Welcome to TrainRiders/Northeast
Maine Senate & House US Delegations Push Downeaster Legislation
- Details
- Created on Monday, 02 April 2012 23:33
- Written by Webmaster
Congresswoman Chellie Pingree and Senator Olympia Snow are introducing legislation to preserve some $6 million in federal funding for the Downeaster.
This comes on the heels of House legislation that would eliminate CMAQ funding for state-operated railroads. The Downeaster has benefited from that policy for the last 10 years.
Latest report from the Kennebec Journal.
Comments
The KJ piece is a well-written article that succinctly and accurately sorts out the myriad of issues and numbers surrounding both the Downeaster operation and the very different versions of new Transportation Authorization bills that are currently making their way through the House and Senate. The House bill (H.R. 7), if passed as currently structured, would be a financial disaster for all forms of transportation in Maine (as well as most other states): highways and bridges, and all modes of public transit, including intercity passenger rail service. It deserves to be defeated, and a final transportation bill closer to the Senate version should be adopted as the final House/Senate compromise bill.
RSS feed for comments to this post