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The Generating Resilient, Environmentally Exceptional National (GREEN) Streets Act re-introduced in the Senate today

Today, Senators Ed Markey (D-MA) and Tom Carper (D-DE), and Representative Jared Huffman (CA-02) re-introduced a bill that would measure and reduce greenhouse gas emissions and vehicle miles traveled. This would be transformative.

We originally wrote this blog when the bill was first introduced in July 2019—we hope that 2021 is the year it becomes law. 

Crossing the street in Boston. Photo by Yu-Jen Shih on Flickr’s Creative Commons.

Transportation is the single largest source of greenhouse gases (GHG), contributing 28 percent of the United States’ total GHG emissions. While many other sectors have improved, transportation is headed in the wrong direction. Driving represents 83 percent of all transportation emissions and these emissions are rising—despite cleaner fuels, more efficient and electric vehicles—because people are driving more and making longer trips.

Unfortunately, our federal transportation program forces people to drive more by measuring success through vehicle speed—not the time it actually takes people to reach their destination. Building wider highways and sprawling cities to accommodate high-speed driving creates a feedback loop of more driving, virtually guaranteeing ever-increasing transportation emissions (and congestion). 

To reduce emissions we must make it possible for people to take fewer and shorter car trips, as well as make it easy and convenient for people to bike, walk and use transit. But we can’t do this if we only measure and value high speed car trips. The bill introduced today would change what we measure and value in transportation to include reducing GHG and vehicle miles traveled (VMT). 

The Generating Resilient, Environmentally Exceptional National (GREEN) Streets Act, introduced by Senators Ed Markey (D-MA) and Tom Carper (D-DE) and Representative Jared Huffman (CA-02), will create new performance measures and goals requiring that states measure, and reduce, vehicle miles traveled (VMT) and GHG in their transportation systems. Read more about the bill on Senator Markey’s website. 

“Business-as-usual is building bad highways and breaking our planet — we can build smarter, safer, and healthier systems if we factor climate impacts and emissions into our decision-making process,” said Senator Markey, a member of the Environment and Public Works Committee and co-author of the Green New Deal resolution. “We can advance the goals of clean energy, climate progress, and healthy communities, as well as fortify ourselves against the adverse impacts of climate change. An essential component of that effort is to re-envision how we plan for, construct, and maintain our national highway system, using climate measures that matter and ensure that we hold systems accountable.”

To reduce VMT and GHG, states would likely have to employ a variety of strategies, including better transportation options and smarter land use. These strategies  come with a host of benefits besides reducing GHG: reduced congestion, lower household transportation costs, safer streets, more attractive communities and better health outcomes. By measuring how successful transportation projects are by how many destinations—like jobs, schools, and grocery stores— people can access, the federal government can incentivize states and local governments to invest in transit, biking, and walking, as well as build places closer together. 

“Our transportation system gives many Americans no choice but to drive everywhere, which is no surprise because our transportation program is designed to consider only vehicle speed, not whether people (driving, taking transit, walking, rolling or biking) reach their destination. We need to measure what matters,” said Beth Osborne, director of Transportation for America. “Doing so will help give Americans more freedom to choose how to get around, save them money, and also reduce the harmful emissions wreaking havoc on our climate. We are hopeful that the re-introduced GREEN Streets Act will resume an important conversation about aligning federal funding with the outcomes we deserve from our transportation system, and we are pleased to support it.”

Transportation for America strongly supports the GREEN Streets Act and urges Congress to pass this transformative legislation. 

Hey #TeamPete, here’s how you can advance sustainable and equitable transportation policy

Former presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg’s appointment as Secretary of Transportation has brought some much-needed attention to this important department— especially from Pete’s former presidential campaign supporters. Here’s a primer for anyone new to transportation policy on how it works, how it’s broken, and what you can do to help fix it. 

Pete Buttigieg in February 2020. Photo by Gage Skidmore on Flickr’s Creative Commons.

There’s never been more attention on the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT), with hashtags like #LearnAboutDOT, #HighwayHopes, and even #ChastenYourSeatbelts trending among supporters of Pete Buttigieg’s former presidential campaign. It’s good timing: 2021 is a big year for transportation, with the prospect of an infrastructure stimulus on the horizon and long-term surface transportation policy expiring in September. 

Here’s a primer on the state of transportation policy—and what you can do to fix it—for anybody interested in making a difference in this critical issue. 

What’s the problem with U.S. transportation?

Transportation is the bedrock of our nation’s economy and is critical to addressing our environmental, racial, and economic crises. Yet despite spending billions in federal tax dollars every year, our transportation system is broken: 

Climate change, racial and economic equity, safety, and infrastructure maintenance are interrelated transportation challenges—just like highways, public transit, biking, walking, and passenger rail are interrelated. But Congress and the federal government apply an outdated 1950s approach to transportation policy, pumping billions into a program designed to build the Interstate Highway System yet expecting different results.  

The billions we spend fail to address our most basic need: getting people where they need to go safely and efficiently. Spending more money won’t work without changing what we’re spending money on.

How can we change federal transportation policy? 

Every five to six years, Congress passes a long-term transportation law referred to as the “surface transportation authorization.” This law determines what we spend federal transportation funding on. The current authorization, the FAST Act, expires this September, giving Congress a rare opportunity to fundamentally reform transportation policy. 

We’re used to not expecting measurable results from the dollars we spend. It’s time to change that. At Transportation for America, we believe that we must orient federal transportation policy according to these three principles to connect our funding to the outcomes Americans desire:

  1. Prioritize maintenance before road expansion; 
  2. Design roads for safety over speed, and
  3. Measure transportation success by how well we connect people to jobs and essential services. 

Why these three principles? We can cut our maintenance backlog in half by simply dedicating formula highway funds to maintenance—finally “fixing our crumbling roads and bridges,” as politicians love to cry. By designing roads for safer speeds, we can save thousands of lives and make it easier to bike, walk, and ride transit. And by measuring the success of our investments by how well they connect people to the things they need—not how fast cars can drive, which is how we currently measure “success”—we can prioritize investments that improve those connections, regardless of mode. (For a deeper dive on our principles, check out this primer.) 

Last summer, the House of Representatives passed a proposal that makes progress on many of our recommendations. This bill—the INVEST Act—can serve as a template for reauthorization proposals this year. 

What about an infrastructure stimulus? 

Our three principles can apply to any federal funding for transportation, including an infrastructure stimulus. If the conversation around a stimulus focuses on how much we’re spending and not what we’re spending it on, it won’t succeed at rebuilding our economy—something we discovered in our analysis of the 2009 Recovery Act. 

It’s critical that any COVID-19 stimulus includes at least $39.3 billion in emergency relief for struggling public transit systems. This funding will prevent cuts to transit service through the end of 2023. 

Public transit’s revenue has been decimated by the pandemic, yet millions of riders continue to rely on transit to reach jobs, healthcare, groceries, and other vital resources. Without continued emergency support, transit will not be able to connect riders—particularly low-income riders and people of color—with the places they need. 

What can Secretary Buttigieg do? 

Without changing federal transportation policy, USDOT doesn’t have much power to fundamentally change our transportation system. But there are some reforms Secretary Buttigieg can make without an act of Congress, including:

  • working with President Biden to reinstate the greenhouse gas performance measure for transportation (overturned by the Trump administration); 
  • streamlining and releasing transit construction grants; 
  • encouraging safer roadway design standards;
  • prohibiting states from setting regressive safety goals, like planning for more road deaths than actually occured in the year prior; 
  • measuring induced demand; 
  • and making multimodal access data available to local planners. 

You can read more of these recommendations—and our reasoning behind them—in our memo to the Biden administration. 

What can I do to help? 

In the short term, supporting emergency relief for public transit is critical. Congress needs to pass at least $39 billion to prevent transit cuts through the end of 2023. Please call, email and tweet your Congressional delegation to preserve the $30 billion in emergency relief the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee included in their COVID-19 relief package, and advocate for passing an additional $9.3 billion in subsequent legislation.  

Tweet to support transit

In the long-term, you can help Congress pass a better transportation authorization. Members of Congress rarely hear from constituents about transportation policy (which is part of the reason why members of Congress bipartisanly agree to maintain the broken status quo)—so you calling, emailing, and tweeting at your representatives goes a long way. 

As Congressional committees start to draft proposals to reauthorize transportation policy, we need grassroots advocates ready to fight for fundamental reform. Subscribe to our bi-weekly newsletter to stay tuned for upcoming actions on transportation policy. (And follow us on Twitter.)

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Over 75 organizations and elected officials want the greenhouse gas performance measure reinstated

Reducing transportation emissions is necessary to slow down climate change. Which is why in less than a week, over 75 organizations and elected officials signed a letter by Transportation for America urging the Biden administration to reinstate the greenhouse gas (GHG) performance measure for transportation. This letter supported a similar effort in Congress led by Senator Cardin and Rep. Blumenauer. 

Transportation is the largest source of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the United States, and the bulk of them come from driving. Reducing these emissions is critical—but in 2018, the Trump administration repealed a performance measure that would have required states to measure greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions when planning new highway projects.

That’s why in less than a week, over 75 organizations and elected officials urged the Biden administration in a letter to reinstate the GHG performance measure. This letter was sent to Secretary Buttigieg along with a letter by Senator Ben Cardin and Congressman Earl Blumenauer, signed by 47 Senators and Members of Congress, who asked the secretary to “urgently” restore this performance measure. 

Restoring the GHG performance measure can be done immediately through executive action initiating a notice of proposed rulemaking. According to Transport Topics in 2018, “The proposed measurement rule would have required state DOTs and MPOs to undertake administrative activities to establish targets, calculate their progress toward their selected targets, report to [the Federal Highway Administration] and determine a plan of action to make progress toward their selected targets if they failed to make significant progress during a performance period.”

Please read the full letter—with the list of 80 signatories—here. For more on the connection between transportation and greenhouse gas emissions, check out our latest report: Driving Down Emissions.

Release: Over 100 elected officials, cities, and organizations support $39.3 billion for transit

press release

Over 100 elected officials, cities and organizations urge Congress to provide $39.3 billion in emergency funding for public transportation to preserve transit service through 2023

WASHINGTON, DC: With only three days’ notice, over 100 elected officials, cities and organizations signed a letter written by Transportation for America (T4America) and the Alliance for a Just Society (AJS) urging Congress to provide transit agencies with $39.3 billion in emergency funding over three years. This critical funding will allow transit agencies to avoid service cuts through 2023, ensuring that public transit will survive the pandemic and continue to provide safe and reliable access to jobs, schools, and services for millions of Americans. 

Public transit has been devastated by the pandemic, with ridership losses and declining local revenue sources putting this essential service at risk. Without federal emergency relief, many transit agencies and paratransit service providers will be forced to dramatically reduce or eliminate critical service as soon as this spring, as found in an analysis by TransitCenter.

Transit agencies face a projected funding shortfall of $39.3 billion through 2023, according to an independent economic analysis highlighted by the American Public Transportation Association (APTA). Without equivalent relief, “four in 10 agencies will have to consider additional service cuts to close their budget gaps. These cuts would come on the heels of 65 percent of transit agencies having cut service in 2020. Twenty-two percent of agencies will be forced to consider implementing additional layoffs,” according to APTA. 

Last night, the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee approved additional COVID-19 relief including $30 billion for public transit. This funding is a huge step towards helping transit agencies survive this crisis and continue powering our economic recovery. The additional and much-needed $9.3 billion can be provided in subsequent legislation. 

Read the full letter here. For requests to interview Transportation for America Director Beth Osborne or Policy Director Scott Goldstein, please contact Jenna Fortunati at jenna.fortunati@t4america.org.

Request for proposals: Grant reporting for the Southern Rail Commission

Summary  

Transportation for America (T4A) supports the Southern Rail Commission (SRC) to promote passenger rail  connecting Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana to each other and the broader nation. As part of this work, the SRC was awarded several planning and construction grants from the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) for both passenger rail stations and capital improvements to support better intercity passenger  service along the Gulf Coast.  

T4A currently manages these grants for SRC and is seeking support for grant reporting, including:

  • working with state and city partners conducting the planning and construction work to follow the status of their work and steer any questions to T4A; 
  • compiling content from state and city partners needed to file quarterly reports;
  • compiling content from state and city partners needed to file final reports, when projects are completed;
  • and updating project trackers as requested by T4A or SRC Commissioners. 

This project is expected to last for 2-3 years.  

Background  

There are two types of grants at issue: 1) rail station planning or construction grants and 2) Consolidated  Rail Infrastructure and Safety Improvements (CRISI) grants. With regard to the station grants, in 2016, the  SRC announced the allocations for more than $2 million in funding through the FRA to ten communities in  Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana that are planning for restored and improved passenger rail service. 

Of the 10 projects awarded funding, six are still awaiting final FRA approval and/or are underway. Those  projects are: 

  • City of Birmingham: enhancements and construction of pedestrian corridor connecting the  downtown Intermodal Facility to the Amtrak platform; 
  • City of Mobile: passenger rail station plan development, including a master plan and architectural design: 
  • City of Bay St. Louis: canopy improvements, trackside improvements, landscaping, signage, and ADA compliant access; 
  • City of Biloxi: passenger rail platform and pedestrian access connecting to transit station nearby;
  • City of Gulfport: construction of a new platform canopy with lighting, ADA improvements, sidewalk improvements and landscaping;
  • and City of Pascagoula: improvements to restore the historic train station. 

In addition, the SRC has issued another Notice of Funding Availability in the amount of $794,385 for  improvements to the Gulf Coast rail corridor in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. Once these grants are awarded this spring, they too will be a part of the grant administration task contained in this RFP.

Under the CRISI program, in June 2019, FRA awarded a $33 million grant to the SRC to restore passenger rail service between New Orleans, LA, and Mobile, AL. These funds will be matched by non-federal state funds for a total of $66-million of infrastructure improvements to facilitate passenger rail.  

All of the grants require tracking and reporting to ensure they meet all of FRA’s requirements. It also  requires the gathering of expenses for submission to FRA for reimbursement. 

Selection criteria  

T4A will select a proposal based on: 

  • qualifications and cost; 
  • past experience managing comparable grants; 
  • knowledge of and experience in the SRC region;
  • and knowledge of and experience with the projects that are the subject of the grant. 

Transportation for America is committed to building a diverse team, including through its contracting, and strongly encourages applications from Women- and Minority-Owned Enterprises.   

Submittal requirements  

Interested individuals or companies should submit information regarding your qualifications and hourly rates to Elizabeth Schilling (eschilling@smartgrowthamerica.org) and John Robert Smith  (jrsmith@t4america.org) by 5:00 PM ET on February 24, 2021. 

Proposal should be no more than 5 pages and include: 

1. A description of your experience in the region, your familiarity and experience with the projects at  issue, and any past grants management work. 

2. An estimate of the time and cost to perform the required work on a quarterly basis. 3. Names, titles and billing rates for each staff person expected to participate in this contract, and  their relative roles and responsibilities. 

For further information:  

Please email questions about the RFP to info@t4america.org.

Public transit needs $39.3 billion in the next COVID package

Public transit has been decimated by the pandemic. While the December 2020 COVID package gave transit much-needed support to keep running essential service, this funding will start running out in the spring—as soon as cities and towns prepare to reopen. We urge Congress to provide at least $39.3 billion in emergency relief to prevent transit cuts through 2023. 

EDIT, February 11th: On Wednesday night, the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee approved $30 billion in emergency relief for public transit. We thank the Committee for passing this critical funding and encourage them to provide an additional and much-needed $9.3 billion for transit in subsequent legislation.

Transit is essential to our ongoing pandemic response and our economic recovery. But it’s facing an existential crisis: without additional emergency relief, transit agencies across the country will be forced to make service cuts this spring—just when our cities and towns prepare to reopen. 

Public transit needs an additional $39.3 billion in any economic stimulus or relief legislation to preserve transit service though the rest of the pandemic and into the economic recovery. Without this funding, over 2.8 million essential workers who count on transit won’t be able to get to work. These essential workers power healthcare, grocery, sanitation, and other crucial sectors. In addition, millions of Americans—particularly people of color, who make up 60 percent of transit riders—continue to rely on public transportation as an essential connection to jobs, food, healthcare, education, and other critical services. 

Why $39.3 billion? 

Public transit has been devastated by the pandemic, with ridership losses and declining local revenue sources putting this essential service at risk of near extinction. In fact, transit agencies across the country were planning massive cuts to service and layoffs before the December COVID-19 relief package was passed; the $14 billion in relief from this package delayed these cuts, but without additional robust support, transit agencies will soon be in the same dire situation. 

An analysis by TransitCenter found that “without further assistance, some agencies will have to confront service cuts this spring, before cities begin to recover from the pandemic. Other agencies will have to contemplate cuts in the fall, undercutting a fragile economic recovery.” Compounding this financial pressure, transit agencies already face increased costs for cleaning and revenue losses due to COVID-19 that will continue long after the public health crisis is over.

Transit agencies face a projected funding shortfall of $39.3 billion through 2023, according to an independent economic analysis highlighted by the American Public Transportation Association (APTA). Without equivalent relief, “four in 10 agencies will have to consider additional service cuts to close their budget gaps. These cuts would come on the heels of 65 percent of transit agencies having cut service in 2020. Twenty-two percent of agencies will be forced to consider implementing additional layoffs,” according to APTA. 

The $39.3 billion ask is in line with the Biden administration’s ask for transit relief. President Biden’s American Rescue Plan calls for $20 billion in relief for transit agencies to survive through summer 2022 without service cuts, which is the size of the budget gap assessed by both APTA and TransitCenter for this year. However, the $39.3 billion goes beyond summer 2022, filling the expected budget gap through 2023. 

It’s critical that Congress provides an additional $39.3 billion for public transit in any upcoming economic stimulus or relief legislation. These funds are necessary to preserve essential transit service and support our economic recovery.   

If you represent an organization or are an elected official, please sign our letter with the Alliance for a Just Society urging Congressional transportation leaders to include $39.3 billion in emergency relief for public transit in the next COVID-19 relief package.

If you don’t represent an organization or elected official, you can still tweet to get the message out.

How zoning keeps the number of low-emission neighborhoods artificially low

Many Americans want to live in walkable neighborhoods that are served by rapid public transportation. But these neighborhoods are few and far between and incredibly expensive to live in. That’s because in many cities and towns, building walkable neighborhoods is illegal, putting a premium on the few dense communities that exist. 

A neighborhood in San Diego.

The following blog is adapted from an excerpt of Smart Growth America and Transportation for America’s recent report, Driving Down Emissions, which explores how changing transportation policy and land use patterns are key to lowering greenhouse gas emissions.

It may appear that the United States’ typical car-oriented suburbs and exurbs that we’ve been building for the last 60-plus years—where often the only way residents can access what they need is by car—is the most in-demand style of neighborhood. 

This isn’t true. For the past few decades, the demand for compact and walkable neighborhoods connected to jobs and services by transit has skyrocketed, but the housing market hasn’t kept pace. That’s because local zoning rules often make building more of these types of neighborhoods illegal. 

In 2017, 62 percent of Americans reported that living near transit was important in choosing their home, and 54 percent cited their desire to live near bike lanes and paths, as found in the National Association of Realtors’ Community Preference Survey. And despite numerous news stories warning of a mass departure of residents from U.S. cities due to COVID-19, data has shown the opposite: Zillow’s research showed that, during the pandemic, “suburban housing markets have not strengthened at a disproportionately rapid pace compared to urban markets.” Even during an unprecedented pandemic, large numbers of people are not fleeing the cities for the suburbs, and cities will endure. 

Millions more Americans want to live in compact, transit-connected communities than can find or afford a home in one. And those who do pay a premium to be there. Yet in many towns and cities, local zoning regulations artificially constrict the number of these communities that can exist. By limiting how densely housing can be constructed or requiring minimum lot sizes, zoning interferes and prevents the market from meeting the demand for walkable, transit-served communities. In fact, it’s illegal to build anything except single-family detached houses on roughly 75 percent of land in most cities—which might explain why in the 30 largest metropolitan areas in the U.S., walkable neighborhoods account for between 0.04 percent and 1.2 percent of land area.

The consequences of making housing like duplexes or multi-unit apartment buildings illegal are severe. For one, the artificial dearth of compact, walkable neighborhoods dramatically increases property values in these types of communities that already exist—often to levels that make them unaffordable to those who could benefit from them the most. This trend has pushed low-income people out of compact cities to more affordable suburbs, where fewer transportation options fail to thoroughly connect them to jobs and services. Their transportation costs immediately go up, sometimes wiping out the gains of the more affordable housing. One study found that residents in low-income suburban neighborhoods with some transit access can reach just 4 percent of metro area jobs within a 45-minute commute. This means many people without access to a car can’t reach most jobs, further trapping them in a cycle of poverty.

In addition, it’s an immense challenge to efficiently serve a neighborhood of only single-family homes by transit. This fact, combined with the way that destinations spread farther apart, trips become longer or more frequent, and roads become wider and less safe to walk along or cross, results in more greenhouse gas emissions. Driving contributes the majority of transportation sector emissions in the United States, making transportation the largest source of U.S. carbon emissions and the only sector of the economy where emissions are rising, not decreasing. 

One solution? Permit the construction of more housing and neighborhoods that people want by reforming zoning rules to allow more homes, and more types and sizes of homes. More housing near transit and communities where people can live, work and play is needed to meet the demand and reduce the price pressure. 

Many cities are already updating their zoning to help build these walkable neighborhoods. Consider this: 

  • In San Diego, where housing prices have gone up 70 percent in the last six years, the mayor is seeking to address this issue by making it easier to build more housing near transit. 
  • Minneapolis also passed a comprehensive plan in 2018 that allowed duplexes and other types of housing citywide and eliminated parking requirements, which together could have a substantial impact on transportation emissions in the region. 
  • South Bend, Transportation Secretary Buttigieg’s former domain, eliminated parking requirements citywide, halting the practice of requiring developers to build expensive extra new parking that residents often don’t want or need but which ends up being rolled into the cost of a new home or apartment. 
  • In Portland, OR, the city recently moved to allow up to six homes on almost any residential lot. 

In these cities, anyone is free to continue building single-family homes in almost any neighborhood, but now more home types are legal. These changes will encourage compact urban development and make it more affordable to live in these cities, mitigating future sprawl and the additional driving it would cause.

However, local zoning regulations don’t exist in a vacuum: many zoning decisions are made in response to federal incentives. Federal transportation policy’s disproportionate investment in highways encourages many local governments to double down on sprawling land use patterns that best accommodate the high speed roads their state is building everywhere, pushing destinations further and further apart. 

Federal transportation policy can help reverse this trend by allocating funding to programs that increase access to jobs and services the most, regardless of mode—as is the case in the INVEST Act, the surface transportation bill passed by the House this past summer. The federal government can also commit to funding public transit and highways equally. 

Cities and towns should reform their zoning so that everybody who wants to can live in a walkable neighborhood connected to jobs and services by transit. Allowing the market to meet the demand for more homes in places that naturally come with lower emissions is a powerful climate change strategy. We’ll never reduce our carbon emissions, dismantle barriers to opportunities (particularly those faced by people of color), or rebuild our economy if we don’t make it easier and more affordable to live in great places.

COVID-19 threw a curveball at curb management. Here’s how cities adapted.

Transportation for America’s 2020 cohort of the Smart Cities Collaborative was always meant to focus on curbside management. But then came COVID-19, radically shifting all aspects of our lives—including how we use curbs. Our new report, COVID and the Curb, explores how cities adapted their curb management strategies to support public health and small businesses, and ideas for better curb policy at the local, state, and federal levels. 

A Shared Spaces street in San Francisco, organized by the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency.

The following blog is adapted from our new report, COVID and The Curb. Read the full report—chock full of in-depth case studies—here.

Over the past few years, demands for curb space have skyrocketed. No longer just for personal car parking, curbs are where people board buses or streetcars; access app-based shared bicycles, scooters, or cars; and host block parties or parklets. Businesses send out and pick up deliveries at the curb, and unhoused community members, often without other options, use curbs as temporary living spaces.

In 2020, the curb was used for all those purposes and more. Local governments got creative to align curbside management with COVID-19 response efforts—at the same time the pandemic was accelerating some of the changing uses of and growing demand on the curb already underway. 

Click the image to read the full report.

Across the country, a number of cities reprogrammed curb and street space for retail, outdoor dining, and active transportation; working with communities to design curb pilots; and setting up temporary transit lanes and COVID-19 testing sites. Due to the urgent nature of the crisis, cities developed new approaches to a number of challenges (many rooted in issues that existed far before COVID-19) that should be revisited post-pandemic. We explored many of these new approaches in our new report, COVID and the Curb. 

The challenge to adapt curbside management to COVID-19 raised a host of questions for cities. How do you balance equitable community engagement with pressure to provide quick solutions? How do you revise permitting processes—like for outdoor dining—to be less arduous and more equitable? How do you clearly communicate new regulations and processes as they’re being changed and implemented?

These questions were made all the more significant because of the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on certain communities, particularly Black people, Indigenous people, and other people of color. In response, cities across the country piloted new solutions, swapped use cases with peers, stayed as nimble as possible, and reassessed how government assets could better and more equitably serve the public during this crisis.

Here’s what some cities did: 

  • The City of Boston waived and reduced outdoor dining permit requirements, which previously involved surveyed and engineered design drawings, a public hearing, multi-departmental permitting, and fees. The majority of these requirements were either waived or reduced, and the review and approval process was expedited to take a matter of weeks, rather than months.
  • In Ann Arbor, city staff developed a “parking space repurposing” program to allow 40 restaurants to use the on-street parking spaces in front of their properties for extended patio space at no cost to businesses. 
  • In San Francisco, as traffic started to slowly return after the initial lockdown, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) set up temporary transit lanes to ensure “that essential workers and transit-dependent San Franciscans do not bear the costs of traffic congestion.” By devoting lanes solely for buses, SFMTA reduced the amount of time buses spend in traffic, protecting public health by reducing riders’ travel time and hence their potential exposure to COVID-19.
  • …and more case studies featured in COVID and the Curb. 

Looking to the future of curb space

With residents, elected officials, and small business owners paying closer attention to the curb and how it can be strategically leveraged for the public’s benefit, cities now have a unique opportunity to shift management of their curbs in a way that’s equitable, flexible and innovative. Cities can set up curb guidelines to prioritize curb uses, ensure curb signage is understandable and accessible,  and address inequitable curb enforcement—and much, much more. 

While curb management largely occurs at the local level, there are a handful of policy actions states and the federal government can take to support local governments’ ability to efficiently and equitably manage their curb. For example, providing additional regulatory oversight on delivery vehicles and TNCs, and requiring data sharing between private operators and cities. 

Go deeper in these case studies and  policy ideas in our new report, COVID and the Curb. 

Meet the new leaders of the U.S. Department of Transportation

A new presidential administration means a brand new set of political appointees. Luckily, the Biden administration’s picks for top jobs in the U.S. Department of Transportation give us reasons to be optimistic. Here are our thoughts on the appointees, and a reminder that we can’t rest easy: we need to seize this historic opportunity in our fight for transportation that actually connects Americans to the places they need. 

The U.S. Department of Transportation. Photo by the author.

Deputy Secretary: Polly Trottenberg

Polly Trottenberg has led one of the most storied transportation careers we can think of: assistant secretary for transportation policy and under secretary for policy in the Obama administration, a Senate staffer for over 12 years, and most recently—and perhaps most prolifically—the commissioner of New York City’s Department of Transportation. Her leadership in lowering all NYC speed limits to 25 mph is a major testament to her vision and willpower.

What she brings to USDOT: Trottenberg has a strong understanding of the transportation system, the needs of cities, and how federal policy often undermines municipal attempts to reverse autocentric planning. This background—coupled with her vast management experience bringing innovation to one of the country’s largest DOTs—could be game changing in the upper echelon of USDOT leadership. 

As our director Beth Osborne put it to E&E News: 

“Polly was a groundbreaking leader of New York City’s Department of Transportation, consistently challenging the transportation status quo, including lowering speed limits to 25 mph to reduce crashes and roadway fatalities. This is just one of her many accomplishments. I’m lucky to count Polly as a friend and colleague from my time working at USDOT and on Capitol Hill, and know firsthand that her vision and breadth of government experience will help the new administration modernize the US transportation program and system. We’re excited to work with her!”  

Federal Highways Deputy Administrator: Stephanie Pollack

Massachusetts’ Secretary of Transportation for the past five years, Stephanie Pollack’s selection as Deputy Administrator of the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) sends a strong message. She’s a long-time advocate for increased investment in public transit. As secretary, she led the way on greenhouse gas reduction, including helping to shape the Transportation Climate Initiative, which Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker signed onto . She has also made safe access to walking and biking a priority in MassDOT’s street designs, especially near transit.

What she brings to USDOT: Pollack understands state DOTs—a major recipient of FHWA funding. She’s also committed to the safety of all road users, and understands that street design is critical in the effort to save lives and improve access to jobs and services. 

Take this powerful quote from Pollack for a sense of how she’ll lead at FHWA: 

“Some people think it’s a little odd that I’m headed to [the] Federal Highway [Administration]. But many of you have heard me say that I don’t think of people as pedestrians or bicyclists or bus riders or transit users or drivers. I think of them as people who need the transportation system to help connect them to the things they want and need. And so I go into Federal Highway with a mindset that it can be an agency that supports people rather than a singular mode of transportation.” 

National Highway Traffic Safety Deputy Administrator: Steve Cliff

Since 2017, Steve Cliff has been chief of the California Air Resources Board, a state agency  “charged with protecting the public from the harmful effects of air pollution and developing programs and actions to fight climate change.” Which might make Cliff an unusual choice for Deputy Administrator of NHTSA, a federal agency overwhelmingly focused on the safety of people inside cars—but that’s exactly what makes his selection exciting. 

What he brings to USDOT: A climate leader like Cliff at USDOT who knows that reducing vehicle miles traveled (and not just investing in electric vehicles) is critical to reducing emissions will help shift USDOT’s role in fighting climate change in necessary ways. 

Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Transportation Policy: Christopher Coes

As of January 19th, Christopher Coes was our coworker! For 10 years, Christopher has shaped the direction of our parent organization, Smart Growth America, most recently serving as our vice president of land use and development and Director of SGA’s LOCUS coalition of real estate developers and investors. 

What he brings to USDOT: As the chief of SGA’s land use initiatives, Christopher has a deep understanding of the intersection between housing, land use and transportation—knowledge that is essential to creating a transportation system that efficiently, conveniently, affordably and sustainably connects people with the things they need.  

Deputy Assistant Secretary for Safety Policy: Robin Hutcheson

Robin Hutcheson was most recently the director of Public Work in Minneapolis and President of the National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO)’s Board of Directors. Previously, she was the director of transportation for Salt Lake City. 

What she brings to USDOT: Hutcheson understands new mobility, curb management, and the design changes needed in order to build safe, transit-friendly streets in towns and cities. Her years of helming NACTO and transportation in Minneapolis—one of the cities that participated in our 2020 Smart Cities Collaborative—are testament to this. 

Director of the Office of Civil Rights: Irene Marion

Irene Marion was the Equity and Inclusion Manager for the Portland (OR) Bureau of Transportation (PBOT). At USDOT, her new role makes her responsible for enforcing civil rights across all federally funded transportation programs.

What she brings to USDOT: Marion’s experience defining transportation justice for PBOT will be critical in advancing racial justice at USDOT, a department responsible for a sector that President Biden and incoming Secretary Buttigieg both billed as sources of racial inequality.

NEW EDITION: Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology: Robert Hampshire

Robert Hampshire is an associate professor at the University of Michigan’s Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy “whose research and policy engagement focuses on understanding the societal, climate and equity implications of autonomous and connected vehicles and other innovative mobility services,” as per this press release.

What he brings to USDOT: The equity and climate implications of automated vehicles (AVs) have not been robustly considered in any effort to regulate this new technology. With Congressional interest in passing AV policy mounting, Hampshire’s research and expertise in this area will be critical in the effort to ensure that AVs help improve equity and our climate, not make these problems worse.

There are many other exciting appointees in addition to those highlighted here, including Nuria Fernandez at the Federal Transit Administration, Amit Bose at the Federal Railroad Administration and Meera Joshi at the Federal Motor Carriers Safety Administration.

It’s a “dream team,” but we still need to hold them accountable

Pedestrian safety advocate Angie Schmitt said it first: the Biden administration has put together a “dream team” for USDOT. 
This is definitely one of the most exciting groups of political appointees we’ve seen for the department. But these capable leaders cannot reform our transportation system alone. We need to hold them accountable to doing their part to make U.S. transportation safe, accessible, sustainable, and equitable within their authority at USDOT. That means more than running the current program well. It means making permanent changes to the program that makes it hard for leaders in the future to run it poorly.

At the same time, we need to support  their efforts by urging Congress to pass long-term surface transportation policy that throws out the broken status quo and actually connects federal funding with the outcomes Americans want: getting to where they need to go.

Everything we liked (and didn’t like) at Buttigieg’s Transportation Secretary confirmation hearing

Last Thursday, former South Bend mayor Pete Buttigieg faced the Senate for questioning on his nomination to be Secretary of Transportation. We liked almost all of his answers, and we weren’t alone: Senator Tester said Buttigieg’s testimony was “refreshing.” Here’s what T4America liked and didn’t like from Buttigieg’s confirmation hearing. 

Former South Bend mayor Pete Buttigieg facing the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee as President Biden’s nominee to be Secretary of Transportation. Screen grab from C-SPAN.

✅ Complete Streets is a priority for Buttigieg

When answering a powerfully-worded question from Senator Schatz (D-HI), a cosponsor of the Complete Streets Act, Buttigieg confirmed his commitment to a Complete Streets approach. He even highlighted the Complete Streets projects that took place in South Bend. (Smart Growth America provided technical assistance to South Bend to pursue Complete Streets demonstration projects.)

“It’s very important to recognize the importance of roadways where pedestrians, bicycles, vehicles, any other mode can coexist peacefully. And that Complete Streets vision will continue to enjoy support from me if confirmed,” Buttgieg said. 

✅  Our “autocentric view” is a problem

Doubling down on his commitment to Complete Streets, Buttigieg noted that transportation in the United States overwhelmingly prioritizes cars. “There are so many ways that people get around, and I think often we have an autocentric view that forgets historically all of the other different modes,” Buttigieg told Sen. Klobuchar (D-MN). “We want to make sure that every time we do a street design that it enables cars, bicycles, and pedestrians, and businesses and any other mode to coexist in a positive way. We should be putting funding behind that.” 

✅  Addressing past damages is a priority 

Transportation infrastructure—particularly urban highways that have demolished and divided communities of color—is sometimes a major roadblock to improving equity in this country. Buttigieg knows this and told senators so in his opening remarks. “I also recognize that at their worst, misguided policies and missed opportunities in transportation can reinforce racial and economic inequality, by dividing or isolating neighborhoods and undermining government’s basic role of empowering Americans to thrive,” Buttigieg said. 

✅  Policy hasn’t kept up with automated vehicles 

Automated vehicles (AVs) is one of the transportation technologies that often captures lawmakers’ imagination. But in response to Sen. Fischer (R-NE), Buttigieg acknowledged that the federal government has failed to provide the leadership necessary to ensure that AVs actually deliver the benefits they promise. “[AV technology] is advancing quickly and has the potential to be transformative, but in a lot of ways, policy hasn’t kept up,” Buttigieg said. 

This couldn’t be more true. After investigating deaths from two separate AV crashes, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) billed the utter lack of federal safety performance standards as one of the causes for the fatalities. 

But proactive federal policy is needed for more than just ensuring that AVs are safe. Policy is needed to ensure that AVs are equitable, accessible, and sustainable. That’s why we joined Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety and other partners in creating tenets for AV policy. 

✅  He supports passenger rail

Buttigieg said he’s the “second biggest enthusiast for passenger rail in this administration,” referring of course to President Biden, a long-time rider and fan of Amtrak, as the first.  “Americans deserve the highest standard of passenger rail,” Buttigieg said. 

When Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS)—a major supporter of restoring passenger rail to the Gulf Coast—asked Buttigieg if he’s a rail rider himself, Buttigieg said he enjoys short rail trips “and long ones too.” In light of Amtrak’s proposal to cut its long-distance network, this might signal Buttigieg’s support for those critical routes.  

✅  The BUILD program should be easier to apply for

The U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) offers a host of grant programs for cities and towns to construct and maintain transportation infrastructure. But the application process is often daunting for smaller entities. As mayor of a small city that wasn’t able to have “full-time staff managing federal relations,” Buttigieg told Sen. Wicker (R-MS) that making BUILD and INFRA grants easier for small and rural municipalities to apply for are one of his priorities. 

“It’s very important to me that this process is user-friendly, that criteria are transparent, and that communities of every size, including rural communities and smaller communities, have every opportunity to access those funds,” Buttigieg said. 

✅  Senators on both side of the aisle support Buttigieg

Buttigieg felt the love from both sides of the aisle during his confirmation hearing, with Sen. Tester (D-MT) going as far to say that Buttigieg’s testimony should serve as a model for other nominees facing Senate approval. Sen. Wicker (R-MS) listed Buttigieg’s accomplishments in his opening statement, praising his “impressive credentials that demonstrate his intellect and commitment to serving our nation.”

With slim Democratic majorities in both the House and Senate, bipartisanship will be key to passing surface transportation authorization. But historically, infrastructure is one the areas where lawmakers bipartisanly agree to pass bad policy—rather than ruffling feathers and taking a hard look at what the federal government spends money on and why. (We blogged about it here.) It will take lots of work—like the herculean effort the House underwent this summer to pass a new kind of transportation bill—to make sure that the long-term transportation bill lawmakers must pass this year actually connects funding with the outcomes Americans want.

🚫 His climate answer only mentioned electric vehicles 

When Sen. Schatz asked about Buttigieg’s approach to climate change, Buttigieg only discussed electric vehicles, charging infrastructure, and increased vehicle fuel efficiency as a solution. Yet it’s a fact that electric vehicles and improved fuel efficiency—while critical—aren’t enough to reduce transportation emissions on their own. 

While we applaud Buttigieg’s support of President Biden’s “whole government” approach to addressing climate change (meaning that climate work isn’t confined to a single department like the EPA), we need Buttigieg to understand that USDOT needs to do more than invest in electric vehicles as a climate solution.

We like what we heard. Now let’s make sure it happens 

Buttigieg might be one of the most promising new Secretaries of Transportation that we’ve seen, but we must hold him accountable to following through on these initiatives. Now is not the time to lay back: we have a lot of work to do to ensure that USDOT does what it can internally to connect transportation funding to the outcomes Americans want (like our three principles) and that Congress passes a long-term transportation bill that ends decades of broken, misguided policy.

The Scenic Route is getting a makeover

Back in early 2016, we launched the Scenic Route website, a new interactive guide to help transportation professionals collaborate with artists and to introduce creative placemaking to transportation planners, public works agencies, and local elected officials. This guide was an important touchstone, but the evolutions in this field and the notable projects that have happened since its launch have left it in need of an update, which we’re pleased to announce is on the way.

Do you have a project you’d like to see included in the new Scenic Route?
Tell us about it here.

The Scenic Route has inspired communities across the county to embed artists into transportation projects through stories like the Green Line in the Twin Cities, where art was integrated into the entire light rail construction process, or transit planning effort in Portland, OR, where artists played a crucial role in community engagement. As part of the Scenic Route’s makeover, we will be updating case studies, adding new resources, and featuring new projects, to reflect the proliferation of artist/transportation agency partnerships and artist-in-residence programs, and to share what has been accomplished over the past few years with the projects we previously featured. Here’s what you can expect:

New resources. In some ways, the Scenic Route launched just as our arts and culture work was really getting off the ground in 2015 and 2016. But Transportation for America’s arts and culture team has been busy in the last few years surveying the state of creative placemaking, training cities and artists to improve transportation projects, launching the first ever artists-in-residence program at State DOTs, and most recently working with communities to creatively address COVID challenges. We’ll be adding new resources that stemmed from those projects and can help communities looking to do similar work. 

Updates to flagship case studies included in the first iteration of the website. Oftentimes a creative placemaking project’s impact isn’t realized right away but rather develops in the years following implementation. That’s why we’re following up with some of our favorite projects featured in the guide to see how they have benefited communities in recent years.

A new website organization. The new website will be reorganized to better help you find what you’re looking for.

And most importantly, we want to feature work that you think is important. Have you been a part of a project, or are you familiar with a project that should be featured on the Scenic Route? We’re primarily interested in transportation projects in which artists have played a key role in solving a transportation challenge. Let us know by filling out this form. 

We look forward to releasing a new and improved Scenic Route in March. Stay tuned!

RELEASE: The emergency funding for transit and Amtrak is good but not enough

press release

Late Monday evening, Congress passed appropriations for fiscal year 2021 that included $908 billion in a supplemental COVID-19 relief package. Transportation for America and our partners the Alliance for a Just Society, NRDC, and U.S. PIRG released this statement:

WASHINGTON, DC: The Alliance for a Just Society, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), U.S. PIRG, and Transportation for America are happy to see Congress make a critical downpayment of emergency funding for public transportation in the coronavirus supplement to FY 2021 appropriations. Millions of riders—including essential workers—rely on transit to reach jobs, groceries, healthcare, COVID-19 testing centers, and soon vaccination sites. Additionally, 60 percent of transit riders are people of color. We appreciate that lawmakers on both sides of the aisle recognize the crucial role that transit plays in our economy and COVID-19 response. 

However, this bill’s $14 billion for transit is less than half of what transit needs to survive—and it won’t be as effective as it should be because it is being provided through a short-term, halting approach. Many transit agencies could assume that they will not receive additional relief in time to prevent devastating service cuts and layoffs when this funding runs out in a few months. Transportation costs more and works less well when funded in short-term chunks.

This bill also gives state departments of transportation $10 billion in flexible emergency relief. We encourage governors and state legislatures to work with their transportation departments to use this funding to support essential workers, improve access to work and essential services for people whether they have access to a car or not, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and reduce the impact of the transportation system on neighboring communities, especially Black and brown communities. 

Transportation for America appreciates the $1 billion in emergency funding for Amtrak in this bill, but this too is short of the $2.5 billion Amtrak needs to survive this crisis. Passenger rail provides critical connections for rural communities and big cities alike—losing reliable Amtrak service will massively hinder our economic recovery. 

We’re glad to see lawmakers from communities large and small, blue and red recognize the importance of transit to our pandemic response and economic recovery in this relief package. And we look forward to working with Congress in the new year to secure long-term, reliable transit funding that is necessary for a robust and equitable economic recovery. 

Over 160 elected officials and organizations support fundamental changes to the federal transportation program

press release

Over 160 elected officials and organizations urge Congress to prioritize maintenance, safety over speed, and access to jobs and services in the next long-term transportation law

WASHINGTON, DC: With 169 signatures from elected officials and organizations across 39 states, Transportation for America on Thursday sent a letter to Congress urging lawmakers to set a vision in the next transportation reauthorization, including holding the program accountable for maintaining our transportation system, building safer streets, and connecting people to jobs and services by providing reliable transportation choices. 

“Updating long-term transportation policy is an opportunity to ensure that our economy recovers strongly and evenly,” said Beth Osborne, director of Transportation for America. “Our 1950s approach to transportation has led to increases in congestion, emissions, and pedestrian fatalities, and decreases in access to economic opportunity for those without access to a reliable car. It’s long past time for Congress to connect federal policy to the outcomes Americans want from their transportation system: getting where they need to go affordably, conveniently, and safely, on infrastructure that is well-maintained.” 

The current surface transportation law, the FAST Act, was extended by Congress and President Trump for one additional year and is now set to expire in September 2020. In July 2020, the House of Representatives passed the INVEST Act, a reauthorization proposal supported by Transportation for America that starts the work of updating our broken federal transportation policy. 

The letter also highlights how COVID-19 has exposed and exacerbated the crisis plaguing our transportation system. Pedestrian fatalities have increased during the pandemic despite fewer cars on the road—a result of streets designed to move vehicles as fast as possible in all contexts without considering the needs of people walking, biking or using mobility-assistive devices. Over 2.8 million essential workers have been relying on transit since the pandemic’s start, but a legacy of insufficient federal funding is hindering transit agencies’ ability to provide the service riders need. It is critical that Congress uses the upcoming reauthorization as an opportunity to reverse these harmful trends and strengthen our economic recovery with smart, impactful policy. 

You can read the full letter and the list of 169 signatories here. 

Transportation for America’s statement on Pete Buttigieg as Transportation Secretary nominee

press release

Former South Bend mayor Pete Buttigieg has just been picked as President-elect Joe Biden’s nominee for Secretary of Transportation. Here is a statement from our director, Beth Osborne, on his selection.

“We are very excited to hear that Pete Buttigieg has been nominated to be Secretary of Transportation,” said Beth Osborne, director of Transportation for America. “As mayor of South Bend, he showed great commitment to the safety of all road users through Complete Streets and that Complete Streets were about economic development because they better serve local residents and businesses. For example, our sister organization, the National Complete Streets Coalition, worked directly with South Bend on a Complete Streets demonstration project focused on reducing speeding on a neighborhood street. As a candidate for president, he proposed a fix-it-first approach to highway funding, a national Vision Zero strategy, and measures to organize the federal transportation program around improving access to jobs and essential services for drivers and non-drivers alike. We look forward to working with him in his new post at USDOT.”

We analyzed Buttigieg’s transportation plan from his presidential campaign back in February. Check out the analysis here.

How we ranked Pete Buttigieg’s transportation plan during his presidential campaign

Former South Bend mayor Pete Buttigieg has just been picked as President-elect Joe Biden’s nominee for Secretary of Transportation. Transportation for America is excited about this pick for one big reason: his transportation plan from his presidential campaign was one of two that received passing marks from us. Here’s what we wrote back in February on Buttigieg’s high score, using our three principles for transportation policy as a rubric.

Former South Bend mayor Pete Buttigieg would make big changes to the formulas at the heart of the transportation program. His plan would require states plan for maintenance before they’re allowed to build new or wider highways with federal funding. Requiring maintenance before expansion earns Buttigieg a ✓ by our standards.

Pete’s plan calls for instituting a national Vision Zero plan, which is radical for a country where states are allowed to set targets for pedestrian fatalities above the actual number of deaths. He would require that states “actively improve their safety records or road design processes, or else lose federal funding for other roadway projects,” according to his plan. 

Lastly, Mayor Pete’s plan scores high on access. He would require that states, metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs), and any other recipient of federal transportation funding demonstrate how projects improve access to jobs and services. That is key: requiring progress towards goals—and even setting goals—in order to receive funding is common sense. Sadly, it is not a feature of our current transportation program. 

Pete’s plan is similar to Michael Bloomberg’s. The big difference is in how he communicates it: Buttigieg leads with funding, not what he’d do with the transportation program. We think this is a bad way to do policy. After all, in what other policy area (or facet of life, for that matter) do people tell you the price before they tell you what they’re selling? 

What isn’t clear is how funding will be shifted between modes, if at all. With a President Pete, are we still in a world where highways get 80 percent of the funding pie, leaving only 20 percent for transit? 

Read the full blog from February where we ranked all presidential candidates’ transportation plans.

Three representatives introduce a resolution to finally fund transit and highways equally

Last week, 30 members of Congress joined Reps. Jesús G. “Chuy” García (IL-4), Ayanna Pressley (MA-7), and Hakeem Jeffries’ (NY-8) groundbreaking resolution supporting equal funding for public transportation and highways. This marks the first time that members of Congress have joined together to end the arbitrary rule dedicating 80 percent of transportation funding to highways and just 20 percent to transit. 

One of public transit’s biggest hurdles to providing convenient, affordable, and rapid service and maintaining its aging infrastructure is the fact that highways have been receiving the lion’s share of all federal transportation funding—at least 80 percent since 1982. This is all due to an arbitrary policy started in 1982 that limits transit to only 20 percent of these funds. 

Today, three members of Congress took the first stab at ending this policy. With 30 cosponsors, Reps. García,  Pressley, and Jeffires introduced a resolution to the House floor that supports funding transit and highways equally in the next long-term surface transportation authorization.

Urge your representative to cosponsor

This is truly groundbreaking! The “80/20 split” has been the status quo for almost four decades, and in that time has never been challenged with so much support. This resolution is a real testament to the changing attitudes towards transportation policy, and a direct result of the powerful advocacy led by Representatives García and Pressley. 

The resolution is also endorsed by 30 organizations. You can read the full list of cosponsors and organizations here. 

This effort would not have happened without Reps. García, Pressley, and Jeffries, all three of whom are leaders in Congress on transportation policy. We’re lucky to have these powerful and passionate changemakers in Congress who understand the power of transportation to truly improve people’s lives. 

In only two years, Rep. García from Chicago has made a bold impact on transportation lawmaking. García’s experience as a former urban planner led him to co-found the Future of Transportation Caucus with Reps. Pressley and Mark Takano and to push for status quo-breaking reforms in the House-passed INVEST Act, from a performance measure to ensure that transportation projects improve people’s access to jobs and services to a bipartisan fix-it-first policy for highway funding. 

Despite not serving on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, Rep. Pressley has made reforming transportation policy a key part of her advocacy and lawmaking because she has seen firsthand how instrumental transportation decisions are for determining basic issues of quality of life and access to opportunity in her district. She’s been a powerful advocate through her work on the Future of Transportation Caucus and her fight for at least $32 billion in emergency funding for transit, among other things. And as a member of Democratic leadership, Rep. Jeffries’ support for this resolution sends a powerful message. Thank you Representatives García, Pressley, Jeffries, and everyone who joined the resolution as a cosponsor. 

Tweet “thank you” to Reps. García, Pressley, Jeffries

We need your support: what you can do 

We need to show strong support for this unprecedented effort to finally provide strong funding for public transportation! We can’t transform this resolution into policy and actually fund transit and highways equally in the next surface transportation authorization without strong support. Call your member of Congress and ask them to support the resolution. 

Urge your representative to cosponsor

Over 30 members of Congress support equal funding for public transit and highways in a resolution led by Reps. García, Pressley, and Jeffries

press release

WASHINGTON, DC: Today, 30 members of Congress joined Representatives Jesús G. “Chuy” García (IL-4), Ayanna Pressley (MA-7), and Hakeem Jeffries (NY-8) in a groundbreaking resolution supporting equal funding for public transportation and highways. The “Resolution for Transit-Funding Parity” is also supported by 30 organizations, demonstrating widespread support for ending an outdated policy that dedicates 80 percent of all federal transportation funding to highways. 

For almost four decades, Congress has severely underfunded public transportation, leaving millions of Americans reliant on deteriorating transit systems with infrequent, inconvenient, and unreliable service. This particularly hurts people of color, who make up 60 percent of all transit riders, and over one million rural households that rely on transit. 

“Public transit is a lifeline—for working people, marginalized communities, and our entire economy. Decades-long disinvestment has starved communities of adequate public transportation and created deep, physical barriers to jobs, health care, and education,” said Congressman Jesús “Chuy” García (IL-04). “Simply put, breaking the status quo on transit funding is an urgent matter of equity and economic opportunity. Public transit systems like CTA and Pace Bus are the arteries that keep communities like Chicago thriving—keeping our frontline workforce moving even during a pandemic. Our resolution lays out a transformative vision for transportation policy—one that funds transit equitably like the vital public good and force for economic empowerment that it is.”

The origin of unequal transportation funding is a 1982 agreement where the majority of a gas tax increase was dedicated to highways, serving drivers through a “user fee.” But even though gas tax revenues are no longer the sole source of transportation funding—and haven’t been since 2008, when over $144 billion in taxpayer dollars were needed to supplement this user fee—the “80-20” funding split persists.

“We have never shown the vision or commitment to building a robust transit system that we have shown to highways; and that cannot change so long as we stay wedded to an outdated 1980s approach to transportation spending,” said Beth Osborne, director of Transportation for America. “We’re thrilled that Rep. García and so many cosponsors have confronted this broken policy head-on. We urge every lawmaker in Congress to join Rep. García in this fundamental rethink of transportation policy to finally deliver the transportation system Americans deserve and need — one that provides equitable access to economic opportunity and essential services, reduces greenhouse gas emissions and supports a strong national economy.” 

The resolution is available to view here, and you can read the full list of cosponsors and endorsing organizations here.

Read more about the “80/20” split on Transportation for America’s blog here.

Looking back on Minnesota and Washington State DOTs’ inaugural artists-in-residence

Last week, we brought together the artists and agency staff involved in the nation’s first ever artists-in-residence at state departments of transportation to reflect on the inaugural year of the program. Speakers shared their reflections on the residencies, how they coped with the current pandemic, lessons learned, and plans for the future of these novel programs.  

Image of the corner of a room with numerous photos taped to the walls. In the foreground is a table with two chairs.
WSDOT AiRs Kelly Gregory and Mary Welcome transformed their office space at WSDOT headquarters to be a gathering space, as well as a gallery featuring different aspects of WSDOT’s work. Photo credit: Mary Welcome.

You can find the webinar slides here and the recording below.

The decades-old concept of integrating art within government has increased in popularity in the last couple of years as cities created a number of artist-in-residencies within their departments of planning, parks and recreation, transportation and more, as Ben Stone, director of arts & culture at Transportation for America (T4America), shared last week. But it had never been done at the state level. 

It was clear to T4America that having an artist work within a state department of transportation could help the state better accomplish its goals and result in transportation projects that are more supported and beloved. This idea started to crystallize toward the end of 2018 when T4America approached MNDOT and WSDOT about hosting an artist in their respective agencies. T4America helped both agencies fundraise and design their programs, and since the launch in the summer of 2019 has managed the programs and hired the artists. 

What made these residencies unique is that they not only were the first programs to occur at state departments of transportation, but at any agency at the state level.

In both the MnDOT and WSDOT AiRs, the intent was to bring a creative approach to advancing the agencies’ goals of improving safety, reducing congestion, promoting economic vitality, supporting multimodal transportation systems, and creating healthier communities. 

WSDOT’s artist in residence 

Artists Kelly Gregory and Mary Welcome, the artists handpicked for the Washington residency, exceeded the expectations of the WSDOT staff, according to Allison Camden, Deputy Assistant Secretary, Multimodal Development and Delivery at WSDOT. It was “heartening and cathartic for a lot of our staff to see Mary and Kelly capture our challenges so clearly, with ideas on how to address them,” she said. From the beginning Secretary Roger Millar considered it to be an exciting opportunity to bring a fresh perspective to the challenges of a transportation agency. 

“People felt heard. They felt understood. And they felt valued. If I could do anything differently, it would have been to set up a two-year program.”
– Allison Camden, Deputy Assistant Secretary Multimodal Development and Delivery, WSDOT

Image of four people overlooking a flat landscape scene in Washington State.
Photo credit: Mary Welcome.

Gregory and Welcome’s approach included several months of listening and intentionally “getting lost in the weeds with WSDOT.” If you’re wondering what that actually looked like, they tracked it. They read exactly 69 different reports from different folks in the agency, interviewed 147 different people, traveled over 161 hours, conducted 600 hours of on site work and 170 hours of off-site research, traveled 2978 lane miles on the road and 1830 rail miles, handwrote 190 pages of interview notes, and attended 18 different public legislative hearings.

From their research, they identified a number of themes that they used to shape their numerous final products. Those final products included transforming their office space at WSDOT headquarters into a gallery and gathering space, creating a bumper sticker campaign and DOT-specific conversation cards, as well as writing and printing a newspaper on WSDOT’s maintenance efforts.

Image of the top of a table that has a black tablecloth. On top of the tablecloth is a variety of photos and bumperstickers that read "State of Good Repair", "Ride the damn bus!", and "Maintenance is Sexy".
Photo credit: Mary Welcome
Image of person sitting on the grass and holding up a newspaper.
Image credit: Mart Welcome

Some of these products will be available for purchase from this publisher in early 2021. 

“Understanding the people’s dynamic of a place means we can build systems for nurturing, for challenging, for listening, and for imaginative magical thinking.”
– Kelly Gregory, Artist-in-residence, WSDOT

MnDOT’s artist in residence 

Jessica Oh, the Highway Sponsorship Program Director at MnDOT described how well the AiR program—which MnDOT calls their Community Vitality Fellowship—lines up with MnDOT’s values and strategic plans of acknowledging the importance of place; uplifting community voices and assets; and strengthening relationships with a wide range of stakeholders.

This program has involved deep thinking on the following ideas:

  • How to build innovative and different partnerships—with artists, arts and culture organizations, and more—to improve transportation outcomes;
  • How to embrace innovation, flexibility and creativity;
  • How to be responsive to communities, elevate their voices, and elevate the cultural values within a community in the transportation system;
  • And how to address the impact of transportation facilities.

Similar to Gregory and Welcome, artist Marcus Young 楊墨 was hand selected by MnDOT and SGA and started his residency by listening to staff and their priorities. Based on that, he identified just how important it would be that his projects provide space for staff to be their whole selves, to be creative, to gather in new ways, and most importantly bring more humanity to their work and transportation as a whole. 

Image of a quote on a purple background that reads "I am a granddaughter of one of the porters who helped establish the Rondo community. I have a perplexing space that I live in, working for MnDOT and acknowledging the fact that it tore up a community that I will never get to know. Some things you just can’t mend. Some wounds are so deep that the scar tissue is within. Even if you create a land bridge, you still have the scar of the depth of this freeway that has torn apart a community and the social insight of the people." – MnDOT Staff Member
A reflection from a MnDOT staffer that came about as part of Young’s work on land acknowledgment at MnDOT. Image courtesy of Marcus Young 楊墨.

This led to Young focusing his time on the creation of three projects: 

  • The Land Acknowledgement Confluence room, a repurposed conference room where staff will be able to gather, be creative, and explore new everyday cultural practices of land acknowledgment. Through his residency Young has had numerous conversations on land acknowledgement, he hopes that this room can help ensure those conversations continue in the future. He remarked that it will not only be a place, but it will be “a placeholder so that we can all practice acknowledging land in better ways. And by acknowledging land in better ways, we acknowledge history. We acknowledge our whole selves in different ways.”

What is a land acknowledgment? “An Indigenous Land or Territorial Acknowledgement is a statement that recognizes the Indigenous peoples who have been dispossessed from the homelands and territories upon which an institution was built and currently occupies and operates in.” Learn more at http://landacknowledgements.org/

Image of a rending of a newly designed conference room with several plants, armchairs, and purple map of indigenous land on the left wall.
A rendering of the future “Land Acknowledgment Confluence Room” which will be created at MnDOT’s headquarters in 2021. Image courtesy of Marcus Young 楊墨.
  • A Sense of Place Convening that would bring 90 MnDOT leaders together for an intensive day-long event. As part of this convening, Young would use creative exercises and the Open Space Technology method to help participants generate ideas on how MnDOT can elevate placemaking and placekeeping within its work on livability, quality of life, public engagement, equity, economic development, and partnership with communities. This was fully planned, but unfortunately had to be rescheduled due to COVID-19.
  • A Creative Conversations discussion series tackling topics such as equity, land acknowledgment, sustainability, and imagining what’s possible during this period of great change. 

Be it converting unassuming conference rooms or holding space for conversations in unique ways, Young’s overarching message is that the potential of art is hidden everywhere, and you don’t necessarily need to be a professional artist to unearth it: 

“If you create a space where we can gather and really work on things together, [you realize] that the potential of art is hidden not only everywhere, but within everyone.”
– Marcus Young, Artist-in-residence, MnDOT

What’s next?

Stay tuned for more resources from Smart Growth America and T4America on state DOT AiRs. We’ll be releasing new resources on this topic in early 2021 and providing updates as MnDOT enters year two of its program. You can also sign up for arts and culture-specific updates from us here.

If you are interested in starting up an AiR at your department of transportation or transit agency, we’d love to hear about it! You can reach Ben Stone, our Director of arts & culture at bstone@smartgrowthamerica.org.

A policy proposal to undo the damage of “urban renewal”

Today, Transportation for America and Third Way released a policy proposal to undo the damage of “urban renewal” projects that have displaced more than a million Americans since construction of the Interstate Highway System and that continue to harm communities of color today. These four federal policy recommendations can be included in a COVID-19 stimulus bill or infrastructure package, or considered as stand-alone legislation.

A highway is replaced by a park

So-called “urban renewal” initiatives of the 1950s and 1960s ostensibly provided money to cities across the country to revitalize neighborhoods. But in practice, these new interstates razed housing and ripped through neighborhoods, displacing more than a million Americans during the first two decades of the federal interstate system.1 These projects deliberately targeted communities of color and particularly Black neighborhoods, wreaking havoc on their health and local environments for decades.

The American public has made it very clear that they want the federal government to prioritize revitalizing our nation’s infrastructure. Both parties in Congress and the incoming Biden Administration ostensibly agree on this need. Absent a new approach, however, even re-investment risks perpetuating the inequitable highway construction practices of the past while locking in air, water, and climate pollution that are a drag on our health and the economy.

To undo the far-reaching damage of “urban renewal” projects, Third Way and Transportation for America recommend a suite of policies, including the creation of a new competitive grant program, to reconnect communities, repair the damage, and invest for sustainable and equitable growth. This includes:

  • Creating a competitive grant program to redesign or deconstruct the outdated infrastructure that has hindered the growth of low-income and minority communities;
  • Establishing land trusts to help generate wealth for the communities that already reside in these neighborhoods; and
  • Updating federal transportation modeling tools so that decision-makers and communities can see how these infrastructure projects really impact traffic patterns today;
  • Requiring federal agencies to issue guidance on identifying communities with infrastructure barriers, measuring the degree of harm to that community, and providing incentives and prioritizing resources to address those disparities.

This critical investment could feature in a COVID-19 stimulus bill or separate infrastructure package, or as stand-alone legislation.

Background

After Congress enacted the 1956 Highway Act, cities and states used primarily federal funding to build highways through the middle of cities. White families used these interstates to move to the suburbs. City planners worried that their city centers would empty out if the suburbs were disconnected from downtown, so they intentionally ran new highways downtown to ensure suburban residents would regularly drive into town. But city developers also often deliberately chose highway routes in order to displace, disrupt, or segregate neighborhoods of color.2

The displacement has caused profound and generational impacts on these communities and has created huge physical divides in areas that would otherwise be among the most valuable for the city, especially at a time when cities’ downtowns are revitalizing. These highways destroyed the wealth built up through property by the families whose homes cities took through eminent domain or that developers destroyed. Now, residents cannot enjoy the current benefits of a downtown resurgence because of the infrastructure next to them.3

The urban highways cutting through these communities also brought additional, longer car trips; more congestion on the roads; and more pollution. The air quality issues associated with vehicle emissions disproportionately impact communities of color, with these communities facing higher exposure to harmful pollutants4and greater risk of asthma and other health issues5 than predominantly white communities. These highways, and the sprawl they enabled, have also harmed the climate by increasing Americans’ reliance on motor vehicles: Transportation is now our largest source of greenhouse gas emissions, most of which come from cars and trucks.6

Increasingly, state and local governments are reaching an inflection point. Many of these highways are aged half a century or older and have either fallen into disrepair or are no longer needed because of changing traffic patterns. Rather than simply replace or expand these highways, cities and states should reconsider whether these highways are necessary routes or unnecessary barriers that continue to cut off neighborhoods of color from opportunity.

The idea of legislating to undo the damage of past “urban renewal” policies isn’t new: under President Barack Obama, Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx convened stakeholder meetings on how to make transportation more affordable, accessible, and equitable.7 President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration—and House and Senate infrastructure leaders’ commitment to improving America’s roads and bridges—could give new currency to this work.

Policy recommendations

Authorize $10 billion for a new Restoring America’s Neighborhoods Grant program to correct the economic, environmental, and social damage of “Urban Renewal” highway projects that destroyed the core of many small, medium, and large US cities and displaced communities of color.

Half of this funding would be awarded to state DOTs to redesign or deconstruct highways or other transportation infrastructure that was built through communities of color (“obstructive highways”). The other half would fund the creation of land trusts in those neighborhoods to ensure the land freed up from the removal of obstructive highways will generate wealth for the people who already live there.

Redesign or deconstruction of obstructive highways

The US Department of Transportation (USDOT) should make grants available to state DOTs in partnership with the affected cities. Eligible projects for grants under this program would be for removal or repurposing of obstructive highways, including bringing the highway to grade, reconstructing the local roadway network, turning the highway into a boulevard, etc. There should also be a planning set-aside for assessing, designing, permitting and engineering alternatives for specific obstructive highways as well as setting up a land trust, including forming the trust and providing it authority to operate in the area. This work could include measurements of the air and water pollution impacts of retaining or repairing existing disruptive highways versus removing or replacing this infrastructure.

A $5 billion investment could fund a couple of large projects and 6-10 smaller ones, depending on the size of the obstructive infrastructure. These grants will be sufficient to fully fund a project, to ensure these projects can move forward quickly. USDOT should give preference to applicants with a demonstrated capacity—including any locally matched funding—to develop and manage the project; those that have an existing partnership with the communities impacted; and those whose projects demonstrate equitable economic development, a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, supportive land uses, new transit service, or explicit protection of housing affordability.

To maximize the impact of these investments for economic stimulus, USDOT should reward the first grants no later than nine months after the program is enacted and should strongly prioritize funding to projects that can be completed within 5 years. USDOT should also require projects receiving grant funding to adhere to the labor provisions that usually come attached to federal-aid highway funding, such as Davis-Bacon prevailing wage standards and Buy America domestic content provisions.

Land trusts

The interstates that the Highway Act supported consistently destroyed wealth in the communities they traversed and divided, particularly in communities of color. Therefore, any projects that begin to reverse this damage should rebuild that wealth. Highway update projects that remove a barrier, create new greenspace, or connect the community to commercial centers will also increase land values. To ensure that neighborhoods around the highway receive the benefits of its removal or modification, the project sponsor for any award under this program should be required to establish a land trust or land bank that would receive initial ownership of any property that becomes developable through activities supported by a grant under this program. The land trust would help locals buy the property, preserve and build affordable housing, support the opening of locally-owned small businesses, and preserve greenspace and parks.

A $5 billion investment could support 1-2 dozen land trusts for five years. The sale of property and development of land recovered should both fund the land trust beyond its first five years and help existing homeowners pay the increase in property taxes once their property values appreciate due to gentrification. The program should also protect renters, as well as homeowners who have owned affected buildings for generations but who cannot show title. It must ensure that housing affordability remains protected before, during, and after development. The USDOT should work directly with the Department of Housing and Urban Development to establish the land trust portion of this program, determine awards and manage the grants.

Policy considerations

This paper only introduces the Restoring America’s Neighborhoods Grant program and its key principles; it’s not meant to spell out every detail or present legislative text. However, policymakers and others interested in advancing this program will need to think through some additional policy considerations regarding the land trust component of the program, such as:

  • Whether to include a requirement that the land trust act with a fiduciary duty to the local community;
  • Whether to require that a grantee already have a land trust, or similar non-profit, already established and operating in the area; and
  • Whether to funnel this money through an existing program like the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program in order to get funding awarded quickly.

Forecasting tools

Transportation agencies do not yet have the necessary tools to understand the impacts of various highway project alternatives on traffic, urban development, and climate change. Today’s traffic forecasting tools are not built to consider individual trips that shift to other corridors; occur at a different time of day; involve a different mode of transportation; or disappear due to telecommuting or a shifted trip. Our proposal includes $25 million for USDOT to develop twenty-first century tools capable of accounting for these shifts in traffic in order to help plan and to preserve affordability in travel.

Study on obstructive infrastructure

Too many communities suffer the burden of infrastructure barriers without the political or economic power to oppose harmful projects and secure beneficial investments. Meanwhile, the federal government spends billions in formula and discretionary funds, often perpetuating the cycle of harm to communities. To break this cycle, and better target investments, our proposal will require USDOT to conduct a broader study, with the support of state DOTs and impacted cities, identifying the communities with infrastructure that creates barriers to mobility (such as highways that slice through a community) and measuring the degree of harm to that community. This study will culminate in the creation of a national map of communities torn apart by infrastructure, and will help prioritize resources for the communities most badly harmed by obstructive highways in the future.

Examples of successful reversals

Many cities across the country have already removed urban freeways and other infrastructure that has hindered the growth and vitality of their communities. These successes can serve as a model for a federal program.

In the 1970s, Portland became the first major city to remove an existing highway when it tore out Harbor Drive and replaced it with a public park that has served as an anchor for new development. Milwaukee tore down the Park East Freeway in the early 2000s, attracting over $880 million in private investment to the 24-acre corridor. In Greenville, South Carolina, the city replaced a four-lane highway bridge with a pedestrian bridge and public park, a project that revitalized its West End and spurred over $100 million in private investment in its first two years.

The pedestrian bridge in Greenville’s Falls Park on the Reedy that replaced a highway, spurring over $100 million in private investment in its first two years.

There are also examples of communities establishing land banks to bring economic value to low-income communities and communities of color and help underserved families stay in their homes. Launched in 2003, Denver’s Urban Land Conservancy preserves and develops permanently affordable real estate to ensure underserved communities are not displaced by rising property values. Through the conservancy and other partners, the Denver Transit-Oriented Development Fund is working to secure over 1,000 affordable housing units on transit corridors. In Minneapolis, the Twin Cities Community Land Bank has acquired at least 1,000 vacant or distressed properties since 2009, keeping these properties affordable and helping low-income families stay in their homes.

Positive impacts

The United States has an opportunity to replicate these success stories by providing cities with the proper resources and tools to tackle these projects. Through a $10 billion program, dozens of cities could plan and repurpose their disruptive highways and reclaim significant acreage for tax-paying, job-creating redevelopment.

This grant program would improve regional air quality and health outcomes in disadvantaged communities by reducing exposure to smog. It would reconnect impacted neighborhoods, create new open spaces and allow people to take shorter trips to reach daily necessities like the grocery store or community center. It would increase access to less polluting modes of travel, like walking and biking. It would reduce climate pollution in areas that research already indicates will suffer a greater burden from the impacts of climate change. Most importantly, it would be a step toward rectifying the mistakes of past federal policy and moving us forward in a brighter direction.

Endnotes

  1. Pyke, Alan, “Top infrastructure official explains how America used highways to destroy black neighborhoods.” Think Progress, 31 Mar. 2016, https://archive.thinkprogress.org/top-infrastructure-official-explains-how-america-used-highways-to-destroy-black-neighborhoods-96c1460d1962/.
  2. Kruse, Kevin M, “What does a traffic jam in Atlanta have to do with segregation? Quite a lot.” New York Times Magazine, 14 Aug. 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/14/magazine/traffic-atlanta-segregation.html.
  3. Semuels, Alana, “The role of highways in American poverty.” The Atlantic, 18 Mar. 2016, https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/03/role-of-highways-in-american-poverty/474282/.
  4. De Moura, Maria Cecilia Pinto and David Reichmuth, “Inequitable exposure to air pollution from vehicles in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic.” Union of Concerned Scientists, 21 Jun. 2019, https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/inequitable-exposure-air-pollution-vehicles.
  5. “Disparities in the impact of air pollution.” American Lung Association, 20 Apr. 2020, https://www.lung.org/clean-air/outdoors/who-is-at-risk/disparities.
  6. “Fast facts on transportation greenhouse gas emissions.” U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, accessed 4 Dec. 2020, https://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/fast-facts-transportation-greenhouse-gas-emissions.
  7. Beyond Traffic 2045, U.S. Department of Transportation, 9 Jan. 2017, page 206, https://www.transportation.gov/sites/dot.gov/files/docs/BeyondTraffic_tagged_508_final.pdf.

What service cuts are transit agencies facing around the country?

Public transit agencies are approaching an unprecedented funding crisis. To get a better sense of the magnitude of that crisis, we conducted a scan of media coverage about transit budget shortfalls and service cuts during the pandemic. The results paint a clear picture: most major transit agencies have either already been forced to cut service or are anticipating significant cuts on the horizon without emergency funding support for Congress. 

Voters sent a strong message by passing the majority of transit initiatives on the ballot on November 3—including some larger funding initiatives to expand transit service like Austin’s Project Connect. Americans want to see transit survive the COVID-19 economic downturn, know transit will be a critical part of economic recovery, and are willing to step up to help make that happen. 

Unfortunately, that local commitment won’t be enough without emergency funding to get transit agencies through the immediate crisis. Transit agencies need at least $32 billion in emergency federal funding for transit operations—funding that a stimulus bill could provide—but Congress has so far failed to act since its initial assistance in the CARES Act in March. 

We’ve heard from transit agency executives, riders, union leaders, researchers, and others and the takeaway is clear: there will be no economic recovery without transit, and transit won’t survive this crisis without help from federal policymakers. Service cuts will have devastating impacts on millions of people who rely on transit everyday to reach jobs, medical care, groceries, and services, and the burden of these transit cuts would fall overwhelmingly on people of color. 

But just how severe is the looming crisis many agencies are facing? T4America surveyed recent media coverage of agencies’ financial outlooks and potential service cuts and found that most major transit agencies have either already cut service substantially or are expecting significant cuts on the horizon without emergency assistance. And while smaller transit agencies aren’t necessarily getting the same media attention, we know many rural agencies are facing their own catastrophic cuts. 

A wave of service cuts on the horizon

While the CARES Act provided much-needed temporary support to transit, it was never intended to be a permanent fix or provide sustained funding—and those funds are about to run out for many agencies that are already struggling. We have compiled a list of some of the major pending cuts below:

San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) will run out of its CARES Act funding next month. Director of Transportation Jeff Tumlin recently called attention to the agency’s $148 million operating loss.  

The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) in the DC region will also run out of its CARES funds by the end of 2020. Without additional federal support, WMATA may need to make approximately $200 million worth of cuts through service changes and layoffs beginning in December—and today announced devastating future service cuts, including the complete elimination of weekend service and the closure of 19 stations.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority in New York City has been outspoken in warning that it could be forced to cut service by as much as 40 percent without more emergency funding. A recent study found service cuts in NYC could lead to the loss of 450,000 jobs.

The Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA) in Philadelphia will see its CARES funding run out in 2021. These cuts could have devastating economic impacts. A recent study found that SEPTA stimulated more than $3 billion in economic activity across the state last year, and has issued about 19,000 contracts worth more than $1.3 billion to companies in 38 of the state’s 67 counties since 2015. SEPTA General Manager Leslie Richards said it well: “We need to be up and running. If we are not functioning, the recovery of our area and the recovery across the state will be slowed.”

Boston area officials have begun planning for possible service cuts in response to a forecasted $300-$600 million shortfall for the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority for the fiscal year beginning July 1, 2021, when Boston’s CARES Act funds are set to run out. The T could eliminate all ferry service, reduce bus service and stop commuter rail service on weekends as a result of that shortfall.

The Maryland Transportation Administration is reducing service on its MARC commuter trains and buses for the Washington DC and Baltimore areas. This is a change of plans after the state saw significant backlash in response to an initial proposal to cut Baltimore city bus service instead. 

The Denver region’s transit agency, the Regional Transit District (RTD), has discussed the elimination of up to 550 positions to balance its 2021 budget, facing a $215 million deficit next year once its CARES Act funds run out. Earlier this year, RTD cut back its daily service to 60 percent of pre-COVID levels, and the agency expects to run reduced service for the foreseeable future.

The Richmond region faced a $2.6 million hole in its transit agency’s budget as a result of the pandemic. While CARES Act funding has temporarily helped fill the gap, the agency will face a $10 million to $12 million shortfall in its fiscal year 2022 budget. 

MATBUS, serving the Fargo-Moorhead metropolitan area in North Dakota and Minnesota, is facing a shortfall of more than $1 million annually in coming years without federal support, prompting the agency to consider changes to its governance structure.

Already operating well below normal service levels

While action from Congress would help prevent some of the service cuts agencies are considering or expecting to make, it could also help restore service we have already lost. Many transit agencies (including some of those above) aren’t just contemplating future service cuts—they have already reduced service at the beginning of the pandemic and haven’t been able to restore it since. For example, MARTA in the Atlanta region eliminated most of its bus routes back in April, reducing 110 bus routes down to a staggering 41 routes, and is still operating at reduced capacity.

Other agencies have had to make cuts more recently. Louisville’s Transit Authority of River City cut 15 routes (about one-third of their total service) in August, citing budget challenges. King County Metro in the Seattle region cut service by 15 percent in September. The list goes on. 

Tell us about transit cuts in your community

Not all transit cuts nationwide are getting media coverage. If your local transit agency has been or will likely be forced to reduce service or layoff workers, we want to hear about it. Email us at info@t4america.org.