Highway Expansion
Basics
New Analysis: Major Cities Still Shortchanged by Transportation Stimulus
The Obama administration's awarding of $1.5 billion in competitive transportation stimulus grants on Wednesday sparked elation in cities such as Kansas City and New Orleans. But those celebrations were more than just anecdotal evidence of the so-called TIGER program's urban impact, according to a new analysis from the Brookings Institution's Rob Puentes.
February 19, 2010
AASHTO Stimulus Report Omits Jobs Data Comparing Transit With Roads
The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO), the trade group representing state DOTs in Washington, yesterday unveiled a website
and report billed as a one-year "progress report" on the White House's $34.3 billion in formula-based transportation stimulus spending.
February 10, 2010
Senate Weighs $14B for Roads, $7.5B for Transit in Jobs Bill
Senate Democrats huddled behind closed doors this afternoon to assess their options for a new job-creation bill, with one option of around $80 billion making headlines even second-ranked leader Dick Durbin (D-IL) warned that no details are set in stone.
January 26, 2010
Democrats Learning to Love the I-Word — But Will Words Bring Action?
The White House is re-centering its message around economic and fiscal concerns ahead of tomorrow's State of the Union address, with a new package of job-creation measures expected to vault to the top of the agenda and a three-year "spending freeze" pitched to deficit-wary conservative Democrats.
January 26, 2010
In Texas, One Newspaper Laments the Highway Lanes Not Built
The Transportation Enhancements program, which requires states to set aside 10 percent of their federal transport money for new bicycle and pedestrian facilities, among other projects, turns 19 years old this year. But you'd almost never know it after reading Saturday's Fort Worth Star-Telegram, in which the paper tallies -- with no shortage of alarm -- the federal money not being spent on new roads.
January 25, 2010
Coming Soon: A Senate Jobs Bill … With a New Approach to Transport?
The House disappointed more than a few transportation reformers last month in passing a major jobs bill with $75 billion for infrastructure but no merit-based funding or changes from the existing formulas for highways and transit.
January 8, 2010
Stimulus Jobs From Transit vs. Roads: A Tale of Two States
Smart Growth America, the Center for Neighborhood Technology, and the U.S. Public Interest Research Group today reported that transit stimulus spending created nearly twice as many jobs per dollar as highway stimulus projects -- a conclusion that Streetsblog Capitol Hill first previewed a few weeks ago.
January 5, 2010
Adding a Dose of Honesty to the Congressional Job-Creation Debate
The House's $75 billion jobs bill was intended as a holiday gift to out-of-work voters, but transportation reformers were less than thrilled with lawmakers' decision to mimic the first stimulus law's use of outmoded funding formulas to send three times as much money to roads as to transit.
December 28, 2009
Transit Jobs Nearly Twice as Cheap to Create as Roads — By Congress’ Math
During the first stimulus debate, House Democrats and the White House famously sparred over how quickly infrastructure money could be spent -- with the data later proving that transit was just as "shovel-ready" as roads, if not more so.
December 17, 2009
House Jobs Bill Answers Some Key Transportation Questions
The House jobs bill, expected to pass later today before the chamber adjourns for the holidays, includes a $75 billion infrastructure section that gives $27.5 billion to roads and $8.4 billion to transit, largely mirroring this year's first economic stimulus law.
December 16, 2009