Governor Jerry Brown of California has signed legislation that would allow the City of San Francisco to tax transportation network companies. The issue must first be approved by 2/3rds of the voters in San Francisco and will not appear on the ballot this year. Under the legislation, if passed by the voters, the City can…
Recognizing the important connection between access to healthcare and mobility, the FTA announced it is making available $6.3 million for a competitive grant program to fund projects that coordinate with transit services to improve access to healthcare. The announcement in the Federal Register can be found here – https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2018/09/13/2018-19897/fiscal-year-2018-competitive-funding-opportunity-access-and-mobility-partnership-grants. According to the FTA, “the Access…
TRB makes Funding Available Through Their Innovations Deserving Exploratory Analysis (IDEA) Program The Transportation Research Board has announced its annual solicitation through its Innovations Deserving Exploratory Analysis (IDEA) program. IDEA projects are open to all entities including public agencies and the private sector. A research component is critical. The IDEA program provides start-up funding for promising, but…
The Federal Highway Administration has announced a funding opportunity and requests grant applications for FHWA’s Competitive Highway Bridge Program. Congress appropriated $225 million for FY 2018 to be awarded by DOT for a competitive highway bridge program. Eligible applicants are States that have a population density of less than 100 individuals per square mile. The funds…
Today the Highway & Transit Subcommittee of the House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee held a hearing on ‘Innovation in Surface Transportation’. The Coalition for Smarter Transportation (CoaST) attended as well as provided the following statement ahead of the hearing: The Coalition for Smarter Transportation (CoaST) is grateful the Highways & Transit Subcommittee of the House…
The Department of Energy announced $80 million for advanced vehicle technologies research. Categories funded include: Batteries & Electrification Materials Technology Integration Engines & Fuels Off-Road and Fluid Power Systems. Funded projects include the use of big-data for transit systems, research on micro transit, amongst others. Funding Announcement Projects Selected Information about program
This week, the Internal Revenue Service released a notice requesting comments on draft guidance on tax-exempt organizations that have more than one unrelated business. The core of the guidance goes into how Unrelated Business Taxable Income (UBTI) would be applied to those organizations with multiple unrelated business lines and basically says that the losses of…
Today the Federal Transit Administration announced $84.45 million in grant selections through the Low- or No-Emission (Low-No) Grant program. This program, authorized by the FAST Act, funds the deployment of transit buses and infrastructure that use advanced propulsion technologies. Eligible projects include the purchase or lease of buses that are powered by modern systems such as hybrid…
The Federal Highway Administration released stats on the number of miles Americans drove in the first half of 2018 and the numbers are concerning. Based upon these stats, Americans drove 1.58 trillion miles in the first half of 2018, that’s 5.2 billion miles more than the same time period last year. The increase in the…
On August 20th, 2018, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) held a workshop on reducing GHG in the transportation sector through the petroleum industry. CoaST took the opportunity to offer suggestions on what CARB and other California municipalities can due to reduce GHG emissions from the transportation sector. It should be noted that California has been…