August 9, 2017 – Is the mass transit new starts program fundamentally flawed because it tries to support long, multi-year funding commitments with annual appropriations? And can Congress fix it without resorting to earmarks?
August 9, 2017 – New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Bill De Blasio have spent the past three years of playing the blame game on who should fund essential upgrades to the New York City subway system (MTA). Now that the state of the infrastructure can’t be ignored, one of them has stepped up to answer MTA Chairman Joe Lhota’s call for $800 million in emergency funding.
August 9, 2017 – The history of how Congress has funded the mass transit “new starts” program over the years.
August 9, 2017 – The Trump Administration’s mission to “unleash” private investment in transportation projects continued last week when the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) announced a proposed rule to facilitate public-private partnerships in public transportation.
July 27, 2017 – Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao on July 24 replaced the two federally-appointed principal members of the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) board of directors.
July 20, 2017 – The House of Representatives on July 17 passed two pieces of legislation dealing with the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA).
July 13, 2017 – On July 12, the Federal Transit Administration issued a notice that $226.5 million in grants for buses and bus facilities will be available, on a competitive basis, for fiscal year 2017.
July 7, 2017 – On July 5, the Federal Transit Administration posted the spreadsheets itemizing its full-year distribution of $12.3 billion in federal funding to state and local transit agencies for fiscal year 2017. A formal notice is scheduled to be published in the Federal Register on July 10.
July 7, 2017 – On June 29th, 2017 around 700 Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) employees hit the stations to thank Metro users (in the form of a coupon for fast food coffee, even though WMATA still bans drinking beverages on its trains and in its stations) for enduring the year of track work and service interruptions.
June 1, 2017 – In the United States today, public transit is in crisis. From declining infrastructure in New York and San Francisco, to delays caused by needed repairs in Washington, to the loss of critical funding in Milwaukee, city after city is struggling with problems related to its bus and train systems.
May 25, 2017 – The 2018 budget requests $ 11.226 billion in total resources for the Federal Transit Administration (FTA). The full $ 9.733 billion in spending from the Highway Trust Fund for formula grants is requested. But where general fund spending for transit is concerned, the request for FTA Capital Investment Grants is cut almost in half from the level authorized in the FAST Act – from $2.3 billion to $1.2 billion.
February 23, 2017 – The U.S. Department of Transportation last week put a three-month delay on the execution of a deal that would commit $647 million in future Federal Transit Administration discretionary appropriations towards a $2 billion plan to electrify the Caltrain commuter railroad in the San Francisco Bay area.
March 17, 2016 – The American Public Transit Association (APTA) and the Shared-Use Mobility Center (SUMC) held a briefing on Tuesday in conjunction with the release of a new research analysis studying the role of shared-use modes, their relationship to public transit networks, and their potential challenges and opportunities. This study draws from a larger forthcoming research project by SUMC for the Transit Cooperative Research Program. (This topic is also one of the many issues informing Eno’s event on March 24th, Convergence, which looks at the intersection of technology and transportation policy.)