Ben Goldman
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Three Drilling Bills Clear House Committee
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In a seven-hour markup session today, the House Natural Resources Committee approved three bills that would expand oil and natural gas exploration in Alaska and the outer continental shelf, all without bipartisan support. Expanded drilling is expected to be one of the new revenue sources in the House transportation bill, which will be marked up […]
Now’s the Time to Make the House Bill Better for Walking, Biking, and Transit
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The House transportation bill will be marked up by the Transportation & Infrastructure committee tomorrow morning, and advocates are fighting for amendments that would improve the provisions for active transportation and transit. The first amendment, introduced by Rep. Tom Petri (R-WI), would restore the Transportation Enhancements and Safe Routes to School programs, consolidated into a […]
House Transportation Bill Officially Drops, Lands With a Thud
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John Mica, chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, officially unveiled his committee’s transportation bill, the “American Energy and Infrastructure Jobs Act,” at a press conference outside the House wing of the Capitol this afternoon. (All 846 pages of bill text are here: [PDF]) Streetsblog wrote about some of the bill’s low points last […]
Senate Transit Bill Would Let Federal Funds Support Transit Service
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All eyes are on the House side of Capitol Hill today in anticipation of the Republicans’ grand unveiling of their American Energy & Infrastructure Jobs Act at 3:00 p.m. But last night, some enduring questions about the Senate’s transportation bill finally got some answers. Senators Tim Johnson and Richard Shelby, respectively the chairman and ranking member of […]
Rails-to-Trails Conservancy Busts Myth That “Nobody Walks” in Rural America
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One reason why Congress may be so willing to eliminate dedicated funding for bicycle and pedestrian programs is the persistent notion that biking and walking are limited to cities, and therefore of no concern to rural legislators. Setting aside for a moment the arguments supporting a federal interest in urban transportation, the notion that nobody […]
This Is Not a Drill: Highway Lobby Trying to Push Transpo Bill Thru Congress
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For the 112th Congress, the path to passing a new transportation bill has been full of starts and stops, partisan politics and low expectations. While Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood recently said he doesn’t expect a multi-year bill to pass this Congress, livable streets advocates should still be on alert in the weeks ahead. Momentum is […]
House Transportation Bill “a March of Horribles”
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There was no grand unveiling of the House’s five-year transportation bill today, but a summary of the bill has been kicking around for a few days. While there aren’t any hard numbers available yet, the American Energy and Infrastructure Jobs Act looks like a return to 1950s-style transportation policy. It is particularly unkind to transit and […]
Should the Feds Fund City Transpo Projects? Blumenauer and Shuster Discuss
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If the Transportation Research Board annual meeting were a music festival, the headline act would have been yesterday’s panel of six secretaries of transportation, including Ray LaHood (the incumbent) and Alan Boyd (the first to ever hold the post). As headliners go, they were a bit of a downer: They told a standing-room-only crowd that […]
Transportation Bill Heats Up Again in Congress
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There’s been plenty of buzz over the last few days surrounding Congress’s efforts to pass a multi-year transportation bill. When Congress adjourned last month, the Senate had made significant progress on a two-year bill. In the House, Rep. John Mica had repeatedly promised a five- or six-year bill, but nothing had been introduced. Now, finally, […]
New Urbanists Release Principles for Sustainable Street Networks
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At the Transportation Research Board’s 91st annual meeting here in DC, it’s hard to miss the booth handing out copies of a bright blue pamphlet filled with illustrations of busy tree-lined streets, where bicyclists and buses work their way through a bustling urban bazaar. The booth is the Congress for New Urbanism’s “occupation” of TRB, and […]
State Of The Union 2012: “An America That’s Built to Last”
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8:37pm – Good evening and welcome to Streetsblog Capitol Hill’s live-blogging coverage of President Obama’s State of the Union address. Previews of the speech indicate that transportation policy won’t be much of a centerpiece, but we’ll be here to pick up on any passages that might be of special interest to our readers. Scroll down to the […]
Is Doing Nothing a Politically Acceptable Way to Pay For Transportation?
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This week marks the Transportation Research Board’s 91st annual meeting, a time when thousands of experts and professionals from across the country descend on the nation’s capital to share their ideas, discoveries, theories, and fears with their colleagues in the transportation field. This year, falling in line with political rhetoric from both parties that ties […]