DC Streetsblog

In October, Reps. Russ Carnahan (D-MO) and Steve LaTourette (R-OH) introduced a bill to allow transit agencies to use federal money to hire bus drivers and pay other operating expenses.

With impressive urgency, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel has spent his first months in office retooling and reconfiguring how the “City That Works” works. Emanuel’s energy is evident in changes from beat-cop deployment to the push for a longer school day, but perhaps the mayor’s most tangible efforts can be seen in his ambitious transportation agenda.

Yesterday, for the second time in as many weeks, the House T&I committee held a hearing on the benefit-versus-boondoggle high-speed rail debate. Last time, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood was asked to defend the peppering of high-speed rail grants to projects outside the Northeast Corridor. Yesterday, the topic narrowed to focus just on California's high-speed rail project, whose recently-drafted business plan [PDF] has revised its total construction cost to $98.5 billion through 2033—up from $43 billion though 2020 just a few short years ago.

If you live in Stamford, Connecticut and your walk to the train station gets safer next year, you can thank USDOT’s TIGER grant program. Or when your hometown of American Falls, Idaho suddenly gets complete streets downtown, accommodating people on foot, on bikes, on buses, in cars, and in wheelchairs, encouraging local shopping. Or when you realize that traffic congestion between Olympia and Tacoma, Washington has eased, not by adding lanes but by installing intelligent technology to manage traffic and encourage ridesharing.

The EPW Committee passed the highway portion of the transportation bill last month. The Banking Committee will tackle transit on Friday. And today, transportation reformers applauded as the Commerce Committee passed its bill dealing with the rail and safety component, including the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

U.S. DOT is officially announcing the winners of the third round of TIGER grants tomorrow, but they give the news to members of Congress first so those members can brag about all the bacon they bring home. See below for a list of the grants we know about so far.

Complete a project on-time and on-budget. Or blow deadlines, run into setback after costly setback, only to return to the funding source with outstretched hands.

If the Banking Committee is going to make any progress on the transit section of the Senate transportation bill, it's going to have to happen before this weekend, when Congress leaves for the holiday recess and doesn't come back till late January. Indeed, on Friday, the very last day of the session, Banking is planning to vote on its part of the bill.

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: Roads don’t pay for themselves.