Blog: A Good Week to GROW On

Statement

By Anthony Foxx

I'm pretty excited about the productive week we've had here at DOT, and I'd like to share that sense of achievement and --more importantly-- promise with Fast Lane readers.

On Monday, we jumped out of the gate by sending a revamped GROW AMERICA Act to Congress. GROW is our legislative proposal for surface transportation that provides six years of funding certainty, increased investment in infrastructure, and smart policies that ensure taxpayers get more bang for their buck and that communities can enjoy the benefits of projects sooner. Experts all agree that America's transportation system needs more than a few potholes filled and bridges repaired. But we also need to start getting ahead of the curve like the world leader we have been since George Washington began supervising construction of a canal along the Potomac River.

And GROW will help us do that.

Monday also brought us another Beyond Traffic webinar designed to kickstart a conversation about the future of transportation. Our Beyond Traffic: Trends and Choices framework for the next 30 years lays out the challenges we're facing, but we need you to share your ideas about how we meet those challenges. In Detroit on Tuesday, I met a lot of people with a lot of good ideas about transportation solutions. I suspect there are folks like that in every community across the country, and we invite them to help shape the Nation's future.

Yesterday DOT had a doubleheader, launching a vigorous safety push for Distracted Driving Awareness Month and announcing $500 million in funding availability for our highly-anticipated 2015 TIGER grants. TIGER supports innovative projects, many of which involve multiple modes of transportation --like a downtown hub that offers rail, bus, bike, road, and sidewalk connections-- and multiple jurisdictions --like neighboring cities or states. Those kinds of projects often have difficulty getting funded, and it's important that a program like TIGER can fill those gaps.

All of this week's highlights, however, point back to Monday and the GROW AMERICA Act.

GROW does more than plug the looming hole in the Highway Trust Fund and the current transportation law, which expires at the end of next month. For the first time in more than 30 short-term transportation extensions by Congress, GROW looks beyond filling last winter's potholes and looks to building for the future.

It begins the important work of meeting the challenges we've outlined in Beyond Traffic by boosting investments in tomorrow's technology, harnessing the power of data, protecting our environment, and increasing connectivity and mobility for all Americans. It provides the funds we need to keep Americans safe no matter how they're traveling. And it takes our most agile programs, like TIGER, and gives them a needed shot in the arm. In fact, GROW AMERICA would nearly double the amount of funds available to TIGER for the next six years.

GROW is also a workhorse for the American economy. It will create direct jobs with a long-overdue increase in transportation infrastructure investment. And it will fuel continued economic growth by improving the way we move goods to and from farms, factories, and markets.

From its inception, America has been a land of opportunity, and transportation has provided the arteries to fuel that opportunity. In that spirit, we sent Congress a bill that would create new opportunities and, at the same time, improve access to those opportunities for everyone.

Am I excited about the work this Department is doing? You bet I am. And if you're still wondering why, you'll find six years' worth of good reasons at www.dot.gov/growamerica.

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