Tomorrow, February 9, we’re coordinating with hundreds of other groups across the country to generate a day of calls up to the House of Representatives urging them to vote against the House transportation bill, H.R. 7.

A House committee majority went ahead with their plan to punish everyone who rides public transportation, as well as jeopardizing thousands of jobs in the public transit, construction and manufacturing industries — ignoring broad, bipartisan opposition ffrom governors, state transportation officials, health professionals, business organizations, and others. Help us defeat this bill by telling your representative to vote “NO” on HR 7.

A key House Committee is threatening to kill three decades of successful investments in mass transit by ending the guarantee for dedicated funding for public transportation, leaving millions of riders already faced with service cuts and fare increases out in the cold. They proposed putting every public transportation system in immediate peril by eliminating guaranteed funding for the Mass Transit Account and forcing transit to go begging before Congress for general funds each year — all while highway spending continues to be guaranteed with protected funds for half a decade at a time.

The House transportation committee will vote on their draft transportation bill in less than 24 hours on Thursday morning. Can you take a moment and make a phone call today? Time is running out to improve the House’s bill! Locate your Representative on the transportation committee below in the list below. Also note the key [...]

846 days and counting since our transportation program formally expired; both the House and Senate are finally on the verge of moving a transportation bill. We already wrote that the House could release their draft transportation bill as early as Friday. What about the Senate? They’ve made some progress already, moving 2 of 4 portions of their [...]

A key Senate committee is deciding the fate of public transportation right now. The Senate Banking Committee is writing their portion of the Senate transportation reauthorization and they have jurisdiction over transit. They need to know that it’s important to give transit agencies the flexibility to use their money not just to buy new buses or railcars but for the operation of those buses and trains. That’s because transit agencies in our larger cities aren’t allowed to use the federal dollars they receive to keep trains and buses running, even in this incredibly difficult time.

If Congress does nothing by the end of the year, if you take transit to get to work each day you could be paying more out of your own pocket when the tax benefit for transit is cut in half. Drivers will keep enjoying the same great parking benefit – nearly double what transit commuters will be eligible to receive. We don’t think that’s fair, and Congress needs to hear about it. How we choose to get to work each day shouldn’t be the deciding factor.

The House’s transportation proposal would cut total transportation funding by one-third, kill the tiny slice of dedicated funding for safer walking and biking and drastically reduce transit support, while failing to focus on fixing and repairing our crumbling roads and bridges. There’s still a good chance for a better Senate bill, so weigh in with your Senators today.

The budget proposal from the Republican Study Committee, which consists of 165 of the 242 GOP House members, released a week or so ago, calls for completely eliminating the main federal transit program, zeroes out Amtrak, cuts all funding for the metro system in the nation’s capital and slashes $2.5 billion in high-speed rail grants. Sign our petition objecting to this assault on public transportation funding.

Since September 2009, Congress has passed one extension after another to the expired transportation law continuously punting difficult decisions about reforming the way we fund and build our transportation system. We’ve heard that President Obama is ready to change that and could be including a big push for a new transportation bill in tomorrow’s State [...]