Transportation Policy

With President-elect Obama back in Washington, action is heating up again around the economic recovery package, which could total up to $850 billion over the next two years. As much as $100 billion may be at stake for transportation projects. How will it be spent? The information that continues to trickle out of state departments of transportation is troubling. With a few exceptions, they are asking mainly to fund roadway expansion projects that would worsen traffic, pollution, and oil dependency, at the expense of transit, bike, and pedestrian infrastructure.

Good stuff this week from Tom Toles, whose transpo-themed editorial cartoons are always on target. Click through for the rest of this commentary.

The massive federal stimulus package -- expected to direct hundreds of billions to infrastructure projects over the next two years -- enters a critical phase this weekend as congressional leaders and the Obama team hammer out the bulk of the bill. For transportation policy, the options are clear: This bill can either perpetuate a system geared toward more driving, more pollution, and more dysfunction on our streets, or it can signal that the nation is turning the page on 1950s-style mobility, embracing green transportation, and placing greater value on the public realm.

Under the Ravitch Plan, driving into Manhattan over the Third Avenue Bridge will be a relative bargain for Richard Brodsky's Westchester constituents.

The Hill is reporting that Illinois Representative Ray LaHood, described as a centrist Republican, is in talks with the Obama team about taking a Cabinet post, most likely as Secretary of Transportation. The official announcement could be made as early as Friday.

I spoke earlier today to David Burwell, a co-founder of the Surface Transportation Policy Project who is currently a strategic consultant with the Transportation for America campaign, about how the stimulus package is shaping up for transportation projects, why it might go wrong, and what can be done to set it on the right track.

A front page story in yesterday's Washington Post has the most thorough analysis to date of how infrastructure spending may be divvied up in an Obama stimulus package. Nothing is set in stone, but the dividing lines are increasingly clear: States and their DOTs are emphasizing road projects, while cities are looking for ways to reduce congestion. The emphasis on getting shovels in the ground quickly will also skew spending, says Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak: