Government

SAFETEA-LU: DOT Holds Final ‘Town Hall’ for New Bill

The U.S. Dept. of Transportation on July 14 held the last of six town-hall meetings to gather opinions about what the long-delayed successor to the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: a Legacy for Users, or SAFETEA-LU, should look like. For months, industry officials have been waiting for DOT to release its “principles” for a new multiyear bill. DOT officials heard views from a range of groups but didn’t announce the principles.

One participant, American Highway Users Alliance CEO Greg Cohen, told ENR, “Hopefully [the meeting] will lead to no further delays on an administration principles document.”

Since SAFETEA-LU expired on Sept. 30, 2009, highway and transit programs have been operating under a series of extensions. The latest stopgap expires on Dec. 31.

Pam Hunter McFarland was a Senior Editor of ENR and her expertise was: Sourcebooks, Environment, Labor

As ENR's former Washington Bureau Chief, Tom Ichniowski wrote about the federal government since the George H.W. Bush administration, and covered at least five major highway bills. A recognized expert on government policy on infrastructure and regulation, Tom is also a Baltimore native and Orioles fan who grew up rooting for Brooks and Frank Robinson. He is a graduate of Columbia College and Columbia’s graduate school of journalism, where he once used “unrelentless” in a headline.

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