A coalition of transportation, environmental, and housing groups is asking House and Senate leaders to limit infrastructure programs in any forthcoming jobs bill to just one year and to direct spending toward the rehabilitation and operation of existing infrastructure instead of new construction projects.
Congress should not get distracted from a six-year reauthorization of the federal surface transportation law, the Transportation for America coalition and 25 of its member groups said in a letter sent to the lawmakers last week.
The letter was just released as President Obama is preparing to convene a summit tomorrow focused on job creation in the midst of rising unemployment rates.
The coalition — whose members push for smart growth and transit, among other things — asked House and Senate leaders from both parties to include “three core principles” in any short-term job creation package.
They asked for Congress and the White House to use job-creation funds to make a dent in the backlog of maintenance projects. They also said lawmakers should focus on existing roads, bridges, rail lines, and transit systems, instead of “more complicated new construction.”
That is roughly the same approach that Congress and the White House took when crafting the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Transportation funds were to be allocated mostly to shovel-ready projects. As a result, most of the transportation funds have gone toward projects such as highway resurfacing or bridge repairs.
In addition, the group pushed for any infrastructure program in the jobs bill to be kept within a one-year window.
Transportation groups usually want infrastructure projects to receive as much funding as possible. However, Transportation for America is taking a different approach with its one-year-only request. The group argues that one year would be a “down-payment on reform.”
Instead of using job-creation funds to pay for long-term, traditional types of infrastructure such as highways, Congress should approve a multi-year bill that revamps the nation’s transportation system, said David Goldberg, the group’s communications director.
“It would be a mistake to allocate a lot of money under the current system and prolong it another few years,” he said.
“Any short-term jobs package for transportation should be limited to no more than one year, providing a strong boost to the American economy in 2010, while making sure this Congress finishes its work on a longer-term transformational transportation authorization bill that can bring our nation’s transportation policy and programs into the 21st century,” the group said.
The letter added that including funds for transit and intercity buses in the jobs bill “would allow hundreds of public transit agencies all across America to rehire workers and drivers immediately after a jobs bill is signed while reconnecting thousands of people to jobs.”
The bill also should include additional funds for a discretionary grant program that was created by ARRA, the group said. Those grants should be used for modernizing and making transit vehicles more environmentally sustainable, and to pay for new public transit investments, high-speed rail, intercity buses, and bicycle and pedestrian trails, it added.
