Recent Streetsblog USA posts about U.S. Senate

2012 Transpo Budget: Sustainable Communities and HSR Out, TIGER In

By Tanya Snyder | Nov 16, 2011 | 7 Comments

Remember those radically different appropriations bills passed by the House and the Senate? And how I said they’d never come together, and they probably would never pass a 2012 budget anyway because all Congress ever does anymore is extend previous budgets because they can’t agree on anything? Well, color me wrong. House and Senate members […]

Mica Warns Boxer on Highway Trust Fund; House Plans Hearing on “Drill Bill”

By Tanya Snyder | Nov 15, 2011 | 6 Comments

“I want to congratulate you on your Committee’s approval of the ‘Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act,” begins House Transportation Committee Chair John Mica’s letter yesterday to Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), chair of the Environment and Public Works Committee. From there, the letter changes tone: However, I am concerned that the Senate two-year […]

Senate Bill May Weaken Smaller Metros, Empower State DOTs

By Tanya Snyder | Nov 14, 2011 | 3 Comments

In Indiana, the state DOT wants to build a 142-mile extension of Interstate 69, but the Bloomington metropolitan planning organization won’t allow it – the group had written the road out of its three-year transportation plan and members are standing firm, refusing to write it back in. The MPO in Charlottesville, Virginia, similarly, long fought the […]

What’s Wrong With Telling Cyclists to Ride on the Bike Path?

By Tanya Snyder | Nov 11, 2011 | 11 Comments

With all due respect to my vehicular-cyclist friends, I’m a big fan of separate facilities for bikes. They keep bicyclists safer and encourage more people to ride, and I know I make a lot fewer risky moves when I’m riding in a lane built for my two wheels and not a two-ton, 200-horsepower steel box. […]

Nine Reasons For Bike/Ped Advocates to Take Heart: The Senate Edition

By Tanya Snyder | Nov 10, 2011 | 5 Comments

Now that the dust has settled, we have a few more notes on the Senate transportation bill that passed the EPW committee yesterday. Bike and pedestrian advocates are understandably shaken at seeing some major changes to the primary programs that fund their work. But here are some reasons to take heart: Getting Transportation Enhancements out […]

Two-Year Transpo Bill Moves on to Full Senate Without Bike/Ped Protections

By Tanya Snyder | Nov 9, 2011 | 7 Comments

The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee voted unanimously this morning to pass a two-year transportation reauthorization bill, moving the bill one step closer to passage by the full Senate. Unlike in the House, where the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee has full responsibility for the transportation bill, the Senate splits jurisdiction among several committees, so […]

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