Transportation Policy
Basics
Congress Takes First Steps on Obama’s Transpo Budget: The Details
The House panel in charge of annual transportation spending has begun work on a bill that increases transit funding while providing $150 million for D.C.'s cash-strapped Metro and $150 million for the Obama administration's inter-agency push for "sustainable communities."
July 14, 2009
Taking GOP Graphics a Bit Too Seriously
Sen. Kit Bond (R-MO), one of his chamber's leading opponents of action against climate change, has swiped the hilariously complicated "chart" that his House colleagues used last month in a futile attempt to portray emissions reductions as just too complex for the American people to stomach.
July 10, 2009
What Happens Once You Get Off the Train?
Economist Tyler Cowen responds to my recent take on Ed Glaeser's recent HSR column:
July 8, 2009
House Democrat: We Don’t Have the Votes for Gas Tax Increase
Rep. Michael Capuano (D-MA), a member of the House transportation committee, took to some less-than-friendly airwaves yesterday to tout an innovative plan for funding the next federal transportation bill: imposing a small tax on Wall Street oil traders.
July 1, 2009
Stimulus Lesson: When Time is of the Essence, Invest in Transit
To be effective, fiscal stimulus must be timely.
June 30, 2009
STAA Tuned
We now have in our hands the 775-page Surface Transportation Authorization Act, which was released yesterday by James Oberstar (D-MN), chairman of the House transportation committee. It is, in many ways, a remarkable bill -- a blueprint for how transportation planning and infrastructure construction might undergo a significant shift away from the mindsets that have dominated for the past half-century. There is a lot to like in the bill.
June 23, 2009
Flashback: Does the Government Owe Transportation $21 Billion?
Welcome to Flashback, a regular feature at Streetsblog Capitol Hill looking back at past transportation policy debates that have the potential to impact the next congressional re-authorization -- no matter when it occurs.
June 23, 2009
GOP-ers and Dems Agree: Feds Need to Get Their Transpo Act Together
Reports on federal transportation policy -- like campaign fundraisers and lobbying groups -- seem to proliferate in Washington, most of them drawing a few days' worth of news coverage before fading from memory. (Remember the National Surface Transportation Infrastructure Financing Commission and the National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Commission?)
June 9, 2009
LaHood Vows to Avert Federal Transpo Bankruptcy and Pay For It
The Obama administration is working on a plan to fill the shortfall in the nation's highway trust fund by August without adding to the federal deficit, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood told Congress today.
June 4, 2009
