On Friday, December 4th, President Obama signed into law the first long-term transportation bill the U.S. has seen in ten years. The “Fixing America’s Surface Transportation” or “FAST” Act marks a long-awaited bi-partisan compromise. The $305 billion program calls for an 11% increase in funding over its five-year span, and makes provisions for $16 billion in annual transportation funding not covered by the gas tax.
Read more about the FAST Act on Transportation.gov
or view a PDF of the Act from the House of Representatives
Transportation stakeholders respond to the FAST Act:
“After 36 short-term extensions, it has no doubt been a long and bumpy ride to a long-term transportation bill. We did not get everything we asked for, but we’ve made it. And while the FAST Act is not perfect, it reflects the bipartisan compromise I always knew was possible.”
– U.S. DOT Secretary Anthony Foxx
“Cities desperately need long-term certainty in their transportation planning and funding. We can’t fix the bridges or roads that millions of Americans use every day without it, and we’ve been telling Congress that for more than 10 years…Together, we can build a world-class transportation infrastructure that will connect, empower and build a foundation for future growth in cities across the nation.”
-Clarence E. Anthony, CEO and Executive Director, National League of Cities
“While states and metropolitan regions will enjoy the certainty of funding that they’ve not had in seven or eight years, they’ll be stuck with yesterday’s policies until 2020, and the tab will be passed on to our children. The FAST Act represents a major missed opportunity to do something much better that the country needs and deserves.”
-James Corless, Director, Transportation For America
“The FAST Act is the first federal transportation bill to ever include Complete Streets language, and that is a huge accomplishment…The bill could have gone farther, of course. We hoped the bill would reflect language adopted by the Senate this summer, which required states and MPOs to use Complete Streets standards. As passed, the bill only encourages states to do so…We also hoped the bill would include new performance measures on accessibility, and increased accountability or transparency for how public agencies select transportation projects.”
-Emiko Atherton, Director, National Complete Streets Coalition
“Last night, Congress did something it has not done in ten years: it passed a meaningful long-term surface transportation bill…This in itself is cause for optimism, but we are nevertheless concerned that the funding levels outlined in the FAST Act will not sufficiently dig us out of the hole we we’ve created by neglecting our infrastructure and transportation. The FAST Act includes an increase in funding levels, but it is not nearly enough to address the $94 billion funding gap established by the American Society of Civil Engineers.”
-Marcia Hale, President, Building America’s Future.
“…This five-year, fully-funded bill will help sustain and improve our highways, bridges, railroads, and other vital transit systems. These infrastructure projects are some of the most important investments we make as a country…This is what getting things done looks like—an open amendment process, a conference committee, and time to read the bills before voting on them.”
-House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI)
“For years, road and rail infrastructure fell into disrepair because some in Congress couldn’t get their act together…But this new spending bill shows what can happen when lawmakers work in a bipartisan fashion to find real answers for hardworking Americans. We applaud this breakthrough and look forward to improved transportation in the years to come.”
-Jim Hoffa, General President, International Brotherhood of Teamsters
“It is a tremendous relief to know that with the FAST Act, state departments of transportation will have some reasonable long-term certainty regarding the levels of federal investments for surface transportation…We have long said that states, which are the primary implementers of the federal program, need a long-term federal commitment in order to plan for and invest in the kind of transportation projects the nation needs now and well into the future to support our quality of life and economic prosperity.”
-Paul Trombino, AASHTO president and Iowa Department of Transportation director
Tags: FAST Act, GROW AMERICA ACt, Highway Bill, Transportation Bill, United States Department of Transportation
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