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Farewell from a smart growth communications veteran
This post is a personal farewell from our friend and colleague David Goldberg, who was the founding communications director for Smart Growth America in 2002 and helped get Transportation for America off the ground in 2008-2009 as communications director. Other than former Gov. Parris Glendening at SGA, David was the longest tenured SGA/T4A employee, helping to steer this small part of the larger movement for transportation reform and creating better places over the last thirteen years. We’ll miss him deeply, and wish him the best in his new endeavors. Here are few thoughts directly from David as he departs.
As transit becomes ‘must-have economic development tool,’ will Congress help?
An excellent piece in the Washington Post this morning caught up to the topic we have been raising here for some time: Good transit service and walkable locations with nearby places to live, eat and shop are essential for economic development in today’s world. Which makes us wonder: Is Congress listening?
Obama budget cues start of serious negotiations over transportation funding
With the release of his budget proposal yesterday, President Obama at last offered some specifics on his plan to use the repatriation of taxable corporate profits to fund transportation. In doing so, he staked out a starting point for real-world negotiations over a possible six-year transportation bill – the first time such a prospect has seemed remotely realistic in six years.
Mayors’ challenge: Help us meet critical transportation needs
Last week, U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx issued a public challenge to mayors to “take significant action to improve safety for bicycle riders and pedestrians of all ages and abilities over the next year.” Mayors, in return, have a challenge of their own to the federal government: Don’t leave us in the lurch when it comes to the funding for those – and many other – transportation needs.
Tell Congress to send real dollars where the real needs are
Applause rang out from both sides of the aisle during the State of the Union, when President Obama called for the ambitious, “bipartisan infrastructure plan” we need for a 21st century, “middle-class economy”.
As a bridge falls in Cincinnati, the future of federal support remains dicey
Is the bridge collapse in Cincinnati a glimpse of our future? You may have heard that on Monday night, an obsolete overpass undergoing demolition “pancaked” onto I-75, killing a worker and nearly crushing a passing tractor-trailer. The bridge didn’t fall from decay, per se, but the circumstances in many ways are more worrisome even than […]
Tell the President to back a bipartisan gas tax increase
The steep drop in gas prices offers the best opportunity in years to raise the revenue we need to rescue our transportation trust fund and build for the future. And, for the first time in recent memory, leaders in both parties are calling for a gas tax increase to avoid foisting monumental repair and construction bills on the next generation.
Last-minute budget deal holds good news for the safety of all who use our roads
In a rare weekend session, the U.S. Senate finally passed the FY2015 Omnibus Appropriations Act, sending it to the President and avoiding a government shutdown. Buried deep within the legislation, was a simple paragraph enacting a proposal that Transportation for America and many others have long advocated for.
Budget compromise keeps highways and transit steady, cuts TIGER
The $1.01 trillion spending agreement reached by House and Senate negotiators on Tuesday night freezes highway spending at $40 billion while avoiding the big cuts to transit projects in the House proposal.
House bill extends transit benefit through 2014, leaving permanent extension in doubt
Transit commuters would get two weeks’ worth of additional tax benefit under a House bill introduced yesterday.
Metro areas on the cutting edge of transportation planning: Introducing The Innovative MPO
On Dec. 10, Transportation for America will release a one-of-a-kind guidebook showcasing leading-edge approaches to regional transportation planning, called “The Innovative MPO.” We will launch it with a webinar the same day, open to all. To learn more and register, click here. In this post, we provide a preview of the kind of topics you’ll encounter in the guidebook.
With GOP victories, SAFETEA-LU team in line to chair Senate committees
With last night’s election, both the Senate and House will see leadership changes in key transportation committees. With the nation’s transportation funding source running near empty and the current law, MAP-21, expiring in the spring, these new committee leaders will have an opportunity to make an impact in the very near term.
Latest round of TIGER grants announced, track them on our interactive map
The latest (sixth, if you’re counting) round of TIGER grants has been released — $584 million worth going to 72 projects in every corner of the country. Click through to see them all on our updated interactive map.
House proposes a trust fund Band-aid through May, 2015, with key differences from Senate
A House proposal to shore up the transportation trust fund through May, 2015, is a good news, not-so-good news proposition. Late yesterday, House Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp (R-MI) proposed a $10.8 billion infusion to cover a looming deficit in the Highway Trust Fund. The money for the next few months would come mostly […]
On C-SPAN, T4A’s Beth Osborne finds agreement with Heritage on HTF, walkability
Our compatriot Beth Osborne engaged in a spirited discussion on gas taxes and the crashing highway trust fund this morning on C-Span’s Washington Journal this morning. Watch the video here.
A broke Highway Trust Fund means job losses equal to Denver’s population, President Obama warns
Speaking today at the Key Bridge in Washington, DC, President Obama called on Congress to save the Highway Trust Fund from its pending insolvency, and to adopt a long-term transportation bill on the scale of his proposed four-year, $302 billion program. [Full text here.] In doing so, he retraced the bipartisan history of transportation funding […]
Senate Finance Committee considers a trust fund stopgap, with long-term funding unclear
The Senate Finance Committee Thursday will take up a proposal from Chairman Ron Wyden (D-OR) to keep the Highway Trust Fund solvent through Dec. 31 with a $9 billion transfer from the general budget. The needed revenue would be raised by increasing the allowable tax on heavy trucks and four accounting maneuvers unrelated to transportation.
The details on a new bill giving locals greater access to their federal dollars
Last week we reported on the introduction of an important bill to expand local access to federal transportation dollars, the Innovation in Surface Transportation Act (H.R. 4726). Today we want to provide a little more detail about how the proposed new grant program would work.
U.S. DOT offers great proposals, but the program needs more money to make them real
The Obama Administration last week unveiled its bid to save the federal transportation program with only months to spare before most states and metro areas lose the majority of their funding to maintain and improve transportation networks – unless Congress acts. While the Administration foreshadowed its priorities in its March budget request, the proposal – […]
We lost a good one: T4America reacts to the passing of former Chairman Jim Oberstar
Last Saturday we lost former U.S. Rep. Jim Oberstar of Minnesota, a champion of a strong, smart federal transportation program who served as chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure committee before leaving Congress in 2011. John Robert Smith, chairman of Transportation for America, issued this statement in response: “ ‘Public servant’, is a title quickly embraced […]
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