Federal Policy

Yesterday, Congressman Mike Quigley (IL-05) took a spin on some of our city’s next-generation bikeways with a city staffer and local advocates, as part of his “Mike on the Move” campaign to highlight how federal funding can support Chicago transportation infrastructure.

U.S. transportation secretary Anthony Foxx stopped by the CTA’s Granville station this afternoon to announce Chicago as the first city to be awarded a $35 million federal “Core Capacity” grant to modernize the Red and Purple lines. He also put a word in for President Obama’s proposal for a long-term transportation funding bill, the “Grow America” act.

“Our transportation problems are easy to see but often difficult to explain.”

The federal government has a long history of supporting transit, but it's never played much of a role in promoting the kind of development that helps make those investments successful.

Yesterday, U.S. DOT did something it hadn’t done for a decade: submit a surface transportation authorization bill to Congress.

The Obama administration today sent Congress its proposal for a multi-year transportation bill, which it's calling the GROW AMERICA Act. The bill, based on the budget proposal President Obama released two months ago, relies on corporate tax reform to raise $87 billion to fill the hole in the Highway Trust Fund. The four-year bill would cost $302 billion.

Misguided safety rules from the Federal Railroad Administration are cited as the cause for all sorts of problems, from high-construction costs to pedestrian hazards to, ironically, worse safety outcomes.

Transit systems in Northeastern Illinois face a $20 billion maintenance backlog. Now the question is how to pay for it.

There was some good news last week for two of the Chicago Transit Authority's big upcoming projects. On Wednesday the Obama administration recommended the CTA’s Red & Purple Modernization project for fiscal year 2015 funding, and included the Ashland bus rapid transit corridor on a lists of transit projects for possible future funding. However, approval by Congress is no sure thing.