Congress has finalized the economic stimulus package and details are starting to come out:
- The most important news is the massive amount of money proposed for high-speed rail – $8 billion – and Amtrak funding – $1.3 billion. This represents the largest single expenditure on rail in United States history and promises a new day for train travel. Most of the money is likely to go through US DOT to existing programs including Midwest High-Speed Rail. However, it currently looks like states will get no supplementary money for rail programs.
- Transit will receive funding too – $8.4 billion, although less than the House had proposed. It will be transit formula grants, which will go to maintenance and capital costs for existing systems, but no specific funds for transit operations, the New Start program or fixed guideway modernization. It will be quite an excellent boost for public transportation.
- The Federal Highway Administration will be distributing $29 billion for "highway investments." We still don’t know if there will be any requirements that repairs be prioritized over new road-building.
- They allocated $825 million to Transportation Enhancements (TE), the nation’s largest existing funding source for trails, walking and bicycling, which will provide communities with the resources to build hundreds of miles of new trails and trail connections all across the country.
- There will also be $1.5 billion in discretionary grants that will be distributed by the Department of Transportation to qualified “shovel-ready” transportation projects. Most of this money would probably go to highway and bridge projects, but some of the funds could go to transit and rail as well.
The bill, which is virtually assured passage, will likely be up for a vote in the House Friday and in the Senate on Monday, allowing President Obama to sign the bill that night.
The plan was leaked on Talking Points Memo. Remember that, once in effect, the law will be tracked by the government for public consumption at Recovery.gov.