http://bigstory.ap.org/urn:publicid:ap. ... 4beb30593a

Senate with 62 votes advances a new 6 year transportation Bill (haven't had a full 6 year bill in forever) and as the name of the bill indicates transit gets the shaft

"Despite an array of concerns Democrats voiced with the bill over the past two days — including that some provisions may undermine safety, that transit programs didn't received their fair share of funding and that the spending offsets include budget gimmickry — 14 Democrats and two independents joined with 46 Republicans to go forward with the bill"



(Since this bill will determine the next 6 years of transportation policy, thought a stand alone thread is needed)

Concerns over transit? Veto it.

^ I can't see a veto, Obama will take a 6 year bill...just one less thing to worry about in his final 18 months

downtown2007 wrote:Concerns over transit? Veto it.

Sounds like he might not have to: "I don't see the Senate (bill) flying in the House," House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., told reporters earlier in the day.

dbInSouthCity wrote:I can't see a veto,

Agreed. Transportation spending bills are squarely in Congress' court. Obama wouldn't have much interest or incentive to get mixed up in it.

Not much details yet, which I can understand based ENR's article on the Senate bill. Realistically, I would take it and run if it ever gets passed by the house because a GOP controlled Congress and White House might very well pursue a bill that requires 100% of gas tax funding of the Highway Trust Fund to got to highway funding. $60 billion in transit funding from this bill, or $10 billion dollars a year of federal transit funding paid for at the pump would disappear overnight. If you think this a bad deal, you might not like 2016 if we don't have a six year transportation bill in place.

Since I'm getting political, I'm no fan of Obama/Democratic party either as someone whose has a career as a construction manager in heavy civil works . Obama/Dems favored a one time grandiose stimulus package instead of a much strong multi year transportation plan when they had outright control from 2008-10. We have to remember that their has been 33 stopgap measures and plenty of blame for both sides of aisle when it comes to federal commitment to infrastructure.

http://enr.construction.com/policy/wash ... a-Bump.asp

That earlier vote took place just several hours after McConnell and Boxer announced their agreement. Senate Democrats, and some Republicans, objected to taking up the bill without having had a chance to read the details contained in its 1,030 pages.

A cost estimate for the new package wasn’t immediately available. But its highway title appeared to be about $270 billion, its transit authorizations approximately $59 billion and its highway-safety section about $4.5 billion.

dredger wrote: Since I'm getting political, I'm no fan of Obama/Democratic party either as someone whose has a career as a construction manager in heavy civil works . Obama/Dems favored a one time grandiose stimulus package instead of a much strong multi year transportation plan when they had outright control from 2008-10. We have to remember that their has been 33 stopgap measures and plenty of blame for both sides of aisle when it comes to federal commitment to infrastructure.

That's not really fair; the Democrats only had filibuster-proof control for a few weeks at best. And they were barely able to get a stimulus bill 1/10th the size we needed to squeak through Congress. I doubt they could've gotten conservatives on board with an ongoing spending commitment.

^ fair point, but they also fundamentally changed health care in this county at the same time. I still believe we could have been working under a much much more favorable and robust multi year transportation bill rather than 33 stop gap measures to date.

On a different note, considering if DRIVE Act even comes close to passing does anyone see any regional efforts coming together? I was thinking how California's cap and trade program will be funding HSR in the state at a tune of half billion year as well grant programs to transits and how something like this or a carbon tax at a regional level such as Northeast would be huge for rail/transit. At same time, I doubt the FL, TX and or the Midwest would pursue anything even close to what Cali had done.

So its a 6 Year bill thats funded for 3 years?