This week the House will consider the Moving Forward Act, a $1.5 trillion infrastructure bill that reflects many of Smart Growth America’s core priorities, including a new kind of transportation bill, billions to invest in new or rehabilitated affordable housing, and support for more inclusive and equitable development around transit to help give more Americans access to opportunity.
American transportation is rife with inequality that makes it more difficult for low-income people, people of color, and people with disabilities to get where they need to go, and can put them at greater risk. Today’s inequalities reflect the racism and ableism of the era in which much of today’s network was built, but they also still pervade federal transportation policy. The INVEST Act—a transportation policy proposal in the U.S. House—offers a major first step towards a more equitable transportation system by breaking with many policies of the past.
Right now there is an ambitious proposal to rewrite the rules for transportation spending in America currently moving in the U.S. House. We have been writing extensively about this new proposal and here’s where you can find the information you’re searching for…or perhaps didn’t even know you needed!
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As noted in Transportation for America’s scorecard, the House’s INVEST Act transportation bill takes important strides to make safety a priority, from the inclusion of new performance measures all the way down to making changes with how agencies set speed limits. Here are five things to know.
One of the amendments to the House’s transportation bill (INVEST Act) we are supporting would expand one of the federal government’s biggest infrastructure financing tools to include more economic development near public transportation stations—increasing private investment in transit and helping multiply the impact of the INVEST Act’s sizable increases in transit funding.
The INVEST Act could be a turning point for the federal transportation program, almost hitting the mark on our principles for transportation investment. But a few amendments could make—or break—the bill. Stay up to date here.
The Transportation & Infrastructure Committee (T&I) in the U.S. House released a draft proposal for long-term surface transportation policy today that would replace the existing FAST Act, which expires this year. The INVEST (Investing in a New Vision for the Environment and Surface Transportation) in America Act takes a markedly different approach to transportation policy that would begin to put outcomes—instead of price tags—at the center of our decision making.
Many people think the only Americans regularly relying on transit to reach jobs and services live in big cities. Yet the majority of counties with high rates of zero-car households are rural. In fact, more than one million households in predominantly rural counties do not have access to a vehicle. Rural Americans without cars face unique barriers and they deserve a tailored approach to their transit needs rather than just assuming they can or will drive everywhere.
Select cities are responding to COVID-19 and stay-at-home restrictions by opening up streets to people, providing vital room for people to safely exercise as well as walk, bike, and roll to essential destinations while maintaining physical distancing. Smart Growth America is eager to help cities tap the expertise of artists and designers for this work, which can help produce better, more beloved projects that could remain after the pandemic, and foster helpful relationships between artists, city leaders, and transportation departments.
Struggles for rural transit agencies show that the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic to public transportation are not limited to big cities.