Skip to main content

Secretary Foxx calls for Congress to pass transportation bill

US Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx joined state and local officials for a tour of the Tampa Interstate Study (TIS), a US$1.8 billion series of significant highway improvements in the region. Planning for the TIS, which relies on US$941 million in federal funding, began in 1989. The current phase of construction is expected to be completed in September of 2016. "These badly needed improvements to the major routes through Tampa and Ybor City will greatly improve the area's ability to keep pace with t
May 23, 2014 Read time: 2 mins
US Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx joined state and local officials for a tour of the Tampa Interstate Study (TIS), a US$1.8 billion series of significant highway improvements in the region. Planning for the TIS, which relies on US$941 million in federal funding, began in 1989. The current phase of construction is expected to be completed in September of 2016.

"These badly needed improvements to the major routes through Tampa and Ybor City will greatly improve the area's ability to keep pace with the constant demands of a growing region," said Secretary Foxx. "The American people want better roads and bridges to get them safely where they need to go and projects like the Tampa Interstate Study are why we need Congress to pass a long-term transportation bill."

When the TIS is completed, newly added lanes, ramps and other improvements will improve the Tampa area's largest interstate corridors and reduce traffic congestion significantly and improve emergency evacuations in a major regional freight corridor.

"Investments like this one mean safer driving, less traffic congestion and more business opportunities for Tampa-area residents," said Deputy Federal Highway Administrator Gregory Nadeau. "An investment in America's infrastructure is an investment in America's future."

Related Content

  • The great pay divide
    April 2, 2014
    Public acceptance is crucial for the acceptance of managed and express lanes as Jon Masters discovers. Lists of proposed highway expansion projects introducing variably priced toll lanes continue to lengthen. Managed lanes, or express lanes to some, are gaining support as a politically favourable way of adding capacity and reducing acute congestion on principal highways. In Florida, for example, the managed lanes on the 95 Express are claimed to have significantly increased average peak-time speeds on tolle
  • High hopes for Detroit streetcar system
    June 12, 2013
    Detroit, the historic home of the US automotive industry, is to get a new streetcar rail system to help drive the economic revival of Motor City. M-1 Rail, the organisation overseeing the US$140 million project, has been pursuing an aggressive timetable toward a late 2015 service launch. “We are now jumping out of the gate,” says Heather Carmona, M-1 Rail’s chief administrative officer. Final design could be completed by mid-August and, depending on when the necessary permits are secured, construction coul
  • Tolling is a ‘powerful tool to maintain and manage an infrastructure network’
    August 15, 2017
    Officials have recently moved to scrap tolls on several highways for the first time in 40 years, bucking a national trend toward more tolls on mostly urban roadways to shift the costs of transportation to those who use the roads, writes Associated Press. A regional authority voted this week to eliminate tolls on the Cesar Chavez Border Highway in El Paso. On the same day, Dallas city council rejected plans to build a toll road along the Trinity River. The council's action appears to be the death knell for a
  • IBTTA’s Jones sees turbulent times and a bright future for tolling
    November 10, 2017
    Colin Sowman talks to IBTTA’s Pat Jones about the future of tolling in a fast-changing world. Pat Jones may have been executive director and CEO of the International Bridge, Tunnel and Turnpike Association (IBTTA) for 15 years but in his words: “Never before have I seen so much change coming so fast in the transportation and tolling industry.” Amidst all this change, tolling companies are asked to provide funding for roadway building or improvements which will be repaid for over, say, a 30-year concess