Recent Streetsblog NYC posts about U.S. Senate

The Appalling Rollback of Truck Safety Provisions in the DRIVE Act

By Tanya Snyder | Aug 28, 2015 | No Comments

A battle is brewing over the Senate transportation bill’s approach to truck safety. Though large trucks are involved in crashes that kill nearly 4,000 people a year — a number that has grown by 17 percent over the past five years — the DRIVE Act actually rolls back what few protections exist. The bill would allow […]

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Senate Transpo Bill Sinks Under the Weight of Its Own Chicanery

By Tanya Snyder | Jul 23, 2015 | No Comments

Last night, the Senate voted to proceed with the consideration of the transportation bill Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Democrat Barbara Boxer had worked out. It was just a day after the body had voted to block progress, objecting that they hadn’t had time to even look at the bill. The policy elements of the […]

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Senate Committee Moves to Eliminate TIGER Program in Next Transpo Bill

By Tanya Snyder | Jul 14, 2015 | No Comments

The Republican-controlled Senate is poised to eliminate the TIGER program, one of the few sources of federal funds that cities can access directly to improve streets and transit. While the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee’s outline for its portion of a six-year bill was a marginal improvement on the status quo, the Commerce Committee’s portion, known […]

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Senate Committee Passes DRIVE Act Unanimously After Some Tinkering

By Tanya Snyder | Jun 25, 2015 | No Comments

Given the bipartisan gushing that accompanied the release of the DRIVE Act on Tuesday, it came as no surprise that the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee passed the bill unanimously yesterday, with more gushing for good measure. None of the 30-odd amendments offered for the DRIVE Act passed, but the committee leadership did accept […]

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Inhofe’s DRIVE Act — Not as Big a Disaster as You Might Think

By Tanya Snyder | Jun 23, 2015 | No Comments

No, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee’s new six-year bill, obnoxiously named the DRIVE Act (Developing a Reliable and Innovative Vision for the Economy) [PDF], won’t usher in a more enlightened era of federal transportation policy. But neither would it be a significant step backward. And with the realization setting in that further extensions of current law might be impossible, […]

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Movement in Congress to Let Cities and Towns Access Federal Transpo Funds

By Angie Schmitt | Mar 23, 2015 | No Comments

Finally, proof that Congress is capable of crafting smart transportation legislation and not just zany ways to avoid raising the gas tax. A bipartisan coalition of 10 lawmakers is supporting the Innovation in Surface Transportation Act, which would help cities, counties, and other local governments directly access federal funding for transportation projects, according to Transportation for America. The proposal, first floated last year, […]

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