David Goldberg, Author at Transportation For America

Farewell from a smart growth communications veteran

This post is a personal farewell from our friend and colleague David Goldberg, who was the founding communications director for Smart Growth America in 2002 and helped get Transportation for America off the ground in 2008-2009 as communications director. Other than former Gov. Parris Glendening at SGA, David was the longest tenured SGA/T4A employee, helping to steer this small part of the larger movement for transportation reform and creating better places over the last thirteen years. We’ll miss him deeply, and wish him the best in his new endeavors. Here are few thoughts directly from David as he departs. –Ed.

David Goldberg

After 13 great years with Smart Growth America and Transportation for America, I am moving on to a new challenge. For two decades I worked on addressing the consequences of our 20^th century efforts to re-engineer our human habitat. Now I’m joining a new group that is grappling with the after-effects of industrializing the American diet during that same period.

The change is bittersweet. We’ve had a great ride since starting SGA in the early 2000s, bringing attention to the problems associated with out-of-control development patterns and helping to reshape policies, practices and even consumer preferences toward more walkable — and workable — neighborhoods and transportation networks.

We’ve seen enormous change over the last 13 years, with the arc of planning, development and transportation trends bending ever more in the direction this movement has worked for. Smart Growth America can’t claim credit for all that of course, but the organization and its allies clearly had a hand in helping communities adjust to shifting patterns of growth. In many places across the country, “Sprawl is out, compact is in.”

I think it was fitting that on my last day in the office with my D.C. colleagues, we released Core Values: Why American Companies are Moving Downtown, shepherded into existence by the incomparable Alex Dodds, the communications director for Smart Growth America. After all, it was when executives started moving their companies and families to the outskirts in the late 20^th century that the country launched into hyper-sprawl; a reversal of that trend is significant, indeed.

Long before, in the early 2000s, we helped put the issue of sprawling development patterns on the map, releasing Measuring Sprawl and Measuring the Health Effects of Sprawl.

We fought regressive ballot measures, participated in post-Katrina planning, produced a groundbreaking book and delivered testimony to Congress on the role of development patterns in climate change. We wrote a guidebook for residents on shaping change in their neighborhoods, Choosing our Community’s Future: A Citizen’s Guide to Getting the Most out of Development.

Working with my frequent partner in crime, Barbara McCann, we coined the term Complete Streets and housed a national campaign for them. Now there are hundreds of communities and several states with complete streets policies, and you can see the transformation on the ground just about everywhere you go.

Along with Reconnecting America, in 2008 we launched Transportation for America, which is now a program of SGA. Declining gas tax revenues and Congressional dysfunction have delayed the big reforms we hoped for at the federal level, but there’s still plenty to be encouraged by at the state and local level, with local communities all across the country pushing ahead on the kind of smart, comprehensive transportation systems we have worked for. T4America is helping them, lending support and leading with innovative ideas, while continuing to work on their behalf in D.C.

And along the way we helped call attention to some important issues with our reports and releases.

The Fix We’re in For: The State of Our Nation’s Bridges, our periodic reports on structurally deficient bridges, earned us a national reputation. To amplify the effect, we have done releases by Congressional district (featured by Chris Matthews on MSNBC), and my brilliant colleague (and new T4A communications director), Steve Davis, produced an interactive map where anyone can find the deficient bridges near them. When the Skagit River bridge on I-5 north of Seattle collapsed, I immediately got calls from national networks, and I offered comment from the scene.

I’m especially proud of Dangerous by Design, which did so much to raise awareness of the role that street design plays in killing and injuring people on foot. The topic became a 1A story in the New York Times, and many other places. We helped bring national attention to the case of an African-American mom in an Atlanta suburb, Raquel Nelson, who was convicted of vehicular homicide after her four-year-old was hit and killed as they crossed a highway from their bus stop to their apartment complex.

The story hit national television and NPR, and we landed an op-ed in The Washington Post, entitled “Protect, don’t prosecute, pedestrians”.

We also have worked to call attention to the need to adapt to the needs of a growing, older population, with reports such as Aging in Place – Stuck without Options: Fixing the Mobility Crisis Facing the Baby Boom Generation, which is also still featured over at AARP. On my last full week with SGA and T4A I participated in an intensive discussion on that topic in Atlanta.

The struggle is never over, of course. SGA and T4A now are working to help communities deal with some of the challenges in popular urban areas, where affordable housing strategies are a critical need and transportation demand is changing as rapidly as new options are emerging in the age of smartphones.

But if anyone is up to those challenges, my brilliant, passionate colleagues at SGA and T4A certainly are among them. I’ve learned an incredible amount from them and from the fantastic, committed people we’ve worked with all across the country. I will miss the people as much, if not more, than the subject area. Now that we’ve solved the issue of sprawling development patterns (if only), I’m off to go encourage the processed food industry to do its part to address rising rates of obesity, diabetes and other chronic health issues associated with their products – wish us luck!

Our fondest farewells to David Goldberg! For anyone looking to get in touch with David at his new gig or for any SGA or T4-related communications questions moving forward, contact our communications team below.

Steve Davis headshot Steve Davis
Director of Communications
Transportation for America
202-971-3902
steve.davis@t4america.org

Alex Dodds Headshot Alex Dodds
Communications Director
Smart Growth America
202-971-3927
adodds@smartgrowthamerica.org

As transit becomes ‘must-have economic development tool,’ will Congress help?

An excellent piece in the Washington Post this morning caught up to the topic we have been raising here for some time: Good transit service and walkable locations with nearby places to live, eat and shop are essential for economic development in today’s world. Which makes us wonder: Is Congress listening?

Recalling that Marriott’s chief executive recently expressed a desire to locate near Metro rail, reporters Katherine Shaver and Bill Turque wrote:

Marriott’s announcement is the latest sign that mass transit, once viewed as a prescription for traffic congestion, is now considered a must-have economic development tool to attract millennials — the country’s largest living generation — along with their employers, and the taxes that both contribute to local governments. Adding to the demand is the country’s second-largest demographic group: empty-nest baby boomers seeking to downsize in the suburbs and drive less as they grow older.

As regular readers are well aware, Congress must find money to renew the federal transportation program this year, ostensibly by May 31 (though an extension of the law itself is all but inevitable). In doing so, lawmakers can either help or hurt communities, like those discussed in the story, that are lining up for very limited dollars for transit, TIGER and the like — money that can help them prepare their communities for economic success.

They are doing so in large part because they are continually hearing messages like this one from Stephen P. Joyce, Choice Hotels’ chief executive, quoted in the Post:

If you’re a suburban employer and you want to be relevant to people who want to live in urban locations, you’ve got to think mass transit,” Joyce said. “I can’t compete unless they can get to us without driving.

Henry Bernstein, a longtime economic development official who is now an executive in a commercial real estate firm in Rockville, MD, explains why: “This generation wants more things at their fingertips, rather than having to jump in a car to get to the mall or go eat. I truly believe any community that doesn’t have these things will fail.”

The Post story comes the same month that State Farm officials announced they would consolidate employees in three cities at regional hubs on sites with rail transit. “We’re designing these workplaces to be the future of State Farm,” chief operating officer Michael Tipsord said. “We’re creating a live-work-play environment that will give employees easy access to their work from the neighboring communities.”

Among the possible solutions within the federal program is the Innovation in Surface Transportation Act, introduced in both the House and Senate this month by a bipartisan group of lawmakers. It would give a major boost by allowing local communities more access to federal dollars flowing to their state, but there is so much more that could be done with more robust transit funding and more flexible use of existing dollars.

Here’s hoping that Congress is paying attention, and that the next federal program will provide local communities more access to the funds they need to meet the needs of today’s economy.

Obama budget cues start of serious negotiations over transportation funding

With the release of his budget proposal yesterday, President Obama at last offered some specifics on his plan to use the repatriation of taxable corporate profits to fund transportation. In doing so, he staked out a starting point for real-world negotiations over a possible six-year transportation bill – the first time such a prospect has seemed remotely realistic in six years.

His gambit joins a burgeoning set of transportation funding proposals in Congress (more about these later in this post), another hopeful sign that lawmakers are taking the issue seriously.

The less good news, of course, is that those negotiations over tax reform and transportation funding – to say nothing of policy – are almost certain to last beyond the May 31 expiration of the current law, MAP-21. That means another extension and lingering uncertainty until this can be wrestled to the ground.

With the addition of revenues from taxing American profits parked overseas, the Obama budget looks to invest $94.7 billion in fiscal 2016, nearly double today’s level of just over $50 billion. Invested along the lines of his GROW America Act, this would represent a 25 percent increase for the highway program and more than 70 percent for transit, which today is wildly oversubscribed.

All told, the Obama plan would authorize $478 billion for a six-year program of investment, $176 billion over the levels of MAP-21, and $76 billion more than the four-year version of GROW America released last spring. About $240 billion of that is from expected gas tax revenue. Placing a mandatory 14 percent tax on roughly $2 trillion in earnings held abroad by U.S. multinationals would yield about $238 billion, the Administration estimates.

The plan would make the TIGER grant program a permanent feature, funded at $1.25 billion a year, and would continue funding planning grants for planning walkable neighborhoods around transit stops. It also would establish passenger rail and multimodal accounts within the former Highway Trust Fund (HTF), now reconstituted as the Transportation Trust Fund. It would create a multimodal freight program, funded at $1 billion in 2016, and continue to promote the accelerated, inter-agency reviews to get projects moving faster.

While Republicans criticized many features of the Administration budget, the notion of using corporate tax reform to fund transportation seems to have growing bipartisan support, as support for raising the gas tax struggles to take hold.

Last week, the unlikely pairing of Sens. Rand Paul (R-KY) and Barbara Boxer (D-CA) announced they would introduce the “Invest in Transportation Act”, a plan to offer an enticement tax rate of 6.5 percent on corporate earnings returned to the U.S. from abroad, with all proceeds going to the Highway Trust Fund. Because it is voluntary, the exact amount is uncertain, but the senators have said they hope it can make up for flat or declining gas tax revenues.

On the House side, Reps. John Delaney (D-MD) and Richard Hanna (R-NY) have introduced the Infrastructure 2.0 Act, (HR 625), under which existing overseas profits would be subject to a mandatory, one-time 8.75 percent tax. This is expected to yield $120 billion, sending enough of that to the Highway Trust Fund to cover the gap between anticipated gas tax in-take and spending at current levels plus modest growth.

The bill also directs $50 billion of the $120 billion to capitalize an infrastructure bank called the American Infrastructure Fund (AIF) that could provide financing to transportation, energy, communications, water and education projects. Rep. Delaney establishes an AIF in another bill submitted last year along with Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick (R-PA), who reintroduced their “Partnership to Build America Act” (HR 413) on Jan 20. State and local government entities, nonprofit infrastructure providers, private parties, and public-private partnerships all would be eligible to apply for AIF financing. Through bond sales, the fund would be leveraged at a 15:1 ratio to provide up to $750 billion in loans or guarantees.

Not everyone in Congress has given up on the bird-in-the-hand funding source – the gas tax. Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR), is set to reintroduce his UPDATE Act, which would hike the per-gallon tax by 15 cents, with 5 cent increases unfolding over the next three years, and index the overall tax to inflation. In the Senate, Senator Tom Carper (D-DE) is working with a bipartisan group to introduce a gas-tax bill, expected later this month.

Although more of an aspirational bill than a funding measure, Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) last week introduced his Rebuild America Act. Designed to illustrate the scale of investment the senator says we need, it calls for providing an additional $1 trillion in infrastructure investments over the next five years for roads, bridges and transit, passenger rail, airports, water infrastructure, marine ports and inland waterways, national parks infrastructure, and broadband and electrical grid upgrades.

It would add $735 billion to surface transportation investments over the next 8 years, with an additional $75 billion a year for the HTF. It also would capitalize a National Infrastructure Bank with $5 billion per year for fiscal 2015-19, estimated to stimulate more than $250 billion in investments. It provide for $2 billion more for TIFIA loans and $5 billion a year for TIGER.

And it makes all the other proposals look like skinflints in comparison.

At last, Congress and the White House appear to have moved transportation to a front-burner issue this year. With the Obama proposal as a strong starting place, here’s hoping negotiations proceed swiftly and in good faith so our communities can continue to plan, maintain and build for continued prosperity.

Mayors’ challenge: Help us meet critical transportation needs

Last week, U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx issued a public challenge to mayors to “take significant action to improve safety for bicycle riders and pedestrians of all ages and abilities over the next year.” Mayors, in return, have a challenge of their own to the federal government: Don’t leave us in the lurch when it comes to the funding for those – and many other – transportation needs.

As Washington Post writer Niraj Chokshi noted the other day, transportation funding is the most urgent federal “ask” for cities such as Seattle and San Francisco that are facing both aging infrastructure and surging population. Both mayors were in D.C. for the U.S. Conference of Mayors, where federal transportation funding was a key theme.

Seattle Mayor Ed Murray

In comments to the Post ahead of a White House meeting, Seattle Mayor Ed Murray framed the situation like this:

Post-World War II, with the suburbanization of America, the federal government stepped in big time and created an interstate system that supported the suburban lifestyle. As we urbanize as a country, we need the federal government to step in big time with transit for our urbanization.

Back home, Murray is one of those mayors who would be inclined to rise to Secretary Foxx’s challenge. But to do so, he is trying to find the resources to overcome the legacy of the last century, when federal dollars helped build high-traffic roads through the city with little provision for people to walk or bike safely. With more and more people living along those corridors, his city – like many others – is trying to squeeze more capacity out of them by making sure people can safely walk, bicycle and take transit.

The mayors said they don’t expect “pork-barrel” handouts. They are prepared to compete for grants based on need, smart planning and a willingness to marshal their own resources. That is one of the reasons why mayors of both small towns and larger cities have come forward to support a plan that would carve out a share of federal dollars in each state for such competitive grants.

As San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee put it:

We’re all focused on infrastructure. We think that that’s probably one of the best foundations for our economy, job creation, and we’re true believers in that.

Tell Congress to send real dollars where the real needs are

Applause rang out from both sides of the aisle during the State of the Union last week when President Obama called for the ambitious, “bipartisan infrastructure plan” we need for a 21st century, “middle-class economy”. It’s time to get real about how we raise that money, and more importantly, how we should invest it.

Photo Credit: The White House

While the President noted that workers are getting a welcome break with lower gas prices, he declined to call for applying some of that savings to making sure those workers can get to their jobs. He again floated the idea of relying instead on a one-time windfall from corporate tax reform, and now some key GOP counterparts seem warm to the idea.

The problem is that no such deal is likely before the transportation program expires and money runs out in May. And even if it were, we need more than a one-shot infusion.

Beyond that, we need a federal transportation bill that actually gets resources to local communities that are struggling to repair and expand transit, roads and bridges so people can get to work and goods can get to market. They need the latitude to fix bottlenecks and potholes and to innovate for the future, in accord with their residents’ priorities.

Tell your representatives: Act now to produce a bipartisan, long-term transportation bill with real money. The time for trial balloons and what-ifs is over.

Please send your representative a message to:

Raise revenue to stabilize the Highway Trust Fund and spur economic growth. For the near term, increasing fuel fees that have lost a third of their value since the last increase in 1993 is the only sure bet.
Ensure funds are flexible enough to spend on all modes of transportation. Let communities invest in whatever way will bring the biggest bang for the buck.
Empower local communities with more control and resources. Local leaders are best able to identify the particular transportation investments to address their communities’ unique challenges.

Your member of Congress has a crucial opportunity to refocus the transportation program in ways that will boost local economies, maintain our existing infrastructure, and prepare for the future.

Send a letter asking your member of Congress to step up.

As a bridge falls in Cincinnati, the future of federal support remains dicey

Is the bridge collapse in Cincinnati a glimpse of our future? You may have heard that on Monday night, an obsolete overpass undergoing demolition “pancaked” onto I-75, killing a worker and nearly crushing a passing tractor-trailer.

The bridge didn’t fall from decay, per se, but the circumstances in many ways are more worrisome even than that rare occurrence. The 1960s Interstate overpasses and exit ramps in the area are being replaced – at huge cost – because they don’t meet current design standards for safety and function.

The aging Hopwell Bridge collapsed Monday night onto I-75 outside of Cincinnati, killing a construction worker and injuring a trucker.

When you hear the President and others talk about the burgeoning bill for “aging infrastructure”, a lot of it comes down to projects like this, aimed at fixing a local street network for the sake of a key economic corridor like I-75. Here we have a perfect nexus of local needs and costs with huge implications for national commerce, the kinds of investment that simply won’t get done without ongoing, consistent federal support.

So how is that support looking after last night’s State of the Union address? On the plus side, President Obama once again emphasized the need for federal investment, not just for near-term jobs but for the long-term health of a modern, “middle class” economy. He rightfully touted that as a place where there should be substantial, bipartisan agreement on a need to act, and pointed to the Administration’s worthy GROW America Act as a good starting point.

And it is another plus that the urgency of addressing a flailing, soon-to-expire transportation program seems to be breaking out of its insider ghetto into general consciousness in Congress. We’ve probably seen more member comments on reauthorization and salvaging the trust fund this month than in the entire year leading up to the expiration of SAFETEA in 2009.

All that said, the conversation continues to occur in the realm of the abstract. President Obama last night again called for investing an expected windfall from corporate tax reform, and at least some GOP Congress members have expressed similar sentiments. But any such deal is a long way from reality, and at least one key player, Senate Finance Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-UT), has said he’s “basically opposed”. And even if that came to pass, it would be a one-shot infusion, not the long-term, sustainable funding source we desperately need.

Meanwhile, the President extolled the big drop in gas prices as a boon to workers, but declined to suggest that maybe a portion of those savings could be applied to making sure those people can get to and from jobs. While Hatch and other senators have expressed openness to increased gas-tax revenues, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), chairman of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, apparently has expressed adamant opposition.

Meanwhile, as the May 31 expiration date approaches along with spring construction season, transportation agencies are holding off on letting projects, and in some cases cancelling them outright.

Last week, the Missouri DOT released this year’s budget, stating they no longer had the money to maintain the 34,000 miles of state roads and bridges, and will instead only maintain the 8,000 miles classified as “primary,” leaving the other 26,000 “supplementary” roads unmaintained. The Tennessee and Arkansas departments have canceled a number of projects out of uncertainty around federal funding, and many others meeting in D.C. last week said they were contemplating similar actions.

No fewer than 16 state legislatures are currently debating funding measures this session, following on the heels of 12 that have acted in the last two years. But those states are trying to make up a shortfall between needs and resources that exists with the expectation of sustained federal support; none of those states have contemplated making up for reduced or absent federal dollars.

Meanwhile, local communities from Cincinnati to Tampa and from Raleigh to Seattle are struggling to deal with those aging infrastructure issues, or to build for a burgeoning population, or both. They need a reliable federal partner more than ever. The conversation in D.C. needs to get real – real quick.

Tell the President to back a bipartisan gas tax increase

The steep drop in gas prices offers the best opportunity in years to raise the revenue we need to rescue our transportation trust fund and build for the future. And, for the first time in recent memory, leaders in both parties are calling for a gas tax increase to avoid foisting monumental repair and construction bills on the next generation.

Now is the time: Congress and the President must seize the moment.

President Obama is keenly aware of the needs. In just about every State of the Union address since he was elected, he has called for more robust investment to fix our aging network and build what we need to keep people, goods and our economy moving. But the President’s proposals to fund his vision have been short on specifics. And he has opposed raising the gas tax in a weak economy.

Today, though, times are better and gas prices sinking. This time, the President must use the Jan. 20 State of the Union address to say how he would pay for the investments he knows are needed.

Tell President Obama to voice clear support for a bipartisan move to raise real revenue.

We know we can’t rely on the gas tax alone over the long term. Consumption is likely to drop with cleaner, more fuel-efficient cars – and people are driving less. We need to diversify our revenue sources, even as we broaden the kinds of projects we build.

But that transition will take years, and we have a huge backlog of needs from a long recession that took a toll on our ability to maintain and build our network. Our local communities cannot begin to afford to make up the gap on their own. It’s a nationwide problem that needs national support.

By May, Congress must adopt a new transportation bill and find the money to pay for it. To make the best use of those dollars, Congress must get more resources to local communities, and give them the latitude to do best by their economies and quality of life.

Now, while consumers will feel the impact the least, is the best time to act for a near-term fix. The President can either stifle the conversation from the outset, or add his voice to the growing chorus.

Please encourage him to add his support, in the high-profile setting of the State of the Union Address.

Last-minute budget deal holds good news for the safety of all who use our roads

In a rare weekend session, the U.S. Senate finally passed the FY2015 Omnibus Appropriations Act, sending it to the President and avoiding a government shutdown. Buried deep within the legislation – far from the controversial provisions that kept the Senate working late – was a simple paragraph enacting a proposal that Transportation for America and many others have long advocated for: a directive to the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) to make the safety of people on foot or bicycle a criterion for measuring the performance of our transportation system.

By way of background, two years ago MAP-21 created a framework for measuring the performance of the transportation system, to begin to hold agencies accountable for results. The U.S. DOT this year proposed the first of three related rules to implement the program. That first proposed rule dealt with measuring safety (see our original post for more details). One of several major flaws in that proposal was that it lumped in people in vehicles with those using non-motorized modes.

By that measure, significant improvements in vehicle safety could obscure the opposite trend in the safety of people on foot or bicycle. In truth, some safety projects designed to protect those driving at higher speeds can be hazardous to those who are not in cars. Allowing states and metropolitan planning organizations to avoid accounting for the safety of non-motorized users would allow them to focus on motor vehicle traffic even at the expense of other users.

Advocates for roadway safety for all users have been carrying that message to Congress since June, and those efforts have now borne fruit. The transportation portion of the Omnibus, directs the Secretary of Transportation to establish separate safety performance measures for non-motorized travelers and publish a final rule by September 30, 2015.

Inclusion of this language is a positive move by the House and Senate negotiators on the Omnibus, and we commend them for understanding that roadway safety is about everyone who uses the roadways, not just people in cars.

Chalk that up as a victory, but there is more work to be done to fix the safety rule. Another flaw in the proposal was that states and MPOs are allowed to meet only two of four performance targets – a 50% pass rate – and still be deemed successful. Under the proposed rule, traffic fatalities or serious injuries could be going up and a state could still be found to be making significant progress on safety. In our comments to USDOT, Transportation for America proposed a simpler, more effective method for measuring progress – one that could be applied not just in the safety context, but across all of the performance measures MAP-21 requires.

As yet, we have heard nothing in response from USDOT. According to the schedule posted on the agency’s website, the next proposed rule in the series, having to do with infrastructure conditions, should have been released a month ago (nearly a year after the original deadline MAP-21 set for completion of all three performance measure rules). We are still waiting.

Will the next rule adopt our recommendations and those of hundreds of other commenters and establish a meaningful structure for measuring performance, one that ensures better outcomes for the traveling public? Or will the next rule also be too weak to be effective? Stay tuned.

Budget compromise keeps highways and transit steady, cuts TIGER

The $1.01 trillion spending agreement reached by House and Senate negotiators on Tuesday night freezes highway spending at $40 billion while avoiding the big cuts to transit projects in the House proposal.

Here’s a closer look at some other key provisions:

TIGER. Funding for TIGER will drop from $600 million in fiscal 2014 to $500 million – disappointing, but $400 million better than the original House version. More importantly, the compromise also drops a House requirement to limit TIGER grants to highway, bridge and port projects. That means TIGER can continue to support innovative projects that take a multimodal approach and address needs as local communities define them, rather than Congress.

TIGER Planning grants. While the Senate bill would have allocated $35 million for planning grants, the final measure will eliminate them for fiscal 2015. This is surely a case of being penny wise and pound foolish, because good planning can avoid costly errors while making the most of limited transportation dollars. (For evidence, see our Innovative MPO guide, released today.)

Transit. As with highways, formula dollars for transit are frozen at current levels, about $9 billion. Capital investment grants come in at $2.1 billion, the same as the Senate level, and about $456 million higher than the House bill. It supplies $172 million for “small starts”, such as streetcar and bus rapid transit projects.

Safety for people on foot or bicycle. FHWA is directed to establish separate, non-motorized safety performance measures for the highway safety improvement program, define performance measures for fatalities and serious injuries from pedestrian and bicycle crashes, and publish its final rule on safety performance measures no later than September 30, 2015. Transportation for America advocated for the inclusion of a non-motorized safety performance measure and will continue to lead the effort to ensure our transportation investments provide the largest return on taxpayer investment (More here).

	FY15 Omnibus Appropriations	House FY15 THUD Proposal	Senate FY15 THUD Proposal	FY14 THUD Enacted Appropriates	Difference between FY15 THUD Omnibus and FY14 THUD
Federal-Aid Highways	$40.26B	$40.26B	$40.26B	$40.26B	--
Transit Formula Grants	$8.6B	$8.6B	$8.6B	$8.6B	--
Transit 'New Starts' & 'Small Starts'	$2.147B	$1.691B	$2.163B	$1.943B	+$204M in Omnibus
TIGER	$500M	$100M	$550M	$600M	-$100M in Omnibus
Amtrak Operating	$250M	$340M	$350M	$340M	-$90M in Omnibus
Amtrak Capital	$1.14B	$850M	$841B	$1.05B	+$90M in Omnibus
High Speed Rail	$0	$0	$0	$0	--

House bill extends transit benefit through 2014, leaving permanent extension in doubt

Transit commuters would see their tax benefits restored under a House bill introduced yesterday — but only for two weeks.

The “Tax Increase Prevention Act of 2014” (H.R. 5571) would preserve a number of tax breaks set to expire at the end of the year, while restoring the amount of monthly pre-tax income transit riders can set aside to $245 from $130. This increase would put transit on a par with the tax benefit given to drivers for parking, but only from the bill’s adoption until the end of 2014.

A longer-term fix was included in a package developed last week by the House Ways and Means Committee, but President Obama’s threatened veto of a package he saw as too hard on low- and middle-income taxpayers left it dead in the water. While many had hoped Congress would establish permanent parity between drivers and transit commuters this fall, that possibility is dwindling fast.

Meanwhile, a recent report heavily criticized the parking benefit as “subsidizing congestion” by luring 820,000 additional cars to the road at a cost of $7.3 billion, with most of the benefit going to higher-income earners. [You can read the entire Transit Center report here.]

Metro areas on the cutting edge of transportation planning: Introducing The Innovative MPO

On Dec. 10, Transportation for America will release a one-of-a-kind guidebook showcasing leading-edge approaches to regional transportation planning, called “The Innovative MPO.” We will launch it with a webinar the same day, open to all. To learn more and register, click here. In this post, we provide a preview of the kind of topics you’ll encounter in the guidebook.

Click here to register for the Dec. 10 webinar and find out more.

Innovative metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) are working with business leaders and economic developers to make sure their regions are competitive and attractive to talented workers. They are stretching to maximize the impact of investments by setting priorities for selecting projects and measuring performance.

They are refusing to be bound by existing trends, but instead are planning in tandem with the aspirations of their citizens. They’re using creativity and flexible funds to fill gaps in transit service or break up bottlenecks that impede freight movement. They are reaching out across racial, language and income divides to make plans that can help everybody live prosperous and healthy lives.

This reporter first became aware of MPOs as a journalist covering growth and development issues in Atlanta in the 1990s. MPOs, you may know, are creatures of federal transportation law, which requires metro regions to program funding through a regional planning process. Their role is to ensure that federal investments are coordinated within metropolitan areas so that individual communities are considered along with the needs of the region as a whole.

And, as Atlanta discovered in the late 1990s, MPOs also must ensure that regional transportation plans do their part to keep harmful emissions in check. Just after the 1996 Olympics, the Atlanta Regional Commission — metro Atlanta’s MPO — received notice that the region faced a shut-off of federal funds because its projected emissions were exceeding the limits of a strengthened Clean Air Act. Stories I filed for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on the crisis made national headlines, because Atlanta was the first to face such sanctions.

The problem was that the region’s long-range transportation plan was based on projections that the region’s out-of-control sprawl would continue as usual for the next 20 years. That would require more and more highway lanes to accommodate longer commutes in congestion that got worse despite the investment, producing untenable levels of vehicle emissions. The only way to make a plan that could meet Clean Air Act requirements was to assume the region would accommodate more of its growth in core areas and town centers. People living and working in those areas would take shorter and fewer car trips, and some could be replaced by other options.

Here’s where I first saw just how innovative an MPO can be.

The ARC had no control over land use — local governments had that authority — and thus little say over the sprawling development. But it turned out that the transportation funding controlled by the MPO offered plenty of opportunity to incentivize better-planned growth. Chief ARC planner Tom Weyandt and his staff came up with the Livable Centers Initiative. The MPO set aside money for competitive grants to support local governments planning for compact, walkable town centers and corridors. Those with smart plans would then be in line for a much larger pool of money for transportation projects to fulfill those plans.

The Livable Centers program not only helped restore the region to compliance with the Clean Air Act and avoid financial penalties, it also unleashed a wave of pent-up demand from communities that were bursting with ideas for reviving moribund downtowns or transforming tired commercial corridors. It helped change regional planning to ensure that transportation spending was in line with overarching goals and created a framework for prioritizing projects.

The LCI program in Atlanta is just the tip of the iceberg of what MPOs can do to help ensure the long-term economic health and quality of life in their regions.

The type of studies conducted in the Atlanta metro region from 2000-2012. Source: ARC

Innovations are not limited to the rich regions on the coasts, but are cropping up all across the country in MPOs of all sizes. It may be no surprise that the MPO in the San Francisco Bay Area has developed a sophisticated method for scoring potential projects that evaluates impacts on everything from climate to access to jobs for lower-income residents. Or that Metro in Portland, OR, puts dollars from the federal highways, transit and bike/ped pots into a combined fund that goes to the projects — whatever they may be — that best serve the region’s overall goals for development, equitable distribution of benefits and sustainability.

But did you know Nashville’s MPO is a leader in soliciting public engagement across race, income and age and is pioneering ways to evaluate impacts on health and safety, and prioritize projects accordingly? Or that the Tulsa, OK, MPO literally takes its planning to the people on a specially equipped bus, while the Flagstaff, AZ, MPO figured out a way to use the flexibility of federal funds to sustain a critical bus service?

The Denver MPO has partnered with the local AARP chapter to create “Boomer Bonds” that help local governments around the region create age-friendly environments, allowing older adults to remain in their homes and communities for as long as they desire. The Savannah, GA, MPO has put together a sophisticated program to ensure the performance of its port, rail and trucking networks in a way that also keeps residents safe, healthy and mobile.

This is just a quick sample of the initiatives large and small that you’ll find in The Innovative MPO, which will be released next Wednesday, December 10. The full guidebook features 30 useful tools from seven areas of focus, 20 detailed case studies (like Atlanta’s) and more than 50 real-world examples from MPOs in regions large and small. There’s also an MPO 101 appendix with a simple, clear explanation of what MPOs are and what they do.

There is a lot to be excited about, and there will be even more to celebrate as MPOs swap their good ideas and challenge each other to push even farther to put transportation dollars to work for the long-term health and prosperity of their people.

We will be hosting a webinar on the day of the release, December 10th at 1p.m. EST. Register here.

With GOP victories, SAFETEA-LU team in line to chair Senate committees

With last night’s election, both the Senate and House will see leadership changes in key transportation committees. With the nation’s transportation funding source running near empty and the current law, MAP-21, expiring in the spring, these new committee leaders will have an opportunity to make an impact in the very near term.

First, the Senate, where the Environment and Public Works Committee writes the largest portion of the transportation bill, the “highway title”. Chair Barbara Boxer (D-CA) is expected to yield the gavel to Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK). Though the two worked closely together on MAP-21, Inhofe has indicated that he plans to conduct EPW business differently than his predecessor, and it’s unclear at this point exactly how he would stray from the current course.

The next biggest piece of the Senate bill, the “transit title”, is written in the Banking Committee, where Richard Shelby (R-AL) is in line to become chair. The Inhofe-Shelby pairing also led negotiations on SAFETEA-LU – MAP-21’s predecessor – in 2005.

In the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, Ranking Member Nick Rahall (D-WV) — amazingly a member of this committee his entire time in Congress — lost re-election to his 20th term, which eliminates the top Democrat on the committee. Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-OR) is next in line for the top Democratic seat on the Committee, and is a familiar and vocal proponent of a strong federal role in transportation.

That covers the policy side of the equation. On the funding side, Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) is projected to take over the Finance Committee, swapping roles with Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR). On the funding side in the House, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) is expected to take over the Chair of the Ways & Means Committee for retiring Rep. Dave Camp (R-MI).

In the short-term, the biggest battles will come over annual appropriations, setting the spending levels for discretionary programs such as TIGER and Amtrak. The first order of business for Congress when it returns next week is extending the continuing resolution – a temporary funding measure – that expires in December long enough to allow appropriators to hammer out spending levels for the full fiscal year. That will now likely occur under the GOP-controlled Congress early in the next calendar year.

The 800-pound gorilla of questions marks though, is how Congress will fund the nation’s transportation system next year and beyond. Gas tax receipts are dropping, cars are getting more fuel-efficient and driving is leveling off – and most baby boomers haven’t even stopped commuting yet. Although a faction of Republicans has called for the feds to abandon their traditional role and devolve the lion’s share of responsibility and oversight to the states, that idea so far has not gained traction with the full caucus. Though yet another short-term fix was agreed to a few months ago to keep the program going into next year, that funding will be tapped out by Spring 2015, and the trust fund will be near insolvency yet again.

Raising the gas tax may be a non-starter in a GOP Congress, though that remains to be seen. Other revenue ideas have struggled to gain a foothold, including the House GOP proposal during the last reauthorization to boost revenue with fees from expanding oil and gas drilling into formerly protected areas. On the Democrat side, DeFazio has introduced legislation to replace the federal gas tax with a fee at the refinery level that would be indexed to inflation, potentially yielding a more stable funding source.

In all, Tuesday’s election results should make for a fascinating 2015.

Latest round of TIGER grants announced, track them on our interactive map

The latest (sixth, if you’re counting) round of TIGER grants has been released — $584 million worth going to 72 projects in every corner of the country. (Click on the map below to see them on our updated interactive map.)

TIGER grants, you’ll recall, can go to any mode or combination thereof, and often go directly to local governments or transportation agencies – unlike most other federal dollars, which are targeted to specific modes and flow through the state department of transportation via funding formula. Given their flexibility and ability to support innovative proposals, TIGER dollars are intensely sought-after.

This year was no exception. The U.S. DOT says it received “797 eligible applications from 49 states … an increase from the 585 applications received in 2013. Overall, applicants requested 15 times the $600 million available for the program, or $9 billion for needed transportation projects.”

One of the best features of TIGER is that it brings all kinds of other money to the table – local, state and even private. Each one of those TIGER dollars will leverage almost three dollars in matching funds from other sources. (*The matching funds can include other federal money in some cases).

The U.S. DOT identifies each project by primary mode. By that reckoning, 15 of the 72 (27 percent) were for primarily transit projects, while 26 were road projects, or 38 percent. But, of course, many of them address more than one mode – which makes them TIGER projects!

“The U.S. DOT has done an outstanding job of selecting a wide variety of innovative projects in communities small and large,” said James Corless, director of Transportation for America. “Because they arise out of local initiatives to meet local needs, these TIGER projects will save lives, improve commutes and access to jobs, reduce costs for goods shipment and add to the quality of life wherever they are completed.

“Once again, TIGER has illustrated the incredible demand for flexible dollars to help local communities do the projects that support the modern economy and solve multiple problems at once. Congress needs to build on this success by creating a larger pool of dedicated funding for competitive grants both at the national level and within each state.”

Here some highlights of the kinds of projects funded:

Connecting workers at all wage-levels to jobs. In Richmond, VA, a $24.9 million grant will go towards a 7.6 mile bus rapid transit line to “connect transit-dependent residents to jobs and retail centers as well as spur mixed use and transit-oriented development in a city with the highest poverty rate in Virginia,” according to the DOT summary. Omaha, NE, will receive $15 million for a new bus rapid transit spine to reduce travel time to major employment hubs in the city. “Roughly 16 percent of the households within a quarter of a mile of the proposed bus-rapid transit route do not currently have access to a vehicle.” Pittsburgh, PA, received $1.5 million toward design of a “cap” over Interstate I-579 that would connect lower income residents of to downtown jobs.

Making optimal use of road capacity. The Champaign-Urbana region and the University of Illinois won $15.7 million toward a $35 million project “to construct Complete Street corridors connecting the Cities of Champaign and Urbana to the University of Illinois and improve transit travel between the cities and the campus.” In Maryland, $10 million is going toward a $42 million “road-widening project that would upgrade MD 175 from an existing two-lane undivided arterial to a six-lane divided arterial, complete with a trail, sidewalks, and on-road bicycle facilities.”

Freight and ports. TIGER is one of very few avenues for support for freight in the entire federal surface transportation program. (We’ll be exploring that deficiency in this space soon. –Ed.) This round, $11 million goes to the South Carolina State Ports Authority to rehabilitate and improve connections and access, and $20 million to the Port of Seattle Terminal 46 project to rehabilitate port facilities; “construct a storm water system to treat terminal runoff; increase load capacity and extend crane rail at dock; construct new road to grade-separate truck traffic from rail yard; and provide public amenities to access 13.8 acres of habitat around the terminal site.”

Safety for people on foot and bicycle. Among the largest awards, the City of New York’s Vision Zero safety effort won $25 million toward a $50 million, 3-part safety improvement program across the five boroughs including “safe pedestrian access to schools, safe pedestrian access to transit, and safe bicycle access to jobs via completion of a trail system connecting economically distressed communities to employment centers,” according to U.S. DOT.

Smart planning. $210,000 goes to North Central Texas Council of Governments for Land Use Transportation Connections to Sustainable Schools Project, creating a regional program and implementation plan to promote connections and coordination between transportation agencies, local governments, and schools within North Central Texas. In St. Paul, MN, $200,000 will fund a design study and master plan for reusing the Canadian Pacific Rail Spur as a multimodal corridor for bicycles, pedestrians, and possibly transit. The overall objective will be to develop a plan for how the bicycle, pedestrian and transit communities can use the rail line.

TIGER grants have now been around long enough that we’ve seen winning projects go from start to finish, like the Uptown Station project in Normal, Illinois — just one that shows how the targeted transportation investments in TIGER can help create jobs, boost local economic development efforts, connect people to jobs, improve freight movement and revitalize communities across the country.

House proposes a trust fund Band-aid through May, 2015, with key differences from Senate

House Ways and Means Committee Dave Camp (R-MI)

A House proposal to shore up the transportation trust fund through May, 2015, is a good news, not-so-good news proposition.

Late yesterday, House Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp (R-MI) proposed a $10.8 billion infusion to cover a looming deficit in the Highway Trust Fund. The money for the next few months would come mostly from an accounting maneuver called “pension smoothing” over the next 10 years. The remainder comes from extending some customs fees and transferring $1 billion from the fund for leaking underground storage tanks.

The good news is that both Houses are now moving to take seriously the increasingly urgent warnings of insolvency coming from the Congressional Budget Office and the U.S. Department of Transportation. Absent action to transfer money to the trust fund, the flow of dollars to the states will be curtailed as much as 28 percent after Aug. 1.

The not-so-good news is that the recent hope for a speedy, bicameral solution seems lost for the moment. The House is taking a different tack from the Senate, whose Finance Committee had delayed its own proposal in hopes of negotiation a bipartisan compromise within both chambers. The Camp proposal covers a different time period – through May 31 versus Dec. 31 in the Senate – and uses different “pay-fors”. The differences mean it will be that much harder to reach a solution before the long August recess.

The other less-than-good news is that the proposal to extend into May of next year would reduce the urgency to address a long-term solution, such as the bipartisan Murphy-Corker proposal to raise the gas tax and index it to inflation. By extending only through the end of this year, the Senate deadline raised the possibility that Congress might move immediately after the election, in a lame-duck session where members feel less political pressure.

“While it doesn’t provide as much funding as I would like – enough to get through the end of next year – it does give Congress and the tax-writing Committees ample time to consider a more long-term solution to the Highway Trust Fund,” Camp said in a statement. However, Camp also indicated he is opposed to tapping the most readily available revenue source, the federal gas tax, calling it “just about the worst tax increase Congress could hit hardworking Americans with.”

The House Ways and Means Committee is scheduled to consider the legislation Thursday at 10:00 a.m.

On C-SPAN, T4A’s Beth Osborne finds agreement with Heritage on HTF, walkability

Beth Osborne appearing on C-SPAN July 3, 2014. Click the image or here to watch the full video

Our compatriot Beth Osborne engaged in a spirited discussion on gas taxes and the crashing highway trust fund this morning on C-Span’s Washington Journal. Her co-panelist was Curtis Dubay, taxes and economic policy research fellow at the Heritage Foundation.

Dubay took less of a hard line than have some of his colleagues, who have suggested we could wind down the federal program and make the states take on everything themselves. (As an aside, can you imagine the gory fights in 50 legislatures as they try to raise gas taxes as much as 20 cents a gallon to replace the federal tax, on top of state gas taxes, which some have recently raised? How many legislative sessions would it take, and how many would just punt and let the highways, bridges and transit go to hell?)

As taxes go, Dubay said, the gas tax is a “good one”, because the people who use the resulting system are paying for it. Most people agree that infrastructure in a primary government responsibility. He even agreed a higher tax might be warranted, but only if it is restricted to highway construction.

Dubay complained that the gas tax has been diverted to “non-infrastructure purposes” like subways, ferries and road safety projects that save the lives of pedestrians and bicyclists (and motorists). To which Osborne responded:

Transit is a form of infrastructure. The purpose of the federal program is to move people and goods efficiently, not to require that people move a particular way. From the driver’s perspective it’s just as helpful to get somebody out of their way, particularly [those traveling] short distances. And it can be cheaper to move them outside their cars. … We’re looking for efficiencies and good outcomes in the program. These taxes are being used to move people the way they want to move.

There are lots of good reasons why federal gas tax dollars should be used to build and maintain a truly complete network. Transit projects in major cities make the morning commute possible for drivers, plain and simple, because without it gridlock would be absolute. Federal dollars were used to build roads that cut through neighborhoods without providing for the safety of people walking along or across them, and need to be fixed. Ferries, in states such as Washington, are part of the highway system, connecting roadways across bodies of water. These are not “diversions” from our surface transportation infrastructure; they are key components that must be part of a complete system that offers fair access for all.

In terms of who’s paying the federal gas-tax “user fee”— it’s everybody. You’re not exempt if you only use local roads and no federal highways in your commute. The cost of transporting goods, including gas and diesel taxes, is in the price of everything you buy. In the name of fairness, our taxes should be buying the safest, most efficient, most accessible system possible for all Americans – well-off or poor, young or old, whether living in cities, suburbs or small towns.

Today, market and demographic changes are demanding a new focus for our transportation investments, and that’s because … well, lets give Mr. Dubay the floor:

The market is solving the livability and walkability issue. People are moving in closer to cities. It’s a generational shift… . They are not living in the suburbs as much as they used to, largely because people don’t want to drive like they used to. Having a car and driving isn’t as romantic as it once was, that’s for sure.

If, indeed, people are going to be living in higher concentrations – and they are doing so in both cities and older suburbs – they will still need to get around. What they will need is a seamless, fully integrated network. Many will still own cars and drive them when it makes sense for them, paying gas taxes when they do. They will hope that when they need to use the highway, enough of their fellow residents will be using transit that there is actually room for them on the road.

The local leaders we work with know this, and that’s why they are trying to save the nation’s infrastructure fund from insolvency and win reforms that give them the latitude to do what they need to do. We’re glad to see folks at Heritage acknowledge the changes, and we hope that soon they will join us in declaring an end to the days of the government mandating a top-down, single-mode approach.

A broke Highway Trust Fund means job losses equal to Denver’s population, President Obama warns

Speaking today at the Key Bridge in Washington, DC, President Obama called on Congress to save the Highway Trust Fund from its pending insolvency, and to adopt a long-term transportation bill on the scale of his proposed four-year, $302 billion program. [Full text here.]

In doing so, he retraced the bipartisan history of transportation funding in the U.S.:

Soon, construction workers will be on the job making the Key Bridge safer for commuters and for families, and even for members of Congress to cross. (Laughter.) This is made possible by something called the Highway Trust Fund, which Congress established back in the 1950s, and which helps states repair and rebuild our infrastructure all across the country. It’s an example of what can happen when Washington just functions the way it was supposed to.

Back then, you had Eisenhower, a Republican President; over time you would have Democratic Presidents, Democratic and Republican members of Congress all recognizing building bridges and roads and levees and ports and airports — that none of that is a partisan issue. That’s making sure that America continues to progress.

Now, here is the problem. Here is the reason we’re here in the heat. If this Congress does not act by the end of the summer, the Highway Trust Fund will run out. There won’t be any money there. All told, nearly 700,000 jobs could be at risk next year. That would be like Congress threatening to lay off the entire population of Denver, or Seattle, or Boston.

That’s a lot of people. It would be a bad idea. Right now, there are more than 100,000 active projects across the country where workers are paving roads, and rebuilding bridges, and modernizing our transit systems. And soon, states may have to choose which projects to continue and which ones to put the brakes on because they’re running out of money. Some have already done just that, just because they’re worried that Congress will not get its act together in time.

We spend significantly less as a portion of our economy than China does, than Germany does, than just about every other advanced country. They know something that I guess we don’t, which is that’s the path to growth, that’s the path to competitiveness.

We share the President’s frustration at the lack of progress, but we are encouraged by recent glimmers of bipartisan interest in a solution. Just last week we saw a bipartisan proposal for a long-term solution in the form of a 12-cent gas tax increase over two years. To us, that is far preferable to a last-minute accounting trick to get us through the election, which seems to be the betting of conventional wisdom at the moment. And it strikes us more sustainable than the one-time infusion from a tax holiday for offshore profits the Administration has proposed.

Still, we are glad to see the President use his bully pulpit to call attention to an issue that remains something of a sleeper for a public largely unaware that the trust fund that their safety, convenience and economy depend on is seriously threatened.

Senate Finance Committee considers a trust fund stopgap, with long-term funding unclear

The Senate Finance Committee Thursday will take up a proposal from Chairman Ron Wyden (D-OR) to keep the Highway Trust Fund solvent through Dec. 31 with a $9 billion transfer from the general budget. The needed revenue would be raised by increasing the allowable tax on heavy trucks and four accounting maneuvers unrelated to transportation.

Chairman Wyden’s stopgap proposal would prevent the projected August insolvency of the nation’s key infrastructure fund and buy time until after the November elections, when Congress could consider a longer-term fix to the beleaguered trust fund.

Unfortunately, the proposal does not have bipartisan support. The top Republican on Senate Finance, Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT), has indicated he would like the trust fund fix to rely more on spending cuts. Senator Bob Corker (R-TN), who is co-sponsoring a proposal to raise the gas tax with Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT), called the proposal “a complete sham” .

However, with the clock ticking toward an end of promised federal payments to states for their transportation spending, it is the only proposed stopgap on the table that would avoid idling thousands of workers and stalling key projects throughout the country. Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA), chair of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, urged her colleagues on the Finance Committee to pass Wyden’s proposal. “I’m here to send an SOS to Congress because we are facing a transportation government shutdown,” Boxer today said at a press event.

Wyden’s proposal relies on accounting changes over ten years to amass the “savings” that would be transferred immediately from the general fund to cover the next several months of the trust fund outlays. The largest change ($3.7 billion) would require faster disbursement – and collection of taxes owed – on retirement savings of deceased account holders.

The only transportation-related source comes from raising the cap on the surcharge placed on especially heavy trucks, from $550 a year to $1,100. Set to take effect June 30, 2015, it would be the first change to the so-called heavy vehicle use tax since 1984 and is expected to raise up to $1.4 billion over the next 10 years.

Wyden told Transport Topics that he expects Republicans to offer several amendments at the committee hearing, set for 10 a.m. Thursday. “They indicated informally some rough ideas but that’s why we have opened the process,” Wyden said.

In the House, Chairman Dave Camp (R-MI) of the Ways and Means Committee, with jurisdiction over the Highway Trust Fund, has said, “There is no way tax hikes to pay for more spending will fly in the House.” Camp plans to mark up an extension of the transportation program and Highway Trust Fund after the July 4 Congressional recess.

In an encouraging bipartisan move, Senators Corker and Murphy last week proposed raising the gas tax 12 cents over two years, and offsetting that increase by making some current tax breaks permanent. Corker has said the offsets could allow other Republicans to support the proposal because it would not violate Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform pledge.

Any such long-term solution for transportation funding – which we at Transportation for America certainly support – would have to come through Wyden’s Finance Committee, presumably after a stopgap such as that on the table for tomorrow’s hearing.

Raising the gas tax also would have to pass muster with the White House. In comments Monday, Administration officials did not rule out a gas tax hike but reiterated that corporate tax reform is their preferred pay-for.

“The Administration has not proposed and has no plans to propose an increase in the gas tax,” said White House spokesman Matt Lehrich. “It is critical that we pass a [transportation] bill that not only avoids a short-term funding crisis but provides certainty and lays the groundwork for sustained economic growth. So we appreciate that members on both sides of the aisle continue to recognize the need for a long-term infrastructure bill, and we look forward to continuing to [work] with Congress to get this done.”

Here, you can read a Description of the Chairman’s Mark, and the Joint Commission on Taxation’s Score (JCT Score) of the proposal.

The details on a new bill giving locals greater access to their federal dollars

Updated 3/18/15: This bill was reintroduced in the 114th Congress on 3/17/15 in both the House and the Senate with new bill numbers, H.R. 1393 and S.762. It is identical to the version released in 2014 detailed below and this post still serves as an explainer for what the new bill would do. -Ed.

Urge your senators and representative to sign on as a cosponsor of this bill by clicking here to send them a message.

Last week we reported on the introduction of an important bill to expand local access to federal transportation dollars, the Innovation in Surface Transportation Act. Today we want to provide a little more detail about how the proposed new grant program would work.

First, a reminder of the need: Local leaders are the ones who feel the heat when crumbling infrastructure stalls traffic, when workers can’t connect to jobs, streets are unsafe or goods get stuck in congestion. But they lack the access to federal funds that could help them fix those problems and boost their economies, and they have little say in how their state’s federal allocation gets spent.

That’s gotten worse in recent years, not better. When Congress adopted the current federal program, MAP-21, in 2012, it was touted as providing more “local control”. But while states did get more latitude, local communities actually lost access, to the point that only a fraction of the available dollars flow to the cities, towns and suburbs in the metro areas where 85 percent of us live.

The Innovation in Surface Transportation Act would make good on the promise of local control by reserving a small share of transportation dollars in each state to make grants for local projects. (In the 114th Congress, the bill was introduced on 3/17/15 by Senators Wicker (R-MS), Booker (D-NJ), Casey (D-PA) and Murkowski (R-AK) in the Senate, and Representatives Rodney Davis (R-IL), Dina Titus (D-NV) Gregg Harper, (R-MS), Cheri Bustos (D-IL), Dan Lipinski (D-IL) and Matt Cartwright (D-PA) in the House. See updated bill numbers in first paragraph above. -Ed.)

Q: How would projects be selected?

Grants would be awarded based on the strength of the proposal: Will the project result in the highest return on investment? Does it improve safety and reliability? Does the community have their own funds committed to the plan?

Projects would be selected by a statewide jury of local “peers” – other stakeholders who also understand local needs – in collaboration with state DOT representatives. This is critical, because while it ensures DOT involvement, it also makes sure the vision for state progress belongs not just to the bureaucracy but includes regional and local planning organizations, stakeholders from local chambers of commerce, the active transportation community, transit agencies, air quality boards, ports and others.

While each state can tailor their program to suit their needs, the bill outlines a range of selection criteria that should be considered, including improving safety and reliability for all users, promoting multimodal connectivity, improving access to jobs and opportunity, strengthening the overall return on investment, and contributing to a more efficient national multimodal freight network, to name just a few.

Q: Why competitive grants rather than doling out specific amounts to every community by formula?

For one, when projects compete against each other, the sponsoring communities work harder to develop better projects and stretch to make the most of every dollar. And that’s where the “innovation” from the act’s title comes in: Such projects are more likely to solve multiple problems at once and prompt the creation of new partnerships among public and private actors. The innovative, cost-effective and economically important projects will rise to the top, and applicants will learn to sharpen their thinking, planning and inclusiveness around transportation.

Q: What about the handful of states already providing local access to their federal dollars?

H.R. 4726 would allow states that already hold statewide competitions or allocate a majority of federal highway funds to metropolitan or local communities to certify out of the program altogether. If a state is already doing a good job directing money to the best local projects, their efforts would be recognized and rewarded. Additionally, along these same lines, any funds that are currently directed — competitively or otherwise — to metropolitan or local communities would be exempt from inclusion in the new program. These provisions ensure that the bill doesn’t negatively impact states currently providing local control, or require them to re-create the wheel.

For example, read about existing grant programs in Oregon and Pennsylvania.

As we travel the country meeting with local elected, business and civic leaders, we see community after community developing exciting, forward-looking plans to squeeze efficiencies out of road networks expected to move cars, pedestrians, transit riders, bicycles and freight. We hear about unmet repair needs with little help in sight. We see economic opportunities seized upon, or by-passed, based on the ability to invest in a high-quality transportation network.

For them and their constituents, this proposal is the most hopeful sign to come out D.C. in a long time. It could use a lot more co-sponsors to show just how important it is. Urge your representatives to sign on as a cosponsor today by clicking here and sending them a message.

Did you already send your letters and ask your representatives to cosponsor? Then help spread the word! Use the links to share on Twitter and Facebook below, OR, cut and paste the message in the box to send a message to your friends via email.

Shouldn’t the level of government closest to the people have more control over how transportation dollars get spent in their local communities? And shouldn’t they have more access to federal transportation funds?

I think so, and I asked my representatives to cosponsor this bipartisan bill that would give local communities more access to federal transportation funds that they can invest in homegrown transportation plans and projects, and more control over how those dollars get spent.

Will you join me and send a letter? It only takes a moment.

http://action.smartgrowthamerica.org/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=19843

U.S. DOT offers great proposals, but the program needs more money to make them real

The Obama Administration last week unveiled its bid to save the federal transportation program with only months to spare before most states and metro areas lose the majority of their funding to maintain and improve transportation networks – unless Congress acts.

While the Administration foreshadowed its priorities in its March budget request, the proposal – dubbed GROW AMERICA – marks the first time since the mid-2000’s that an Administration has submitted a full reauthorization bill to Congress. [See our summary of the provisions here.] While it stops short in some respects, the Administration bill is an important acknowledgement that we need not only to shore up the funding, but also to update the program goals and structure to support today’s economy.

In one sense, the $302 billion, four-year GROW AMERICA Act was drawn up by the people most intimately familiar with what is working, or not, in the current program – the DOT leaders who must interact with communities every day as they work to implement it.

Reading between the lines, they found that rigid adherence to funding silos for each mode does not work for today’s needs. They learned from the TIGER program that there were countless projects that could solve multiple problems for communities, businesses and freight handlers, but that existing, single-mode programs did not allow them to happen.

The first, critical, change the U.S. DOT suggests is to put all dollars for transportation infrastructure into a unified trust fund and shield it from budget fights such as the recent sequestration. During that budgetary debacle, some transportation programs – such as transit construction – were slashed while others were unhurt. Communities that are investing to preserve and improve the infrastructure our economy depends on deserve to know that all their promised funding is safe, not just some of it.

The GROW AMERICA Act would begin to infuse the federal transportation program with the promising ideas of competition and incentive-based funding. While most funding under MAP-21 is distributed automatically by formula, the GROW AMERICA Act would establish several new competitive and incentive grant programs. One, modeled after the highly successful TIGER program but more than twice as large, would provide $5 billion over four years for competitive grants to fund projects with a mix of modes, including highways, bridges, transit, passenger and freight rail, and ports.

Another program – Fixing and Accelerating Surface Transportation, or FAST – is modeled after the Department of Education’s Race to the Top. It would allocate $4 billion to support incentive grants to states or metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) that adopt innovative strategies and best practices in transportation, such as creating their own multimodal trust funds or giving local governments more latitude to raise their resources.

The biggest problems with the bill come down to money. The Administration proposes $87 billion to rescue the highway trust fund and provide new resources, but has said only that the money would come from unspecified corporate tax reforms. While that one-time infusion would be welcome, it does not address the ongoing shortfall resulting from declining gas tax revenue. Worse, without the additional increment of funding, very little about the current program would change, because the most exciting proposals are layered on top of the basic structure of MAP-21. Meanwhile, the bill makes no provisions even to study or pilot future revenue sources, such as vehicle miles traveled fees.

These are just a few highlights of the GROW AMERICA bill. Read our summary for more details, and watch this space over the next couple of weeks as we take a closer look at some of the individual proposals in the bill.

We lost a good one: T4America reacts to the passing of former Chairman Jim Oberstar

Last Saturday we lost former U.S. Rep. Jim Oberstar of Minnesota, a champion of a strong, smart federal transportation program who served as chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure committee before leaving Congress in 2011. John Robert Smith, chairman of Transportation for America, issued this statement in response:

Jim Oberstar

“ ‘Public servant’, is a title quickly embraced by so many elected officials, yet it is so rarely earned. With the death of Chairman Oberstar, Minnesota and the entire nation have lost a true servant of the people. Although elected from Minnesota, for whom he worked tirelessly, he embodied the meaning of United States congressman, serving the best interests of an entire country’s people.

While he put his stamp on many issues, it was in the arena of transportation that his vision shone. He was a tireless advocate for a sound, multimodal investment strategy for America’s roads, bridges, transit and bicycling infrastructure. When the I-35W bridge collapsed in 2007 he immediately went to work find funds to replace it, and to promote policies to ensure people in other states would not meet the same fate. Even after leaving office he remained a vocal, omnipresent force in championing a forward-looking approach to preserving and improving our nation’s transportation infrastructure.

James Oberstar, congressman and public servant, titles earned by selfless service. Adieu.”