Transportation Policy

Addressing a packed house in Washington last night, Rep. Earl Blumenauer, founder of the Congressional Bike Caucus, posed a Zen-like 'universalist cyclist question'.

President Obama today threw his weight behind significant new transportation spending as part of a broad jobs bill taking shape in Congress, with $50 billion slated for transit, roads, bridges, and ports and the administration endorsing "merit-based infrastructure investment that leverages federal dollars."

Lawmakers on the House transportation committee today greeted details of the Obama administration's transit safety plan with approval, but some sounded skeptical notes about the costs of state compliance with new federal rules even as transit agencies cope with billions of dollars in maintenance and repair backlogs.

President Obama will deliver a speech on job creation this morning in Washington, but one tactic that has won over quite a few Democrats of late -- redirecting unspent money from last year's financial bailout to transportation -- may not be as possible as lawmakers had thought.

In an economic recovery report released today by New York Gov. David Paterson (D), the state broke down its plans for the estimated $31 billion it received as part of the Obama administration's first stimulus law.

As Congress maneuvers to end the political impasse over the next long-term national transportation bill, lawmakers going to have to debate an increase in the federal gas tax, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said today.

The trouble with broad analysis pieces on campaign cash is that they often go for eye-popping numbers while obscuring uncomfortable political realities. For example, GreenWire reported this morning that the 27 senators who remain undecided on the chamber's pending climate bill took "more than $20 million ... over the past two decades from energy interests with a direct stake in pending legislation."

America’s transportation and infrastructure policies affect literally everyone who moves from place to place in the country, but often they are under-discussed and over-simplified by the mainstream media. To help broaden the debate, Streetsblog Capitol Hill is kicking off a new Q&A series called “The Four Questions.” Robert Puentes, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution’s … Continued

The senior Republicans on three of the Senate's four infrastructure-centric committees today signed onto a letter asking the leaders of Congress' upper chamber to call up a six-month extension of the 2005 transportation law.