WASHINGTON, DC — Congressional leaders from both the House and Senate agreed Friday to extend SAFETEA-LU, the current surface transportation law, for six months at current funding levels and without policy changes. James Corless, director of Transportation for America, issued this statement in response: “It is a good sign, indeed, that bipartisan negotiations between House Speaker [...]

House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan has put forward a proposed budget resolution calling for sweeping changes that would have a profound impact on the nation’s investments in infrastructure. The budget would cut at least $17 billion in transportation investment per year over the next several years, according to one analysis, and would narrow rather than broadens travel options for Americans by shortchanging rail, public transit and walking and biking.

Last night at midnight marked one year since the last federal transportation bill expired, a development that is noted — and updated every second to account for the delay — in the top right hand corner of every page on the Transportation for America web site. In a long, wide-ranging story this week, Jason Plautz of E&E News (subscription only) noted our clock while pointing out the 365 days of delay since the transportation bill first expired last September.

What if we could re-design our nation’s transportation policy to increase travel choices, reduce oil dependency and create more jobs? According to an Economic Policy Institute study, we could do just that if Congress adopts Transportation for America’s proposal.

Study finds that T4America’s policies would support 400,000 more jobs than continuation of SAFETEA-LU As America continues to reel from sustained, high unemployment, a new analysis by the Economic Policy Institute shows that, with a smart investment strategy, authorization of a proposed $500 billion transportation measure could support more than 7.2 million jobs. EPI examined [...]

When President Obama signed the HIRE Act into law last week, he ushered in important progress on several important transportation initiatives. The Act extends current transportation law until December 31, 2010 and restores $19.5 billion in interest to the Highway Trust Fund. This works out to $14.7 billion for highways and $4.8 billion for mass [...]

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.

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.

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.

Rep. James Obertsar, chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, told Congressional Quarterly this week that he will not pass an extension of the federal transportation bill if the new bill is not finished when the current law (SAFETEA-LU) expires on Sept. 30. (From today’s print edition. Not publicly linkable) Transportation and Infrastructure Chairman [...]