Hotline #921

The debate between House and Senate leaders on the right transportation bill continues and, with the July 31 deadline for the expiration of the highway and mass transit trust fund looming, legislators are starting to feel the pressure.

Senate Republican leadership have been pushing a comprehensive six-year transportation bill that provides three-years of funding. The bill includes the Railroad Reform, Enhancement, and Efficiency Act of 2015 (R2E2), hailed by NARP as a game changer for America's train passengers. However, at over 1,030 pages long, the bill contains a number of titles that were not vetted through the committee process, and the bill is opposed by transportation leadership in the House.

“It's 1,030 pages and this thing is going to grow,” said House Transportation & Infrastructure Chairman Bill Shuster (R-PA). “We're not going to be able to sit and go through it... If this bill comes over and we take it, the House will not be able to speak. And that for me and my colleagues is a real, real problem.”

It was a rare moment of bipartisan agreement between the House GOP and Democrats, who are both pushing a five-month extension to give Congress more time to agree on a six-year bill. “I’m not saying I am opposed to it," said House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA). "I’m saying it’s not going to be done by the end of next week”

Democrats are also looking to use the transportation bill as a vehicle to extend the federal Export-Import Bank, controversial among a minority of Republicans. “Our hope was that the Senate would put the Ex-Im Bank on our bill, send it back over to us,” said Rep. Pelosi. “Instead now they're saying that would have to be on a long-term bill which cannot possibly be finished by the 31st of July when the authorization runs out.”

In spite of the uncertainty over which of the competing bills will win out, public transit champions in the Senate remained focused in improving the Senate's surface transportation bill, prevailing in their campaign to restore an 80-20 split between highways and transit.

Democratic staffers on the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee were reporting that the initial draft of the Developing a Reliable and Innovative Vision for the Economy (DRIVE) Act was based on a 94-6 split in capital funding for new projects, translating to roughly $3.2 billion for the highway account and $200 million for transit.

Senators committed to smart transportation planning were successful in their fight to increase funds for new transit programs to $815 million, restoring the traditional 80-20 split. “We fought back an effort to shortchange American commuters who depend on public transportation to get to their jobs and contribute to the economy,” said Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio).

The Wall Street Journal partnered with aviation data company masFlight to study which cities have lost the most airline service in the past four years as the industry has shrunk down to four major carriers that handle 80 percent of flights in the U.S. “They have shut down some smaller connecting hubs, reduced service in many small towns and dropped some routes completely,” said the report.

This precipitous drop in air service has had a drastic affect on flyover country, which is addressed in NARP’s “A Connected America” initiative. A Connected America encourages investments in links between intercity trains and airports, intercity buses, local transit, cycling and walking, and car rental and sharing service. The goal is to create a seamless 21st century coast-to-coast multimodal transportation network that ties flyover country to the nation’s larger economy and prospects.

As electrical problems in century-old rail tunnels under the Hudson River have caused three days of delays for commuters, DOT Secretary Anthony Foxx said Tuesday that the region's apparent inability to do anything about the decrepit rail tunnels connecting midtown Manhattan to New Jersey is "almost criminal," reports Capital New York.

"It’s perhaps one of the—if not the—most important project in the country right now that’s not happening," Foxx said during a panel discussion hosted by the New York Times. "It’s really emblematic of where we are right now as a country. This is tunnels that run between New York and New Jersey. They carry hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people on a weekly basis."

The federal government isn’t the only one concerned about infrastructure in the Northeast Corridor. A new survey by the New Jersey Chamber of Commerce found that among the 100 executives who were polled by the chamber, concern about transportation infrastructure came up more than worries about the economy, government-red tape, and the minimum wage, reports NJ Spotlight. They specifically noted New Jersey’s deteriorating roads, bridges, and mass-transit infrastructure.

Amtrak President Joseph Boardman has publicly stated that the Northeast Corridor is deteriorating rapidly and needs $782 million a year for the next 15 years to address the accelerating maintenance backlog. It also needs $15 billion for the Gateway Project that includes new trans-Hudson River tunnels to New York's Penn Station; $1.5 billion for the Baltimore and Potomac tunnels in Baltimore; $800 million for a new Susquehanna Bridge; and $600 million for a new Gunpowder River Bridge.

Further north, Vermont Digger reports that its congressional delegation is asking the U.S. Department of Transportation to approve a $12 million grant that would help establish passenger train service between Rutland and Burlington. U.S. Sens. Patrick Leahy and Bernie Sanders and Rep. Peter Welch have reiterated their support for federal money to build a long-sought-after passenger train route that transportation officials hope would cut the commuting time between Rutland and Burlington and take traffic off the roads.

A high-speed rail linking Washington, D.C., to Richmond, Virginia, and eventually to cities farther south is one of the top priorities for U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx in the final months of Obama’s term, reports the Richmond Times-Dispatch. He made his remarks at the Virginians For High Speed Rail’s 21st annual transportation luncheon.

The Washington-Richmond corridor is what Foxx categorized as the project that will allow for further extensions of frequent rail service into the south, with this one project offering a window of opportunity wrote NARP staffer James Zumwalt, who attended the luncheon. “Foxx’s goal for the region over the next year and a half is to `get the project to a point of no return,’ noting he is throwing an additional $1 million of DOT funds into studies concerning it,” he wrote. “In answering an audience question, Foxx said `there shouldn't be a Northeast Corridor as such. We need an East Coast Corridor’ and that it was time to ‘get beyond the Civil War.’"

Other NARP representatives at the luncheon were: board Vice Chair Chuck Riecks; Council members Michael Testerman and William Clifford Dunn; Silver Rail Society Member Dick Beadles; and member Dick Peacock.

Texas Central Partners, the group building high-speed rail between Dallas and Houston, announced that new investors are putting in $75 million toward the project, reports the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Two of the three investors will also join the company’s board.

The company has named Tim Keith as its new CEO, effective immediately. The estimated $10 billion project is currently undergoing a federal environmental review. No construction start date has been announced, but the company says the line is still on track to open as early as 2021.

Two self-described conservative transportation advocates make the case for rail transit in an op-ed on the Texas Tribune’s TribTalk blog, calling it “odd” that people expect them to oppose public transportation, especially rail. The argue that high-quality transit -- including Dallas Area Rapid Transit and Houston’s light rail Red Line -- spurs development, saves time from being stuck in traffic and supports retail in downtown areas. The pair also applauded TCP’s high-speed rail project between Dallas and Houston, noting its private funding and partnership with bullet train pioneer Central Japan Railway Co.

Passenger train service between Detroit and Grand Rapids could be reinstated in the next 10 years if state transportation experts determine the public has an appetite for a new line and can figure out how to pay for it reports the Detroit News. The Michigan Environmental Council is working on a $100,000 feasibility study and embarked on a series of hearings this summer along the route to get the public’s input.

The UrbanCincy blog reports that support continues to grow for the expansion of rail service in the area, especially to Chicago. The City of Hamilton recently applied to Amtrak for a stop and has passed a resolution of support for increased service. In Oxford, home of Miami University, initial approvals have been set to create a station for Amtrak, and efforts are currently underway to identify the exact location for that facility. And the effort has also gained support from the University of Cincinnati Student Senate, when they passed a resolution 31-1 in support of increased rail service to Chicago, citing Chicago as “an important transportation hub for students’ co-op travels, as well as an economic destination for students, staff, and faculty alike.”

The Lone Star Rail District plans to make a formal request to San Antonio City Council in September to fund a long-planned commuter rail project between San Antonio and Austin, reports WOAI Radio. The train would make stops in New Braunfels, San Marcos, and elsewhere, making traveling on the I-35 corridor easier, relieving growing congestion on the Interstate.