In the last 15 years, 76,000 Americans have been killed while walking or simply crossing the street. Help could be on the way. Rep. Earl Blumenauer introduced a bill last week to create a $2 billion competitive grant program to fund safe networks for biking and walking. This week, more than 700 bike advocates are descending on Capitol Hill to drum up strong support for the program while in D.C. for the National Bike Summit. We need to back them up: Send a letter to your representative urging them to co-sponsor the Active Community Transportation Act (H.R. 4722).

With jobs, the economy our quality of life in the balance, Congress must act now on authorization. As the national transportation program faces fiscal uncertainty today following Sen. Jim Bunning’s (R-KY) refusal to extend legislation to fund transportation and other national programs on Friday, James Corless, campaign director of Transportation for America, released the following statement.

A few hours ago, the House passed a $636 billion defense spending bill that included a two-month extension of the federal transportation law. Don’t count on two months as the final length of an extension though — House members are hedging their bets. Later today, the House will vote on a separate $174 billion jobs bill. Tucked inside that bill is a longer extension of the 2005 transportation bill that would extend SAFETEA-LU all the way to the end of September 2010.

As you may have read on Streetsblog Capitol Hill, the Senate passed a stopgap one-month extension of the current law last night. There have been a lot of questions flying around today, so we’re going to try to post a handful with some simplified answers when possible to clear up any confusion. The short explanation? The Senate failed to pass an extension of their own to match the House’s 3-month extension before the transportation bill expired last night. Instead, they passed an emergency one-month extension.

UPDATE #2: The House passed the 3-month extension of the transport bill under suspension of the rules yesterday, with a 335-85 vote in favor of the extension. UPDATED: The bill will likely be voted on today under suspension of the rules, and there will be at least some GOP opposition to it. Elana Schor at [...]

At least that’s what the American Planning Association Transportation Planning Division is reporting on their blog. According to their story, Chairman Oberstar of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee is planning a full committee mark-up of the Surface Transportation Authorization Act of 2009 as soon as Congress comes back from the August recess.

With the House passing a $7 billion patch for the Highway Trust Fund yesterday afternoon to keep it from running out of money before September, we thought it might be useful to post a brief Q&A about the trust fund patch and how the full six-year transportation authorization bill could be affected. The $7 billion patch moves to the Senate for a vote, probably this afternoon, before reaching President Obama’s desk.

Capitol Hill is buzzing with the news. As you may have heard, Chairman Oberstar and his House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee released the full 775-page transportation bill earlier this afternoon. Rep. Oberstar is poised to get his six-year bill moving this week, and the Obama administration is pushing Congress to pass a (shorter) funding plan quickly. Why the rush? Because transportation funding is running out. Tell your representative to make a stand: no more money without real reform!

Chairman Jim Oberstar and the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee have released the full 775-page transportation bill text. Download it here. (pdf) Check back here for details over the coming week.

We’ll have a running series of posts today breaking down some of the notable spending levels and reforms proposed in Chairman Oberstar’s outline of the transportation bill. He told Congressional Quarterly this morning that he is still planning on releasing full bill text and marking up the bill in his Highways and Transit Subcommittee next week. According to his summary, the upcoming bill will restructure and transform the different programs away from multiple “prescriptive programs” into a “performance-based framework” “designed to achieve specific national objectives.”