Oberstar wants transportation bill to provide modal equity

Leak: two page memo of ideas

Jay Blazek Crossley, May 11, 09.

According to Roads and Bridges, a two page outline has leaked of Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Jim Oberstar’s vision for changes in the transportation reauthorization bill that the US House will probably take up in June. The note includes several ground-breaking proposals that transportation activists have been fighting to include in the bill:

There is a call for the creation of a new undersecretary or assistant secretary for intermodalism. This official would hold monthly meetings with all modal administrators;

The DOT’s 108 programs will be consolidated into four “major formula programs”: critical asset preservation, highway safety improvement, surface transportation program and congestion mitigation and air quality improvement. The surface transportation section suggests that metropolitan planning organizations receive sub-allocations based on population;

DOTs would be asked to hit performance goals, and the legislation calls for agencies to design six-year targets for each of the four performance categories. Reports would be submitted annually and data would be made available online; and

There is a call for “transit equity.” Currently the federal government only pays for half of transit projects, while road and bridge work receives 80% support.