Congressman Jerrold Nadler (NY-08), the senior Northeastern Democrat on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, hosted a Transportation Priorities Meeting today in Manhattan, attended by New York’s major transportation leaders and stakeholders. This meeting, the eighth in a series that Rep. Nadler has organized around New York State, was an effort to better understand New York’s most crucial regional transportation and infrastructure needs in anticipation of this year’s reauthorization of Congress’s major transportation bill.

“The scale and importance of the coming surface transportation bill cannot be overstated,” remarked Rep. Nadler. “In normal years, this bill represents a massive federal investment in our national highways and transit infrastructure. In 2009, this investment is even more significant. We now have the opportunity to focus our resources on transit, intermodalism, greener forms of infrastructure, sustainability and better connections between regions. And, so essential during this recession, this bill will be a tremendous shot in the arm to our local and state economy, creating thousands of jobs and spawning wide-ranging economic development initiatives.”

This surface transportation bill, which is authorized every six years, will provide hundreds of billions of dollars in transportation funding nationally. For New York, this will mean billions of dollars for its most significant transportation and infrastructure needs. The is a huge expenditure for key local projects that will produce jobs and economic development, link the state by high speed rail, connect the state’s rail freight network, increase sustainability, make New York more attractive to business investment, and prime the pump of our regional economy.

Today’s meeting, which provided substance on major projects and perspective on the coming reauthorization process, was attended by: Stanley Gee, Acting Commissioner of the New York State Department of Transportation; Christopher Ward, Executive Director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey; Frank McArdle, New York State Transportation Reauthorization Consultant; Janette Sadik-Khan, Commissioner of the New York City Department of Transportation; Elliot Sander, Executive Director of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority; Kate Slevin, Executive Director of the Tri-State Transportation Campaign; Marcia Bystryn, President of the New York League of Conservation Voters; Joel Ettinger, Executive Director of NYMTC; Richard Kassel, Senior Attorney of Natural Resources Defense Council; Kathryn Wylde, Executive Director of the New York City Partnership; Robert Yaro, President of the Regional Plan Association; Robert Paaswell, Professor at the University Transportation Research Center; Denise Richardson, Managing Director of the General Contractors Association of New York; Paul Steely White, Executive Director of Transportation Alternatives; Gene Russianoff, Senior Attorney of the NYPIRG Straphangers Campaign; and other transportation experts.