USDOT Secretary Pete Buttigieg testified before the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure (T&I), March 25, on the Administration’s priorities for transportation infrastructure. “Now is the time…to clear the backlog and repair our highways, roads, bridges, maritime ports and airports; to enhance freight and passenger rail and to provide accessible public transit and mobility options for all,” he said.

 

In the more than five-hour hearing, chair of the T&I Committee Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-OR) said that the committee is “kicking into high gear” its work to advance transportation authorization and infrastructure investment. “We have no time to waste,” he said. “The American people—who rely on our roads, bridges, bike lanes, transit systems, railroads, airports and waterways for their mobility and for their livelihoods—cannot wait. Infrastructure is integral to the functioning of our economy and investing heavily in it at this moment in time is key to our nation’s recovery.”

 

Chair DeFazio told Buttigieg, a former mayor, that he knows first-hand how “vital seamless mobility and well-functioning transportation systems are to quality of life in cities and towns across America. Moving people and goods safely and efficiently is the whole point of good transportation policy.”

 

Ranking Member Rep. Sam Graves (R-MO) told the committee that he hopes the next major bill prioritizes transportation infrastructure and that “we don’t reduce our core programs—roads, bridges, ports and rails—to an afterthought.”

 

Read more here.

 

The Senate Commerce Committee held an Executive Session and Hearing this week on rebuilding America’s transportation infrastructure.

 

Chair Maria Cantwell (D-WA) said American workers and businesses need “world-class infrastructure to reach customers, and we need to be competitive. Instead, the American Society of Civil Engineers gives the United States infrastructure a rating of C-minus. So, we definitely need to improve that grade.” Read her remarks here.

 

Former Deputy Secretary of Transportation John Porcari testified that, “We now face the urgent need to make immediate and profound changes throughout our transportation system if we are to ensure a better future for the next generation of Americans. A strong and compelling case is being made across the country and by my colleagues here today for increased investment across the transportation system.” Read his testimony here.

 

The committee also reported the nomination of Polly Trottenberg to be Deputy Secretary of the USDOT to the floor by a vote of 20-4. The Senate is scheduled to consider her nomination in April.

 

This week, Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) President Dorval R. Carter, Jr. testified before the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation, Housing and Urban Development on “Creating Equitable Communities through Transportation and Housing.”

 

Carter expressed to the subcommittee that he was honored to speak about a topic that is “very important to me as a transportation professional, lifelong Chicagoan and African American.”

 

Carter said, “The public transit industry, like the rest of the United States, is currently experiencing a reckoning regarding the critical role of equity in our society. Many transportation professionals are having important conversations on how issues of inequity have impacted transportation in the past and we are hard at work coming up with solutions to confront and resolve those issues, for today and for the future.”

 

 

Join APTA in a virtual study mission to Canada, April 20-22, in collaboration with the Canadian Urban Transit Association, to examine the future of transit through the lens of recovery, touching on such topics as new innovative revenue and financing opportunities, infrastructure planning and investment, gaining back ridership, alternative service delivery models and mobility innovation.