franklin Delano Roosevelt to lift America from the strangle hold the arms of the Great Depression had on it. But unlike FDR, Obama won't have a world war riding to his rescue. But that's a good thing. The war we must fight now that will create for us the number of jobs that World War II created for the nation then is a war on foreign energy sources that can only be won when we develop our own sources of renewable energy and a means to distribute and use that power in new, innovative ways.

President-elect Obama's appointment Thursday of Stephen Chu to lead the US Department of Energy is good news. Chu is director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and shared the 1997 Nobel Prize in physics. Reuters reported that he was an early advocate for scientific solutions to climate change. Having a winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics running the national department of energy is a revolutionary selection, when compared to picking from a pool of energy lobbyists or former politicians as President Bush liked to do. And Obama could have selected a well-seasoned administrator, as he's done with his other teams like foreign relations or economics. The turnaround of picking a working scientist likeChu is exactly the kind of change Obama said he would bring to Washington. Leadership is most cost-efficient when it comes from the top. Upward leadership from the ranks is important too, but that takes time; and time is a precious commodity these days. When a leader likeChu , whose groundbreaking is all about converting sunlight to electricity, then to chemical power that could then be used to fuel America, not only points the way forward but is inclusive enough to fund inventive, innovative independents to join in, its a breath of fresh air and inspiration and should not go unnoticed by transportation officials, who should consider using technology that may not be conventional, especially when it comes to trains. The train that left the station last century may not be the same train that pulls into the 21st Century station.

The resurgence of talk about reviving train traffic in America is starting to work its way into the minds of the mainstream media. A case in point was today's Washington Post editorial "Invest in Mass Transit" whose subtitled "Far sighted way to jolt the economy" reflected the reality that voters, expressing their will on Election Day by approving most transportation issues, are ready to pay for mass transit.

"Nationwide, voters approved over 70 percent of major transportation-funding measures, according to the Center for Transportation Excellence. That's double the rate at which ballot initiatives are generally approved, and it is even more impressive because gas prices were already declining." [Washington Post ]

Citing significant rises in public mass transit over a half year, it argues that politicians should make infrastructure improvements a key component of any economic stimulus bill. In September the House passed a bill on mass transit that was "haphazardly crafted," according toWaPo , which said would "jump-start ready-to-go transit projects that cash-strapped states had shelved." Continuing, it said these approved but idle projects "would not reward the best projects, only the ones that were ready to begin." The editorial wisely cautioned lawmakers to "give priority to projects that are environmentally friendly and that encourage smart growth."

Everyone at Tubular Rail Inc, where the technology developed and patented by inventor and company founder Robert Pulliam is featured in the Discovery Channel's forward-looking NextWord episode called "Future Train," believes "trackless train technology," which reforms the relationship between wheel and track, can contribute to achieving both energy and transportation goals. TRI has been seeking its "Kitty Hawk" moment to show, through a working "proof of concept" model in Ohio or Texas, that conventional railroads, grade-level steel on steel technology is not only costly but difficult to build and environmentally unfriendly. As well known as traditional trains are and as powerful as their lobby is, the question is, is it smart or affordable to pursue them, especially as public coffers drain dry? Instead, if an affordable, energy efficient, job-producing system whose capital costs could be 60 percent less that conventional train technology, shouldn't it be given its turn at bat in the sweepstakes of public-private funding?

And as America braces for hundreds of thousands or maybe millions more in job losses if a federal bridge loan to Detroit's Big Three automakers fails, as was announced Friday because a handful of Republican senators from southern states with foreign car manufacturers located in them effectively killed the helping hand, what will the next generation of jobs these laid off workers can apply for?

New train technology today is as revolutionary as the untested technology two brothers from Dayton worked on in their bicycle shop at the turn of the 20th century. Orville and Wilbur Wright, the bicycle brothers who birthed controlled, sustained flight in 1903, were hard working inventors of their day whose persistence and perseverance eventually took off despite little interest by the press and no financial assistance from government. They two bachelors winged their way into history at a windy, secluded beach at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, where they turned their glider into a self-powered airplane and made history in the process.

We can only wonder if the fanciful invention Orville and Wilbur worked on at their own expense over several years would turn the heads of state development directors, who in a state like Ohio, where jobs are leaving with few taking their place, seem only to be interested in innovations that are in the "late stages of commercialization" and that can leverage state dollars by a factor of two or three. If Orville and Wilbur showed up today with their invention in Ohio -- whose license plate slogan "The Birthplace of Aviation" memorializes their work -- they wouldn't fair well, as government officials are averse to risk. And lifting a heavier then air machine off the ground for sustained periods was indeed risky.

Tubular Rail's "trackless train technology" is a perfect example of a transportation technology that Obama's infrastructure spending program could make real.

But risk is in the eye of the inventor. The Wrights were not wrong about their own research. Pulliam of Tubular Rail has nurtured his "trackless train technology" along much as the Wright's did in their time, only Pulliam wants to invite the world to his coming out party in contrast to the Wrights, who were far more circumspect about public scrutiny than isPulliam . But Ohio may loose out to Texas in landing a new industry of future trains. Texas may get the jump on jobs Ohio sorely needs if Buckeye officials, both public and private, don't get on board a new train for a new century.

John Michael Spinelli is a former Ohio Statehouse government and political reporter and business columnist. To send a tip of comment, email ohionewsbureau@gmail.com

Pax Obama Stars in Rebirth of a Nation

Pax Obama Stars in Rebirth of a Nation

Transportation Infrastructure Key to New Job Creation

Tubular Rail and Personal Rapid Transit Systems Ready to Help

by John Michael Spinelli

Columbus, Ohio: The approximately 200 years of sustained peace and prosperity that a series of Caesars orchestrated for Rome and its Mediterranean empire was called Pax Romana. During this time political leaders spread a style of civilization that included marvels of engineered infrastructure. Towering stone aqueducts flowed precious water from mountains to cities. Engineering and building elevated stone guideways over land, through valleys and across rivers was technically possible and politically desirable.

As Rome was the marvel of the ancient world, so to has America become the marvel of the contemporary world. But the land of the free and home of the brave has been beaten and battered of late in mind and body. During the last eight years the nation watched as bridges and levees collapse, allowed to do so due to a combination of the infallible faith in the power of the market by some and the ideologically view of government as an obstacle not a partner by others, who now need to backtrack given the colossal failure of their view of the world and how it works. The state of the union is clearly ready for an extreme makeover, lead by investment in basic infrastructure, which we now know will include increased attention to and funding for modern transportation infrastructure that may not look like the railroads we've come to know.

Pax Obama

On Election Day this year Americans voted for a change from pre-emptive warring and dysfunctional economics. Barack Obama won't be sworn in as the 44th president of the United States for weeks yet, but its clear from his statements on how he intends to create 2.5 million new jobs in two years, that basic infrastructure will be the backbone of an effort to show America still has what it takes to adapt to and lead during times of change.

Addressing his plans to create jobs during his first term, President-elect Barack Obama said: “It will be a two-year, nationwide effort to jump-start job creation in America and lay the foundation for a strong and growing economy.We’ll put people back to work rebuilding our crumbling roads and bridges, modernizing schools that are failing our children and building wind farms and solar panels, fuel-efficient cars and the alternative energy technologies that can free us from our dependence on foreign oil and keep our economy competitive in the years ahead.”

The street-level community organizer mocked by many during the primaries for his thin executive resume and paucity of legislative accomplishments, is showing he again has the intellectual judgement and political chops to lead a nation out of its modern-day slough of despond. If successful, the next four or maybe eight years could be dubbed Pax Obama, in honor of showing America, working for the common good rather than the private shareholder, still has what it takes to be invest in and build long-lasting, affordable, efficient and effective infrastructure that will wean America away from total dependence on autos.

We know that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt sought to work America out of the ravages of the Great Depression through a series of programs dubbed the New Deal. "We are planning to ask the Congress for legislation to enable the Government to undertake public works, thus stimulating directly and indirectly the employment of many others in well-considered projects," said the man who the nation subsequently elected twice more in his radio address of May 1933 out-ling the basics of the New Deal.

Should Detroit's Big Three automakers eventually receive emergency funding from Congress, they and others should heed Roosevelt's explanation government's role in their operations: "It is wholly wrong to call the measure that we have taken Government control of farming, control of industry, and control of transportation. It is rather a partnership between Government and farming and industry and transportation, not partnership in profits, for the profits would still go to the citizens, but rather a partnership in planning and partnership to see that the plans are carried out."

With alphabet-soup program names like WPA (Works Program Administration) or CCC (Civilian Conservation Corp) or TVA (Tennessee Valley Authority) that put jobless Americans back to work building infrastructure like roads, bridges and dams among other systems, Roosevelt explained to the nation through his now-famous fireside chats how government could do things the private sector couldn't. In an uncomfortably curious similarity to today's economic meltdown, Roosevelt made his New Deal announcement only eight weeks after his first inauguration in 1933, explaining to his radio listeners of the time how he would tackle the banking crisis of the early 1930s and what he would do to put America -- whose unemployment rate reached as high as 25-30 -- back to work again. But we now know from history that as noble, well intentioned and inventive as Roosevelt's New Deal programs were, it took an event the scale of a world war to really get America working again. Under aPax Obama, a Third World War should be untenable.

One giant distinction between the trying times of the 1930s and the economic cliff diving we're experiencing today is that President-elect Obama says he will extricate the nation from reckless war or choice not engage is another one on the scale of WWII. The need to improve and expand on our infrastructure now is all the more important to pursue as we wind down from warring, because it becomes maybe the only way to create the scores of thousands of middle class jobs the nation needs to spend their hard-earned incomes on goods and services, adding more jobs along the way.

Infrastructure Funding Tsunami Building

A Pax Obama allows a tsunami of infrastructure spending to build at sea. The coming wave of interest in and planning for big infrastructure investments will crest with Obama's first budget and crash as it hits the streets in spending in 2010.

One idea simmering in the national stew pot about how to approach the need to update, modify or build new infrastructure is the notion of a national investment bank. Obama says he'll follow through on his campaign promise to create a national infrastructure bank that would not just raise money and invest in the nation’s infrastructure, but would also bring a measure of coherence to the myriad projects that need to go forward.

While basic infrastructure funding for car-centric services like roads and bridges will increase -- the auto lobby is still powerful even though the companies they represent are failing -- the new focus will be new and updated transportation infrastructure connecting cities and regions in ways that reduce or obviate the need to get there by car. Newer more innovative technologies are ready to prove themselves in reality and in the market place. People are likely to opt for fast, flexible, affordable, safe and clean-energy systems that just a few years ago conventional wisdom would have said wasn't possible.

Pax Obama could usher in an era of planning that if done moderately successfully would show that, while at a psychic nadir in its history, America can still renew and rebuild itself to keep current and prepare for its future. Officials of the International Olympic committee may just designate Chicago for the 2016 Summer Olympics, first to reward Obama for being the kind of president the nation and the world believes he can be when compared to his predecessor, and second to give team USA a chance to show how it can re-adapt aMegacity like Chicago, a former railroad and meat-packing center now home to Obama, and make it over in style, design and function as a region ready to face its Olympic future.

Rebirth of a Nation?

The big question now for America is can it use its advanced technology and engineering know-how to do for ourselves today what Ancient Rome did for itself two-thousand years ago, when it built towering stone waterways that amaze us with their longevity of structure and function. Human hands long ago placed one stone upon another over scores and sometimes hundreds of miles to build a gravity-fed system that showed how the dream of civilization could turn into reality.Pax Obama appears ready to demonstrate the nation is strong enough to take on our own concept of ourselves and the rest of the world, which isn't waiting around for America to get its act together.

Bob Herbert of The New York Times sees investing in infrastructure of all manner as critical to buying up and otherwise sinking nation and says "we'll only have eight years of Barack Obama, but that may be enough time to kick start a moribund US economy." A call to arms is sounding to rebuild America's failing infrastructure with updates, replacements or brand new systems like Tubular Rail and Personal Rapid Transit Systems, two innovative and complimentary systems whose build out costs are far less than conventional steel wheel-on-rail systems. But as Herbert stated, "with so much federal money soon to be available for infrastructure projects, it’s crucially important to spend the money as wisely as possible. Ultimately, we face a future of mass transit strained beyond capacity, planes sitting on tarmacs, slow traffic and wasteful sprawl, ports that lack the capacity to operate efficiently, and increasing numbers of bridges and dams that are obsolescent and dangerous to the public health and safety.”

With no new world war to put America back to work, Herbert opined that "we’re never going to get out of this economic fix if we can’t swing open the doors to millions of new jobs. Infrastructure investment is one of the keys to that objective."

John Michael Spinelli is a trained and certified economic development professional and former Ohio Statehouse government and political reporter and business columnist. He is Director of Ohio Operations for Tubular Rail Inc.

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