Faster Better Safer: Americans for Transportation Mobility

The legislation authorizing all the federal highway and public transportation programs, SAFETEA-LU, expired last September and Congress has yet to take up new legislation to renew and reauthorize them.  Instead, the current programs have been operating on a series of short-term extensions, the most recent of which expires at the end of the calendar year, on December 31.   In order to provide states and contractors with the long-term certainty that they need to invest in modernizing, maintaining, and expanding America's ailing highway and transit systems, and to prevent further, unprecedented job loss in the construction sector, Congress must act now, or place our economic competitiveness at risk.

Take Action Today!

Your Members of Congress need to hear from you about the importance of passing a multi-year reauthorization of SAFETEA-LU with increased and improved investment.  Please take the time to call, e-mail or talk directly with them about the importance of improving these critical programs to the nation's competitiveness and economic recovery.  In order to prevent projects from coming to a screeching halt and losing thousands more jobs, Congress must act now.

Please ask your representative and senators to:

• Make a multi-year reauthorization bill a top Congressional priority.

Why do we Need Long-Term Continuity?

• If Congress continues with the present practice of short term extensions, states will be unable to plan for the 2010 construction season, which will force them to cut back on letting projects and cause additional, unnecessary job losses.
• Construction unemployment is at 24.7%. Private construction is in the tank, home building fell by $60 billion last year and private commercial construction fell by $88 billion. The only bright spot has been public works construction (like the highway/transit programs) that increased by about $9 billion in 2009.