The Senate Commerce Committee passed a package of bills to create and implement goals and objectives for the overall transportation bill, update our federal freight transportation policy, and an amendment to help ensure that federal dollars help build streets that are safe for all users. These bills (including others not mentioned) represent the majority of this committee’s contribution to the overall Senate transportation bill.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Senate Commerce Committee today adopted two key policy measures for the upcoming authorization of the federal transportation program. The “Surface Transportation and Freight Policy Act of 2011” establishes policy goals for the federal surface transportation program, such as addressing congestion, improving access to multiple travel options, supporting domestic manufacturing and reducing [...]

We’re kicking off a short series of posts looking at some of the specific provisions in the Senate’s MAP-21 proposal over the coming days and weeks, as well as some of the proposed amendments in play. The Senate’s Environment and Public Works Committee has jurisdiction over highways and controls what usually amounts to about 80 percent of the bill’s total investments — though that spending also covers freight, biking and walking, and air quality, for example. MAP-21 was approved in the EPW committee on November 9th.

A key Senate committee is deciding the fate of public transportation right now. The Senate Banking Committee is writing their portion of the Senate transportation reauthorization and they have jurisdiction over transit. They need to know that it’s important to give transit agencies the flexibility to use their money not just to buy new buses or railcars but for the operation of those buses and trains. That’s because transit agencies in our larger cities aren’t allowed to use the federal dollars they receive to keep trains and buses running, even in this incredibly difficult time.

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 [...]

The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee approved its two-year highway reauthorization bill this morning and moved it out of committee by a bipartisan, unanimous 18-0 vote. (Read our statement here.) The committee markup was short, as compared to a typical markup of such a large bill, but that was a testament to the work [...]

The attempt by Senator Rand Paul to take the relatively tiny amount of money that goes toward safer walking and biking on our streets and redirect it to our massive backlog of deficient bridges failed yesterday in the Senate. Busy bicycling bridge Originally uploaded by Steven Vance to Flickr. Send a message to your Senator to [...]

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 [...]

On Friday, we highlighted the disingenuous attempt from some in Congress to tie the need to repair our bridges to the elimination of a tiny program to make it safer to walk or bike on our streets and roads. Senators Rand Paul of Kentucky, Tom Coburn of Oklahoma and John McCain of Arizona have been [...]

Our reports calling attention to our nation’s deficient bridges have gained enormous traction in recent weeks, to the point that members of Congress and the White House are citing our data in demonstrating the need for infrastructure investment. Unfortunately, some are using them to make disingenuous attempts to eliminate a small program they’ve been trying [...]