Federal Funding
Basics
New Survey Shows Overwhelming Support for Federal Investment in Bike-Ped
At a press conference outside the Capitol this morning, where gusty winds nearly carried off the visual aids (if it weren't for a few diligent supporters), bicycle advocates joined members of Congress to unveil the results of a new survey about federal funding for bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure. The telephone poll of 1,003 Americans, commissioned by the advocacy group America Bikes and conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates, was unequivocal: 83 percent said that federal bike-ped funding should increase, or at the very least be maintained.
May 9, 2012
What Libertarians Talk About When They Talk About Transportation Reform
There's more than one way to approach transportation reform. One is to believe that an ideal transportation policy promotes the use of modes that are environmentally sustainable and which foster livable cities, while those that perpetuate overdependence on automobiles do neither.
April 24, 2012
Five Ex-Secretaries Map Out a Communications Strategy For Transportation
If 80 percent of the American people agree that federal infrastructure investment will create jobs, and two-thirds say better infrastructure is important, why is the call for a robust transportation bill being made in whispers? And why is Congress already two and a half years late in producing one?
April 24, 2012
This Week: Conference Gladiators Could Be Named, Senate Budget Stalls
This week, the House and Senate are expected to name the people they’ll send to conference to come up with a new transportation bill. The Senate will be bringing its bipartisan bill; the House is bringing a bunch of poison pills. The president says he will veto anything with a Keystone pipeline approval in it, giving both sides the chance to say they’re putting Keystone before a massive infrastructure/jobs bill.
April 23, 2012
The Auto Industry Wants Your Thanks
Feeling warmer and fuzzier about the auto industry bailout? With the help of the Obama reelection campaign, the industry is convincing more Americans that the $80 billion they forked over to save it were dollars well spent.
April 23, 2012
Federal Transpo Policy Entering New Era, Say NYC Officials. Now What?
It's a new era for federal transportation policy, say the top New York City Department of Transportation officials tracking action on Capitol Hill. We just don't know what kind of era it's going to be.
April 5, 2012
Congress Agrees to Kick the Can for 90 More Days
Yesterday, before taking off for a two-week recess, Congress passed a three-month extension of SAFETEA-LU, the ninth since it first expired on September 30, 2009. It now only needs the president's signature sometime before midnight on Saturday to become law.
March 30, 2012
The Utter Futility of a Gas Tax “Holiday”
Disclaimer: The House and Senate, in the grand scheme of things, have plenty of time to hack together a short-term extension of transportation funding, or even to pass the Senate bill outright if they felt like it.
March 28, 2012
GOP Budget Would Cut Transpo to the Bone
Wednesday night, the House Budget Committee narrowly passed -- by one vote -- the 2013 federal budget proposed by chairman Paul Ryan. It calls for all kinds of spending cuts, casts aside the bargains struck during last year's budget debacle, and asserts that by 2050, all federal spending outside of entitlement programs (Medicare, Medicaid) should only equal 4 percent of America's GDP. For comparison, most peer nations spend around 5 percent of GDP on infrastructure alone.
March 23, 2012
Infographic: When Reagan, the GOP, and Democrats Doubled the Gas Tax
Something to keep in mind while the House GOP leadership toys with the idea of sending national transportation policy back to the 1950s…
March 20, 2012