New Secretary of Transportation

UPDATE:

The Association of American Railroads weighs in with a prepared statement.

Getting There comments comprehensively.

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According to Reuters, President Bush will formally name Mary Peters as his nominee for the Secretary of Transportation post recently vacated by Norman Mineta. This is the closest thing to a bio I could quickly find on Ms. Peters.

The Air Transport Association was gushing over the selection.

Obviously, her experience is much deeper with the Highway side of life than it is with rail. Looking thru the quotes of her speeches while at the FHWA in 2003 and 2004 don't lend much light on what we can expect from her. But some things are visible.

She comments at several times and in several ways about creating public-private partnerships that are viable on a value added basis. We shall see how that translates into that particular partnership as defined by Amtrak. We know that highways are often a "Big P" Public and "little p" private situation. We also know that such an outlook was not part of the Administrations' Amtrak situation.

Stay tuned.