Posts by Caron Whitaker

The Senate passed the DRIVE Act, a comprehensive transportation bill with at least three years of funding, after a week of deliberation. The bill was more divisive than we’ve seen in transportation in the past, mostly over funding but its also the first long term bill in a decade. Taking a broad view, it missing any real innovation or vision to really grapple with transportation needs of this 21st Century. However, there were a number of improvements in the new bill- including increase of funding for the Transportation Alternatives Program, and two new complete streets provisions.

The U.S. Senate will now begin debating its proposed three-year transportation bill, after voting 62-36 on Wednesday to clear the way for discussion on the floor. If approved, it would be the first mutli-year transportation bill in a decade. So what could this mean for bicycling on the federal level? It’s a 1,000 page bill, so we’re still digesting it, but here are a few things we know right now.

Just last night, the Senate Commerce Committee marked up their portion of the transportation bill – including safety provisions, railway and freight sections. While the bill passed out of Committee, the vote passed on a party line vote- with no democrats voting for final passage. The final bill includes three wins for bicycling!

This morning the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee met to debate and discuss the DRIVE Act, the Senate’s proposed transportation bill. The hearing today was a feel-good show of bi-partisan support and compromise for a long term transportation bill. The Committee rightly congratulated its leaders (Sens. Jim Inhofe, Barbara Boxer, David Vitter and Tom Carper) for moving the conversation forward on the need for a long term and sustainable transportation bill. While the Committee discussion today was uneventful, it marked the end of a whirl of activity for the Committee members in terms of amendments to the bill — some of which improve the bill significantly from a biking standpoint. Roughly 30 amendments we filed on Tuesday, and a few key ones were passed through by the committee leadership and the committee as a whole. Read our analysis of the original bill here. Here are the new changes that are good for biking.

As is evident in the acronym, The Developing a Reliable and Innovative Vision for the Economy Act, or DRIVE Act, is not focused on improving multi-modal transportation but rather on the interstate and highway system. The U.S. Senate introduced its version of the new transportation bill this week and it is set for a hearing on Wednesday. While we were successful in getting some small changes to the Transportation Alternative Program (TAP), we do not see any real innovation or vision to really grapple with transportation needs of this 21st Century.

The U.S. House of Representatives passed a two month extension to the federal transportation bill, MAP-21, yesterday, with a vote of 387 to 35. You can read more about the debate over federal transportation funding here. The most interesting part of yesterday’s debate was the number of members of Congress saying they’d had enough: This is the last time they will vote for an extension. Though key Democrats, Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-MD) and Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-OR), Ranking Democrat on the Transportation Committee, left some wiggle room for their votes, this could be a threat enough members stand behind.