DOT

Earlier today, Streetsblog erroneously reported that the Trump administration is killing the TIGER grant program.

Chao gave a tight-lipped performance that didn't reveal much about how she would use the regulatory and approval power at her disposal, but here are three instances where you can try to read the tea leaves.

Gas is cheap again, and cumulatively, Americans are driving a record amount.

State transportation departments could see the federal funding they receive pared back as early as a few weeks from now if Congress doesn't come up with a transportation funding solution.

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood announced yesterday that 32,885 people lost their lives on our nation’s roads in 2010. While a staggering toll, this represents the lowest total number of traffic fatalities since 1949. "We're making historic progress when it comes to improving safety on our nation’s roadways," said LaHood in a statement, also pointing out that the decrease in deaths came even as Americans are driving more [PDF].

Transit providers in Detroit, Miami, Seattle and Bloomington, Indiana were a few of the many winners in the latest round of Federal Transit Administration capital grants.

In about an hour, Congressional appropriators will vote on how much money to allocate for transportation in the next fiscal year. It won't be pretty.

The idyllic cross-country train trips that many Americans still take could get derailed by today’s “slash and burn” federal budget policies. Meanwhile, fears for the safety of rail passengers in the post-bin Laden era are drumming up political support for costly security measures and raising, once again, questions about why the federal government funds rail routes without any promise of profitability.

With multiple versions of two years' worth of federal budgets flying around, some details are still emerging about what's in and what's out. At the end of last week we heard that the FY2011 budget, which has been sent to the president for his signature, includes $100 million for the Partnership for Sustainable Communities. According to HUD Sustainable Communities Director Shelley Poticha, the partnership was allocated $70 million for regional planning grants ($17.5 million is slated for regions with populations of less than 500,000) and $30 million for Community Challenge planning grants.