Transportation Enhancements

How can you convince Americans that transportation is important enough to invest in?

This month’s bipartisan deal on the MAP-21 transportation bill in the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee hinged on a compromise to make major changes to the popular and successful Transportation Enhancements (TE) program, which primarily funds projects for biking and walking. The final deal eliminates dedicated funding for TE, instead making a smaller amount of money available for funding bike/ped -- and a host of other activities --under the Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Improvement program’s “Additional Activities” category (CMAQ-AA).

Now that the dust has settled, we have a few more notes on the Senate transportation bill that passed the EPW committee yesterday. Bike and pedestrian advocates are understandably shaken at seeing some major changes to the primary programs that fund their work. But here are some reasons to take heart:

The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee voted unanimously this morning to pass a two-year transportation reauthorization bill, moving the bill one step closer to passage by the full Senate.

Two competing versions of a transportation-related job creation bill went down yesterday in the Senate. The first, the Rebuild America Jobs Act (S.1769), was a Democratic proposal, modeled on President Obama's job creation bill, to invest $50 billion for infrastructure and another $10 billion as seed money to create a new national infrastructure bank.

This morning, the Senate is debating two transportation-related bills: the Rebuild America Jobs Act (S.1769) and the Long-Term Surface Transportation Extension Act (S.1786).

Bike/ped funding is pitching a perfect game in the Senate after Republicans swung (and missed) at the popular Transportation Enhancements program for the third time in two months. The final strike came this morning, when Kentucky Republican Rand Paul's amendment to divert all TE funds to bridge repair failed spectacularly, garnering only 38 votes in favor, with 60 senators voting against.

Last month, the Senate's notorious vote-blocker, Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, tried to obstruct Senate process until they voted on his measure to take bike/ped funding out of the transportation bill. He failed.

A Republican lawmaker purporting to be acting out of budgetary concern has, once again, taken aim at a popular active transportation program -- and, again, the Senate has rejected the effort.