All posts from the month of June 2011
Tell your story: 15.5 million seniors will have poor or non-existent transit access in 2015. How will it affect you?
June 30, 2011By Stephen Lee Davis
By 2015, more than 15.5 million Americans 65 and older will live in communities where public transportation service is poor or non-existent. That number will continue to grow rapidly as the baby boom generation “ages in place” in suburbs and exurbs with few mobility options for those who do not drive.
How will we address the shrinking mobility options of baby boomers who wish to stay in their homes and “age in place?” What happens when people in the largest generation in American history outlive their ability to drive for everything?
We want to know how the lack of transit access or other options affects you. Whether you’re a senior or have a parent or grandparent getting older in places with poor transportation options, we want to hear real stories of how this will affect real people in the coming years. We’re partnering with AARP to gather stories about how you or someone you know is or will be affected by the lack of transportation options.
With Congress set to introduce a transportation bill that will determine how to spend our transportation money for the next 6 years, we need to make it clear to Congress how their decisions will impact real people.
Today’s Headlines – 6/30/11
June 30, 2011By Transportation for America
The U.S. Senate will cancel its July 4 recess, with possible votes next week on jobs and the deficit. (The Hill)
Senate Democrats also hinted at the release of their own budget, an alternative to the Paul Ryan blueprint. (The Hill)
With a smaller pot of spending in play, the traditional coalition behind transportation reauthorization has fractured. (Roll Call)
USDOT lent Amtrak $562.9 million to buy 70 locomotives in two key high-density corridors in the Northeast. (Journal of Commerce)
Ongoing flooding has resulted in a temporary suspension of Amtrak service between St. Paul and Havre, Montana. (Transportation Nation)
And, proposed budget cuts in Minnesota could result in 500 lost transportation jobs and 200 route eliminations in the Twin Cities. (MPR)
Today’s Headlines – 6/29/11
June 29, 2011By Transportation for America
The House Republican leadership may be hostile to voting on a transportation bill this summer. (Streetsblog Capitol Hill)
A House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Republican told her constituents the likely bill will “do more with less.” (Business Courier)
Chicago’s transit authority will cut 54 management jobs, with more budget cuts likely to come. (Chicago Tribune)
The Woodward light-rail project in Detroit will move forward as state and federal officials agreed on a route. (Detroit Free Press)
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s rejection of federal rail funds has contributed to his poor approval rating. (Bloomberg)
And, a local columnist wrote that “backward-thinking leaders” in Kansas City are preventing innovative transportation solutions. (Kansas City Star)
Today’s Headlines – 6/28/11
June 28, 2011By Transportation for America
USDOT announced $1.6 billion in funding for 27 major transit projects. (Transportation Nation)
Some state departments of transportation are looking to increased interstate tolling as a revenue source. (Land Line Magazine)
Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner told the Wall Street Journal that spending cuts should not come at the expense of long-term infrastructure needs. (WSJ)
New York City will add new pedestrian signage in four neighborhoods. (Streetsblog NYC)
An Appeals Court judge gave California officials the go-ahead to continue with a cap and trade plan. (Sacramento Bee)
And, South Dakotans are weighing in on a proposed bike trail between Rapid City and Kadoka. (Rapid City Journal)
T4 America will address Senate panel on senior transit access
June 27, 2011By Sean Barry
Transportation for America Director James Corless will testify before a key Senate panel this week about the need for better and expanded transit options for seniors.
The Wednesday hearing of the Senate Banking Subcommittee on Housing, Transportation and Community Development comes on the heels of T4 America’s recent finding that 15.5 million older Americans will live in communities with poor or non-existent public transit by 2015. Aging in Place, Stuck without Options, was covered in dozens of states and generated widespread discussion.
The chairman of Senate Banking, South Dakota Democrat Tim Johnson, has already shone a spotlight on senior transit needs, particularly in sparser communities like those in his home state. The subcommittee is chaired by New Jersey Democrat Robert Menendez, who has consistently championed transportation options and investment in mass transit.
According to an E&E report on the hearing, Corless will be joined by Lee Hammond, president of AARP, Steve Fittante, executive director of Middlesex County Area Transit in Menendez’s hometstate of New Jersey and Mary Leavy, assistant vice president of the Easter Seals Transportation Group.
The top Republican on the Subcommittee, Jim DeMint of South Carolina, invited Cato Institute fellow Randal O’Toole, who has made his views on senior transit access abundantly clear: “so what?” As Jason Plautz reported in E&E this morning:
O’Toole published a blog post questioning the report, noting data from the American Public Transportation Association that found that 6.7 percent of transit trips are taken by seniors.
“Those baby boomers who prefer transit over driving can do what everyone else does who prefers one set of services over another: locate to where the services they prefer are the greatest. In the case of transit riders, that generally means dense central cities,” O’Toole said, accusing Transportation for America of being “largely a shill for the transit industry.”
You can read T4′s response to O’Toole here.
The hearing will commence Wednesday, June 29 at 2pm in Room 548 of the Senate Dirksen Office Building. We’ll have a wrap on the hearing here.
Today’s Headlines – 6/27/11
June 27, 2011By Transportation for America
A group of transportation experts including top USDOT deputy Polly Trottenberg said the vision is there for a 21st century transportation system, but the financing has not yet caught up. (San Francisco Chronicle)
High gas prices in May caused overall consumer spending to slump. (AP)
The chairman of Ford Motor Company spoke up on the “need to develop better mass transit systems” and to “strive to find new forms of individual mobility.” (CNN)
Florida Governor Rick Scott could decide about funding for the SunRail commuter train this week. (Orlando Sentinel)
Senate Democrats are making an 11th hour push for stimulus spending in a debt agreement, an approach Republican Leader Mitch McConnell resolutely opposes. (CNN)
And, DC Metrorail users will avoid a fare increase this fiscal year. (WP)
Today’s Headlines – 6/24/11
June 24, 2011By Transportation for America
The Senate EPW is reportedly set to release a two-year, $12 billion transportation bill next month. (Journal of Commerce)
The bill’s status on the House side is murkier, but it will likely contain a six-year program and be considered in July. (Truckinginfo)
In a letter to the Senate Finance Committee, 25 senators urged continued and preferably strengthened funding for mass transit in the bill. (Streetsblog Capitol Hill)
Key House chairman John Mica toned down his Amtrak rhetoric as Democrats blasted his Northeast Corridor proposal. (Streetsblog Capitol Hill)
Speaker John Boehner reiterated the Republican stance that “tax hikes are off the table” as negotiations over the debt ceiling crumbled. (Washington Post)
And, the Michigan Department of Transportation will close or consolidate eight offices and leave 60 positions unfilled. (Detroit Free Press)
New York Complete Streets clears legislature, awaits Governor Cuomo’s signature
June 23, 2011By Sean Barry
Complete streets legislation passed both the New York State Senate and Assembly unanimously this week and awaits Governor Andrew Cuomo’s signature.
Once the legislation becomes law as expected, New York State will follow in the footsteps of hundreds of other states and municipalities that have already started prioritizing the needs of all users on their roads, whether on foot, bicycle, in a wheelchair, or using a personal vehicle or public transit.
The Tri-State Transportation Campaign, a T4 partner in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, played a pivotal role in pushing the bill, which was sponsored in its latest iteration by Republican Senator Charles J. Fuschillo, the chairman of the chamber’s transportation committee. The New York AARP was also closely involved in securing passage.
“Everyone knew that somethin
g had to be done, so the political will was there,” the state AARP’s legislative director Bill Ferris told Streetsblog New York City.
A national complete streets policy was a key recommendation of our recent Dangerous by Design 2011 report, which documented the more than 47,700 preventable pedestrian deaths in the Untied States between 2000 and 2009. These tragic deaths are too often treated as a fact of life, when we’ve built roadways more suited to speeding traffic than people. Complete streets policies, like the one passed in New York State, make streets safer for all users, no matter their mode of transport.
As Tri-State Transportation Campaign’s executive director Kate Slevin said earlier this year, “We’ve repeatedly found that what makes a road dangerous is poor design — exactly what a state complete streets law will fix.”
The unanimity in this week’s roll call votes was impressive and significant, but did not come without some legislative maneuvering. As Jim O’Grady of WNYC described it:
Some highway superintendents complained about the cost of adding bike lanes and similar features to road projects. So the bill was changed in a late negotiation to require them in the design phase, while making their implementation optional if they’d put a project over budget. A town or county cannot be sued if it chooses not to install complete street features for budgetary reasons.
This bipartisan victory in one of the nation’s largest states should catch the attention of Congress — which has its own complete streets bills in the hopper — as members draft priorities for the next transportation bill. Tell your representative to support Complete Streets and stop preventable pedestrian deaths today.
Today’s Headlines – 6/23/11
June 23, 2011By Transportation for America
The anti-spending climate in Washington has sparked debate and some new ideas on funding for transportation. (NRDC Blog)
Amtrak reiterated its opposition to privatizing the Northeast Corridor, while key Democrat Nick Rahall called the plan unconstitutional. (The Hill)
Rahall and five fellow Democrats joined transportation committee Republicans in seeking to limit EPA regulations. (Bluefield Daily Telegraph)
Bipartisan debt negotiations grew more contentious as the Congressional Budget Office warned that immediate spending cuts would likely hinder economic recovery. (WSJ)
The New York State Senate passed a repeal of the unpopular MTA payroll tax. (Alt-Transport)
And, five transit-oriented development projects will receive $1.5 million in aid from the Massachusetts Smart Growth Alliance. (Boston Globe)
Seniors and transit report generates widespread coverage and discussion
June 22, 2011By Sean Barry
Last week, we released Aging in Place, Stuck without Options, documenting the more than 15.5 million Americans 65 years and older who, by 2015, will live in places with poor or non-existent public transportation.
The report ranked metro areas according to the percentage of seniors projected to face poor transit access, and asked: How do we address the shrinking mobility options of baby boomers who wish to stay in their homes and “age in place?” What happens when people in the largest generation in American history outlive their ability to drive for everything?
The discussions we saw in the comments of blog posts and newspaper articles were very interesting. It’s an immediately relatable story, because almost everyone has a parent or grandparent currently dealing with or facing the prospect of getting older and staying mobile.
Accommodating seniors who want to age in place — most of them do — will be a challenge for our nation’s transportation system. But there is a lot that we can do. We can increase funding for bus routes, paratransit, vanpools and ridesharing. We can provide incentives for community non-profits to operate their own systems. We can encourage states to involve seniors more intimately in the planning process and ensure officials are still able to “flex” federal dollars for transit projects. We can also prioritize “complete streets” that meet the needs of all users, including older Americans on foot, in wheelchairs or on their way to a transit stop.
All of these ideas can — and should — be folded into the next transportation bill currently being drafted in Congress.
The report generated widespread coverage and discussion. In response to the report’s findings, the San Francisco Bay Area gave itself a pat on the back for its top rank, with the San Francisco Chronicle referring to the region as “a good place to retire the car keys,” while the Kansas City Star reacted to its region’s poor ranking. The Wall Street Journal’s Smart Money offered a nice summation of the report’s overall findings.
Some argued that our recommendation to meet seniors where they are is backwards. Rather than extending transit out, they said, we ought to encourage older adults to move to places that already have robust transportation systems. Tanya Snyder surveyed both sides of the debate, which also played out in the comments section and on Twitter, at Streetsblog Capitol Hill:
Those recommendations might help geographically isolated seniors reach services, but is it really the responsibility of the taxpayer to subsidize the decisions people have made to live in places that explicitly reject transit accessibility? Should those inefficient, low-density, sprawling areas be retrofitted with transit now that their populations are aging?
Cristina Martin Firvida, who works on these issues for AARP, said helping seniors marooned in those areas helps everybody. And besides, the suburbs were built through federal policies encouraging outward development after the second world war, she said – it’s not just that one person built a house on top of a mountain and then demanded that taxpayer-subsidized transit come to them. “The suburbs is where our economy and our entire society has moved to since the fifties,” Firvida said.
No one took more umbrage with our report and conclusions than the Cato Institute’s Randal O’Toole, whose response to the growing mobility needs of America’s seniors was a glib: “So what?” While O’Toole is dismissive of the desire for greater options, AARP’s research found that public transportation use among older Americans increased by 40 percent since 2001 (see graphic below). And this is despite the fact that many live in areas with spotty and less-than-reliable service to begin with. T4′s David Goldberg responded to O’Toole last week.
You can still check out the full report and see how your area ranked here.
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- The more they see, the less they like: 10 reasons why opposition to the House transportation bill is growing
February 21, 2012 - Crucial amendment could improve Senate bill, restore local control and help make streets safer
February 14, 2012 - Oppose House bill that slashes public transit funding, falls short on repair and axes bike & pedestrian safety
February 7, 2012 - T4 coalition announces opposition to House energy and transportation bill
February 6, 2012 - House committee ignores broad opposition, decimates transit funding anyway
February 3, 2012
- The more they see, the less they like: 10 reasons why opposition to the House transportation bill is growing
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