Mass Transit To Lose Federal Funding?

Mary Brill sends along this link to a piece in the February 15 issue of the APA Advocate:

The president's fiscal 2008 budget proposal requests $9.42 billion for the Federal Transit Administration (FTA), down $430 million (4.4 percent) from the $9.85 billion provided by Congress in fiscal 2006. The proposed funding is $309 million less than the level authorized by SAFETEA-LU. The proposed funding represents an 18 percent cut from anticipated levels. Most of that cut would come from the New Starts program, which would drop from $1.7 billion to $1.4 billion. The Small Starts program, authorized in SAFETEA-LU, is included in the transit budget at $100 million, however that funding is part of the larger New Starts program. Small Starts was created to expedite development of smaller transit projects, such as streetcars. The cut in transit funding from SAFETEA-LU targets already has sparked bipartisan criticism from leaders of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.

DEIR Comments a Go-Go!

Several organizations and individuals have submitted comments on the Highway 50 expansion DEIR. As I locate copies of those comments, I will post them.

So far, in addition to NAST's comments, I've added links to comments from the City of Sacramento, Sacramento Area Bicycle Advocates, Southside Park Neighborhood Association, and ECOS member and air quality expert Earl Withycombe.

If other organizations can forward comments, preferably in PDF format, I'll post them as well.

Update:
Added to the list are DEIR comments from: East Sacramento Improvement Association, Winn Park/Capitol Avenue Neighborhood Association, Sierra-Curtis Neighborhood Association, Land Park Community Association, and Sacramento Coalition to Save Public Education.

NAST and ECOS submit DEIR Comments

ECOS and NAST jointly submitted their comments on the CalTrans DEIR for the Highway 50 expansion project last night. The comments are available here.


Many people helped with the drafting and review of these comments. I won't try to thank them all by name, especially because some of them would prefer to remain nameless. Nevertheless, my heartfelt thanks go out to all of you who pitched in on this project!