Transportation

Over the years, the New England Council has taken a prominent role in helping develop an integrated transportation strategy for the New England region. In addition to advocating on behalf of Amtrak and federal funding for airports, and helping ensure that New England gets its fair share of funding under surface transportation formulas, the Council has also spent over a decade supporting the efforts to increase utilization of New England’s regional airports.

More recently, the Council has been working with civic and business leaders to re-establish a heliport in downtown Boston. The entire region would benefit from locating a public use heliport in downtown Boston, negating the need to land at Logan and use ground transportation to arrive at a downtown location.

Perhaps out of all the issues the Council participates in, transportation can best be approached on a regional level. As a regional organization, the Council has worked together with all six New England states on the regional airport initiative and recently sponsored a regional transportation summit attended by over 200 political and business leaders from throughout New England to ensure that as the federal highway and transit bill is reauthorized, it includes provisions reflecting the needs of the region.

There are two major components to the New England Council’s recent advocacy efforts in the area of transportation. First, the Council has been actively engaged with Congress to ensure that New England’s needs are taken into account as Congress crafts a new six-year surface transportation reauthorization bill. Second, the Council has been very active in its support of Amtrak’s full funding request. Amtrak provides a critical transportation option for New England, and its capitol improvement program must be funded to ensure that this important transportation option continues to serve our region.

• Transportation Equity Act (TEA-21) Reauthorization
• Amtrak Funding

Advocacy:

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• All
• 2010
• 2008
• 2007
• 2006
• 2005
• 2004
• 2003

• January 2010: Council Support for High-Speed Rail Grants

Education:

• December 2008: Links Between Job Creation and Increased Commitment to Funding Transportation Infrastructure
• May 2005: Spotlight on Regional Rail
• March 2003: TEA-21 Reauthorization Policy Paper

TEA-21 REAUTHORIZATION

In 1998, Congress passed the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century (TEA-21), following a contentious debate that pitted region against region over the formula used to distribute transportation funds. TEA-21 expired on September 30, 2003. Finally, after an almost two-year delay and several extensions of the expired legislation, Congress passed a transportation reauthorization package in July of 2005.

Once again, different states (especially so-called "donor" and "donee" states) and different regions were pitted against one another while the battle to determine the new funding formulas was waged. Complicating the formula battle was the fact that reaching agreement on an overall funding level for the bill was elusive. Finally, the Administration and House and Senate conferees agreed on an overall funding level of $286.4 billion in which every state will see a funding increase of at least 19 percent over what they received under TEA-21.

The New England Council advocated for a robust six-year surface transportation reauthorization package. While transportation infrastructure funding is important for all of the United States, a number of factors made timely reauthorization of TEA-21 critically important to the New England region. With its harsh climate, the uniquely multi-modal nature of its transportation infrastructure, and some of the oldest infrastructure in the country, New England is even more dependent than other regions of the United States on receiving adequate transportation funding. The Council urged Congress to craft a needs-based bill to ensure that the New England region's priorities were protected in the final bill ultimately passed by Congress.

Amtrak Funding

The New England Council has always been supportive of Amtrak, as it provides a valuable transportation option for so many business and leisure travelers from throughout our region. Recently the Council has been very active in its support for fully funding Amtrak’s budget request. Much of this request would go towards badly-needed capitol repairs along the critically important Northeast Corridor.

Amtrak provides an essential transportation option up and down the Northeast Corridor (and on connector routes to the Corridor in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont) for millions of New Englanders. Over the last few years, Amtrak has been faced with funding levels at various stages of the appropriations process that would be so low as to force the shutdown of the entire Amtrak system. Fortunately, so far, Amtrak has ultimately received the necessary funding to ensure its survival.

This year, Amtrak is again threatened with a so-called “shutdown” appropriation. The Council has joined together with more than 50 other business organizations from up and down the East Coast to form the Business Coalition for East Coast Rail. The Coalition has been working to raise awareness of the importance the business community places on Amtrak, and of the importance of fully funding Amtrak’s budget request to its short- and long-term survival.