A map of the Chicago Transit Authority system. Note: a version of this post was also published on the National Journal’s Transportation Experts blog. This country is in desperate need of innovation. We are still mired in a recession triggered by a collapse in real estate that was driven in no small part by the [...]

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.

President Obama stressed America’s reliance on oil during his Oval Office address last week, noting that we consume 20 percent of the world’s reserves while supplying only 2 percent. The transportation sector accounts for 70 percent of the nation’s oil consumption. The need for a blueprint to address these imbalances could not be clearer, says Natural Resources Defense Council Executive Director Peter Lehner. Lehner points to the T4 Blueprint as an important guidepost.

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.

Is “livability” a valid proposition for big metropolitan areas alone? Some in Congress seem to think so, but we suspect that arises from a misreading of the term. Recently, some members of Congress have expressed concern that this initiative applies only to urban areas. The truth is that rural towns and smaller cities have just as much – and very likely more – need for funds to help create smart plans and to fund innovative projects than metro areas.

President Obama’s Fiscal Year 2011 budget is a step forward for transportation options and livable communities and contains $1 billion in programs and grants to help turn this positive vision into reality. It is gratifying that Obama chose to boost funding on transportation and livability as other programs face cuts. His team understand that investing in the neighborhoods and communities of tomorrow can both create jobs and lay the foundation for future prosperity.

Hearing President Obama call high-speed rail “the infrastructure of tomorrow” gave me great hope. Very rarely has transportation investment made the final cut in a presidential State of the Union address. The fact that it did make the cut this time really speaks to the president’s commitment to making high-speed rail a reality.

As you may have heard by now, President Obama is following up his favorable mention of high speed rail in last night’s State of the Union Last with a Tampa event in Tampa to announce the winners of federal grants for high speed rail service. (In case you missed our official statement about the announcement, read that here.) The President is due to make his announcement this afternoon but the list of awardees has already been released. So who were the big winners? Certainly Florida and California, who got the biggest grants, netting $1.25 and $2.3 billion respectively.

Responding to his call for a jobs bill aimed at easing the unemployment crisis, the Transportation for America coalition today wrote to President Obama and cabinet members outlining the transportation investments can put the most Americans back to work, quickly. The coalition, now with more than 400 members, also applauded the President for moving ahead on his vision for a world-class network of intercity rail. “Our coalition members have worked hard to make the case for just such an investment,” said John Robert Smith, co-chair of T4 America, “so the President’s announcement today of progress on 13 corridors is welcome news, indeed.”

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 [...]