In Federal news, Senator Jim Bunning finally relented on his one-man filibuster to put USDOT out of business. While the prospect of yet another extension of the existing transportation authorization (now we’re talking about a freaking year?) is bad news, not having an authorization at all would be much worse.

In local news, WMATA is apparently ready to hire Richard Sarles as interim general manager. For the past three years Sarles has been head of New Jersey Transit, and he spent the 20 years before that at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. Without knowing much else about him, the prospect of a manager with experience in a larger, older transit system seems like a good thing. New York and New Jersey have been through the aging infrastructure problem before, so hopefully Sarles will bring some meaningful guidance on that front.