Friday, February 3, 2012

Committee Spends 18 Hours Marking Up Proposed Transportation & Infrastructure Bill

Holy cow, I'd never make it in the political world; I just need my sleep too badly. The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee set a record with a nearly 18-hour markup of the proposed energy-infrastructure package yesterday. The session started Thursday at 9 a.m. and finished Friday just before 2:50 a.m. I'd been in bed for almost five hours by the time they wrapped up!

Around 100 amendments were debated, including letting states increase the Interstate truck weight and size limits and restoring funds to the Transportation Enhancement and Safe Routes to School programs.

Corrine Brown (D-Fla.) even called it the worst day of her life and the worst bill she's ever seen. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood apparently agrees, according to this article in Politico, as do several other representatives.

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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.