In a report released last week by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia, a bipartisan group of renowned transportation professionals issued recommendations and a call to action for Congress and the Administration to embrace a new vision for transportation in America. President Obama referred to the report in a Monday press conference, where he discussed a $50 billion transportation infrastructure plan and a future national infrastructure bank. 

The report, "Well Within Reach: America’s New Transportation Agenda" is the product of a three-day conference where 80 experts representing a wide array of transportation interests met to strategize on how to address the challenges of our national transportation system, including chronic revenue shortfalls and underinvestment in infrastructure, and to create an…

  Last year, the Obama administration launched a first-of-its-kind effort to break down the walls between agencies that had, in the past, inhibited cooperative efforts to accomplish shared goals.The Partnership for Sustainable Communities, which brought together  Housing and Urban Development, the Department of Transportation and the Environmental Protection Agency, began in June 2009 with the goal of targeting resources to help communities strengthen their economies by developing more sustainably, removing regulatory and policy barriers to make it easier for state and local governments to access federal resources, and aligning the agencies' policies and priorities.

The other day, the Partnership for Sustainable Communities released "Partnership for Sustainable Communities: A Year of Progress for American Communities," which looks at the progress the partnership has made in its first year.