|
PALLONE SECURES $4.5 MILLION FOR TRANSPORTATION PROGRAMS AT RUTGERS |
|
| |
|
Washington, D.C. --- U.S. Rep. Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-NJ) secured $4.5 million for two transportation programs at Rutgers University charged with both studying and training transportation officials on the most efficient ways of travel now and in the future. The U.S. Senate approved the funds yesterday as part of a giant Fiscal Year (FY) 2004 omnibus bill.
Pallone secured $4 million for the National Transit Institute (NTI), which is located at Rutgers University. The NTI was established to meet the dynamic training and development needs of the transit industry's workforce. The New Jersey Congressman said these federal funds would help the NTI to continue to play a major role in designing, developing and conducting training in response to the needs of the transit industry.
The legislation also includes $500,000 for the university ’s Bloustein School so it can begin the integration of three different transportation systems into one statewide, state-of-the-art, transportation planning and information system that could be used by the state, its Metropolitan Planning Organizations and its counties.
" When finished, the comprehensive plan created at the Bloustein School will be an invaluable tool in promoting smart growth, and preventing unnecessary sprawl, congestion and pollution not only here in New Jersey but nationwide," Pallone said.
The three programs, the Transportation Analysis Simulation System (TRANSIMS), the Transportation, Economic and Land Use System (TELUS), and the Transportation, Economic and Land Use Modeling (TELUM), will be integrated over the next six years. TRANSIMS and TELUM were programs created outside New Jersey. TELUS was created jointly by Rutgers University and the New Jersey Institute of Technology and is a new means of graphically showing the location, interrelationships and impacts of proposed transportation projects, including their economic impacts.
Pallone requested funding for both of these projects last year when the appropriations process began. The funds were included in the $328.1 billion spending bill that combined seven appropriations bills into one omnibus bill funding domestic programs and foreign operations for FY 2004, which officially began on October 1, 2003. The Senate ’s action yesterday came one month after the U.S. House of Representatives approved the same spending bill. The bill now awaits the president’s signature. |
|
| |
|
### |
|
