Secretary LaHood takes on Senator Coburn’s “stimulus waste”
December 10, 2009By Sean Barry
Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood didn’t pull any punches in a blog post yesterday about one senator’s “stimulus waste” list.
Senator Tom Coburn is a persistent critic of transportation “enhancements” and the author of a failed amendment earlier this year to strip bicycle and pedestrian projects from a spending bill. His latest waste list includes two bike paths. Coburn told the Washington Times, “When we run $1.4 trillion deficits, the money we spend ought to be a high priority for the American people as a whole.” To which LaHood retorts: “What he really means is that, because he doesn’t get bikes, no one else does either.”
LaHood goes on to cite an American Recovery and Reinvestment Act project extending a bike trail between downtown Minneapolis and the new Minnesota Twins stadium.
“I guess a better connection to Minneapolis’s central business district doesn’t count as infrastructure to some folks,” the secretary wrote. In fact, projects aimed at improving biking, walking and livability are central to both economic recovery, livability and future prosperity.
“We don’t call that waste,” LaHood concluded. “We call it progress.”
You helped save funding for transit, safe walking and biking
September 29, 2009By Stephen Lee Davis
Two weeks ago, we were successful in beating back a handful of dangerous amendments to the yearly transportation budget in the Senate that would have broken federal promises to fund crucial, long-planned public transportation, passenger rail and bike/pedestrian projects.
In less than 48 hours, supporters like yourselves sent more than 10,000 messages to your Senators in opposition of these dangerous amendments. Your quick action was instrumental in letting the Senate know that it’s important we continue funding alternatives to driving that can help us use less oil, cut our emissions, bike and walk safely and reduce the amount of time we spend in congestion each day.
Sen. McCain had a slew of amendments that would have removed previously obligated funds for critical transit projects across the country. Sen. Bond reportedly had an amendment in hand to strip out high-speed rail funding. And Sen. Coburn proposed an amendment that would have removed the requirement that states spend a small fraction of their transportation funds on the kinds of investments that make biking and walking safer and more available.
We thank you all for your speedy action on these amendments. Your voices are regularly being heard on Capitol Hill! Keep it up.
Details on the anti-bike and ped amendments in the Senate
September 16, 2009By Stephen Lee Davis
We wrote yesterday about dangerous amendments from Senators McCain and Coburn, asking you to take action to help preserve funding for desperately-needed bike and pedestrian facilities. We’re happy to report that Senator Coburn’s amendments were defeated today, preserving critical funding for bicycle and pedestrian facilities across the country. We thank you for taking the time to weigh in with your Senator. (The Coburn amendment failed to pass, garnering only 39 votes.)
The anti-bike and anti-pedestrian amendments Sen. Coburn offered would have allowed states to ignore a requirement (since 1991) in transportation law requiring states to spend 10% of their surface transportation budgets on what’s known as Transportation Enhancements (TE). Maybe that sounds like an unneccessary transport buzzword, so to simplify it somewhat, TE essentially covers the things that don’t fall under the much broader categories of highways or transit. TE includes things like bike trails, new sidewalks, complete streets, streetscape improvements, and converting abandoned rail corridors to rail-trails, among many others.
With that in mind, it was interesting to see how Senator Coburn characterized the amendment in the summary on Thomas:
To remove an unnecessary and burdensome mandate on the States, by allowing them to opt out of a provision that requires States to spend 10 percent of their surface transportation budgets on enhancement projects such as road-kill reduction and highway beautification.
So if you thought that TE funded things like the super popular Capital Crescent Trail in DC (used by commuters every day) or the Silver Comet Trail in Atlanta, Ga., you might be confused to read the summary and find out that it’s about “road-kill reduction.”
From our partners at Bikeleague.org, here’s a breakdown of the vote.
Democrats voting for Sen. Coburn amendment:
Klobuchar (MN)
Bayh (IN)
McCaskill (MO)
Feingold (WS)
Webb (VA)
Republicans voting against Sen. Coburn amendment:
Bond (MO)
Cochran (MS)
Voinovich (OH)
Collins (ME)
Murkowski (AK)
Snowe (ME)
Shelby (AL)
Take Action: Senators want to slash transit funding
September 15, 2009By Stephen Lee Davis
As you may have read on Streetsblog yesterday, Senator John McCain has just proposed 20 amendments to a transportation funding bill that have one common theme: Breaking a federal promise to fund long-planned public transportation projects.
As one news report said, “McCain’s targets range from a light rail project in Sacramento, California to a bus-rapid-transit system in Washington state to a rail extension linking Washington, D.C. to Dulles International Airport in northern Virginia.” Other projects, both urban and rural, would be cut in Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Michigan, North Carolina, and Utah.
Aside from one small, token bridge project, McCain’s hit list would leave billions in highway earmarks alone.
Senators are expected to vote TODAY on these amendments: Please write your senators now and tell them to vote NO on this assault on clean, oil-saving transportation projects – and to encourage their colleagues to do the same.
And that’s not the only threat.
Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma has proposed seven additional amendments to block the Department of Transportation from spending any money on clean transportation. Sen. Coburn would completely bar communities from using their federal funding to support bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure.
We have to stop this today: Tell your senators to vote against the McCain and Coburn amendments and stop this assault on communities that are building a transportation network for this century, rather than the last one.
Take action now, and share and post this action to your Facebook profile or your Twitter stream with the share button below.
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- U.S. Transportation Department makes good on promise to ensure our streets are made safer
March 16, 2010 - Obama’s livability programs help rural America too
March 16, 2010 - Transit grants out the federal door, but what about the cuts?
March 8, 2010 - Transit riders in Atlanta face massive cuts, “wholesale restructuring” of service
March 5, 2010 - Opposition to Senate extension results in looming shutdown of federal transportation programs
February 26, 2010
- U.S. Transportation Department makes good on promise to ensure our streets are made safer
The United States of Transit Cutbacks
Driving is down and transit ridership is at record highs. Yet transit agencies across the country are considering layoffs, service cuts and fare hikes. Find out more and learn what you can do to help at t4america.org/transitcuts
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