Surface Transportation

As published by Keith Laing in The Hill   Unions seek to protect federal gas tax A top labor union is fighting to save the federal gas tax, arguing that eliminating it would ruin the nation’s transportation system. The AFL-CIO’s Transportation Trades Department (TTD) said Friday that without the gas tax the nation would be left […]

The weather’s getting warmer, and with that we’re flashing back to last summer in more ways than one: once again, we’re just two and a half months out from watching the Highway Trust Fund go bankrupt. The last short-term extension, which Congress passed last August, will keep the Highway Trust Fund solvent until May 31st of […]

For a few short minutes two weeks ago, 4.1 million Americans may have understood the problems of failing to invest in our nation’s crumbling infrastructure. It wasn’t because a bridge collapsed; it wasn’t because a sinkhole opened up in the middle of a highway; and it wasn’t because of an accident on an aging transit […]

As published by Sean Kilcarr in Fleet Owner.   Groups lay out transportation agenda items for 2015 A variety of groups, from unions to safety-themed organizations, laid out their transportation agendas for the rest of the year – especially where highway funding and electronic logging devices (ELDs) are concerned. The primary focus of the Transportation Trades […]

ATLANTA, GA—The Transportation Trades Department, AFL-CIO (TTD) and its 32 affiliated unions waded into every major transportation policy debate in Washington and focused on expanding transportation investments, reforming safety policy, protecting workers’ rights, and rejecting job-killing trade policies. “2015 must be the year when we break the stalemate on funding our badly deteriorated transportation system […]

The current surface transportation authorization, the Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act (MAP-21), expired last fall. Congress has passed an extension bill that is set to expire at the end of May, which means the Highway Trust Fund (HTF) that invests in transit and highway programs faces insolvency again if lawmakers fail […]

In 1993, Intel shipped the first-generation Pentium chips and Nintendo released Star Fox for the Super Nintendo system; the average monthly rent was $532.00; and tuition to Harvard University cost $23,514. A lot has changed since then. One thing, though, hasn’t changed at all: the federal gas tax. When last raised – to 18.4 cents […]

As published by Michele Fuetsch and Eugene Mulero in Transport Topics.   Blumenauer Bill Would Raise Fuel Taxes; ATA’s Graves Touts Approach WASHINGTON — Rep. Earl Blumenauer, a member of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, held a press conference Feb. 4 to announce he has reintroduced the bill he put forth last year that would increase fuel taxes […]

Historically, our nation’s transportation system has supported peerless economic growth and a strong market for goods and services, all while creating and sustaining millions of middle class jobs. In past years, however, insufficient funding has left our transportation system to languish, so that our mass transit system careens from one budget crisis to the next […]

After years of dysfunction in DC, we may finally be having a moment of clarity on the need to tackle our nation’s shameful infrastructure financing deficit. Spurred by low gas prices and a Highway Trust Fund (yet again) facing insolvency in a few short months, leaders on both sides of the aisle spent the first […]