All posts from the month of January 2012
Sec. Ray LaHood answers a few of your questions
January 31, 2012By Stephen Lee Davis
We asked you to submit questions for Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood, and here is the resulting segment of “On the Go”, his regular web video series where he answers a handful of transportation questions. This time, he asked us at T4 America to gather supporters from our thousands of supporters across the country.
In the video, he talked about high-speed rail, trucking, and biking and walking, reminding all of us that in his travels across the country, he keeps hearing that people “want the opportunity for walking and biking paths.” “…These kinds of programs really enhance communities and help provide options.”
Sec. LaHood also reiterates his optimism about the prospects of Congress passing a transportation bill in the coming months — after a momentary bout of pessimism last week. In contrast to a House bill coming out today that could have difficulty getting bipartisan support due to some controversial revenue sources, he praised the efforts of Senators Boxer and Inhofe in the Senate for their bipartisan bill that passed out of committee with its full support.
Without much ado, here is the video, including a few shout-outs for Transportation for America.
Congratulations to “saxman66″, “Conservative Values”, and Peggy Da Silva for getting their questions addressed in the video.
Drilling for highway revenues could face controversy from both sides
January 30, 2012By Stephen Lee Davis
House leaders have made it known that their transportation bill will expand oil drilling and exploration to fill part of the yawning gap between what the Highway Trust Fund gathers each year in gas taxes and what is spent. That provision is controversial, no doubt, but the opposition is coming from more than just one side.
Some conservative think tanks and transportation policy experts are opposing the idea — though not because they think we shouldn’t be drilling for more oil everywhere possible, but because they believe the principle of a “user fee” for the highway system is one worth protecting.
The Competitive Enterprise Institute, a conservative/libertarian think tank, held a session today on Capitol Hill with a title that leaves little mystery about their position: “Don’t Drill And Drive: Weakening The “User-Pays” Highway Funding Principle Would Endanger Our Nation’s Transportation Infrastructure.”
…the Competitive Enterprise Institute, Reason Foundation, Taxpayers for Common Sense, and Natural Resources Defense Council will hold a briefing to discuss the importance of preserving the “user-pays/user-benefits principle”— and why proposals that would tie infrastructure funding to expanded energy production threaten the future health of our nation’s transportation system. The panel will feature a diverse range of transportation policy analysts from free-market, fiscal watchdog, and environmental organizations to discuss various aspects of the deeply flawed “drilling for roads” proposal, as well as solutions to long-term funding problems.
Obviously, CEI opposes the measure for very different reasons than an environmental group like NRDC. But could there be some opposition to this funding plan on both sides of the ideological spectrum in the House when this bill is introduced Tuesday?
In the Senate, Republican Sen. Inhofe has already said that expecting new oil drilling revenues to pay for an immediate multi-year transportation bill isn’t a realistic funding solution.
“While Speaker Boehner’s idea may be a long-term revenue source for transportation infrastructure,” said Sen. Inhofe back in November, “we need to focus on the immediate problem of how we will fund a multi-year highway bill. …If this is how the House is able to move the bill forward then I applaud them. But we need money now for transportation; we can’t afford to wait.”
If the drilling proposal wasn’t already controversial enough in the House, Speaker Boehner offered this tidbit on one of the Sunday morning talk shows. Via E&E Publishing and former Streetsblog reporter Elana Schor:
House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) announced yesterday that he will seek to override the president’s veto of the Keystone XL pipeline as part of a long-term transportation bill — if the oil link is not already advanced during bicameral payroll tax-cut talks. The move adds a second volatile issue to a typically noncontroversial infrastructure package that his chamber wants to pay for in part by expanding offshore and Alaskan drilling, which is opposed by most Democrats and the White House.
“If [Keystone XL is] not enacted before we take up the American Energy and Infrastructure Jobs Act, it will be part of it,” Boehner said of the pipeline in an interview with ABC’s “This Week,” referring to the GOP’s title for its drilling-and-transportation package.
The House bill is expected to be released Tuesday in advance of Thursday’s committee markup.
What will the next few weeks hold? Real transportation reform or more blank checks?
January 25, 2012By Stephen Lee Davis
846 days and counting since our transportation program formally expired; both the House and Senate are finally on the verge of moving a transportation bill. We already wrote that the House could release their draft transportation bill as early as Friday. What about the Senate? They’ve made some progress already, moving 2 of 4 portions of their bill through committee and will be moving fast in the coming weeks.
That need for speed, urged on by a leadership that wants to get a bill to the floor soon, means that Senators will be under tremendous pressure to keep the bill moving along quickly. Already, vested interests are attacking the critical provisions that would set new, 21st-century objectives for our investments, rather than perpetuate a status quo that benefits fewer and fewer Americans.
Those critical provisions were passed in December by the Senate Commerce Committee. The committee approved legislation that would establish national policy objectives and goals for the transportation system. It would hold all levels of government accountable for congestion levels, road conditions, environmental impacts, the reliability of freight movement, increasing access to transit, and reducing fatalities across all modes, among other measurements of progress. However, some in Congress are fighting against these critical reforms.
With the ball starting to roll downhill fast, your senators need to hear from you that these are just the types of reforms we need included in a transportation bill. Tell your Senators you’re counting on them to support and defend a more transparent and accountable system for spending our transportation dollars.
In these times of shrinking state budgets and financial downturns, it’s more important than ever to know exactly what our scarce transportation dollars are buying. After spending of billions of dollars each year, taxpayers want to know:
“Are we better off now than last year? Are we safer on our roads? Are our bridges in better condition than ten years ago? Can more people get from A to B quickly, reliably and affordably? Is our transportation system creating more pollution or less? Using more or less oil?”
Americans we’ve talked to all across the country are 100 percent fed up with spending billions each year without a way to demonstrate that we’re making progress. It’s crucial that your Senators hear today what’s important to you in the transportation bill, before the hearings and floor debates heat up next week.
Stay tuned — it’s going to be a busy February here in Washington.
House on the verge of releasing a transportation bill tied to increased oil drilling
January 24, 2012By Stephen Lee Davis
According to sources cited by numerous outlets this morning (Politico’s Morning Transportation, Transportation Issues Daily and others), the House is planning to mark up a five-year transportation bill in the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee next Thursday, February 2nd. It could be released as early as this Friday, though that date may slide somewhat into next week.
So what’s in the bill? Politico has a copy of the leaked 14-page summary, but it covers the policy only in very broad strokes, so it’s not possible to reach any sort of real conclusions about the bill just yet.
One of the most notable aspects of the bill is the proposal to raise the billions needed to cover the yawning gap in anticipated gas tax revenues with money from increased oil drilling — an intent also illustrated by the title: “The American Energy and Infrastructure Jobs Act.” The fact that the bill was written entirely by committee Republicans and tied to such a controversial new revenue source could result in a bill that gets little Democratic support in committee or on the floor.
Leaving speculation behind, no specifics are offered as to where the drilling would take place or how much revenue it’s expected to raise. On the subject, the summary says, “By removing barriers to new energy production, this fiscally responsible proposal will create a new, sustainable, revenue stream for infrastructure improvements, lower energy costs, and create infrastructure and energy sector jobs across the country.” We’ll have to wait for details on which “barriers to energy production” will be removed and how much revenue might be created.
We’ll have much more on this in the week to come as the full text is released and we can take a closer look.
Pedestrian deaths, blaming the victim: headphones edition
January 19, 2012By Stephen Lee Davis
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| No headphones pictured here. Originally uploaded by Transportation for America to Flickr. |
| Submitted photo by Joan Hudson, P.E., of the Texas Transportation Institute. |
A new academic study looking at the numbers of pedestrians killed while wearing headphones ignores the overwhelming majority of pedestrian deaths, providing a healthy dose of blaming the victim while turning a blind eye to the actual problem.
At first glance, the numbers sound incredible. “The number of headphone-wearing pedestrians seriously injured or killed near roadways and railways has tripled in six years…” Wow, they’ve tripled? That must be a lot, right?
When you examine the numbers closely, though, it’s clear that this study is examining a share of pedestrian fatalities so small as to be almost statistically insignificant when compared to the problem of pedestrian deaths writ large.
The study has been highly successful at winning credulous news coverage and shifting blame to the victims, but by focusing on a tiny sliver of fatalities it does more to obscure the true causes than explain what is happening.
“Oh, they’re all wearing headphones now. That’s why pedestrians are getting killed.”
Let’s stop for a minute and acknowledge that being distracted is never a good idea, whether driving or walking. Especially if you’re navigating busy streets, you need all available senses at your disposal to make sure you arrive at your destination safely. That means not texting and keeping your eyes on the road while driving, and making sure that you can hear and see when walking.
From 2000-2009 47,700 people were killed while walking in the U.S. This University of Maryland study found 116 deaths in 8 years where headphones were said to be involved, or about 0.3% of all pedestrian deaths during the study period.
Spending our time focused intently on this tiny aspect of pedestrian deaths is like coming across a person who’s been stabbed in the chest, and worrying about finding the band-aid you need to patch the scrape on his elbow.
Which further proves just how loony the headline is in this story. (“Study: You are more likely to die walking with headphones”) This study doesn’t prove that you’re more likely to die while walking and wearing headphones, it just shows that those deaths have been increasing.
You want to know how you are more likely to die while walking? By walking along or trying to cross a busy arterial, state highway or other bigger/busier road eligible to receive federal funding, where fully two-thirds of all pedestrian fatalities from 2000-2009 took place.
Are headphones the primary problem living and walking along here?
The primary reasons for the other 35,885 or so pedestrian deaths in the last 10 years hasn’t changed with the rise of smartphones, iPods and ubiquitous white earbuds. That song remains the same: millions of people live on or near streets and roads that aren’t safe for walking; streets without sidewalks, streets without safe crossings, streets that force far too many people to brave unsafe conditions on foot simply to get from A to B.
Are we concerned about making these roads safer? Are we studying smart solutions and ways to use federal funds to retrofit these dangerous corridors to make them safer for everyone — an appropriate decision, since federal funds and design guidelines helped create many of these dangerous corridors in the first place.
Nope, we’re studying what may (or may not have) contributed to the death of 0.3% of all people killed while walking in the last 8 years. And using the numbers for even more ammunition in the never ending quest to blame the victim
Admittedly, with problems so big that any solution will be complex and layered, there’s a tendency to look for a simpler explanation and try to find a more manageable problem that we can solve. Just like coming across a person with the sucking chest wound and having no medical experience under our belt, sometimes we’re just overwhelmed by the magnitude of the problem. So we focus on the elbow scrape we can fix that just needs a band-aid.
But this problem demands and deserves our immediate attention. Instead of spending our time concerned with why the 0.3% were killed, how about we stop and have a serious look at the larger, and much more serious problem of the 99.7%?
Every year we don’t, another 4,000-plus people die preventable deaths.
Smart questions submitted for Secretary LaHood to answer
January 18, 2012By Stephen Lee Davis
Last week we asked you for questions for U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, and you came through with some great questions and topics that he’ll hopefully consider for his next edition of “On The Go,” his recurring video segment where he answers questions and discusses transportation topics at a little more length than he can in his daily blog or regular tweets.
We wanted to take just a moment to thank everyone who sent in their questions, via comments, email, twitter and pack mule. Okay, okay, we didn’t get any questions by mule but they certainly came in every other possible way.
US DOT folks have told us that they’ll probably tape this next episode later this week, so we’ll have to wait at least a week or so before we discover which questions Sec. LaHood decided to answer, but below are just a few of the strong questions that were submitted for him to consider. Anyone want to take your own stab at some of these in the comments?
We’ll be sure to post the video as soon as they release it. Thanks so much to everyone who took the time to write down a question and pass it along.
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Secretary LaHood: Thank you for your leadership. After two decades of consistent progress on walking, bicycling and livability initiatives, what can be done now to keep the current Congress from going backwards and eliminating or reducing key programs such as Safe Routes to Schools, Transportation Enhancements and Recreational Trails? The United States need more resources for pedestrians, bicyclists and active transportation, not less.
Jeff Olson, R.A. – Principal
Alta Planning + Design
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The High-Speed and Intercity Passenger Rail program was (and is, through its remaining trickle of funds) one of the most exciting and potentially transformative initiatives of the Obama administration. I know you yourself have expressed a deep commitment to this program as well. What’s your strategy for getting the program back on track, if you’ll pardon the well-used pun, and for changing the “death of high-speed rail” narrative to a “high-speed rail’s next steps” narrative?
Andrew Guthrie
Minneapolis, MN
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In what areas could advocates do a better job making the case for federal funding for active transportation projects?
@ellyblue
Elly Blue
Portland, OR
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The interstate highway system continues to provide the nation with remarkable interregional mobility. However, is it possible that constructing freeways through the hearts of our major cities was a mistake? Would the federal government consider enhancing its role in helping cities assess whether communities might be better off converting some of these highways into surface streets or even parks, housing, etc? Thank you, and keep up the great work.
Commenter “Clutch J”
Do you have a burning question for Secretary Ray Lahood?
January 10, 2012By Stephen Lee Davis
I hope so, because the U.S. Secretary of Transportation wants to answer yours!
Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood has asked Transportation for America’s many partners and supporters to submit questions for him that he’ll answer in his next edition of “On the Go,” a monthly video segment with the Secretary where he answers a few in-depth transportation-related questions. Here’s the December edition of the show:
His office has asked us to gather a collection of questions from T4 America partners and our thousands of supporters from all across the country. So ask away! Do you want to know about the prospects of the transportation bill or what the administration is doing to get it passed? Curious about the future of the high-speed rail program after recent cuts? Whatever you’d like to know, you can ask it here and it’ll land on the Secretary’s desk — though no guarantees on which questions he chooses, of course.
You can submit your question a few different ways:
- Leave it right here on this post in the comments
- Ask it on Twitter by including the hashtag #q4ray at the end of your tweet
- Email it directly to us at info [at] t4america.org and we’ll pass it along.
Another Atlanta-area pedestrian suffers similar fate as Raquel Nelson’s son
January 4, 2012By Stephen Lee Davis
In a story far too similar to Raquel Nelson‘s ordeal, a boy was struck and killed while crossing a 5-lane arterial highway in metro Atlanta with his stepfather on New Year’s Day. Just like the incident that claimed the life of A.J Nelson, the child was halfway across a busy street with a parent and two other siblings when he was struck by the driver of the car. The family was trying to cross five-lane Flat Shoals Parkway, on a stretch with no crosswalks visible nearby, to reach the apartment complex where the boy’s mother lives.
“The child, along with an adult and other children, were attempting to cross the street and they had crossed the northbound lanes and were standing in the middle turn lane when, according to the adult, the boy pulled away. He was then hit by a car traveling in the southbound lane,” DeKalb Police spokeswoman Mekka Parish said.
Just like Raquel Nelson’s story, the nearest crosswalk wasn’t “near” at all. The family could have walked either 0.4 miles roundtrip to the south, or 1.2 miles roundtrip to the north — a long trip which also would’ve taken them across the narrow bridge over I-285 where, incidentally, two other pedestrians have been killed in the last 10 years.
Image from our Dangerous by Design interactive map
Now, this point of this post isn’t to say that this driver was in the wrong — the preliminary reports indicate that the child pulled away from his stepfather and stepped out into the southbound lanes and the driver probably couldn’t have stopped. Though they’d done it dozens of times, perhaps the father made a poor judgement to try and cross the street there. But just like Raquel Nelson, this story does illustrate the insanity of how we fund and plan our transportation network in urbanized (and urbanizing) places like this.
Look closely at this graphic of the area.
This short section of Flat Shoals south of I-285 has no fewer than three relatively high-density apartment complexes, as well as a handful of restaurants, stores and other retail offerings fronting the roadway, ostensibly hoping to serve the nearby residents, at least in part. The street does have sidewalks on both sides, yet the two nearest crosswalks on Flat Shoals in either direction are at least .8 miles apart. Federal dollars (or at least federal design guidelines) were likely used when this road was widened to 5 lanes. The city or county approved high-density apartment complexes and retail on both sides of the road in a corridor without making any attempts to ensure those residents would be able to walk in the area safely, save for the tacked-on sidewalks on each side.
The planning and design of this corridor and the land use around it hasn’t kept up with the needs of the people living in it.
Should we legitimately expect residents of the apartment complexes on one side of Flat Shoals to walk nearly half a mile to reach the Jamaican restaurant across the street? According to several other media reports on the incident, the family wasn’t alone in trying to cross there that evening, and some residents have been asking for improvements to make a safe crossing there for a long time.
The family told CBS Atlanta that the street in front of their apartment complex has always been dangerous. There is heavy traffic and no stoplight or crosswalk. ”It’s very dangerous, very dangerous,” said Isaac. “You would think they would have a crosswalk if you have a plaza right across the street and apartments right here.
There isn’t a crosswalk, even though dozens of people cross the street in this very spot each day. How many other streets like this are there in Atlanta? In Georgia? In the United States?
Will the stepfather will be charged in the child’s death, as Raquel Nelson was? Probably not, since the incident didn’t happen in Cobb County, where the prosecutor is prone to bringing such charges. Perhaps Dekalb County officials remember her recent trial and subsequent national media attention shining an angry spotlight on their neighboring metro county.
Beyond that, one would hope that local officials have learned the more important lesson about providing safer streets for people to get around on — no matter whether they’re on foot, bike or in a car. Local and state officials have great power in making some of those decisions.
While needed, that’s a piecemeal approach to a problem that is truly federal in scope. Two-thirds of all pedestrian fatalities in the last 10 years occurred on roads just like this one — state highways and busy arterials built with federal funds and federal design guidelines. Shouldn’t the federal transportation program be used to help fix these dangerous mistakes that it created in the first place? What we really need is a transportation bill that makes the safety of everyone on our roads a priority, so stories like this one — and Raquel Nelson’s among thousands of others — can become a distant memory.
No family in an urbanized area should have to choose between crossing a dangerous street or walking half a mile out of their way just to cross the street to their house. We can do better.
Updated (1/12/12): PEDS, a partner of ours that recently helped us deliver a petition in Atlanta on behalf of Raquel Nelson, submitted an op-ed to the AJC that ran last week.
Pedestrian facilities are often seen as a local issue. The proposed project list adopted by the regional roundtable, for example, dedicates just one-third of 1 percent of the regional funds to pedestrian and bicycle projects.
Yet the Atlanta Regional Commission’s 2010 on-board transit survey confirmed that nearly three-fourths of transit trips begin with walking trips. Research by the ARC also suggests that people who walk to transit are among the region’s most vulnerable road users. From 2004 to 2008, one-fourth of all pedestrian crashes occurred within 100 feet of transit stops.
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- Saving a transit system and turning the tide for the future of a mid-sized city
May 15, 2012 - U.S. communities step up, hoping a strong federal commitment to infrastructure will follow
May 10, 2012 - Graphic: A closer look at the Senate MAP-21 vote by state
March 27, 2012 - Fixing the House bill: Cutting regulatory burdens and bureaucracy
March 15, 2012 - Fixing the House bill: reducing air pollution by providing more travel options
March 13, 2012
- Saving a transit system and turning the tide for the future of a mid-sized city
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