WASHINGTON (AP) — Congress sent President Barack Obama a three-month bill to keep highway and transit money flowing to states on Thursday, one day before the deadline for a cutoff of funds.
Earlier in the day, the Senate passed a sweeping, long-term transportation bill, setting up discussions with the House this fall on what the future course of transportation policy should be and how to pay for programs.
The Senate approved the short-term bill by vote of 91 to 4. The House passed the same bill a day earlier, and then left for its August recess.
Lawmakers said they hope the 3-month patch — the 34th short-term transportation extension since 2009 — will be Congress' last. It extends the government's authority to process aid payments to states through Oct. 29. Without congressional action, that authority would have expired at midnight Friday.
The bill also provides $8 billion to shore up the federal Highway Trust Fund through mid-December. The fund's balance was forecast to drop below a $4 billion cushion necessary to prevent disruptions in payments to states in early August.
The extension bill also fills a $3.4 billion hole in the Department of Veterans Affairs' budget. The money gap threatened to force the closure of hospitals and clinics nationwide
The $350 billion long-term bill, approved by vote of 65 to 34, would make changes to highway, transit, railroad and auto safety programs. However, its sponsors were only able to find enough money to pay for the first three years of the six-year bill. That's not as long as many lawmakers and the White House wanted, nor as much money, but it was enough to win the support of many state and local officials, transportation related industries, and labor unions who have been imploring Congress for years to pass to bill that will provide states the certainty that they can count on federal aid as they plan major construction projects. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
WATERBURY — Commuters, local motorists, neighbors and businesses are invited to offer their suggestions on Saturday for minimizing traffic disruption from the four-year-long widening of a stretch of I-84.
Construction is fully underway at the site just east of the I-84 and Route 8 interchange known as the Mixmaster, and traffic backups have become frequent.The state transportation department and its contractors are trying to schedule the work as efficiently as possible to reduce delays, but acknowledge that there's no way to do massive reconstruction of nearly 2.7 miles of a major interstate without creating backups.
But if there are a few schedule changes or other adjustments that could help, the Department of Transportation wants to hear about them. It's convening what it calls a "public listening session" on Saturday from 8 to 11 a.m. at the Brooklyn Baking Co., 464 Reidville Drive.
"The overall I-84 Waterbury widening project design is complete and the project is under construction. However, we do want to receive feedback and listen to ideas about helping with the daily commuting experience," said Chris Zukowski, project engineer with the DOT.
As part of widening I-84 to three lanes and a shoulder between Washington Street and Pierpont Road, the DOT and its contractors are realigning the roadway near Harpers Ferry Road to eliminate an S-curve. Workers are reconfiguring ramps, relocating parts of the Mad River and Beaver Pond Brook, building or replacing eight bridges and reconstructing stretches of seven Waterbury streets. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
Nicole Jefferson rebuts allegations by New Haven officials
NEW HAVEN >> An executive session of the board of directors of the Commission on Equal Opportunities Thursday broke up after CEO staffers and a union representative walked in and pointed out that the board had not followed the rules on a quorum.
With the meeting over, emotions were running high, with some staffers yelling at the board chairman, Juan Scott; Lil Synder, interim executive director at CEO; and Matthew Nemerson, the city’s economic development administrator.
When the yelling continued, the police were called, but by the time they arrived it had subsided, with the CEO staff members and Edward Jefferson, husband of CEO Executive Director Nichole Jefferson, leaving the building.
Nichole Jefferson and Cherlynn Poindexter, union president of Local 3144, told the board members that in a pre-termination hearing on Wednesday, personnel from the city labor relations office dropped three of the five charges against her.
Labor Relations Director Marcus Paca had no comment when asked about this after the CEO meeting. Nemerson said, “we are reviewing material Nichole gave us. Michael Bayonne stands by his entire report.” Bayonne was one of two attorneys hired to investigate Jefferson and the one who wrote up the charges against her.
Jefferson, who has been on administrative leave since March 18 as the city looked into allegations, presented her defense Wednesday and is waiting for a ruling by the city on her employment status, which usually takes 10 days.
There were tensions between Mayor Toni Harp’s administration and Jefferson thoughout 2014 as it looked into the relationship between the nonprofit Construction Workshop Initiative 2 and the CEO. Staff worked for both, an arrangement established under the previous mayoral administration. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
Blumethal, Murphy back short term highway bill
Washington – Sens. Richard Blumenthal and Chris Murphy on Thursday both voted for short-term and against long-term legislation that would keep hundreds of millions of dollars in federal highway money flowing to Connecticut.
The law that authorizes the federal government to send transportation money to the states expires on Friday, but Congress has been tied up in knots about how to reauthorize it.
So on Thursday, the Senate approved, 91-4, a three-month bill that keeps the funds flowing from Washington to the states while Congress continues to argue over a longer-term solution.
Blumenthal and Murphy voted for the short-term “patch.” So did Connecticut’s House members when the bill when it was voted on in that chamber Wednesday.
But Blumenthal and Murphy rejected a bipartisan, six-year highway bill that was also considered in the Senate Thursday. The bill, approved on a 65-34 vote, is expected to lay the groundwork for discussion with the House on a long-term solution to Congress' transportation woes.To Blumenthal , the bill approved by the Senate Thursday is “indeed a mere shadow of what it should be in protecting the safety of car drivers and passengers, rail riders, truckers, workers, and many others who depend on our nation’s transportation system.”
The so-called "Drive Act" -- Developing a Reliable and Innovative Vision for the Economy -- would allow twin 33-foot trucks that are 17 feet longer than those now allowed on Connecticut highways. It would also allow some states to reduce the eligible age for an interstate commercial truck driving license from 21 to 18. The trucking industry says more drivers are needed to relieve a shortage. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
Tri-state transportation campaign
According to Census journey-to-work data, 27 percent of New York State commuters, and 11 percent of New Jersey commuters, use public transportation to get to work each day. That makes New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and New Jersey Governor Chris Christie the chief executives of the nation’s two most transit-dependent states.
But you’d hardly know it based on the way they’ve governed.
Until recently, Governor Cuomo has been unwilling to help close the gap in the MTA’s 2015-2019 capital program. It wasn’t until the MTA revealed some cost-cutting measures that the governor pledged to help close the gap — on the condition that the New York City increase its annual MTA contribution from $100 million to
It’s welcome news that Governor Cuomo will fill the MTA’s funding gap, but exactly how he’ll do so is yet to be determined. For a moment it seemed like the recent debate about Uber-related congestion might advance the MoveNY plan, but the governor and MTA Chairman Tom Prendergast have expressed doubts about the plan’s political feasibility.
Earlier this week the governor announced a major investment to rebuild LaGuardia Airport, which served roughly 27 million passengers in 2014. Cuomo described LaGuardia as “‘un-New York,’ because it’s considered “slow, dated, [and] almost universally derided.”
But couldn’t he say the same about the Port Authority Bus Terminal, which handled more than twice as many passengers as LaGuardia last year? Or New York City’s subways, which handle 27 million passengers every work week? Second Avenue Sagas‘ Ben Kabak writes: CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE