For Highway Bill, the Old Way Is Better Way

• Published in: Roll call (Washington, D.C.)
• Main Author: Blumenauer, Earl
• Format: Newspaper Article
• Language: English
• Published: Washington, D.C CQ Roll Call 09.02.2012
• ISSN: 0035-788X

It breaks the 55-year Highway Trust Fund commitment that maintains safe roads, bridges and transit systems. It cuts financing for the passenger rail that is necessary to keep us competitive in the global economy while countries like China race ahead. It provides no protection or assurance that communities will have a say in their own transportation future, and it makes it easier to ignore environmental and safety concerns. It even eliminates the wildly popular and potentially life-saving Safe Routes to School program. It is dangerous to violate the principles of the Highway Trust Fund, including the notion of "user pays" and the predictable, steady, long-term financing that can be relied upon and used to finance larger and quicker action. It is a tragedy to break the long-standing agreement first hammered out by Congress and President Ronald Reagan during the 1980s to establish a set-aside of 20 percent for the nation's transit system, which doesn't just help commuters but is also the quickest, cheapest, fastest way to get people off the road and keep gridlocked traffic at a minimum.