February 10th, 2010
» Highway Trust Fund, including Mass Transit Account, will get infusion for 2010, but see no serious changes or expansion.
One might assume that legislation termed the “Hiring Incentives to Restore Employment Act” would move beyond the status quo in promoting unusually strong approaches to creating jobs. That’s especially true because the United States suffers from a bout of extraordinary joblessness and a faltering economy: The government has a responsibility to act in producing more jobs.
Yet the Senate’s proposed jobs stimulus, at $80 billion, won’t do that at all, at least in terms
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January 20th, 2010
» The loss of the Democratic Senate supermajority will make any attempt at developing a new transportation funding source all the more difficult.
Republican Scott Brown’s win over Democrat Martha Coakley in yesterday’s Massachusetts special election for the Senate seat formerly held by Ted Kennedy could not have come at a worse time for Democrats already perplexed by their inability to come together to pass a health care bill — despite their large majorities in both houses of Congress. The loss of the 60th seat in the Senate keeps the party in decisive control of the legislature, but what has become
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December 21st, 2009
» Public-private partnerships could bring big benefits to the Motor City. But they might be sending the wrong message about governmental responsibility.
If Detroit has yet to receive the kind of huge public investment that may well be necessary to save it, it hasn’t been entirely forgotten by its natives. Over the past year, a group of individuals and corporations have donated tens of millions of dollars towards the creation of an entity that would construct a new rail line down the city’s primary corridor, Woodward Avenue. Their example of direct private involvement in a transit project for a non-profit purpose
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December 9th, 2009
» Conference Committee finds middle ground between House and Senate versions of the resolution, maintains steady funding for transit.
Once President Obama push to include $8 billion for high-speed rail development in the stimulus bill this spring, the race was on to convince Congress to make the mode an annual recipient of transportation funds. The release last night of the Conference Committee’s consolidated appropriations bill, which will be voted on in the next few days by both chambers, suggests inroads in that campaign. Yet believers in the power of high-speed rail to transform communities and reshape movement
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December 3rd, 2009
» Because state DOTs have a preference for roads spending, it’s likely that transit will continue to be short-shrifted.
As it becomes increasingly clear that the United States is suffering from a jobless recovery, Democrats in Congress continue to push for a second stimulus package with a focus on job creation. This opportunity could mean billions more in spending on transportation — but what modes will benefit?
The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials — a lobbying group for states and municipalities looking for more transport dollars — this week sent Congress a list of ready-to-go projects assembled
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November 25th, 2009
» The projects funded will be mostly roads-based. How about a series of grants to public service agencies instead to keep up operations?
Even as the nation’s GDP expands, job losses continue to mount; the stimulus earlier this year wasn’t large enough to offset the mammoth effects of the recession. Faced with the possibility of devastating losses in the 2010 mid-term Congressional elections, Democrats have no choice but to focus next year on job creation.
Nancy Pelosi had it right when she argued that “The debate between deficit reduction and job creation is not a real choice, because we’ll never
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Yonah Freemark | 
February 10th, 2010 | 
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