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TIGER Funding Gets 20 Percent Boost in Final 2014 Spending Bill
In a rare instance of Congress producing some halfway decent news, funding for the federal TIGER program, which issues grants for multi-modal projects, will increase after the House and Senate unveiled the details of an omnibus budget bill yesterday.
January 14, 2014
Level the Commuter Playing Field By Reducing the Tax Break for Parking
Happy New Year, transit riders! Congress has a special present: Some of you will be getting a tax increase this year.
January 2, 2014
Will Old Transit Systems Eat Up All the New Starts Grants?
One of MAP-21’s many mixed blessings was the New Starts Core Capacity program. It expanded eligibility for New Starts grants -- normally reserved as capital assistance for new transit lines -- to existing corridors. To qualify, the system just had to show that the improvements would expand the capacity of the line by at least 10 percent.
December 17, 2013
A Conservative Utah Republican’s Path to Transit Enlightenment
Greg Hughes is the majority whip of the Utah State Legislature and the chair of its conservative caucus. He got a 100 percent score last year by the conservative Sutherland Institute, a Utah think tank. He also chairs the board of the Utah Transit Authority.
December 13, 2013
Budget Deal Is Good News for Transit
The House of Representatives is preparing to vote on that rarest of Capitol Hill treasures -- a bipartisan budget deal. If both houses approve the deal, negotiated by Democratic Senator Patty Murray and Republican Congressman Paul Ryan, it will be the first time since 2010 that Congress has passed a budget.
December 12, 2013
Was TIGER Eliminated in the Shutdown Deal?
Soon after the government shutdown ended, we heard murmurs that the TIGER grant program for innovative transportation projects had been a casualty of the negotiations.
October 24, 2013
Government Shutdown to End, Leaving Transit Agencies to Pick Up the Pieces
Congratulations, gentle Congresspeople. You have come up with a deeply flawed solution to a problem only you would create. Never mind that it set up another showdown three months from now. The good news is the government shutdown is almost over, for the moment. More than 18,000 furloughed U.S. DOT officials can return to work.
October 16, 2013
Lawmakers Push to Permanently Upgrade Transit’s Second-Class Tax Benefit
While the rest of the Capitol prepared for President Obama's visit to lobby members of Congress on Syria military strikes, three lawmakers gathered under the hot sun with transit advocates to push for a more bread-and-butter issue: tax benefits for transit riders.
September 10, 2013
Nine Days in September: Congress’s Chance to Break the Gridlock
I hope you all had a good Labor Day. Streetsblog is back to work today, and you probably are too. But Congress? Not until next week. Every time there's a Monday holiday, Congress takes the whole week off, and they're milking the last moments of their August recess.
September 3, 2013
Enviro Review of Cross-Harbor Freight Tunnel Set to Wrap By Winter
A Congressional road show on freight came to New York late last week, with Port Authority Executive Director Pat Foye joining air, trucking, and rail industry representatives Friday afternoon to testify before the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee's freight panel. The hearing covered a range of issues, including a status report on the long-discussed Cross-Harbor Freight Tunnel.
July 30, 2013