Monday, January 31, 2011

Senator Calls To Trim Waste From New Transportation Bill

We've been operating on an extended transportation bill for a while now, while Congress discusses what a new highway bill will look like. Considering the economy, and the mood in Washington, it's expected to be a lot different from the most recent bill, SAFETEA-LU (Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users).

For instance, Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) says the only way to sell a highway bill to his Republican colleagues would be to pare it back and cut waste. Inhofe says anything that not related to transportation needs to be cut. Pet projects like Capitol dome repairs and recreational bike paths make up about 3 percent of the current bill -- an unacceptable number, according to Inhofe, considering that it draws from the Highway Trust Fund.

Here's the latest on the development of a new Transportation Bill from the website for the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment & Public Works.

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About SRTC

SRTC is the federally designated Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) for Spokane County. Urbanized areas with populations exceeding 50,000 people are required to have an MPO. SRTC was formed to address the county's transportation planning needs. It provides coordination in planning between the public, cities, small towns, the county, the state, transit providers, and tribes.

SRTC offers services including transportation monitoring, transportation modeling, census information analysis, travel demand forecasting, historical traffic count analysis, geographic information systems, and trip generation rates.