The House passes Transportation Bill!

Earlier today, the House of Representatives passed the Surface Transportation Reauthorization and Reform Act (STRRA), making way for Congress to pass the first long term transportation bill in a decade by the end of 2015. 

Thank you to everyone who reached out to their Representatives in support of biking! Because of your help and the leadership of our Champions in Congress, the bill includes a compromise on funding for bicycling and walking infrastructure, as well as a new safety program for bicycling and walking education and enforcement. In addition the bill takes a step forward on complete streets. 

The next step is for the House STRRA bill and the Senate DRIVE bill to be reconciled into one bill. The Senate bill is much stronger on bicycle and pedestrian funding. The House and Senate will both appoint conferees to negotiate on the final bill. The House and Senate Transportation Committees are under a November 20th deadline to produce a compromise bill, so things will move quickly in the next two weeks. The League will continue to push for strong infrastructure and safety funding for biking as well as better policies such as complete streets. Please keep checking back for updates.

The House has already appointed its conferees. For the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, GOP conferees will include Chairman Bill Shuster, Jimmy Duncan of Tennessee, Sam Graves of Missouri, Rick Crawford of Arkansas, Lou Barletta of Pennsylvania, Blake Farenthold of Texas, Jeff Denham of California, Reid Ribble of Wisconsin, Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, Rob Woodall of Georgia, John Katko of New York, Bob Gibbs of Ohio, Brian Babin of Texas, Cresent Hardy of Nevada and Garret Graves of Louisiana. Democratic conferees on the Transportation committee will include Peter DeFazio, Eleanor Holmes Norton of DC, Jerrold Nadler of New York, Corrine Brown of Florida, Eddie Bernice Johnson of Texas, Elijah Cummings of Maryland, RIck Larsen of Washington, Michael Capuano of Massachusetts, Grace Napolitano of California, Daniel Lipinski of Illinois, Steve Cohen of Tennessee and Albio Sires of New Jersey.