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Senator highlighted the public transportation infrastructure investments her law makes in both urban and rural communities throughout Arizona
WASHINGTON – Arizona senior Senator Kyrsten Sinema highlighted the historic investments of her bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs law during a Senate Banking Committee hearing focused on the implementation of Sinema’s law.
“The bipartisan infrastructure law represents a historic investment in our national transportation infrastructure needs that will update and modernize our highways, bridges, airports, railroads, and public transit systems… I look forward to working to advance implementation of the bipartisan infrastructure law to help Arizona families and small businesses get ahead,” said Sinema, lead negotiator and co-author of the bipartisan Infrastructure Investments and Jobs law.
The Senate Banking Committee hearing focused on the bipartisan infrastructure law’s implementation to advance public transportation. During her remarks, Sinema highlighted the historic investments her law makes in urban and rural communities throughout Arizona.
Sinema encouraged the Administrator of the Federal Transit Administration to continue to modernize and strengthen Arizona’s transit, such as Valley Metro’s bus fleet transition to electric power. The Senator also highlighted how the Tempe Streetcar can serve as a model for other cities looking to make communities more accessible for residents desiring to work, live, and pursue leisure activities in one location.
Additionally, the Senator highlighted Flagstaff’s and Yuma’s transit systems, who have under 200,000 residents but have high-performing transits systems. For example, the Mountain Line in Flagstaff provided over 1.1 million rides last year across its ten bus routes, and Yuma’s bus system took nearly 254,000 trips in the fourth quarter of 2021 alone.
The bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs law makes the largest investment in clean energy transmission and electric vehicle infrastructure in U.S. history, electrifying thousands of school and transit buses across the country, bolstering critical materials supply chains, improving energy efficiency, and building out a national network of electric vehicle charging infrastructure.
In May, Sinema held a roundtable in Phoenix with Arizona clean energy industry leaders and the Arizona Technology Council to discuss the historic investments her bipartisan infrastructure law makes in clean energy and technology.