GOOD NEWS!

For over 4 years, Americans for the Arts (AFTA), along with a grassroots group of arts in transit professionals, have been working to restore the use of federal funds for the integration of art into local transit projects. Last week AFTA received exciting news that the new surface transportation authorization bill H.R. 2 (the INVEST in America Act/Moving Forward Act) just passed the House and it includes the language to allow for federal funds to be used for local art in transit projects!

For some context: In December 2015, Congress passed the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation (FAST) Act, P.L. 114-94 to reauthorize highway and transit programs that also established a prohibition for use of Federal Transit Administration funds for art in transit, disrupting a long standing and highly lauded national tradition. As amended by the FAST Act, federal funds are no longer able to be used for the “incremental costs of incorporating art or non-functional landscaping into facilities, including the costs of an artist on the design team.” Previously, federal law allowed local transit authorities to include project costs associated with art (typically 1-2% of the project’s capital budget) and landscaping.

Since January 2016, a small group of arts in transit administrators and AFTA staff have been fighting to address this these provisions that have threatened jobs and provided roadblocks for art to be integrated in local projects. This work made it this far with the help of House of Representatives Alma S. Adams (NC-D) who drafted the STAR Act to remove those roadblocks. The language from the STAR Act is now included in the H.R. 2 (the INVEST in America Act/Moving Forward Act) which just passed the House!

What does this mean? It means that since the passage of the FAST Act, there is now light at the end of the tunnel! Now, it must go to the Senate. AFTA has been in contact with House representatives to work on Senate outreach - to make sure it is maintained in the final Senate version too before it’s passed and goes to the White House.

CODAworx partners with AFTA on a number of projects; we will be sure to keep our members posted on the progress of this piece of legislation, which is so important to our constituency.

Toni Sikes

CODAworx CEO