Government Organizations

After fighting to maintain reasonable funding levels in the transportation bill – and for the inclusion of dedicated transit funding in the first place – the Federal Transit Administration now finds itself up against almost certain funding cuts that imperil rail and bus expansion projects, as well as the agency's own staffing.

If there's a city that could serve as a cautionary tale for overbuilding highways, that city is Detroit. So it's fascinating -- and encouraging -- to see this city going through an internal tussle over the wisdom of building a highway.

Something tells me we're going to be seeing a lot more of this in the not-so-distant future.

Sen. Jay Rockefeller is expected to announce later today that he won't run for re-election in 2014. The West Virginia Democrat will have served 30 years in the Senate. He chairs the Senate Commerce Committee, one of the four Senate committees – though probably the least of the four – that crafts the surface transportation authorization, with a focus on rail.

In transportation circles, there's an endless debate about how to fund infrastructure. Raise the gas tax? Index it to inflation? Institute a vehicle-miles-traveled fee? Many jurisdictions have turned to property taxes, bonds, and sales taxes as a supplement.

Who will be looking out for the interests of transit riders in the 113th Congress? It’s easy to figure it out, said Cap’n Transit over the weekend: Just check whether they have an R or a D next to their names.

One of the most important federal transit programs has undergone a makeover, and transit advocates are cheering the results.

Cross-posted from the Strong Towns blog. 

Perhaps Rep. John Mica's most remarkable legacy as chair of the House Transportation Committee is the single-minded focus he gave to attacking Amtrak. Under the guise of wanting it to succeed, Mica has repeatedly excoriated it as a "Soviet-style monopoly" and a waste of taxpayer dollars. He's tried to sell off its only profitable line, the Northeast Corridor, and made a mockery of every aspect of its operations, right down to food service. If there's anything he got more glee out of criticizing, it was the Transportation Security Administration.