Metro’s government relations staff wrote the following update on the job creation package proposed by President Barack Obama on Thursday. My quick take: it appears there will be more transportation money on the table — if Congress approves the package. However, it remains to be seen how much of those [continue reading]
Former Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell was pegged as the lunchtime keynote speaker at Mobility 21 — for good reason. These days, Rendell is one of the leading voices for increased infrastructure investment, serving as one of three co-chairs of the Building America’s Future coalition along with former California Governor Arnold [continue reading]
We’re blogging this morning live from the Mobility 21 Conference in downtown Los Angeles, where more than 1,000 public and private sector people in the transportation industry have gathered. Los Angeles Mayor and Metro Board Chair Antonio Villaraigosa took center stage during the morning’s events with a speech and subsequent [continue reading]
As many of you know, a multiyear federal transportation bill was last approved by Congress in 2005. The followup to that bill should have been signed into law in 2009 but Congress has never been able to agree on the size and scope of the bill. So nothing has [continue reading]
A recent article in the Wall Street Journal reveals that the White House is changing course when it comes to the federal surface transportation funding bill. Obama is now calling for a road-construction bill that would put people to work immediately and get existing infrastructure projects underway. This represents a [continue reading]
Nice graphic from Metro staff showing that business leaders across the country are supporting America Fast Forward, the federal legislation that would allow Metro and other transit agencies to use federal loans and financing to speed up construction of big projects. If Metro can persuade Congress to adopt the [continue reading]
I wanted to point readers to a Metro staff report from earlier this month that looks at the six-year federal transportation spending bill being floated by Republicans in the House of Representatives. And it doesn’t paint a very pretty picture of what the bill would do to Metro: big-time spending [continue reading]
The crafting of the next federal transportation spending bill is finally underway after literally years of delay due mostly to partisan politics. The U.S. House version of the bill was released earlier this month with elements of America Fast Forward, which would enshrine in federal law the kind of federal [continue reading]
If friends ever try that to claim you can’t have a successful transit system without rails in the ground, just nod politely and tell them to visit Seattle. The Emerald City didn’t have an inch of modern rail transit until a starter streetcar line opened in 2007 and a light [continue reading]
Below is the news release from Metro on the news earlier today that the Westside Subway Extension is about to secure a $640.8-million federal TIFIA loan. As the release states, Metro staff will be working in the next several weeks to determine the exact impact the loan will have on [continue reading]
