President Obama signed the HIRE Act this morning in the Rose Garden at the White House, and T4 America was fortunate enough to have been invited to the event. While this bill doesn’t contain the amount of money for transportation infrastructure like the stimulus had last year, it does have a few important provisions for transportation.

Bipartisan passage accompanies strong vote for transportation reform WASHINGTON D.C. – Following the bipartisan passage of the jobs bill in the Senate this morning, James Corless, campaign director of Transportation for America, released the following statement: “Today’s bipartisan passage by the Senate of a $15B jobs bill came with a clear indication of the significance [...]

The Economic Policy Institute ran the numbers on Transportation for America’s jobs proposal and concluded that our plan for increased transportation spending would create 480,000 jobs. Our proposed package for Congress directs $34.3 billion toward a mix of public transportation, highways and bicycle and pedestrian projects, closely resembling EPI’s own plan.

Although unemployment turned out worse than some forecasters anticipated, there has been some consensus among economists that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act passed earlier this year prevented even higher job losses while channeling much-needed relief to states. But spending money quickly often relies on formulas and methods that are outdated, or — as evidenced in last month’s report by the Transportation Equity Network (TEN) and Good Jobs First — inequitable. Minority-owned businesses have received only 10.2 percent of stimulus funds toward federal contracts, while women-owned businesses received 5.9 percent.

A new analysis of federal stimulus spending, co-authored by Smart Growth America, the Center for Neighborhood Technology and U.S. PIRG, reveals that during the first ten months of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), investments in public transportation produced twice the jobs per billion dollars as did highway projects.

The transportation spending priorities in the jobs bill, set for a vote in the House of Representatives today, will provide much needed short-term funding for our roads, bridges and transit systems that will put Americans to work across the country. These “stopgap” provisions will save and create jobs, and give states and localities the opportunity to start bringing their crumbling transportation systems back into a state of good repair

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.

President Obama delivered a speech just a few minutes ago at the Brookings Institution here in Washington, D.C., on his plan for creating jobs and putting America back to work. We’ll add some details later and a link to the full speech, but here is the excerpt on infrastructure spending: Second, we’re proposing a boost [...]

Amidst today’s White House jobs summit, congressional Democrats have been working on ideas for a potential jobs bill in the House and Senate to put Americans to work with targeted investments. Transportation for America is pushing to make sure any spending boost is targeted at ready-to-go projects that can bring our transportation system into a state of good repair.

In light of discussions in Congress about a potential bill focused specifically on creating jobs, and President Obama convening a jobs summit this week in Washington, Transportation for America recently sent this letter to Speaker Nancy Pelosi that outlined 3 principles that should guide any potential infrastructure and transportation spending. If we’re going to fund infrastructure investments to put people back to work, it’s imperative that we get the most out of our precious dollars — and stay on track for passing the long-term transportation bill we so desperately need to get America moving again.