Providing for Consideration of H.R. 5576...
PROVIDING FOR CONSIDERATION OF H.R. 5576, TRANSPORTATION, TREASURY, HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT, THE JUDICIARY, THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA AND INDEPENDENT AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2007
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Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, I will be brief. I appreciate the gentleman's courtesy; and I agree, this is a difficult challenge that the committee has faced. I look forward to full and vigorous debate.
I would just call attention to one element here on page 77, where the committee expresses its reservations about using land use and economic development as measures for new starts in terms of transit projects; and I would respectfully suggest that we need to have a serious conversation with the committee and staff, because they are sort of missing the boat in terms of what we did laboriously in the transportation and infrastructure committee for the last 2 years. There are 84 communities around the country that are interested in streetcars under the Small Starts Program to be able to move forward in something that isn't as expensive as light rail or heavy rail.
The whole reason communities are interested is because it has very powerful economic development impact, and it can prevent congestion in the first place because it encourages development along that streetcar line. The streetcar line can be built quickly, cheaply; and it prevents people from having to move out to vast stretches of the countryside and then come in.
I would hope that we would be able to work with the subcommittee to be able to give them examples of what is happening around the country and why people in Chicago and Charlotte are interested in what has already happened in my community in Portland, Oregon.
The subcommittee's suggestion that somehow this money come from HUD community block grant funding is a little off base because my understanding is those monies aren't supposed to be for transportation. The streetcar program, the Small Starts Program, is very definitely transportation, very definitely transit; and it enables us to avoid some of that congestion in the first place.
I look forward to a conversation with the committee at a later date.
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