Month: April 2011

With the FY2011 budget finally settled, it’s time for Washington to start fighting over 2012. President Obama released his 2012 budget proposal in February. The Republicans introduced theirs last week. And the House Democrats have just released theirs [PDF].

Today we have a positive development from the land of mega-highways. The city of Denton, Texas recently approved a vulnerable road user ordinance, making it the eighth town statewide to enact such a law, reports Network blog TheCityFix.

Budget Compromise Guts Obama’s High-Speed Rail Plan (NYT, Transpo Nation) Uncertainties Loom for California Bullet Train (Mercury News, LAT) Florida Gov. Scott  Claims Credit for Cut (The Hill) In Another Blow to Transit, Cincinnati Streetcar Axed (Reuters) Debate Brews Over Earthquake-Damaged Seattle Highway (Infrastructurist) Earmark Ban Saved $10 Billion (TPM) The ABCs of Getting a Crosswalk … Continued

Four months ago – just days after the Democrats' "shellacking" at the polls – a bipartisan commission offered President Obama the chance to retake the budgetary high ground from Republicans, who had positioned themselves as the party of fiscal sanity. The blue-ribbon deficit commission – led by Erskine Bowles, President Bill Clinton's budget negotiator, and former Republican Senator Alan Simpson – detailed its agenda for getting federal revenues and spending into balance, capping both at 21 percent of GDP over the next 25 years [PDF]. Transportation advocates were gratified to see a strong recommendation for a 15-cent increase in the gas tax to stabilize the Highway Trust Fund.

For years, state DOTs have exploited a loophole of federal government policy that allowed them to build massive, publicly funded projects without accommodating non-motorized users as long as they could show that "due consideration" had been given to bicyclists and pedestrians.

Just when we thought transportation had gotten off relatively easy in the shutdown-aversion budget deal:

When it comes to the choice between a highway and a more connected, cohesive urban community, more and more cities are getting serious about ditching the highway.

Obama to Adopt Deficit Commission Agenda — Including the Gas Tax? (WaPo) $1.5 Billion Cut to High-Speed Rail Could Grow Even Larger (HuffPo) Cuts to High-Speed Rail Won’t Affect Any Existing Projects (Bloomberg) DOT Got $300M in Florida Rail Money Out the Door Ahead of Potential Shutdown (JOC) Boehner and Obama Play Nice Over Budget … Continued

House Republicans are calling for offshore oil drilling as an answer to foreign oil dependency and high gas prices -- and they're not the only ones. President Obama recently announced his intention to cut oil imports by one-third by 2025, partly by increasing domestic production was the answer to the country's energy woes. In his speech announcing the plan, Obama barely mentioned transit and land use, even though more and more evidence points to these as real solutions for high gas prices.