Foxx Announces Bus Tour to Highlight Infrastructure Deficit

U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx announced that he will launch a four-day bus tour Feb. 17.  Beginning in Tallahassee, Florida and visiting five states and the District of Columbia, Foxx will hit the road to highlight the importance of investing in America’s infrastructure, and to encourage Congress to act on a long-term transportation bill.  

With the Highway Trust Fund once again nearing insolvency and federal funding for transportation projects set to expire at the end of May unless Congress acts – just at the start of the construction season – funding forprojects across the country will be put at riskwhile other major initiatives will be delayed because of a lack of federal funding certainty.  

The GROW AMERICA Express will visit communities that have created jobs and new opportunities by investing in transportation, as well as communities with transportation projects that are waiting on much needed funding.  As he travels through five states – Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina and Virginia – and ending at Union Station in Washington, D.C., Foxx will make the case for the Administration’s plan, the GROW AMERICA Act, a six-year transportation proposal that would put more Americans to work repairing and modernizing our roads, bridges, railways, ports, and transit systems. 

“Congress continues to pass short-term measures with flat funding that falls short of meeting our country’s needs,” said Foxx. “I am once again taking my message directly to the American people because they know that Band-Aid funding measures don’t build bridges; they don’t create jobs; and they don’t help us compete in the 21st Century. We need to put our country back to work with a long-term funding plan.”

On Feb. 2, the Obama Administration announced a plan to address the infrastructure deficit with a $478 billion, six-year surface transportation reauthorization proposal.  The plan makes critical investments in infrastructure needed to promote long-term economic growth, enhance safety and efficiency, and support jobs for the 21st century.  

That budget announcement came on the heels of a landmark study released by DOT called “Beyond Traffic.” It looks at the trends and choices facing American transportation over the next three decades, including a rapidly growing population, demographic shifts in rural and urban areas, increasing freight volume, and a transportation system increasingly struck by larger, more powerful weather events. One crucial takeaway is that we need investment today to keep America mobile and strong a generation from now. This is investment GROW AMERICA would provide.

Foxx’s bus tour will include visits to universities, manufacturers, bridges, freight facilities, and highway projects in an effort to raise awareness of America’s infrastructure deficit. Foxx will visit with students, business leaders, transportation stakeholders, and community residents, to discuss the projects that work, projects that are needed, and to ask them to commit to standing up for a future with an American transportation system that is second-to-none.