US national transportation leader Frank Busalacchi, who chairs the Passenger Rail Working Group of the congressionally-mandated National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Study Commission, will keynote the first Carmichael Conference on the Future of American Transportation, January 28-29, in St. Louis.
“This important conference has been called on an urgent basis to throw a greater spotlight on America’s growing transportation crisis, which is a major underlying cause of the nation’s declining ability to compete in world markets,” says James P. RePass, President and CEO of the Boston-based conference organiser, the National Corridors Initiative.
All 2008 presidential candidates will also be invited to comment on this crisis and its effect on our competitiveness and quality of life and propose solutions to it.
The conference is named for former Federal Railroad Administrator and Senior Chairman of the Board for the Intermodal Transportation Institute at the University of Denver, Gilbert Carmichael.
“Gil has been a long time bi-partisan advocate and spokesperson for a balanced intermodal North American transportation system and was appointed Federal Railroad Administrator by President George H.W. Bush, and also served on the Amtrak Board of Directors from 1989 to 1993,” RePass says.
“Mr. Carmichael suggested the National Corridors Initiative (www.nationalcorridors.org) organize this event to help bring the nation’s infrastructure crisis to the attention of the 2008 presidential candidates.”
“He will open the conference at St. Louis’ historic Union Station, now the Hyatt Regency Hotel, on Monday January 28, with the hope that the candidates will be paying attention to the recommendations of the attending transportation leaders.”
“The transportation crisis in this country has gotten well beyond the ‘gridlock’ stage,” RePass observes, “and we have got to address it now.”
“The nation’s ability to compete in world markets, the cost of living, air quality, and our very freedom of mobility are all being harmed or restricted by our continued failure to develop a national transportation strategy and implement it aggressively on a bi-partisan basis.”
“That must end. To help achieve this goal, we have assembled a virtual ‘Who’s Who’ of transportation industry leaders to take part in this important conference.” Their recommendation will produce a white paper of solutions,” he says
Secretary Busalacchi, who also heads States for Passenger Rail and the Wisconsin Department of Transportation, will be joined by many of the nation’s recognised transportation leaders and advocates, including former Presidential Nominee and Amtrak Vice-Chair Michael S. Dukakis; former Amtrak Board Chairman and Reconnecting America Founding Chairman John Robert Smith and Federal Railroad Administrator Joseph Boardman to name just a few.
The conference is being organized by the National Corridors Initiative and its President James P. RePass with the help and support of the largest transportation advocacy organization in America, the American Public Transportation Association (APTA) and its President William Millar.
Other significant national and regional organizations are being added daily to this conference, which aims to put transportation on the front burner of the 2008 Presidential Campaign.