Rep. Bill Shuster, Colleagues Discuss Transportation in Pennsylvania This Week
Rep. Bill Shuster, the top transportation authorizer in the U.S. House, has assembled a group of fellow lawmakers and transportation officials for a two-day tour of his home state of Pennsylvania to meet with stakeholders to discuss ways of improving aging infrastructure.
Shuster, chairman of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, will kick off the road trip April 7 with a morning press conference at Greenfield Bridge in Pittsburgh. The group will then travel to the Tide Bridge in Homer City followed by a stop in Altoona, before wrapping up the day with a press conference at Interstate 81 in Cumberland County.
The next day, Shuster will host a roundtable in Harrisburg with key business and transportation officials to press for a long-term highway bill in Congress this year. That event will be followed by a listening session in Reading.
Joining Shuster will be Reps. Blake Farenthold (R-Texas), Lou Barletta (R-Pa.) and Ryan Costello (R-Pa.). Also, Pennsylvania Department of Transportation Secretary Leslie Richards and the DOT secretaries of other states are scheduled to participate.
An itinerary and a list of participants is posted on Shuster’s committee website.
GOP leaders in Congress have yet to propose a transportation plan that reforms policy and authorizes funding for the federal Highway Trust Fund. The trust fund is used to help states finance major road projects and is projected to run out of money around the time that a 2012 transportation law expires at the end of May.
