Uncommon bonds: Speeding transit projects
High partisan tensions in Washington haven’t disrupted the bipartisan push for improving the nation’s infrastructure.
Almost four years ago, under former President Joe Biden, Republicans and Democrats joined hands to pass a law with significant new funding to improve the nation’s roads and bridges.
Now lawmakers are looking for ways to cut wasted time and bloated costs associated with highways, roads, and railways.
As Congress prepares to assemble a package to reauthorize the nation’s surface transportation programs over the coming year, they have a new pitch to consider.
A group of bipartisan lawmakers recently wrote to the leaders of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee with a series of policy changes designed to speed up and reduce the cost of transportation projects that could be included in the upcoming transportation reauthorization bill.
“We urge you to include provisions in the bill that limit unnecessary process, reform overly burdensome environmental review, cut excessive red tape, and remove barriers to housing construction,” they wrote in a letter first reported by Semafor last week.
The group suggests improving an existing program for fast-tracking permitting; creating an exception for small projects to avoid lengthier environmental reviews; and building more housing near mass transit systems, among other ideas.
“There’s bipartisan energy around speeding up the delivery of public services,” Rep. Jake Auchincloss, D-Mass., one of the signatories on the letter, told Semafor. “Energy is probably the most immediate priority, but transportation — because of the surface transportation reauthorization — is the other big one, to me.”
The current surface transportation bill, which was included in the Biden-era bipartisan infrastructure package signed into law in 2021, expires in September 2026. Congress has until then to pass a new one.
By: Morgan Chalfant
Source: Semafor