Cardin-Cochran Archives - Transportation For America

Senate plan to give local communities more control in making their streets safer could be in jeopardy

It’s always hard to tell for certain what’s really happening on the inside during House-Senate conference committee negotiations on the transportation bill. Nearly all of the meetings are in private for the most part and confirming rumors and hearsay on what’s really happening is always very difficult. Which is one reason why you haven’t read all that much in the way of daily coverage of conference here on the T4 blog.

But we’re fairly certain that a crucial provision in the Senate bill is under attack by some — and we need your help to defend and preserve it in the final transportation bill that will emerge from conference.

Known as the Cardin-Cochran amendment, this provision that was included in the Senate bill would help our cities and towns revitalize Main streets, improve public health, and make streets safer for everyone who uses them. It does that by giving them the ability to make choices about how transportation dollars are spent in their communities.

Can you take just a minute to tell your senators and representative to preserve and defend the Cardin-Cochran amendment?

Many of you wrote your senators over the last few months about this, going back to when it was just an amendment in the Senate. That groundswell of support, as well as broad outreach from mayors across the country, resulted in a huge victory when it won bipartisan support and was included in the Senate bill. But now that provision is under attack and could be scrapped as the House and Senate negotiate a final transportation bill if we don’t fight for it. Today.

If this important provision isn’t included in the final bill, Congress would take transportation choices away from local governments and give the state sole power over them.

Senators already recognized that they should give control and choice back to local governments to invest in the smaller projects in their communities that revitalize their communities while building out a full transportation network that is safe for everyone.

These issues are being decided this week in the conference negotiations. So please tell your Senator and representative to preserve the Cardin-Cochran provision.

Note: Read more about this important provision here in this post with downloadable fact sheet.

Updated: Senate improves their bill with three key amendments, but crucial vote looms

UPDATED: 3/6 4:00 p.m. The Senate rejected the motion for cloture, 52-44 by a mostly party-line vote. Brown (MA) and Collins (ME) crossed party lines to support the motion to move the bill forward. Streetsblog Capitol Hill has a good summary of what transpired today. But by all means, you should still write or call your Senators to let them know you think the bill needs to move forward without delay. We’ve modified the message to reflect today’s events. Leave any questions in the comments.

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Senator Boxer, one of the four main architects of the Senate’s bipartisan transportation bill, meets with Los Angeles County Supervisor Don Knabe and Los Angeles MTA Executive Director Art Leahy to discuss transportation issues.

In case you missed the news Friday, thanks in part to the drumbeat of tweets and messages and letters and phone calls from many of you, the Senate made some important changes last week to strengthen their two-year transportation bill.

But with a March 31 deadline still looming for shutdown of all transportation programs without a new bill and a crucial vote scheduled for tomorrow (3/6) at noon, your Senators need to hear that they must move this bill without delay.

Help keep the pressure on and take a moment to urge your Senator to support moving the bill and get it one step closer to passage.

We celebrated a big victory late last week as the Senate agreed to include three amendments we have all been working for, including the Cardin-Cochran amendment to give local governments a say over small projects in their communities — projects that make bicycling and walking safer and more attractive, revitalize our Main Streets, or make better connections to transit, among many other uses.

A “cloture” vote to end this phase of debate and move the bill to the Senate floor is scheduled for noon on Tuesday, 3/6. While this vote won’t be the last word, it is key toward solidifying the Senate’s progress and a failed cloture vote could stall the bill significantly.

Last week we learned just how effective our 500-plus coalition members and the thousands of you have been with your advocacy, specifically on the Cardin-Cochran local control amendment that was incorporated into the bill last week.

“Oh, we’ve been hearing about that Cardin-Cochran amendment,” we heard repeatedly, as we visited numerous Senate offices last week with 30-plus T4 America coalition members who flew to D.C. from all over the country to lobby their members of Congress on the transportation bill. Staffers in numerous Senate offices said they’d been getting phone calls and emails about that amendment specifically for the last few weeks.

While we are certainly still working for several more improvements to the bill, it’s time to move it one step closer to winning passage. We need to make sure that the Senate moves this bill forward without delay. The cloture vote expected Tuesday would help to make this much-improved bill the starting point for further debate as it moves toward a final vote.

Our Senators need to hear from their constituents that we can’t wait to pass a bill that will improve mobility and travel options for all Americans while preserving our existing infrastructure. We need to keep this Senate bill moving forward.

Send a message to your Senator anytime before noon on Tuesday with this page.

And after you send that email, come right back and make a quick phone call and tell them to support the Senate transportation bill on the floor Tuesday. Keep the pressure on!

Senate responds to massive support, adopts several important amendments into overall bill

After getting thousands of phone calls, letters and messages from constituents, mayors, city councilmembers, health and business groups and others spanning the spectrum, the Senate moved three key amendments into the overall Senate bill yesterday, including one that will give local communities more control over their transportation dollars.

While there are other amendments that our coalition will continue to work on in the Senate, this is a huge victory and a terrific step forward for strengthening the MAP-21 bill. We want to thank Senators Boxer, Inhofe, Baucus and Vitter for accepting these amendments to improve the Senate bill.

Yesterday, we hosted T4 America partners who flew to Washington, D.C. from across the country as they spent the day meeting with their House and Senate offices to ask those elected leaders to a) improve and fix the House bill and b) support a handful of key amendments that would strengthen the Senate bill.

One of the primary goals was to get Senators to support the bipartisan Cardin-Cochran amendment that would restore local control and help make our streets safer.

Thanks to the hard work of Senators Cardin and Cochran and the outpouring of support from across the country from individuals and groups of all stripes, that message had been received by many offices we visited with T4 coalition members. All day in meetings with Senate offices, staff repeatedly noted they’d been getting an overwhelming number of phone calls, letters and emails for the last two weeks about the Cardin-Cochran amendment.

Mayors especially were letting their Senators know just how important it is for local communities to have direct access to a small amount of dollars to revitalize their main streets, make it safer for children to get to school, improve connections to their transit systems, and other small improvements that often fall between the cracks of the larger projects states tends to focus on. The amendment was supported by groups as diverse as the American Public Health Association, the National League of Cities, AARP, the American Heart Association, the National Rural Assembly and hundreds of others.

Thursday late afternoon, we got news that the Cardin-Cochran amendment (as well as two others — more on those in a moment) had been adopted into what’s known as the manager’s amendment package. Without going into too much legislative jargon, it’s basically a package of amendments that have been agreed upon by Committee leaders that are incorporated into the bill without requiring a vote on the floor.

Another bipartisan amendment sponsored by Senators Franken (D-MN) and Blunt (R-MO) included in this package would help repair more of our bridges by making the 180,000 federal-aid bridges not on the National Highway System eligible for a share of funds in the main highway program, keeping all of the road and bridge repair programs organized together. This gives states the power to decide which bridges are the most important to be fixed and fix them, rather than being required by the federal government to fix certain bridges while others go begging for the flexible funds that can be spent on transit, walking and biking or other uses.

The last notable amendment we’ve been supporting that was included would help protect metropolitan areas from losing the small bit of funding that they receive directly, sponsored by Senators Landrieu (D-LA) and Murray (D-WA). Under MAP-21 if states don’t spent their money wisely and fail to meet the performance goals and objectives, metropolitan areas won’t be punished or lose any portion of their transportation dollars. While we strongly support the performance provisions we believe it is important that metropolitan areas not be punished for the actions of the state department of transportation. This amendment addresses that issue.

Transportation for America thanks Senators Cardin, Cochran, Franken, Blunt, Landrieu and Murray for their work to help strengthen and improve the Senate transportation bill. Their work and that of each Senator’s staff has been invaluable and we really appreciate their efforts.

Information on the Senate amendments continues to be updated on our amendment tracker page.

Crucial amendment could improve Senate bill, restore local control and help make streets safer

If you think your community should have a voice and the ability to make improvements like these in Seattle, tell your Senator to support the Cardin-Cochran amendment

The Senate’s transportation bill, MAP-21, goes farther than any recent transportation measure to devolve responsibility and funds down to the state level. An amendment to be debated this week would push that devolution even further – down to the local level — for a small pot of money that could make a big difference.

The Cardin-Cochran amendment (S.Amd 1549) would allow communities to build safer streets, provide more transportation options, attract new residents and businesses and spark economic revitalization in areas that desperately need it.

The amendment would give local elected leaders — who know the transportation and safety needs of their constituents best — more direct control over how to spend those funds and allow them to revitalize their communities while building out the full transportation network they need.

Action: Tell your Senators to support the Cardin-Cochran amendment today!

States usually focus on building larger projects, but those projects often need further refinements within those communities in order to function well — like new bike lanes, wider sidewalks, narrower lanes on the town’s main street, safer routes to school for children, or bus and rail stop improvements. These larger projects can also sometimes create health, safety or other mpacts that local communities are eager to address. This amendment would give them the control and the voice in these decisions that they desperately want in order to meet their own priorities.

What would this amendment do?

The Senate MAP-21 bill creates a new program called “Additional Activities” that includes a broad range of eligible projects that include Main Street revitalizations, local street safety improvements, street and boulevard redesigns, bus stop and rail station access improvements, Safe Routes to Schools, Recreational Trails, among many others — including the former programs that invested in safe walking and biking. This amendment turns that Additional Activities program into a competitive grant program for local governments and other entitites.

Communities would then be able to apply for a funds from a protected pot of dollars to build these kinds of projects that are extremely popular with local governments – and their citizens – because they promote safer, healthier communities, economic redevelopment and tourism, while creating connections to job centers, transit stops, recreational areas and other destinations.

This would restore control and choice back to local governments to invest in small projects in their communities. The state could not take the money away unless local communities didn’t apply for the funds or had no eligible ideas for how to use it. At that point the state could spend that money on other priorities. Win-win, right?

The Cardin-Cochran Amendment gives increased decision-making authority and control to local governments in cities, small towns and rural areas alike to fund transportation projects that get the most bang for the taxpayer buck.

I have served on the State level of government; I have been mayor of a major city. I believe the closer you get to the people, the more responsible government is. I believe that to be true.”

– Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK), 2/9/2012

Local control in practice

So what does this mean practically? Here are three short stories of how local communities were able to take some state dollars and make key investments in their communities — investments and projects that could easily be passed over if the state has total control over all transportation dollars.

Saving lives in Nashville, Tennessee
The planned construction of new sidewalks on the south side of Harding Place from I-65 to I-24 in Nashville would connect multi-family housing to grocery stores, restaurants and other retail destinations, as well as provide a connection to the closest transit stop. This safety project is designed to reduce the high number of pedestrians who are injured and killed while walking along roads that are currently dangerous for residents.

Reviving downtown in Meridian, Mississippi
Beginning in the early 1990s, community leaders worked to create a multi-modal transportation center in the heart of town with the help of over $5 million in federal and state grants. As a result, Meridian’s Union Station (right) was reborn as a thriving rail and bus depot. The $6.8 million project has leveraged more than $8 million in private investment in the Depot District, raising property values and city tax receipts, and lowering crime in the station’s neighborhood.

Creating access for all in Springfield, Missouri
A planned project to provide continuous ADA-compliant sidewalks on both sides of Kearney St. from the Kansas Expressway (Route 13) to Glenstone Avenue (Loop 44) is a high priority for local and state officials and would provide connectivity to area shopping centers and transit stops. This project is projected to cost less than $1 million, but without funding, local officials cannot move forward with building safer streets for pedestrians and residents with disabilities.

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If you want to share this with your Senator or others, you can download a version of this information as a two-page fact sheet. (pdf)