Clinton urges big transportation outlays
COLONIE — U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton on Friday called for a massive investment in America’s public transportation system, on the scale of the effort that launched the interstate highway system in the 1950s.
In a speech to the New York Public Transit Association, Clinton urged “bigger and bolder” transportation programs, including high-speed rail, and said modernizing the nation’s transportation infrastructure and expanding transit will be a key issue for the next Congress and President-elect Barack Obama’s incoming administration.
Projects to renew and expand the nation’s transportation systems — especially public transportation — should work hand-in-hand with economic stimulus measures to create jobs, reduce dependence on foreign oil and combat global warming, she said.
“We have all traveled here to this conference along roads and rails and other means that are the fruits of a prior generation’s investment,” she told the group of transit administrators and employees from across New York. “We are living off of those investments. It’s time for us to step up and make the investments today that will enable us to be richer and stronger and safer.”
It bothers me that she seems to be hedging her bets a bit. Even in front of the New York Public Transit Association she talks about “transportation” in general. A lot of old bridges need repair and upgrading – especially those with “design flaws” and the way federal funding works has delayed essential maintenance on many parts of the system because new build gets funds, repairs and upkeep don’t. But I have a nasty suspicion that she thinks the US needs a lot of new roads too.
Perhaps the transportation specialist press will pick up more on this, but this is all Google News Alert had just now
Hey Stephen, I was thinking the same thing until the last paragraph of the story:
“Just as we built a 19th century transportation system with canals and railroads and we built a 20th century transportation system with highways, we now can build a 21st century transportation system with mass transit,” she said.
The Overhead Wire
November 15, 2008 at 4:09 pm
Well she has been offered State, so I don’t see her taking Transportation!
Stephen Rees
November 15, 2008 at 4:51 pm
Well i certainly wouldn’t want her taking transportation. In the last few years, we’ve had too many people running DOT that don’t know the first think about transportation except that they drive their own cars.
The Overhead Wire
November 16, 2008 at 2:09 pm
That’s a very happy typo!
Stephen Rees
November 16, 2008 at 2:11 pm