T4America Blog

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Posts Tagged "States"

Massachusetts event highlights the growing trend of states moving to enable more local transportation funding

“Let the voters decide.” It’s a mantra we hear all the time in politics, but not quite as much in transportation. Yet that’s starting to change, as nearly a dozen states have taken steps to empower local communities with new or enhanced taxing authority for transportation over the last few years, putting the question directly in the hands of voters.

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Refreshed T4America bill tracker for following state transportation funding and policy progress

While at least 23 states have raised new funding for transportation at the state level since 2012, there’s a renewed focus on the underlying policies to make the most of limited infrastructure dollars. Which states are proposing to change to how those dollars are spent? Which states are working to create more transparency and build more public trust in transportation spending?

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12 transportation policies states should consider in 2016 to stay economically competitive

To remain economically competitive, states must invest in infrastructure, but state legislatures have a critical choice ahead of them: continue pumping scarce dollars into a complex and opaque system based on outdated policies out of sync with today’s needs, or follow the lead of the states highlighted in Transportation for America’s new report, Twelve Innovations in Transportation Policy States Should Consider in 2016.

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Join us this November for a special event focusing on state transportation funding legislation

Join local and state leaders from across the country to learn about the most innovative state policies in transportation funding and finance; and how to advance those ideas in your state. Meet us in Denver for this special event on November 13-14. As Congress has repeatedly postponed tough decisions on federal transportation funding, a handful […]

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Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts follow the trend: voters support transportation revenue increases

As voters have been proving over and over during primary season this year, raising taxes or fees for transportation isn’t a political death sentence – no matter the party or political affiliation. In the past two weeks, Vermont, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire’s state legislators faced their first primary since voting to pass bills to raise additional revenue for much needed transportation and infrastructure projects.

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Want to learn more about state and local transportation funding?

This afternoon, along with the Center for Transportation Excellence, we’re hosting a half day event to examine state and local transportation funding campaigns at the ballot box and beyond. While many of you who might like to attend won’t be there in the room with us, you can follow the conversation from us and hopefully many of the participants on Twitter.

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NPR: 19 states (and counting) creating plans to raise more transportation dollars

Virginia HOT lanes AP photo NPRMore than a third of all U.S. states have plans of some sort to raise new money for transportation to help cover yawning budget shortfalls and keep up with maintenance and new construction of their state transportation networks. NPR picked up that story this week and talked to T4 America director James Corless about the growing trend of states stepping out on their own to raise their own money for transportation to augment the federal funding that did not increase with the last transportation bill.

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Ambitious Maryland plan moves forward to index gas tax, add sales tax for transportation

Maryland State Route 200 CC Flickr photo by DougtoneWhen Maryland’s Intercounty Connector (ICC) highway opened in 2011, it did more than create a new east-west toll road between I-270 and I-95 in the northern suburbs of Washington, DC: It also severely hampered Maryland’s ability to build other large-scale transportation projects for years to come. But now there’s significant momentum to raise new state revenues for transportation to ensure that the state won’t have to shelve their plans for a 21st century transportation system.

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A state with one of the oldest transportation systems tries to make things new — new state series

Though Massachusetts’ bridges are middle of the pack in deficiency, they’re beyond middle age (an average of 56-plus years) and many of its busy subways, bus lines and commuter trains – and the roads, bridges and tunnels that carry them — are starting to fall apart after decades of heavy use. Saddled with debt from the Big Dig (among other things) and chronically underfunded after years of budget cuts, Massachusetts leaders and advocates are trying to reform their transportation agencies while raising new money to bring an aging system into the 21st century.

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States’ underinvestment in road repair signals need for tough federal standards

Consider a couple of eye-popping statistics: From 2004-2008, states spent 57 percent of available highway dollars to add a little over 1 percent to our already vast highway network, and only 43 percent to maintain the other 99 percent of highway lanes. Keeping our existing highway network in “good” condition would require spending $43 billion […]

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