Post Tagged with: "Federal Funding"

Event Alert – NYU’s Rudin Center Symposium: High Speed Rail: Leveraging Federal Investment Locally — June 16 @NYC

May 10, 2010 at 6:31 pm

The Rudin Center for Transportation Policy and Management is pleased to announce High Speed Rail: Leveraging Federal Investment Locally, a symposium to be held on June 16th, 2010.

Following the January 2010 rail funding announcement by the U.S. Department of Transportation, interest in rail investment – and what it means for American communities – has continued to expand. Conversations are taking place across the country, bringing in new participants as well as experienced professionals from around the world to discuss the new corridors. In focusing on how to implement new rail corridors there is a risk of overlooking the need to manage the regional impacts of the nodes that comprise these systems. Leveraging Federal Investment Locally will enhance the national dialogue on high-speed rail investment through a focus on how new facilities will be linked to existing regional transportation infrastructure and economic development efforts. In addition, there will be an examination of the political context of establishing new rail infrastructure in a democratic nation where land use is controlled locally.

Presenters include:

  • Polly Trottenberg, Assistant Secretary for Transportation Policy at the U.S. Department of Transportation
  • David Levinson, University of Minnesota
  • Anthony Perl, Simon Fraser University
  • Frank Zshoche, Managing Director, Civity Management Consultants, Hamburg Germany

The event is co-sponsored by Parsons Brinckerhoff and presented in Partnership with the American Public Transportation Association (APTA).

When: 6/16/2010 8:30am-2:00pm
Location: The Kimmel Center, Rosenthal Pavilion, 60 Washington Square South, New York, NY 10012  map

To participate, click here

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U.S. Senate Committee on Environment & Public Works Hearing on the Need for Transportation Investment

March 31, 2009 at 10:50 am

(Source: U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works)

On March 25, 2009, the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works held a hearing to examine transportation investment prior to authorizing the next highway, transit, and highway safety legislation that will replace the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users.  Witnesses’ testimonies and video of the hearing are now available online.  Committee hearings in two streaming video formats — RealPlayer and Flash.  Please click on one of the links below to start the live video stream.  Choose Your Format:  RealPlayer or Flash.

NOTE: To view streaming video, you will need to have RealPlayer or Flash installed on your computer. To download the free RealPlayer or Flash applications, click on the buttons below.

Majority Statements

Barbara Boxer

 Minority Statements

James M. Inhofe

Witnesses

 Opening Remarks

 Panel 1

The Honorable Ray LaHood

Secretary

U.S. Department of Transportation

 Panel 2

The Honorable Edward G. Rendell

Governor of Pennsylvania

The Honorable Kathleen M. Novak

President, National League of Cities

Mayor of Northglenn, Colorado

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The Dig ~ Infrastructure of the stimulus plan: $8.4 billion in Mass Transit | Blueprint America

February 26, 2009 at 4:59 pm

A breakdown of provisions and funding requirements for mass transit in The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

The Dig ~ Infrastructure of the stimulus plan: $8.4 billion in Mass Transit | Blueprint America.

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Blue-ribbon panel endorses road pricing, shift from gas tax

February 26, 2009 at 4:01 pm

(Source: Greenwire via New York Times)

A blue-ribbon federal transportation panel called today for a temporary gas-tax hike followed by a move toward charging drivers directly for every mile they travel — two ideas that have been soundly rejected by the White House in the past week.

The controversial road-pricing scheme would become the dominant funding mechanism for road construction and maintenance by 2020, with drivers being charged an average of 2 cents per mile, according to the report released by the 15-member panel created by Congress in the last highway bill authorization.

The National Surface Transportation Infrastructure Financing Commission says the shift is necessary because the current funding mechanism — federal fuel taxes — has failed to raise the necessary revenue for needed roadwork and runs counterintuitive to national environmental and energy goals.

“The more successful U.S. transportation policy is at increasing fuel efficiency and reducing both foreign oil dependency and carbon emissions, the faster its primary funding source, the gas tax, becomes obsolete,” said Texas state Rep. Mike Krusee, a commission member.

Increases in fuel economy, coupled with the fact that the current federal tax on gasoline has remained stagnant at 18.4 cents a gallon since 1993, have already taken their toll on federal revenues to fund road construction and maintenance. The Highway Trust Fund, which receives the bulk of its money from federal fuel taxes, would have run empty late last year if it were not for an eleventh-hour transfer of $8 billion by Congress to keep it solvent.

“With the expected shift to more fuel-efficient vehicles, it will be increasingly difficult to rely on the gas tax to raise the funds needed to improve, let alone maintain, our nation’s surface transportation infrastructure,” said commission Chairman Robert Atkinson, president of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, a nonpartisan think tank.

Click here to read the entire article.

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