At the Federal Transit Administration (FTA), the safety of those who ride and work on our nation’s transit systems is our highest priority.
That’s why we recently announced a Notice of Funding Opportunity for a new Safety Research & Demonstration (SRD) program, which puts $7 million of competitive grant funding toward innovative public transportation safety projects nationwide.
The Interstate system ceremonially begins at Zero Milestone, a small and often overlooked obelisk next to the National Christmas Tree on the Ellipse south of the White House. It is the point from which a historic Army convoy led by Lt. Col. Dwight Eisenhower began in 1919, making clear our nation’s need for a system of highways and byways.
Now, we are at a new milestone. We are embarking on a similarly ambitious quest, and we need you to come with us. We call it the “Road To Zero.”
At USDOT, we believe that transportation plays a critical role in connecting Americans to economic opportunity. We know that to do that job well, we need to identify where barriers to opportunity exist – and that requires data.
Today, we were excited to participate in The Opportunity Project, a White House initiative to spur the creation of digital tools that use Federal open data to help individuals and families navigate information on access to resources like housing, schools, jobs, and transportation.
Recently, I sat down with jazz legend Wynton Marsalis to talk about transportation’s effect on our daily lives.
Transportation is more than roads, planes, and trains. It’s about where you’re going and where you’ve been. It connects us to the places we want to go, loved ones we want to see, opportunities we want to reach, and so much more.
This morning, tens of thousands of children, families, and school and community leaders laced up their sneakers and walked to school in celebration of the 20th Walk to School Day.
It’s a fun way to promote active and safe transportation to schools and destinations throughout communities. And it’s more than that: these improvements benefit people of all ages and abilities.
From this day forward, we start counting down to zero.
Last year, our nation lost over 35,000 lives in fatal traffic crashes, which is a significant increase over the year before.
With your help, the U.S. Department of Transportation, National Safety Council, and a coalition of safety advocates will lead America toward the Road to Zero traffic deaths.
Here at the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), we are committed to protecting both the public and the environment from hazardous materials transportation accidents.
This week, we announced that PHMSA is awarding $20.4 million in grants to states, territories, and Native American tribes to enhance their collective abilities to respond to hazardous materials transportation incidents.
Over the last three years, you’ve probably heard about the dozens and dozens of actions the Federal Railroad Administration and our partner agency, the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, have taken to make transporting crude oil by rail safer.
Today, we took another action – FRA issued a directive to owners of certain tank cars with possible flaws.
Today, I spoke to some of the transportation community’s key stakeholders, including academics and mayors from across the country, at the National Summit on Transportation and Opportunity.
At the summit, I imagined a future built upon our shared goal of connecting communities and people to Ladders of Opportunity.
Too many people are dying on our roads every year. To save more lives, and to move us toward the goal of zero road fatalities, we need to get the best information possible about how and where serious injuries occur – and then we need to direct resources to improve safety in those locations.
Through the Federal Highway Administration and National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the U.S. Department of Transportation has developed two tools to help states do just that: a national definition for serious injuries and the development of State Serious Injury Conversion Tables.
