28 Days, 98 Senators and No Transit Bill
Posted by Fred Jandt
Mass Transit magazine
How time flies. It was 28 days ago that I wrote this discussing the status of the federal transit funding bill. At that point it was sitting in a weird Twilight Zone between the House and Senate. Rather than make a decision it was postponed until the end of October to deliberate on it a little further. Now October is over. And so are our hopes for speedy transit funding.
And it doesn’t look like they’re even asking for a massive new funding bill. No, they can’t even agree upon a six-month extension of the current bill. That’s right. Transit is desperate for operating funds, the construction industry is in such a desperate state that there are bulldozers on the Capitol steps. Oh, wait, this is a transportation funding bill, not a mass transit funding bill? I guess that got lost in the shuffle.
You’d think with the Bay Bridge falling apart and the cries for the need to fix infrastructure across the country someone in Congress would be listening right now. Even when stories about Amtrak losing money and how transit isn’t really a “commuting†option are being floated out there, the fact of the matter is that as a nation we have gone from blindly ignorant of our situation when it comes to transportation infrastructure to willingly ignorant.
I know that with the flu ravaging the country — I know, I have it — and the merits of a public option for government healthcare dominating the news media it’s easy for us to forget what’s going on around us. Of course, that is until a bridge cable snaps and drops on your car.
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Thanks for reading the MT Position updated every Friday,
Fred
fred.jandt@cygnusb2b.com
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October 30th, 2009 at 10:28 am
Sure. All they can figure out how to do is vote themselves raises and better (eternal)healthcare than they are offering to the rest of us peons. Transit? Never hoid of it.
I say “Broom the Bunch” come election day. Do I hear an “amen”?
October 30th, 2009 at 10:40 am
Your first responder, Dennis Green, is justified in his cynicism, but his (I find rash)solution of cleaning out all senators (and presumably representatives, too) is too simplistic and not the practical solution.
It is going to take a lot of old-fashioned hard work on the part of dedicated proponents of mass transit to convince the legislators we have that they need to come across with the mass transit funds the majority promised, or they may suffer defeat in the next election.
October 30th, 2009 at 11:29 am
Many of us think the transportation challenges facing the U.S. are far more important to the sound economic future of the nation than the gigantic, complex, revolutionary “health insurance reform” proposals being considered by Congress. Very few advocates of expansion of transit and other passenger rail modes seem willing to suggest this “politically incorrect” point of view. That’s too bad. Partisan politics seem to continue to dictate the direction of responsible public policy.
October 30th, 2009 at 12:20 pm
Amen. But one party can’t even agree on ‘message’ (like that’s hard), and the other is handing out “E Ride-Tickets” to the Hill to ‘donors’so that the media can then turn 2010 into a who has the most campaign $ spin instead of who’s the better candidate. Lord have Mercy…
October 30th, 2009 at 12:21 pm
Feel better soon, Fred. Great post today.
October 30th, 2009 at 9:44 pm
All I can say is – Is this the change we can believe in? Let’s face it. We have an unbelieveably weak president who is VERY naive and cannot ssem to make up his mind about anything(even with a majority in BOTH houses!!!!), except to spend a LOT of money we do not have. So transit is going to have to fend for itself for a while, just like all the rest of us.
George Bush, even with all his warts is looking better every day.
I completely agree with Dennis Green – throw them all out at election time. They need a wakeup call about who they really work for.
Roberto
November 3rd, 2009 at 6:33 pm
We are all prisoners of the largest donors to members of the HOUSE and SENATE. It’s not fair to blame the president. “It is going to take a lot of old-fashioned hard work on the part of dedicated proponents of mass transit” to convince the legislators that we have what they need to achieve credibility and reelection. Take the Fred Jandt message to The Hill woven into your own local community interest in the value of a viable mass transit alternative for getting from here to there.