Transportation for America Releases Blueprint for Transportation Reform

Picture_1.pngToday Transportation for America is releasing a 100-page document called "The Route to Reform," in which they outline policy recommendations related to the upcoming reauthorization of federal transportation funding legislation (download the executive summary here or the full report here). 

From the executive summary: 

The next transportation program must set about the urgent task of repairing and maintaining our existing transportation assets, building a more well-rounded transportation network, and making our current system work more efficiently and safely to create complete and healthy communities. It should invest in modern and affordable public transportation, safe places to walk and bicycle, smarter highways that use technology and tolling to better manage congestion, long-distance rail networks, and land use policies that reduce travel demand by locating more affordable housing near jobs and services. And it should put us on the path towards a stronger national future by helping us reduce our oil dependency, slow climate change, improve social equity, enhance public health, and fashion a vibrant new economy.

Getting there from here will require some significant reforms. To meet these goals, the T4 America coalition offers four main recommendations for the upcoming transportation authorization bill:

  • Develop a New National Transportation Vision with Objectives and Accountability for Meeting Performance Targets.
  • Restructure Federal Transportation Programs and Funding to Support the New National Transportation Vision and Objectives.
  • Reform Transportation Agencies and theDecision-making Process.
  • Revise Transportation Finance So We Can Pay for Needed Investments.

This transportation bill is going to be of crucial importance to all the issues we discuss on this site on a regular basis. The T4A report provides a great overview of the key points on which advocates can push for reform. Take a look.

  • Larry Littlefield

    I agree with the objectives, but disagree with how they may be achieved.

    Federal “principles” will not solve the problem. A look at the relative priorities of federal, federal via state, state, and local initiatives over the past decade shows what might work — local transportation funding with local resources?

    But where would those local resources come from? A national health care financing system, which would eliminate the massive and potentially devastating local government cost of health care for retirees and (in some cases) the uninsured. New York City and its counties would also benefit from getting rid of the local share of Medicaid.

    These savings would exceed any federal infrastructure spending that is likely to occur. And each level of government would be taking sole responsibility for its sphere, ending the dispersed accountability we have now.

    I absolutely don’t want my transporation $ going through DC. I probably don’t want them going through Albany, either.

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