Posts Tagged "stuck in the station"
Transit projects slowly leaving the station
After the Trump administration took office, long-planned transit projects applying for federal grants began to run into administrative roadblocks, unexplained delays, and other difficulties that put the future of these projects at risk. In response, Transportation for America launched Stuck in the Station to call attention to these inexcusable delays and slowly USDOT began to respond to the pressure. Now, in light of that progress, our focus will be on policy solutions—changing the law—to make transit easier to build in America.
Is this flurry of transit grants a blip or a trend?
The U.S. Department of Transportation has finalized five grants to expand and build new transit lines. It’s a stark departure from USDOT’s history of stonewalling grants under Trump. Could this surge of grants signal a shift in the agency’s stance? Perhaps. But it does highlight how our federal transportation system is structured to make transit hard to fund and why Congress should work to increase transit funding levels and certainty in new, long-term transportation policy that is currently being drafted. New transportation policy principles released in the House suggest that could be possible.
Business groups urge Congressional support for transit funding
The business community gets it—public transportation is critical for the strength and growth of local economies and federal funding for transit is needed to get projects off the ground. In a letter to Congress, members of the Chambers for Transit coalition called for fully funding the nation’s largest grant program for public transit and reorienting the entire federal transportation program around clear goals and priorities.
Congrats USDOT, for a job poorly done
Congress required USDOT to spend its 2018 transit funds by the end of this year, and USDOT was poised to fail. But at the last minute, Congress bailed them out by easing the requirement. As the deadline approaches, USDOT is still sitting on hundreds of millions of dollars in grants that it refuses to award, unnecessarily delaying critical new transit projects.
Shutdown averted; another crisis created
The U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) is refusing to obey the rules and Congress has so far been powerless to stop them. At stake are billions in federal funding for new and expanded transit systems that USDOT doesn’t want to award. But a policy change that attempts to reign in USDOT and make it obey the law could just be making matters worse.
Voters love Phoenix light rail. Does USDOT?
On Tuesday, voters in Phoenix resoundingly voted to reaffirm their support for the city’s transit expansion plans. But while the city can now move beyond this threat to its transit ambitions, the region joins scores of others still waiting on the Trump administration for federal transit funding.
House oversight hearing on transit grants left unanswered questions
The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee held an oversight hearing on Tuesday, July 16, to question the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) about its ongoing failure to release billions of congressionally-appropriated funds for local transit construction projects in a timely fashion. We still have questions. While Acting FTA Administrator K. Jane Williams provided some answers to […]
House committee grills USDOT on transit funding delays
The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee held an oversight hearing to question the Federal Transit Administration about its ongoing failure to release billions of congressionally-appropriated funds for local transit projects in a timely fashion through the transit Capital Investment Grant program.
Federal transit funding delays cause real harm
USDOT has been slow-walking federal transit funding since the Trump administration took office and the U.S. House is finally holding an oversight hearing to hold them accountable. Here’s a look at one major way USDOT is making it look like they’re advancing transit grants when they’re really not and some of the impact that’s had on communities on the ground.
The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee is holding an oversight hearing on USDOT’s failure to release transit grants
Transportation for America urges the House of Representatives to turn up the heat on USDOT for failing to release funding for transit grants during an oversight hearing on Tuesday, July 16.
Try as Trump might, transit grants are here to stay
The Trump administration has repeatedly tried to eliminate a critical transit grant program and Congress has repeatedly parried those attempts. The new transportation funding bill from the U.S. House is only the latest evidence that those transit grants are here to stay.
If verbal gymnastics was an Olympic sport, USDOT would take a medal
A deceptive announcement by USDOT two weeks ago resulted in mistaken headlines across the country giving credit to USDOT and the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) for “awarding” funding to a number of transit projects. A closer read reveals that USDOT didn’t actually distribute or award a single dime to advance new transit projects.
President’s budget dramatically cuts transit grants while USDOT sits on billions of unobligated funds.
President Trump’s just-released 2020 budget would cut federal transit capital grants by $1 billion. Although this is a slight improvement from the administration’s past efforts to eliminate all funding for new transit projects, it comes after a backlash against USDOT—stoked by Transportation for America’s ‘Stuck in the Station’ resource—for failing to administer the grant program in good faith and in a timely fashion.
A new countdown for USDOT transit funding
As Congress enters negotiations for the next long-term transportation bill and works to pass a new annual budget, our Stuck in the Station resource has been updated to provide a complete list of transit projects awaiting funding in 2019 and track USDOT’s progress towards meeting hard and fast deadlines imposed by an impatient Congress.
Federal transit funding delays grab headlines across the country
Since we launched Stuck in the Station this summer—which catalogues the egregious (and wholly avoidable) delays in transit funding under this administration—dozens of media outlets across the country have covered the news.
Cities eager to receive transit dollars from USDOT are receiving letters instead
Instead of approving projects and providing the money cities have applied for, USDOT is “allowing” cities to move ahead with construction on transit capital projects and incur costs that might one day be reimbursed by USDOT.
Cities left in the dark by an agency that once partnered with them to build new transit
Many local transit project sponsors are in the dark about the status of their applications for federal transit funds, left to wonder why the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) has not granted funding to their projects. But these cities have remained publicly quiet about it for fear of harming their chances of eventually receiving funding, taking the pressure off the administration to fund and support transit projects.
With the 2018 fiscal year over, how much money has USDOT obligated to transit projects?
The 2018 fiscal year closed yesterday, wrapping up a year in which USDOT received more than $1.4 billion from Congress to invest in new transit construction and improvement projects across the country. With another infusion of cash coming (eventually) for FY 2019, it’s time for a look at how much USDOT still has on hand from 2018—as well as the unspent funds from FY 2017.
T4America joins a parade of letters to USDOT urging them to do their job and get transit projects moving
In a parade of letters, T4America joined a chorus of elected representatives going on the record to urge the US Department of Transportation to do their job required by the law and award funds to expeditiously advance [transit] projects, communicate more clearly with local communities about the status of their transit projects, and recognize that a bipartisan majority in Congress has twice rejected their wishes to eliminate the transit capital construction program.
USDOT has become the biggest obstacle in the way of delivering transit projects on time and on budget
Our updated Stuck in the Station resource shows how USDOT was already slow-rolling transit funding well before Congress gave them another $1.4 billion 157+ days ago to build or expand transit systems across the country.
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