Failure to keep up with regular maintenance and repair in many of our country’s public transportation systems due to tightened budgets is literally slowing us down, through longer commutes, unreliable service and reduced access, exacerbating the effects of a down economy and high unemployment. A study prepared by the Federal Transit Administration reveals chronic underinvestment in the nation’s transit systems and estimates $77.7 billion is needed just to rehabilitate what we already have.

LaHood with Mayor Fenty, DDOT Director Gabe Klein and Reps. Blumenauer and Oberstar. Photo courtesy of USDOT. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has made a point of championing bicycling as a legitimate travel option everywhere, but he is also keeping an eye on his own backyard, including Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington DC. LaHood joined DC Mayor [...]

Does it really require an “assault on the automobile” to begin to change the government polices that literally drove us into abject oil dependency? That’s the underlying question in a fascinating cover story in Congressional Quarterly this week. Reporter Kathryn Wolfe looks at the challenges facing the Obama administration’s efforts.

Transportation for America was proud to co-author and circulate a letter thanking Secretary Ray LaHood for USDOT’s policy statement elevating walking and biking in national policy. Last Friday, several of us at T4 cycled with a handful of national partners to DOT Headquarters across town to thank the Secretary in person.

Hundreds of organizations from around the country joined together to thank U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood today for his leadership in making bicycling and walking safer and more accessible. Secretary LaHood accepted a thank you letter at DOT Headquarters from bicyclists representing America Bikes, Safe Routes to School National Partnership and Transportation for America and more than 200 national, state, regional and local organizations from every state in the nation.

We got some superb media coverage last week on the release of our national poll and there’s an engaging discussion underway today on the National Journal experts blog, but we wanted to especially highlight a terrific post today from Ray LaHood, U.S. Secretary of Transportation, on his official DOT blog.

Secretary LaHood says that our poll echoes the same drumbeat he’s heard all around the country from people in big cities, small towns and all the places in between during his first 14 months in office: “people want better options.”

Sec. LaHood issued a new directive yesterday that officially shows DOT’s support for improving safety for walking and bicycling — treating them as equal modes of transportation. Last fall we released a report chronicling the 76,000 preventable pedestrian deaths over the last 15 years on streets unsafe for walkers or bikers. Today, DOT made some progress on the issue.

Secretary LaHood is (rightfully) touting the news on his blog this morning that the FTA met their deadline for distributing 100% of the transit grants from the stimulus package. That’s great news, but it should be accompanied by the sobering reminder that these public transportation systems that get people to work each day couldn’t use that money to keep from having to cut service at a time when it’s needed the most.

The Obama Department of Transportation today broke historic ground in unveiling projects chosen in a first-ever program to award federal dollars on a competitive basis to innovative projects that address economic, environmental and travel issues at once. The 51 projects announced under the TIGER grant program, funded by $1.5 billion included in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), meet a broad array of challenges.

U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood was the guest on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart last night, and got an easy question right off the bat. When asked by Stewart about how a high-powered CEO could get from New York to D.C. “when it’s foggy out,” alluding to the three Wall Street CEOs who had their plane grounded in last week’s fog, missing a meeting with the President, Ray LaHood gave a simple answer. “Amtrak runs in the fog,” he said.