Understanding how current federal transportation policy works — much less how to go about changing the current system — requires a sometimes painful amount of context. So we put together this comprehensive report to provide some clarity and document where we’ve been, how the program works (or doesn’t work) the process of reauthorization and the new (and old) challenges facing us tomorrow and beyond as Congress debates a new transportation bill.

Our transportation investments and the built environment — what we build and where — have an enormous impact on our health and the cost of our health care. With the debate over health care reform dominating the news daily, Transportation for America and coalition members from across the country took that powerful — yet often ignored or neglected — message to Capitol Hill leaders with a “health fly-in” last Friday.

The following article, which was written by T.R. Goldman for the newspaper Roll Call, focuses on the Transportation for America Campaign and its nationwide push for a better transportation program. The story is posted below in its entirety and can also be viewed here by subscribers to Roll Call. It comes around every half-dozen or [...]

Democrats and Republicans in Congress — along with both presidential candidates — are supporting a plan to provide $25 billion in loan guarantees to struggling American auto manufacturers. (New York Times — David Herszenhorn)

While mass transit agencies are struggling with rising costs and surging ridership, Congress is considering loaning $25 billion to struggling automakers to help them make more fuel-efficient vehicles. (New York Sun — Russell Berman)

Senator Hillary Clinton calls for a renewed commitment to mass transit in a New York Daily News op-ed, asserting that we must “make public transportation a public priority” to improve our economy, reduce our dependence on oil, and combat climate change.

The Washington Post editorial board argues that the next administration must think deeply about the transportation challenges facing the nation and come up with new and sustainable methods for funding infrastructure.

Maryland PIRG policy associate Kristi Hovarth points to the numerous flaws behind our outdated federal transportation policy — and offers a multitude of suggestions for fixing it.  (Baltimore Sun)

The U.S. Senate approves a plan to move $8 billion dollars into the highway trust fund. (Associated Press)

As buses in Topeka, Kansas fill up with more passengers and the local transit authority struggles to maintain service, the Topeka Capital-Journal‘s editorial board urges Congress to buckle down on finding ways to fund mass transit.