Recent Streetsblog NYC posts about Federal Transportation Bill

Congress Hits the Snooze Button on Transpo Funding Until May

By Tanya Snyder | Aug 1, 2014 | No Comments

Someone had to cave and last night, it was the Senate. The upper chamber had fought as long as it could to adjust the House transportation bill so it wouldn’t expire when the GOP controls both chambers of Congress. But senators were never willing to actually let the Highway Trust Fund go broke. U.S. DOT would […]

STREETSBLOG USA

Dems Grudgingly Approve House Transpo Extension’s Disastrous Timeline

By Tanya Snyder | Jul 16, 2014 | No Comments

Yesterday, during the one-hour debate period over the House proposal to extend transportation funding through May 31, lawmaker after lawmaker stood up to condemn the bill. America needs a long-term transportation bill, they said. A short-term stopgap only creates more uncertainty. And then they voted for it. More Democrats than Republicans voted for it, in […]

STREETSBLOG USA

House Proposes 8-Month Transpo Bill in Hopes of a Republican Senate in 2015

By Tanya Snyder | Jul 9, 2014 | No Comments

While a six-year Senate transportation bill languishes in partisan purgatory, the House Ways and Means Committee has proposed an eight-month patch that would backfill the Highway Trust Fund until May 31, 2015. That would punt the transportation bill debate until a new Congress takes over — one that’s expected to have Republican majorities in both […]

STREETSBLOG USA

371 City Leaders Ask Boxer For More Local Control Over Bike/Ped Money

By Tanya Snyder | Jun 25, 2014 | No Comments

Last week, 371 mayors and other city leaders wrote a letter [PDF] to Sen. Barbara Boxer, chair of the Environment and Public Works Committee, in support of local control over transportation dollars for bike and pedestrian projects. About two-thirds of the signatories are mayors, from cities as big as Philadelphia and Los Angeles and as […]

STREETSBLOG USA

The House GOP’s Campaign Strategy: Do Nothing on Transportation

By Tanya Snyder | May 29, 2014 | No Comments

A Senate committee has unanimously approved a transportation bill. Three other Senate committees are holding hearings on the bill. But over in the House? Crickets. At a press conference last week, former transportation secretary — and former House Republican — Ray LaHood scolded his old colleagues for failing to take action. He said there was […]

STREETSBLOG USA

Why the Senate Transportation Bill Will Devastate Transit

By Tanya Snyder | May 22, 2014 | No Comments

Transit officials lined up today to make clear that holding transit spending at current levels — as the Senate’s transportation authorization bill does — will put transit systems at risk of falling further into dangerous disrepair. The backlog for transit maintenance and replacement stands “conservatively” at $86 billion, according to the Federal Transit Administration. That […]

Show More Stories