T4America Blog

News, press releases and other updates

Posts Tagged "oberstar"

We lost a good one: T4America reacts to the passing of former Chairman Jim Oberstar

5 May 2014 | Posted by | 0 Comments |

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 […]

Continue Reading →

Secretary LaHood, members of Congress celebrate Pennsylvania Avenue’s new bike lanes

LaHood with Mayor Fenty, DDOT Director Gabe Klein and Reps. Blumenauer and Oberstar. Photo courtesy of USDOT. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has made a point of championing bicycling as a legitimate travel option everywhere, but he is also keeping an eye on his own backyard, including Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington DC. LaHood joined DC Mayor […]

Continue Reading →

Opposition to Senate extension results in looming shutdown of federal transportation programs

26 Feb 2010 | Posted by | 0 Comments | , ,

A single Senator kept the Senate from passing an emergency one-month extension of the current transportation bill today, leaving it to expire over the weekend and threatening the flow of money to transportation programs. So come Monday or Tuesday, federal transportation agencies from the Department of Transportation to the Federal Transit Administration will be furloughing employees and in a state of near shutdown.

Continue Reading →

Wrapping up the Minnesota release of the Blueprint

On Monday, June 29th the Minnesota Coalition of Transportation for America welcomed community, city, and state leaders to learn more about the T4 America vision for the next federal transportation bill — and how Minnesotans would benefit from a reformed federal transportation program.

Continue Reading →

What does Oberstar’s proposal do for the New Starts transit program?

Americans are taking the train (and the bus) like never before, and public transportation ridership reached its highest level in more than 50 years in 2008. Cities of all sizes are looking to meet the burgeoning demand for quality public transportation service. With Chairman James Oberstar’s 90-page proposal for the next transportation bill coming out this morning from the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, we are left with an important question — how would these current or future transit systems fare under his proposed program?

Continue Reading →

Some details on Chairman Oberstar’s transportation proposal

We’ll have a running series of posts today breaking down some of the notable spending levels and reforms proposed in Chairman Oberstar’s outline of the transportation bill. He told Congressional Quarterly this morning that he is still planning on releasing full bill text and marking up the bill in his Highways and Transit Subcommittee next week. According to his summary, the upcoming bill will restructure and transform the different programs away from multiple “prescriptive programs” into a “performance-based framework” “designed to achieve specific national objectives.”

Continue Reading →

Sec. LaHood proposes 18-month extension of current transportation bill

This morning on Capitol Hill, DOT Secretary Ray LaHood proposed an 18-month extension of the current SAFETEA-LU transportation authorization bill. Beyond simply extending the current bill, LaHood indicated that he wants to include some reforms in the 18-month extension — including a focus on metro areas, extensive cost-benefit analysis, and a commitment to “livable communities” — but was short on other specifics.

Continue Reading →

Updated news on the transportation bill outline release

After much back-and-forth on times and dates today, we think this information is pretty solid: Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman James Oberstar is holding an invitation-only press conference Wednesday, June 17th at 11 a.m. to talk with invited media outlets about the white paper and outline for the upcoming transportation bill. 24 hours later, on […]

Continue Reading →

Rep. Oberstar stuck in traffic, misses release of report on public transportation

The Environmental Defense Fund held a news conference Thursday morning to release a new report profiling 10 innovative public transportation systems. Rep. Rep. James Oberstar of Minnesota, who heads up the House committee responsible for writing the transportation bill this year, was invited to give remarks. So where was Rep. Oberstar when the press conference kicked off Thursday morning on Capitol Hill? Stuck in gridlocked DC traffic, according to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune.

Continue Reading →