Just a few weeks after Rep. Paul Ryan released his House budget that proposed cutting or eliminating many important transportation programs, the key Senate committee’s budget for transportation (and housing) for next year contains some good news. This doesn’t mean that the fight is over for this year — this budget will still have to be reconciled with the House, which is no easy feat. And we’ll have a battle at that point once more. It’s been tougher and tougher in the last few years to pass actual budgets for these individual programs. This year will be no different, especially heading into an election this fall.

Leading negotiators in the House and Senate released a compromise spending bill to fund the U.S. Department of Transportation, alongside several other departments, through the end of the current fiscal year in September 2012. The measure is known as a “minibus” because it collapses several appropriations bills into one package, The conference agreement between the [...]

WASHINGTON, DC  — Today, members of the U.S. Senate voted 69 to 30 to approve a $128 billion “minibus” appropriations bill for the U.S. Department of Transportation, alongside several other departments. James Corless, director of Transportation for America, issued the following statement in response: “Today’s vote in the Senate to preserve current levels of infrastructure investment [...]

The House Appropriations Committee released their draft bill for 2012 spending in the transportation program, and the cuts are severe, with some key programs facing more of a reduction than others. The Transportation, Housing and Urban Development spending bill, or THUD, as its called, contained similar cuts for transit and road/bridge spending that we saw [...]

The budget proposal from the Republican Study Committee, which consists of 165 of the 242 GOP House members, released a week or so ago, calls for completely eliminating the main federal transit program, zeroes out Amtrak, cuts all funding for the metro system in the nation’s capital and slashes $2.5 billion in high-speed rail grants. Sign our petition objecting to this assault on public transportation funding.

Transportation for America and Smart Growth America applaud repeal of rules that hampered communities seeking deserving rail and rapid bus projects. In response to Secretary LaHood’s announcement today that funding guidelines for major transit projects will be selected based on livability benefits, including economic development and the environment, James Corless, campaign director of Transportation for America, and Geoff Anderson, president and CEO of Smart Growth America, had the following reactions:

Following through on a policy change hinted at for much of 2009, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood announced this morning that federal transit officials would begin considering expanded criteria as they select which transit projects to fund, focusing on livability and sustainability.

Americans are taking the train (and the bus) like never before, and public transportation ridership reached its highest level in more than 50 years in 2008. Cities of all sizes are looking to meet the burgeoning demand for quality public transportation service. With Chairman James Oberstar’s 90-page proposal for the next transportation bill coming out this morning from the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, we are left with an important question — how would these current or future transit systems fare under his proposed program?

Sen. Charles Schumer and Rep. Jerrold Nadler released a statement on Senator Schumer’s amendment to increase funding for transit in the Senate economic recovery package. Sen. Schumer’s planned amendment would boost transit funding from $8.4 billion up to $14.9 billion, with additions to the vital program (New Starts) that would provide funds for new, ready-to-go transit projects across the country. Currently, the House version has $2.5 billion for New Starts, where the Senate version has zero.