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.
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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.
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 House majority’s recent infrastructure proposal finally recognizes what Smart Growth America has been saying for years: We’ll never be able to build and sustain healthy, prosperous and resilient communities without a unified approach to transportation, climate, water, land use, and community development. This is a smart first step, but the details will determine whether or not these investments improve the deep inequities in America, or just make them worse.
Yesterday a group of more than 30 elected local leaders from across the country carried a clear and unified message up to Capitol Hill on behalf of the First & Main coalition of nearly 100 local elected officials from small and mid-sized towns and cities. Their message? “We need reliable federal partners to support our homegrown efforts to rebuild our downtowns, restore our economies, and improve opportunity for everyone.”
Yesterday, the Senate Appropriations Committee approved the fiscal year 2018 Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies Appropriations bill. The bipartisan bill makes investments in infrastructure, provides funding for economic development projects, and helps to meet the housing needs of the nation’s most vulnerable individuals and families. The bill reflects a total allocation of … Continued
A Complete Streets approach recognizes that an individual may bike, walk, drive, and take transit all in the same day and aims to create a transportation system that helps her travel safely by any mode she chooses. Unfortunately, the House transportation bill devotes all its funding to highway projects. The Senate bill presents a more complete vision, but still needs to be fixed to better provide for those on foot or on bicycles.
With no Complete Streets provision, the just-released House Transportation bill ignores millions of Americans nationwide who want their transportation system to provide safe and convenient choices, such as walking, riding a bike, and catching a bus or train. This failure is in stark contrast to the bipartisan Complete Streets measure included in the Senate’s version of the bill.
In the past week, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to strip funding for the federal Partnership for Sustainable Communities. The Senate will consider funding for the Partnership in the coming days, and now is the time to tell your Senators to maintain funding for this important program.
These are tough economic times, which makes it even more important to keep the innovative programs that put federal dollars to good use rebuilding our local economies, strengthening our communities, and creating jobs.
Tell your Senators: Protect funding for the Partnership for Sustainable Communities.
Earlier this year when the Partnership was under threat, the voices of smart growth supporters made a real difference and funding was preserved. Now we need your voices to be heard even louder.
Make sure that Congress knows we will not accept shortsighted cuts that sacrifice the health of our communities.