But the group, established in a down-to-the-wire debt ceiling deal between President Obama and Congressional Republicans this past summer, looks like it will have nothing to offer. The divide between the two parties, particularly over high-end tax rates, appears irreconcilable.

But the consequences for failure go beyond just another black eye for an unpopular Congress. When the supercommittee was created, it came with a “trigger” of automatic cuts if members failed to come to an agreement. A portion of that $1.2 trillion trigger will target defense and Medicare reimbursements, but a significant chunk encompasses yet-to-be identified discretionary spending.

That means the budget for the U.S. Department of Transportation, which just emerged from a tough battle over 2012 funding levels, is back on the chopping block.

Last week, the House and Senate passed and President Obama signed a “minibus” budget for 2012 that largely kept funding for transit, Amtrak and TIGER grants intact, while zeroing out high-speed rail. Many of these same programs would likely be subject to further cuts under a trigger scenario, though the new cuts would not materialize until the 2013 calendar year.

The six Republicans and six Democrats on the supercommittee — three of each party from the House and Senate, respectively — technically have until Wednesday to make recommendations, but in order for Congress to have a chance to vote and meet disclosure terms, they needed to send their proposal to the Congressional Budget Office Monday evening for scoring.

That deadline has come and gone.

Under a failure scenario, it would fall to members of the House and Senate appropriations committees to draft specific cuts, likely a contentious outcome given split party control. There is also the possibility that discretionary spending like USDOT programs could take an even larger hit if members follow through with plans to reverse the trigger-outlined cuts to defense, a politically-sensitive area for Republicans and Democrats alike. (President Obama has signaled his intent to veto any attempts to undo the automatically-triggered cuts that were part of the committee’s creation unless equivalent savings are identified).

Members could also vote to eliminate the trigger all-together, but that seems less likely given that House Republicans have emphasized spending cuts since taking the majority this year.

The conference agreement between the two chambers preserves funding for transit and the innovative TIGER grants program, while zeroing out high-speed rail. The Federal Transit Administration is provided a total of $10.608 billion. Amtrak, with $466 million for operating and $952 million for capital, would be funded at a level lower than what the Senate requested but higher than the House-proposed amount. But Amtrak did receive more capital funding than either the House or Senate originally proposed.

$500 million for TIGER constitutes a 5.1 percent cut from current levels, but is a significant improvement over the House proposal to eliminate the program entirely. Every round of grant applications for TIGER has yielded far more interest from communities that USDOT has been able to accommodate, and the program rewards projects that meet local needs. Streetsblog is reporting that the third round of TIGER applications outstrips the available grant amount by 27 to 1.

The New Starts program receives $1.95 billion. New Starts is a key funding source for transit projects across the country, particularly in large metropolitan areas. The WMATA transit system in Washington, DC gets $150 million.

Traditional highway funding under the Federal Highway Administration is funded slightly below current levels, with $39.143 billion.

In a disappointing move, negotiators did not include funding for Partnership for Sustainable Communities grants. The partnership is a joint venture between USDOT, the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. While no new grants will be awarded under this agreement, the office will remain open and negotiators notably refused to include House-proposed language that would have disallowed the three departments from working collaboratively.

Both chambers will need to pass the “minibus” agreement by Friday to avoid a government shutdown. With bipartisan sign-off on these funding levels, passage is almost assured.

Check out the chart below, which compares the 2010 budget, 2011 budget and the House/Senate proposals that got us to the proposed 2012 budget.

Federal Transportation, Housing and Urban Development Budget: Highlighted transportation and sustainable communities programs.

Senators Rand Paul of Kentucky, Tom Coburn of Oklahoma and John McCain of Arizona have been targeting the transportation enhancements program, a mere 2 percent of the federal transportation budget. They say eliminating the set-aside would make it easier for states to repair bridges, even though many states have failed to prioritize maintenance when they can spend the bulk of their transportation funds however they want.

The Senators and their supporters seem to have gotten a good chuckle out of some particular projects. They point to, among others, roadside snack stand in Pennsylvania shaped like a giant coffee pot and a lighthouse renovation in Toledo, Ohio.

“We picked some of the more interesting and exciting ones to get our colleagues’ attention,” McCain reportedly admitted.

But exciting as they might be, the claims about the projects are “exaggerated and misrepresented,” according to a fact check feature in the Associated Press this past weekend.

That roadside coffee pot? AP’s Joan Lowy reports:

No transportation aid was spent on the coffee pot’s $100,000 restoration, said Olga Herbert, executive director of the Lincoln Highway Heritage Corridor. The money was raised entirely from preservation and civic organizations and local supporters”

“We did not use any of this $300,000 award for anything to do with the coffee pot,” she said. “It’s interesting that nobody from Senator Coburn’s office called me about this.”

As for the lighthouse in Toledo:

Actually, no transportation dollars have been authorized or awarded. The lighthouse renovation is among projects community officials tentatively hope to get around to in 2019.

Senator Paul has also repeatedly cited a supposed “turtle tunnel” project. But the project he referenced on U.S. 27 in Florida was a significant safety issue for motorists, many of whom were forced to swerve when alligators, turtles and other creatures crossed the highway from adjacent Lake Jackson. While Coburn claimed the project would require $6 million or more to finish on an undefined timeline, in fact, USDOT told Lowy the project was completed in September 2010 at $3 million, under budget and $3 million less than Senator Coburn claimed.

Streetsblog Capitol Hill has more.

The takeaway? At the least, members of Conrgess should do a better job fact-checking. While they’re checking the numbers, they might look to see how long it would take to repair bridges relying solely on this relatively tiny share of funds. It would take Paul’s home state of Kentucky 66 years of bike and pedestrian funding to achieve a state of good repair for their bridges. Pennsylvania wouldn’t catch up until sometime during the 24th century.

Safe to say, this isn’t the serious proposal for bridge repair that we urgently need. If Paul, Coburn and McCain are serious about fixing bridges and not just scoring political points, they’ll come back with something better.

Photo courtesy of the Associated Press.

Late update: Senator Rand Paul’s amendment to cut money for walking and biking and direct it to bridge repair failed in the Senate today, by a 60-38 count.

Michigan Governor Rick Snyder (pictured at right), a Republican elected in 2010, is one of those leaders. And his new $1 billion blueprint for the state’s infrastructure, released earlier this week, does a commendable job of ditching ideological gestures in favor of common sense.

One of the more ground-shifting components of Snyder’s plan is his preference for rapid bus service in the Detroit area to complement and expand on the Woodward light-rail line already in the pipeline. As the Detroit Free Press discussed in an editorial this morning, it is likely that some will dismiss bus service as inferior to rail. That distinction is for Michiganders to decide, but Snyder’s willingness to consider a medley of transportation options should induce a healthy discussion.

He’s also willing to discuss revenue, which remains the most major hold-up in Congress. Under Snyder’s proposal, voters would get to decide at the local level whether to raise vehicle license fees by $40. Allowing for local debate and deliberation would likely increase the chances of new revenue being secured.

Snyder would also shift Michigan’s current gas tax to a levy as percent of the price per gallon, rather than a flat fee, a shift that is expected to increase overall receipts.

The additional revenue from both of these measures would fund road repair and public transportation, including enhanced bus and rail service in Detroit and its surrounding suburbs.

Now that Snyder has outlined his preferences, it is up the state legislature to make the next move. As the Free Press put it:

The governor has not solved southeast Michigan’s transportation problems. But in laying out a practical plan for providing — and paying for — rapid transit service, he has given leaders a road map to a better transportation future.

Photo courtesy of AnnArbor.com

At an event held at the Route 16′s Mabscott Overhead Bridge in Beckley, West Virginia, (pictured right) Representative Nick Rahall made a strong case for repair while surrounded by labor partners carrying “America wants to work” signs. The local NBC, ABC and CBS affiliates were on hand, alongside the Associated Press and Beckley Register-Herald, the region’s largest daily newspaper.

“It should not take a major catastrophe to bring this home to America. This horrific and tragic example shows how America’s decaying infrastructure is a disaster waiting to happen,” Rep. Rahall said, citing past tragedies that could have been prevented with greater foresight and investment

Rahall added that putting Americans to work was also a “deficit reduction issue” because it means more people paying taxes and putting money back into the economy.

Gary Zuckett, executive director of West Virginia Citizen Action and T4 America’s chief organizer in the state, played a key role in making the event happen.

At a similar event under a 78-year-old bridge at Chicago’s Lakeshore Drive and Wilson Ave. last Wednesday, Representative Jan Schakowsky joined labor groups, the Illinois Chamber of Commerce and other groups in highlighting unsafe bridges in their area. The local affiliates for ABC, CBS and FOX all picked up the story, alongside print media and several blogs.

“Don’t my colleagues and their families and their children drive over bridges like this? Isn’t this a priority?” Schakowsky, a Democrat from Illinois’ Ninth Congressional District, said during the event. Brian Imus, the state director of Illinois Public Interest Research Group, pictured at the lectern, also addressed members of the press and public.

West Virginia has more than 2,500 bridges rated as structurally deficient, while Illinois has more than 2,200.Portions of West Virginia are also part of the Washington, DC metropolitan area, which has 215 structurally deficient bridges, or 5.7 percent of total bridges.

9.4 percent of the bridges in the Chicago-Naperville-Joliet metropolitan area are structurally deficient, for a total of 481 deficient bridges.

The deficient bridges in our largest 102 metro areas carry three-quarters of all traffic that crosses a deficient bridge each day. Check out how your area stacks up here.

Last November, we posted an action alert on the potential for millions of Americans to see the cost of their commute suddenly rise. Congress wisely chose to extend to $230 per month tax benefit for transit as part of the 2010 package extending the Bush tax cuts, continuing transit parity with the $230 deduction available for parking. Before that parity was put in place, the federal government was effectively subsidizing employees who drive alone to work — picking winners and losers rather than leveling the playing field for all travel options.

The clock is now ticking once again, and absent Congressional action, the $230 per month benefit will revert back to $120 per month on December 31. Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Congressman Jim McGovern (D-MA) have introduced legislation to make the benefit permanent.

Tell your member of Congress that you support parity for all travel modes. Commuter Benefits Work For Us, an advocacy coalition supporting the Schumer-McGovern legislation, makes it easy for you to let your representatives know where you stand.

It’s a matter of fairness — and Congress needs to move.

As TEN points out in their release, infrastructure investment continues to present an untapped opportunity for job creation — if Washington chooses to act. And with women and minorities among the hardest hit by the economic downturn, states ought to do what they can to broaden opportunity.

On-the-job-training and apprenticeship programs in highway construction are an indispensable tool for state departments of transportation because they prepare workers for careers as opposed to just short-term jobs. And, as TEN’s research demonstrates, some states are already seeing results.

The good news: four states — Illinois, Indiana, Connecticut and Minnesota successfully upped the percentage of both women and minorities in training programs between 2008 and 2010. Minnesota and Illinois, along with Missouri and Michigan, have seen the greatest improvement, due in part to active organizing by TEN coalition members in-state. In Maine, 75 percent of participants in apprenticeship or on-the-job training programs were women, along with 55 of North Dakotans, both impressive results.

The bad news: more often than not, states are failing to take advantage of these programs and not showing initiative in increasing opportunity for those hurting the most. And, while a six-month extension of the current transportation law was a welcome reprieve for states, it is far from clear what can pass Congress in March. As a package, President Obama’s American Jobs Act may not be moving, but might the infrastructure component survive?

You can find out more about the report, titled “The Road to Good Jobs: Making Training Work,” or read it in its entirety at TEN’s website. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported on a TEN event in St. Louis yesterday.

“Thank God they closed it,” Andrea described as her initial reaction, adding: “How many more collapses and close calls before this country gets serious about keeping up with our infrastructure?”

That’s a question that motivates all of us at T4. We’ve seen the political climate change a lot during the last three years, but our nation’s infrastructure needs haven’t. Most in Washington seem to believe, in concept at least, that there are no Republican or Democratic bridges. The attentive response to the closure from Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell and Tea Party favorite Rand Paul, both of Kentucky, corroborates this consensus.

Andrea writes of being moved by the words of Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar, who said at the time of the collapse: “A bridge should just not fall down in the middle of America, not a bridge that is an eight-lane freeway, not a bridge I drive my 13-year-old daughter over every day.” Andrea continued:

That experience is one reason why, today, I am working to motivate people to get Congress to repair our nation’s bridges and other infrastructure, as an organizer for Transportation for America. The memory still brings tears to my eyes, and I want desperately to make sure people remember how much we have riding on our bridges, our trains and buses, and on our roads.

It’s tempting for politicians and everyday Americans alike to focus on the bridge in their community. But this is a national issue that requires bold nationwide action. Kentucky has more than 1,300 structurally deficient bridges, and Indiana has nearly 2,000. The average age of a U.S. is 42 years, and most were only built to last about 50 years. In other words, if you think the problem is bad now, just wait until 2020 or later.

Both President Obama’s American Jobs Act and a long-term transportation bill present an opportunity to get to work fixing our nation’s bridges, and we hope to see Congress act soon.

Whether the sense of shared responsibility over our nation’s infrastructure can translate into concrete action remains to be seen, but as Andrea put it: “we Americans can dream, can’t we?”

Photo courtesy of the Infrastructurist.

If you’ve seen recent stories on aging and deficient bridges — on NBC Nightly News, Chris Matthews’ Hardball or in countless newspaper reports — you heard echoes of our report flagging the urgent need to tend to our aging bridge infrastructure.

Senator Paul proposes that we take what he pegs (erroneously) as the “10 percent” we currently set aside for “turtle tunnels and squirrel sanctuaries and all this craziness” and divert it toward an emergency fund for urgent bridge repair.

Senator Paul’s math is way off. Paul – like Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn last week and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor the week before – is grossly misstating the size of the program being attacked, the so-called “transportation enhancements” program. This program amounts to 1.5 percent of the total federal outlay for transportation, not 10 percent. Not even close.

This program, created 20 years ago, is the main source of funds to create safer conditions for those bicycling or walking — often correcting past mistakes by making dangerous roads built with federal dollars safer for everyone. While a share has gone toward other uses, such as environmental mitigation, more than half of the meager 1.5 percent is spent on making people safer.

The backlog in needed bridge repair, covered in our national report, runs to the many billions of dollars in every state. Senator Paul’s proposal would do very little to actually fix our bridges while making people less safe.

Kentucky doesn’t have more than 1,300 deficient bridges today because they spent a few million dollars making their streets safer for people walking or biking. If Senator Paul’s proposal became law and the 1.5 percent was directed into bridge repair, it would take Paul’s home state of Kentucky nearly 66 years with those funds to repair of all its bridges that are currently rated as deficient. And that doesn’t even account for the bridges that would be added to the “deficient” list in the years to come. (Kentucky has more than 4,500 bridges over 50 years old. That number could double by 2030.)

Clearly, we need far more money to repair our bridges, but we lack policies that hold states accountable for fixing their bridges. The current federal program has money dedicated for bridge repair, but allows states to divert up to half of that funding to build other more politically-driven projects.

There are ways to address this problem. States like Florida have put in place fiscally responsible policies to take care of what they’ve already built, balancing the need to fix bridges and build new roads. And Florida’s bridges are among the best in the country. Florida has both spent their “enhancement” funds and ensured their bridges are in good shape. Why can’t Kentucky and other states say the same?

The necessary closure of the Sherman Minton Bridge brought long overdue attention to the condition of our nation’s bridges. But there is nothing stopping state transportation officials from making priorities and dedicating resources to the bridges posing the greatest risk. Kentucky has a particularly poor record on this front. Ten percent of the state’s bridges are structurally deficient. Kentucky received $390 million in transportation funding under the Recovery Act but failed to seize the opportunity to invest in repairing its crumbling infrastructure, spending only 26 percent of their federal dollars on maintaining their existing infrastructure, the fourth worst ratio in the country, according to Smart Growth America.

There are praiseworthy elements of Senator Paul’s plan. Creating and maintaining a database for emergency bridge repairs is a worthy idea. But we need better accountability for states to spend money in responsible ways to repair bridges and roads. We would welcome the Senator Paul’s support for the Preservation and Renewal of Federal-Aid Highways Act, sponsored by Maryland Senator Ben Cardin. The act would require the Secretary of Transportation to establish “state of good repair” standards for highways that receive federal funding, ensuring that precious tax dollars actually go toward the most pressing needs.

Updated: The League of American Bicyclists weighs in on the proposal.

As we reported last week, today is the “Don’t X Out Public Transportation” day of action to highlight the crippling impacts of the proposed 35 percent cut to public transit. The events are being held in more than 20 cities in cooperation with the American Public Transportation Association and a number of key partners to let Congress know that deep cuts mean Americans losing their jobs or their ability to get to their jobs, as well as groceries and essential services.

These kind of cuts are the last thing Washington ought to be talking about in a fragile economy.

Supporters of today’s action are encouraged to wear red in support of public transit, and some agencies are going one step further — painting large red X’s on the the side of buses with routes threatened by cuts. Check out these photos of Xs being painted on buses belonging to the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Association below.

You can find more information about today’s events around the country at supporttransit.org. Looking for a rally near you? Go here to find the full list of cities hosting events.

At 11 a.m. eastern time, members of the media and other interested parties are invited to call into a telebriefing featuring APTA President William Miller; Larry Hanley, president of the Amalgamated Transit Union; John Robert Smith, T4 America co-chair and president and CEO of Reconnecting America; and others.

Photos courtesy of the American Public Transportation Association.