Chairman Oberstar and the leadership of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee want to spend $500 billion on surface transportation over the next six years. This is a huge increase over the $338 billion authorized over the last six years.
Page 4 of the plan’s executive summary “provides $337.4 billion for highways.” But, in fact, only $100 billion of this is dedicated to highways; most of the rest is in “flexible funds” such as CMAQ and the Surface Transportation Fund that can be spent on either highways or transit. Nearly $100 billion goes for transit, and $50 billion goes for high-speed rail. The remaining $12.4 billion goes for safety programs.
