A few weeks ago, I put together a little cheat sheet listing the last three transportation reauthorization bills, their dates of passage, and the dollar amounts. It helped me save some time I would have spent Googling.
Standing-room-only launch of Transportation 101. Photo: T4America
Now there's a more comprehensive cheat sheet. I’ll never again be at a loss to remember what the gas tax was before 1993 or how much money has been taken from the general fund to bail out the Highway Trust Fund or how many earmarks were included in SAFETEA-LU or the names of all the core highway programs. All of that information is included in Transportation for America’s new primer, “Transportation 101: An Introduction to Federal Transportation Policy.”
T4A was inspired to publish the document after November’s election ushered in 94 freshman House members and a handful of new Senators, many of whom are new to transportation policy. Twenty of the 59 members of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee are new. Members, and perhaps more importantly, their staffers, would need to be caught up on the ins and outs of the reauthorization.
“It’s sort of like walking into a movie 15 minutes late, if you’re coming to the transportation debate right now,” said T4A’s Steve Davis. “There’s a lot of history that, if you’re just walking into the room right now, can be very confusing.”
Transportation 101 isn’t necessarily something that everyone will want to devour in one sitting, Davis acknowledges. (Of course, Streetsblog readers are another breed – I see you clearing out your agenda to spend some quality time with this document.) In any case, it will be a useful reference for legislative aides new to the issue who are tasked with becoming an expert overnight. And not just Congressional staff – Davis says they expect the document will be just as useful to T4A’s 500+ partner organizations.
T4A’s Capitol Hill briefing to launch the publication drew a standing-room only crowd. The panel included Roy Kienitz, undersecretary for policy at U.S. DOT, former Virginia DOT secretary Pierce Homer, and other transportation all-stars.
Tanya became Streetsblog's Capitol Hill editor in September 2010 after covering Congress for Pacifica Radios Washington bureau and for public radio stations around the country. She lives car-free in a transit-oriented and bike-friendly neighborhood of Washington, DC.
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