Recent Streetsblog USA posts about Highway trust fund

A Few Wacky Ideas Persist as Congress Moves to Accept Funding Realities

By Tanya Snyder | Jul 23, 2013 | 1 Comment

There are five stages of mourning, and Congress is moving through them as they begin to face the inevitability of increased revenues for transportation. Lawmakers been through denial, anger, and bargaining, and now they’re pretty solidly in the depression phase. That leaves just one more: acceptance. But today’s hearing in the House Transportation Committee was […]

Obama’s Budget Would Save the Transpo Trust Fund. If Only It Were Real.

By Tanya Snyder | May 20, 2013 | 1 Comment

President Obama’s transportation budget proposal can give you a contact high if you stand too close. The prospect of budget surpluses — in the near-term, at least — is intoxicating. And the source of those surpluses — from Overseas Contingency Operations — is a hallucination. The Congressional Budget Office, in its invaluable “just-the-facts” way, released […]

Congress Indulges in Crazy Talk About De-Funding Transit and Taxing Bikes

By Tanya Snyder | Apr 26, 2013 | 2 Comments

The House is a dangerous place these days. You want to have a fruitful conversation about how to solve the transportation funding crisis and you end up ruminating about whether to tax bikes. That’s what happened to Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR). He requested that the Budget Committee hold a hearing on the impending insolvency of […]

How MAP-21 Pushed Transit to the Edge of Its Own Fiscal Cliff

By Tanya Snyder | Nov 15, 2012 | 2 Comments

Congress has seven weeks to come to some sort of agreement on the so-called “fiscal cliff,” with two of those weeks devoted to photo ops and turkey dinners. The consequences are real: Transportation programs paid out of general fund transfers to the Highway Trust Fund, rather than gas tax receipts, are not exempt from the automatic spending […]

What Has President Obama Done to Improve American Transportation Policy?

By Tanya Snyder | Nov 2, 2012 | 8 Comments

With the election just days away, it’s a good time to reflect on what the Obama administration has done with transportation policy – and what a Romney administration might have in store. Streetsblog does not endorse candidates. This is an overview of their respective records and a look back at what we know of these […]

Highway Builders to Party Leaders: The Future Is “More Than Just Roadways”

By Tanya Snyder | Jul 26, 2012 | 3 Comments

Over the past two weeks, the American Road & Transportation Builders Association has sent letters to the Republican National Committee [PDF] and the Democratic National Committee [PDF], asking them to consider inserting a plank in their platforms about transportation. And they were clear in their letter that, despite being major cheerleaders for road-building, the future they see […]

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