Skip to main content

Are we creating assets or liabilities?


New roads are often considered new assets, but by ignoring repair many states have let those assets become liabilities—as our upcoming Repair Priorities report shows.

Building new infrastructure is sexy—it’s a tangible sign of progress and officials get to cut ribbons. Policymakers often talk about new roads as economic “assets,” but they are more truthfully classified as liabilities, bringing decades of baked-in maintenance costs. Without a regular commitment to upkeep, these liabilities can break the bank.

As Repair Priorities 2019 will show next week, we have a lot of liabilities on our hands.

Look for the full report in your inbox on Tuesday, May 14. Then join us for a webinar on Wednesday, May 15 where we’ll dig into how states are spending their existing money, hear directly from a number of state DOT officials, and discuss our recommendations for fixing this looming financial crisis.

Register for the webinar

Not all states are in the same situation. Many states make responsible decisions to invest the majority of their money in repair. Other states are borderline irresponsible, spending vastly more on expanding new roads—and creating new liabilities—even as their existing system falls into disrepair. Much of this money comes directly from the federal government with little to no direction about how those funds should be spent.

In the midst of ongoing talk about a purported infrastructure plan—notably, all the talk is about funding levels, not what we want it to actually accomplish—and as Congress begins crafting a long-term replacement for the expiring FAST Act, Repair Priorities will be a wake up call.

More funding won’t fix our infrastructure problem without a serious change in priorities.

Register for the webinar next Wednesday at 3 p.m. ET/12 p.m. PT.

Is repair actually a priority?

While politicians are focused on how much more funding we should give to infrastructure, our upcoming report sheds light on how states are using existing funding for repair vs. new roads and how policy can get the nation back on track.

Earlier this week, President Trump, House Speaker Pelosi, and Senate Minority Leader Schumer met to discuss funding levels for a yet undefined infrastructure plan.

We don’t know what the plan will fund or build, what problems it’s trying to solve, or how we will measure its success—if at all—but politicians have somehow already settled on a $2 trillion price tag.

This is the standard practice on Capitol Hill when it comes to infrastructure, and we believe it’s time for a change.

Much of the rhetoric around this mythical infrastructure plan has focused on “repairing our crumbling roads and bridges.” But if past decisions are the best predictor of future behavior then much of any extra transportation spending will likely be squandered on building and expanding roads rather than repairing them—as we show in our forthcoming report, Repair Priorities 2019.

Repair Priorities 2019 will be released during Infrastructure Week on Tuesday, May 14. Join us for a webinar on Wednesday, May 15 at 3 p.m. ET for a closer look at the findings.

Register for the webinar

Despite the growing maintenance backlog, states have continued to spend a significant portion of funding to build new roads. Repair Priorities 2019 provides a national snapshot and state-by-state evaluation of current roadway pavement conditions, spending trends, and unmet needs. It also recommends crucial actions federal policymakers should take in the next transportation reauthorization bill to get the nation’s roads—and spending priorities—back on track.

As we have said repeatedly, when it comes to infrastructure we don’t have funding problem, we have a policy problem. But policy makers are still putting the cart before the horse, jumping straight to how much of our money they need before telling us why or what we’re going to get for it in the end. Repair Priorities will help make the case for policy change using the government’s own data.

Register for the webinar on Wednesday, May 15 at 3 p.m. ET.

How TIGER/BUILD can help improve the federal transportation program

The third and final part of our analysis of 10 years of awarding transportation funds competitively through the TIGER/BUILD program illuminates three simple principles that should help guide reform of the federal transportation system.


Read the first two posts in the series (part one, part two) or download the full analysis.

The federal transportation program is in need of a major overhaul. America today is very different than the America of the 1920s. The interstate highway system as envisioned is now complete, new technology is changing the way people move almost daily, there is far greater awareness of the social impacts of car-focused transportation, and climate change is an urgent threat and transportation is the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions.

But the most glaring shortcoming is the total absence of a broader vision of what today’s program should accomplish tomorrow. While Congress has made small tweaks here and there over last few decades, the program as a whole largely fails to meet the needs of the modern day and the basic goal of the program is not clear. Its initial purpose was to build out the interstate system but that has been completed. What now? Is the purpose to keep the current system in a state of good repair? Reduce fatalities on our roadways by half? Ensure that Americans have access to the majority of regional jobs by car and transit?

If we can’t answer these questions of vision, goals, or purpose—if we don’t know why we are spending billions of dollars—it is hard to believe we will accomplish much of anything. Yet Congress is poised to come back to taxpayers and ask for more money, just to accomplish more of the same.

How can this 10-year experiment with awarding a small slice of federal transportation funds competitively to the best possible projects across a range of modes help guide the debate over how to reform the federal transportation program at large? As lawmakers move toward reauthorizing the long-term federal transportation law in 2020, here are three lessons we’ve learned from 10 years of TIGER/BUILD that we could apply to the broader federal program.

Competition for limited funds results in better projects

Competition for funding helps improve projects. The introduction of a flexible, competitive program has pushed applicants to go further, to dream big, collaborate effectively, and design better projects that meet a community’s needs. There are a handful of projects that failed to win funding in one year and came back in another with a stronger application and a recalibrated project and won funding. The BUILD program proves what’s possible when we focus on funding the best possible projects instead of relying on blind formulas to dispense money automatically.

Make funds directly available to local communities

Local governments are generally more in tune with community needs and the land-use implications of transportation projects than statewide entities. The BUILD program has given locals a much needed source of direct federal funding that should be emulated in the broader federal transportation program.

As our colleagues at Smart Growth America have shown, most state departments of transportation (DOTs) were initially created solely to build highways and have that DNA embedded deep in their culture and practice. And they don’t always share the same priorities of their local communities when it comes to choosing how to disburse the funding. Giving locals more of a say with how funds should be spent within their borders results in a transportation system that’s far more responsive to the real needs at a local level.

Incentivize transportation choice

The modern federal transportation program was designed to build the interstate highway system. Today, that system is complete but like a ship with a stuck rudder, federal policy lacks clear new direction and continues to focus primarily on doing the same thing: building roads. The result is a national transportation system that is heavily skewed toward private vehicle travel, often jeopardizing the safety of people walking, biking, and taking transit. But 10 years of BUILD have shown that there is great demand for multimodal infrastructure.

There’s no reason that the federal government should pay for a greater share of a road project than that of a transit project. Federal policy currently stipulates an 80 percent share for roads but a much lower amount for transit—usually around 50 percent. And when it comes to overall funding levels, again, there is no reason we should we should prioritize roads over other transportation options. If anything, transit projects should be prioritized in light of the great demand for more transportation choices, rising inequality, and climate change. The federal program should create more parity between the modes in terms of federal match and the overall funding levels.

Congress has a vital role in BUILD’s future

The greatest strengths of this program have always been found in the numerous ways it is different from other federal transportation funding programs. Over the past decade it has funded numerous projects that have stimulated investment in communities big and small across the country, many of which would have never happened without it. It hypothesized and tested a new model of funding smart projects: funds given directly, allowing more flexibility and innovation in approach, and encouraging teams of multiple partners on complex projects.

While the program still has the potential to continue to fund great projects, it will only do so if Congress stays diligent and ensures that USDOT executes the program as intended.

TIGER is not, nor was it ever intended to be, a roads program, a rural funding program, or just another vehicle for funneling more money without any accountability to state DOTs. It is wildly popular because it is multimodal, advances projects in urban and rural communities alike, funds projects that don’t easily fit in today’s narrowly defined federal funding silos, and is open to any public entity.

We should keep it that way.

Download the full analysis here

Sean Doyle was the primary author of this report for Transportation for America, with contributions from Beth Osborne, Scott Goldstein, Jordan Chafetz, and Stephen Lee Davis.

If verbal gymnastics was an Olympic sport, USDOT would take a medal

A deceptive announcement by USDOT two weeks ago resulted in mistaken headlines across the country giving credit to USDOT and the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) for “awarding” funding to a number of transit projects. A closer read reveals that USDOT didn’t actually distribute or award a single dime to advance new transit projects.

In a self-congratulatory press release on April 9, USDOT Secretary Elaine Chao touted the agency’s efforts to “strengthen our country’s transit infrastructure and improve mobility” and “announced a total of $1.36 billion in federal funding allocations to 16 new and existing transit projects.” [italics ours]

In reality, no dollars for new transit projects were awarded or obligated. No new grant agreements were signed to allow projects to proceed. No new shovel-ready transit projects got a check in the mail from FTA. Why is that? Because FTA is just announcing “funding allocations.”

A “funding allocation” is just fancy language for an internal plan to award money…eventually

Here’s a way to understand “funding allocations.” Let’s say you’re planning to buy a new roof for your house. To prepare, you “allocate” some money to yourself by moving it from your savings account into your checking account so that when the time comes, you can cut a roofer a check. But you still haven’t actually hired a roofer, written them a check, and you certainly haven’t started replacing your roof yet. Should the roofer you haven’t yet hired be celebrating?

In other words, USDOT put out a press release that’s mostly about them moving some numbers around on a spreadsheet and posting it on their website. Congrats? It’s an extraordinary display of verbal gymnastics by USDOT to make it appear that they’re doing much more to fund transit than they actually are—notably released just the day before Secretary Chao testified before the House Appropriations Committee about USDOT’s budget.

And they are succeeding at misleading the public— look no further than the resulting media coverage thus far.

Want to know what’s actually happening with federal transit funding? See Stuck in the Station >>

But this press release has—perhaps inadvertently—also helped illuminate some troubling developments from an agency that has become much less transparent under the Trump administration. Here are five things we found:

1) USDOT wildly overstates how much money they’ve spent

The press release says, “with this announcement, FTA has advanced funding for 22 new [transit Capital Investment Grant] projects throughout the nation under this administration since January 20, 2017, totaling approximately $5.06 billion in funding commitments.”

In fact, FTA has only actually spent a fraction of that $5.06 billion, and if you define advancing funding as actually awarding (i.e., spending) it, FTA has only advanced 10 new projects with money from 2017 or later, far short of the 22 as they claim.

They take credit for providing more than $3.3 billion to 13 ongoing projects (including the canceled Wave streetcar in Ft. Lauderdale, more on that later), three of which are multi-year projects. Though FTA is legally required to continue funding such multi-year projects under binding “full funding grant agreements,” those transit projects have not yet received the full amount. And FTA is also counting more than $1.7 billion in funding for nine projects that they have not actually signed agreements to fund or advance.

2) USDOT is claiming progress by allocating more FY 2018 funding to two projects that already received 2018 funding

At first glance this sounds like good news: Two large-scale projects with grant agreements that were signed during the Obama administration will get an extra dose of money to perhaps speed them along. The Peninsula Corridor Electrification Project in San Carlos, CA and the Red and Purple Modernization Project in Chicago, IL are scheduled to receive an extra $100 million dollars each on top of the $100 million FTA had previously allocated to each project this year. That’s $200 million each for the 2018 fiscal year.

This is highly unusual, and it could also be a way for USDOT to do an end-around of requirements from Congress. FTA usually allocates no more than $100 million to a single project in a given year. The fact that FTA is doubling up on 2018 dollars is most interesting in light of new requirements that Congress imposed requiring USDOT to spend at least 80 percent of their FY 2018 funding by the end of this calendar year. Stuck in the Station now tracks USDOT progress towards that benchmark.

Double dipping in 2018 funds to expedite funding for existing projects allows USDOT to come closer to meeting Congress’ requirements without actually funding any new transit projects.

3) No new projects are being funded

The major development at first glance is that FTA is “allocating” money to five new transit projects. But none of these projects were actually approved or awarded money, even though local media fell for FTA’s misdirection. These five projects will join four other projects that FTA announced “allocations” for months ago. None of these nine “allocated” projects have a funding agreement in place yet, nor are we aware of FTA notifying Congress of their intent to sign any grant agreements (which is legally required).

4) USDOT wants credit for allocating money to a canceled project

The Wave streetcar in Fort Lauderdale is an unfortunate story. It was set to receive $60.66 million from USDOT in October of 2017 but local politics intervened at the last second and torpedoed the project. The streetcar was canceled and no federal money was spent. But FTA still claims credit for allocating that $60.66 million to the now defunct project and counts The Wave as one of the 13 projects they’ve advanced.

5) Minneapolis is left in limbo, and Los Angeles is still awaiting a final guarantee of funding

Late last year, FTA made news by sending what’s known as a letter of no prejudice to both Los Angeles and Minneapolis for their Purple Line and Green Line extensions, respectively. Such letters don’t guarantee future funding but they are generally seen as an implicit approval giving localities permission to begin work on a project with their own money.

Los Angeles’ Purple Line extension is included in the list of nine future projects that FTA anticipates funding (but still hasn’t yet). But Minneapolis’ Green Line extension is notably absent from this list, even though they have the same letter as LA. This could just be an egregious error on the part of the agency, but it’s more likely that FTA has no intention of signing a grant agreement with Minneapolis this year.

Delay, mislead, misdirect

FTA chose its words very carefully in this press release. They never say that they’re “funding” or “approving” new projects. They use the words “allocation” and “advancing” repeatedly. While all of this makes it sound like they’re spending lots of money and advancing lots of projects, that’s simply not true. Stuck in the Station tracks how much funding has been actually obligated to new transit projects, which projects are currently eligible and waiting for funding, and how close USDOT is to meeting congressional requirements for its 2018 funding.

USDOT is still working diligently to hinder predictable and stable federal funding for transit. We’ll keep holding them accountable. When USDOT finally moves beyond creating new spreadsheets and does advance new projects, we’ll be the first to commend them for it. But for now, it appears that USDOT is more interested in looking like it’s doing its job than actually doing its job.

View Stuck in the Station

BUILDing a better competitive grant program, in 5 steps

Under President Trump, USDOT has hijacked the TIGER/BUILD competitive grant program, taking it far from its intended function. After a decade of experience with the program there are a number of simple steps that lawmakers could take to get it back on track and even improve it.


This is the second post in a series about the BUILD program. Learn more about the Trump administration’s dramatic changes to the BUILD program in the first post. Read the third post or download the full analysis. 

The BUILD program’s greatest strengths lie in its differences from other federal transportation funding programs, which should be reinforced, rather than diminished in order to award funding to the same kind of projects as core federal transportation programs. BUILD has the potential to continue to fund great projects only if Congress stays diligent and ensures that USDOT executes the program as intended. BUILD is not a roads program, it is not a rural funding program, and it is not another vehicle for funneling more money without any accountability to state DOTs.

Recommendations to improve BUILD

1. Eliminate the $25 million cap on awards.

Even though the program is now larger (average of $967 million during the Trump administration) than it was in most years of the Obama administration ($596 million per year on average), the most recent appropriations bill included a $25 million cap on BUILD grant awards. This has the unintended consequence of making it more difficult to advance innovative, multimodal, and far more transformative or nationally significant projects. For such projects, $25 million simply isn’t enough.1

The maximum award of $25 million was an informal practice established by USDOT early on when the program was funded at substantially lower levels, in order to help them equitably distribute a small amount of funds across the country, as mandated by Congress. However, with Congress providing larger amounts of funding for BUILD, this unnecessary cap serves only to limit the program’s ability to support larger projects that also bring more benefits.

2. Award planning grants, particularly for transit-oriented development and transit projects.

While recent appropriations bills have made planning grants eligible for funding, no such grants have been awarded. Many local communities desire investments in transit, transit-oriented development, and other multimodal infrastructure, but lack the resources or expertise to adequately plan for such investments.

Congress authorized planning grants within TIGER/BUILD four times—in 2010, 2014, 2018, and again in 2019, and USDOT awarded a combined 64 planning grants in 2010 and 2014. These grants helped local communities advance projects that were ultimately funded by a subsequent TIGER/BUILD construction grant, or other sources. For example, the 2014 funding of the San Francisco Bay Area Core Capacity Transit Study helped enable the advancement of the Transbay Corridor Core Capacity project in the federal transit capital program. In Indiana, another 2014 planning grant helped locals to advance the Red Line BRT project which also successfully received funds from the transit capital program and is currently under construction.

Innovative projects can struggle to get off the ground because transportation agencies can be hesitant to spend money on planning a project if there isn’t going to be any funding available to build it. But a program like BUILD can’t cover the capital costs of a project if no basic planning has been done. That’s why these BUILD planning funds are so important. USDOT should use its authority to make planning awards where appropriate, and Congress should also encourage USDOT to use this authority as well.

3. Strengthen requirements for modal parity.

This administration has made a dramatic shift to use the BUILD program to fund traditional road projects which can already be easily funded without restriction through a variety of conventional federal programs. This misuse of the program should prompt Congress to strengthen requirements to allocate funding to multimodal projects, including transit and passenger rail. Alternatively, Congress should consider dedicating more trust fund money to these modes if BUILD funding is not going to be made available to them.

4. Require a more equitable urban/rural funding split.

Congress should make clear that a more equitable urban-rural split is appropriate and provide more clear guidance to USDOT about how they are expected to consider the needs of both urban and rural America. Currently, USDOT awards grants to either urban or rural projects, with a set-aside for rural projects. This creates a false choice between the two.

For example, the CREATE project in Illinois, which will relieve freight rail bottlenecks and allow goods to more easily move to market through the country, is considered an “urban” project. This, despite the fact that about 25 percent of rail traffic in the United States travels through the Chicago region, and farmers and businesses from rural areas will benefit from reduced freight congestion. The benefits of an urban or rural project are not limited only to the jurisdiction where construction will take place. USDOT should consider the full impact of a project, on both urban and rural areas when determining a projects classification.

5. Authorize the BUILD program in long-term transportation policy.

The TIGER/BUILD program stands out as the only major federal transportation program that has not been authorized by the FAST Act and previous authorizing legislation, leaving its fate in limbo each year. While Congress has continued to fund it through the annual appropriations process, authorizing the program over multiple years at $1.5 billion annually would provide some certainty to potential applicants and allow Congress to establish more policy guardrails to ensure it operates as intended.

Many of these recommendations currently have support in Congress. In particular, 20 members of Congress recently signed a letter led by Representative Mark DeSaulnier (CA-11) to USDOT expressing concern about how they have been facilitating the BUILD program. That letter endorsed some of these recommendations.

The BUILD program has long been a bipartisan winner because it is so flexible. It gives communities a unique opportunity (and in some cases the only opportunity) to win direct federal assistance for a priority transportation project that would otherwise be hard or impossible to fund. However, the dramatic shift in focus underway at USDOT seriously undermines the utility of the program by directing dollars away from innovative, multimodal projects and instead heavily favoring conventional road projects that can already be more easily funded.

The recommendations above will help Congress keep TIGER roaring (or BUILD building) as the program enters its second decade.

Up next, lessons from the past 10 years of TIGER/BUILD that should inform federal transportation policy at large. Read the final post or download the full analysis.

Sean Doyle was the primary author of this report for Transportation for America, with contributions from Beth Osborne, Scott Goldstein, Jordan Chafetz, and Stephen Lee Davis.

Taming the TIGER: Trump turns innovative grant program into another roads program

Under President Trump, the U.S. Department of Transportation has effectively turned the formerly innovative BUILD program—created to advance complex, hard-to-fund projects—into little more than a rural roads program, dramatically undercutting both its intent and utility.

Following this week’s announcement of an 11th round in BUILD competitive grants ($900 million) available to almost any public entity for transportation projects, Transportation for America is releasing this new comparative and constructive critique of USDOT’s BUILD program (formerly known as TIGER) in three parts. Up first today, what we found after examining ten years of awards. Read the second post in the series or download the full analysis.

The Better Utilizing Investments to Leverage Development (BUILD) program has been one of the most popular and impactful transportation programs in the federal arsenal. Conceived during the first few months of the Obama administration at the height of the financial crisis in 2009, the program originally bore the name TIGER: Transportation Investments Generating Economic Recovery.

This unique program was powerful precisely because of how it differed from most other federal transportation programs.

The program is uniquely popular because of its flexibility.
Funds can be awarded to any public entity—like a city government, public university, or tribal government—and can fund almost any kind of transportation project—roads, bridges, transit, freight, ports, bike, pedestrian, or any combination—in a wide variety of contexts. Given that most federal transportation programs award funding to state DOTs and restrict funding to one particular mode, the BUILD program has provided a much needed avenue for local entities to finance multimodal or complicated projects that cross numerous jurisdictional lines.

The program’s competition resulted in projects with greater benefits.
Unlike nearly all federal transportation dollars that are awarded automatically by formulas based on population, lane-miles, or other simple criteria, USDOT receives, scores, and awards BUILD funding based on the extent to which projects improve safety, state of repair, economic competitiveness, quality of life, and environmental sustainability. If you have a great project that’s multimodal, crosses city lines, and includes multiple partners, BUILD is an opportunity to fund it—and often the only way to do so with direct federal resources. Over the 10 rounds of the program so far, USDOT received more than 8,443 applications from all 50 states and U.S. territories requesting more than $156 billion in funding.2

The program encouraged more non-federal investment in transportation.
Since 2009, the program has awarded nearly $7.1 billion to 554 projects across the nation, leveraging billions more in non-BUILD funding. Over the first eight rounds, on average, projects attracted more than 3.6 additional, non-federal dollars for every TIGER grant dollar.

The focus has shifted since the Trump administration took over the program

A program which once heavily funded multimodal, transformative projects of regional and national significance which would otherwise be difficult to fund is now focused on expanding road capacity with an extreme bias for projects in rural areas. By comparing the projects selected for funding over the last 10 years and their level of funding, we identified four dramatic shifts in the program.

More roads, less multimodal

In the two most recent rounds of TIGER/BUILD awards—the first two years the program was managed by the Trump administration—only about 10 percent of funding went to transit projects. This is a big departure from the previous eight years when transit projects received between 28 and 40 percent of funding. Conversely, the share of funding dedicated to traditional road projects has grown to all-time highs; in 2018, road projects—most of which are eligible to receive normal formula dollars from their state—received more than 60 percent of the funding for the first time, after hovering below 30 percent for years.

While the name of the program may have been changed to BUILD in 2018, the congressional intent did not change. The small amount of funding for multimodal projects is inconsistent with the law which directs USDOT to invest “in a variety of transportation modes.”3 TIGER was created in part because most federal transportation dollars are already focused on roads via the highway formulas.

If a road project didn’t rank high enough to be funded from a state’s share of the $42 billion guaranteed to be spent annually from the Highway Trust Fund, it likely isn’t essential and shouldn’t displace other more creative projects that can’t be funded through conventional federal transportation programs.

More capacity, less repair

A closer look at the road projects selected over the years shows that the Trump administration has focused more heavily on capacity expansion (i.e. new roads and road widenings) versus repair and bridge replacement. The first year of BUILD (round X) set two records: not only was a record share of total funding devoted to roads, a record percentage of that funding (70 percent) was dedicated to capacity expansion.

Note: this graphic only includes projects that were categorized as “roads” in the first graphic above. It does not include complete streets projects.

While policymakers of all stripes echo the constant refrain of “repairing our crumbling roads and bridges,” the Trump administration has prioritized doing the exact opposite with the BUILD program, largely opting to build new infrastructure (increasing the amount of infrastructure that needs to be maintained) rather than focusing on caring for our existing assets.

More rural, less urban

The past two of years of awards have disproportionately favored rural areas. While rural areas certainly deserve transportation investments, they should be proportional. The U.S. Census Bureau found that in 2016, approximately 19 percent of Americans lived in rural areas while 81 percent of Americans lived in urban areas.4 Reflecting where most Americans live, during the first eight years of the TIGER program (2009-2016) projects in urban areas received, on average, 75 percent of funding. Yet in the past two rounds of the program, projects in urban areas have only received an average of 33 percent of funding.

When providing BUILD funding in the last two appropriation bills, Congress directed USDOT to fund projects in rural and urban areas “to ensure an equitable geographic distribution of funds.”5 Disproportionately awarding grants to projects in rural areas is hardly equitable and is inconsistent with the intent and letter of the law.

Critics often complained during the earlier years of the program that it was too urban-focused based solely on the location of the chosen projects. However, many projects classified as urban were actually projects of national significance that have great utility and benefits for rural areas. For example, Port of New Orleans Rail Yard Improvements were funded during TIGER II “to reduce congestion, facilitate the movement of marine and rail cargo, stimulate international commerce, and maintain an essential port.” This project brings immense benefits for the city, the rural areas around it, and the country even though it was classified as an “urban project.” It creates jobs in New Orleans at the port and moves exports like poultry, paper, and pulp to market, a critical need for farmers and manufacturers across the country.

While the Trump administration has made investment in rural communities a key talking point, USDOT’s project selection reflects a very narrow and overly simplistic understanding of what can actually help those communities. Projects that get goods from rural America to market are left off the table just because they might be located in an urban area.

A new rail flyover at 63rd and State in Chicago that eliminated an at-grade crossing. TIGER I provided $100 million to a package of rail infrastructure projects in the Chicago region known as CREATE. While classified as an urban project, CREATE is addressing a series of bottlenecks that result in passenger delays in Chicago and freight delays throughout the country, bringing benefits to urban and rural communities alike across the region, state, and country. Photo by Mark Llanuza.

More funding for state DOTs, less for anyone else

One of the greatest strengths of the BUILD program is that it’s one of the few ways for local governments (or any public entity) to directly receive transportation funding from the federal government to advance their own priority projects, without having to go hat-in-hand to the state. If a municipality or public transit agency conceives of a great project that ticks the required boxes under the law—and if they can identify a local matching contribution—BUILD funding is an option.

Most other federal transportation funds are directed to and controlled by state DOTs. (A smaller share goes to regional metropolitan planning organizations.) As most mayors or other local elected leaders know from firsthand experience, a state DOT’s priorities for spending within their community’s borders are often not the same.

Under the Trump administration, more funds have been going to state DOTs—an average of 37.5 percent awarded to state DOTs compared to 28 percent under the Obama administration.6

Up next, our recommendations for re-BUILDing the program in the second post. Or download the full analysis.

Want to get updates on reports like this? Sign up for email from T4America.

SIGN UP

Sean Doyle was the primary author of this report for Transportation for America, with contributions from Beth Osborne, Scott Goldstein and Stephen Lee Davis.

KC Streetcar supports jobs locally and across the U.S.

Last month Transportation for America’s Chairman John Robert Smith traveled to Overland Park, KS to discuss the economic impact of public transportation dollars on local manufacturing jobs with state and local leaders. Local manufacturer Dimensional Innovations (DI) hosted the event at their facility where attendees saw the recently constructed shelters destined for the Downtown Kansas City Streetcar. Transit shelters are one part of the transit supply chain with over 20 percent of DI’s business stemming from public transportation.

Since opening in 2016, the Kansas City Streetcar (KC Streetcar) has been a remarkable success. It’s seen record high ridership levels, logging more than five million passenger trips. It’s also spurred more than $2 billion in residential, retail, and commercial investment. As Tom Gerend, Executive Director of the Kansas City Streetcar Authority states, the streetcar has fueled a economic boom in Kansas City.

But the benefits of transit systems like the KC Streetcar go far beyond the streets and neighborhoods they serve. In the KC Streetcar’s case, it has supported manufacturing jobs at 83 suppliers in 26 different states. Last month, Transportation for America traveled to one such manufacturer—Dimensional Innovations—in Overland Park, KS to highlight the economic impact of public transportation dollars on manufacturing jobs for state and local leaders.

Congresswoman Sharice Davids and staff for Congressman Sam Graves joined leadership from the Greater KC Chamber of Commerce, Kansas City Area Transportation Authority, and Kansas City Streetcar Authority to tour Dimensional Innovations’ manufacturing facility where they build the station shelters for the KC Streetcar.

DI uses its inspired design skills—honed from creating interactive pieces for museums, hospitals, and sports arenas—to make sleek transit shelters that incorporate public art pieces and provide information to customers. Over 20 percent of DI’s business stems from public transportation.

“DI has been incredibly fortunate to be involved in transit-related work across the Kansas City metro for nearly 15 years,” said Tucker Trotter, CEO of Dimensional Innovations. “Transit work has not only created multiple jobs for our organization and allowed us to invest in other areas for growth, but it’s done the same for our local partners and subcontractors. We believe this creates a positive ripple effect within our community, and makes Kansas City an even better place for our employees and their families.”

The transit supply chain is far reaching, touching almost every congressional district. When cities like Kansas City or Chicago invest local and federal dollars in transit projects, they support jobs in the transit supply chain throughout the country. In the case of the KC Streetcar, when Kansas City purchased transit shelters, some of those dollars came to Overland Park and supported jobs locally.

Many public transit manufacturers and suppliers rely on a trained and consistent workforce. Without stable funding from state and federal partners, these jobs might be lost. According to Transportation for America Director Beth Osborne, “that’s a very real threat given that President Trump’s 2020 budget would cut federal transit capital grants by $1 billion.”

The decisions Congress makes regarding transportation funding will impact people who live in communities building transit systems and in the communities that manufacture the seats, engines, wheels, technology, and station shelters that keep those transit systems running. As Gerend says, “Transit investment equals job creation. Not only is the KC Streetcar creating opportunities locally, but it’s helping to create jobs across the country.”

All photos courtesy of Dimensional Innovations.

New yearlong fellowship will help individuals build skills in creative placemaking and transportation planning

Arts & Culture

T4America is proud to announce the creation of a new yearlong Arts, Culture, and Transportation (ACT) Fellowship to help those already working at the nexus of arts and transportation take their work to the next level.

This new fellowship, created with funding from the Kresge Foundation, builds upon the deep knowledge and expertise T4America has established over the last four years in arts and culture in transportation. The fellowship, which will be filled by a class of approximately 10-15 professionals already working at the intersection of the arts and transportation, will help them elevate their work to the next level.

Over the last year, we provided training to three communities to help them build connections between local arts agencies and departments of transportation. This ACT fellowship expands the scope of that type of training to help a wide range of individual transportation and community leaders from across the country share creative placemaking practices and challenges with their peers. Fellows will learn from one another and develop the tools and expertise to train novices who want to learn more about this emerging practice.

We are now accepting applications from interested teams of candidates (at least two but no more than four people per team) from the same locality. We recommend that your team has a mix of unique or shared experiences in the arts & culture, transportation, and community development sectors.

Apply as a team

For more information, or to ask questions that you encounter while preparing your application, watch our webinar Watch here >>

Fellows will deepen their creative placemaking skills and knowledge of the transportation planning and design process. Fellows will remain employed by their organizations and agencies during the fellowship.

Teams should apply if their goals include any of the following:

  • Strengthening skills to develop equitable transportation projects that better serve your local community.
  • Gaining mentorship and learning from peers and nationally recognized thought leaders in creative placemaking and transportation.
  • Peer-learning through a curated fellowship cohort.
  • An opportunity to workshop your projects through hands-on, in-person convenings.
  • Becoming leaders at the intersection of arts, culture and transportation. You’ll have the chance to apply what you’ve learned by delivering technical assistance through T4America’s future workshops.

The ACT fellowship will include an online distance learning component and three in-person convenings. T4America and SGA staff, as well as a team of national experts, will educate fellows on best practices in various areas of transportation, arts, and culture, while fellows will have an opportunity to share their own challenges and learn from one another and from the cities that host the in-person convenings.

The next step for creative placemaking in transportation

The ACT Fellowship is the next logical step in T4America’s work to help transportation professionals learn how to harness the power of arts and culture to develop transportation projects that better serve those who use them.

  • Released three years ago, The Scenic Route: Getting Started with Creative Placemaking in Transportation, introduced transportation planners and local leaders to the concept, shared successful case studies, and provided guidance to transportation professionals on working with artists.
  • A year later, our Arts, Culture and Transportation: A Creative Placemaking Field Scan explored how artists contribute to transportation solutions, identifying seven challenges and seven solutions involving artists. Our Cultural Corridor Consortium, also launched two years ago, supported three cities per year with direct funding, technical assistance, and peer learning opportunities to incorporate artistic practice into transportation projects.
  • Last year, our State of the Art Transportation Trainings educated transportation professionals in three cities on artistic practice and educated arts administrators and artists on transportation planning, while helping both collaborate more effectively with one another.
  • And most recently, we launched artist-in-residency programs at the DOTs in Washington state and Minnesota to bring a creative approach to their work and embed artistic practice in both agencies.

Please email Ben Stone, director of Arts & Culture, with any questions.

Washington State Department of Transportation announces the selection of two artists to serve in the country’s first statewide artist-in-residence program

With today’s announcement that Kelly Gregory and Mary Welcome have been selected to serve as artists-in-residence with WSDOT for a year, Washington becomes the first state to embed an artist in a statewide agency.

CONTACT: Ben Stone, bstone@smartgrowthamerica.org / 410.370.3843 and Barbara LaBoe, laboeb@wsdot.wa.gov/ 360.705.7080

Artist team Kelly Gregory and Mary Welcome will spend a year working with the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) as artists-in-residence to bring a creative approach and help develop new ways to achieve agency goals through a first-of-its-kind program created by ArtPlace America and Transportation for America, a program of Smart Growth America.

Recognized as a tool for pioneering innovative and creative solutions, artist-in-residence programs have been piloted across the nation in municipal governmental agencies, but WSDOT will be the first statewide agency to pilot such a program at the state level. These two artists will help find creative ways to advance WSDOT’s strategic plan goals of inclusion, practical solutions and workforce development.

“The quality and quantity of applications we received for the artist-in-residence position impressed our selection committee, and we’re thrilled to have selected the team of Kelly Gregory and Mary Welcome,” said Ben Stone, Smart Growth America’s director of arts & culture. “Their collaborative approach, insatiable curiosity, and experience with design, planning, community engagement, and Washington state make them ideal artists-in-residence. I can’t wait to share their work with other states who are in the process of considering setting up their own similar programs.”

“We’re excited to work with Kelly and Mary to find innovative ways to better engage the communities we serve and deliver the best possible transportation projects,” said Roger Millar, WSDOT’s secretary of transportation. “They have experience with both rural and urban communities that will help us foster deeper community engagement, build relationships with underrepresented communities, and bring creativity to design challenges.”

“This opportunity stood out because it brings together so many of the issues we care about: transportation, infrastructure, community, the rural-urban continuum, and the role of civic service in stewarding the commons,” Gregory and Welcome said. “As artists and activists, we have a history of working in collaboration with non-arts communities and building relational bridges between fun and function. We really believe in the power of artists to bring fresh perspectives and strengthen community connections.”

About the two artists

Mary Welcome, of Palouse, Washington, is a multidisciplinary cultural worker collaborating with complex and often under-represented rural communities, with projects rooted in community engagement and the development of intersectional programming to address hyper-local issues of equity, cultural advocacy, inclusivity, visibility, and imagination. She collaborates to build cooperative environments that encourage civic engagement, radical education, and community progress.

Kelly Gregory is an itinerant social architect based on the Pacific coast. Her practice is rooted in socially-engaged work: affordable housing projects, exhibitions, reimagining spaces of incarceration, democratic public space, and in-depth community-driven research. Her projects fold current communities and future solutions into functional, beautiful spaces for collaboration and engagement. As a team, with a multi-disciplinary backgrounds in arts, outreach, architecture, and activism, they listen with communities and imagine new solutions in collaboration with neighbors.

For more information about the team, read this Q&A between the artists and Transportation for America: https://t4america.org/2019/03/21/get-to-know-washington-states-new-artists-in-residence

What will these artists do?

The residency, based in Olympia, will run for one year with both artists making rotations as a team through several WSDOT core divisions to gain knowledge on the agency’s operations, priorities and challenges. The artist team will then propose projects to address WSDOT’s overarching goals. Their work may address some or all of the following topics: improving community engagement, supporting alternatives to single occupancy vehicle transport, creating healthier communities and enhancing safety and equity. After four months of rotations, eight months will be devoted to the artists’ project(s) development and production.

The artists will begin the residency in July 2019.

More details about the program

Several organizations collaborated on the artist-in-residence program. ArtPlace America is providing a $125,000 grant for the program, including a $40,000 stipend split between the two artists and $25,000 for a final project(s) the artists and staff develop. Transportation for America will administer both the funds and the overall program, including providing staff and consulting assistance. The State Smart Transportation Initiative (SSTI) will also provide staff support. Both T4A and SSTI are programs of Smart Growth America. WSDOT is not providing funding for the program, but will supply in-kind contributions consisting of work space for the selected artists and staff time for agency workers to collaborate on the new program.

###

Transportation for America is an alliance of elected, business, and civic leaders from communities across the country, united to ensure that states and the federal government step up to invest in smart, homegrown, locally-driven transportation solutions — because these are the investments that hold the key to our future economic prosperity. T4America is a program of Smart Growth America. www.t4america.org

The State Smart Transportation Initiative promotes transportation practices that advance environmental sustainability and equitable economic development, while maintaining high standards of governmental efficiency and transparency. It is jointly operated by the University of Wisconsin and Smart Growth America.

ArtPlace America is a ten-year collaboration among a number of foundations, federal agencies, and financial institutions. We began our work as an organization in 2011, and will finish in 2020. Our mission is to position arts and culture as a core sector of community planning and development.

WSDOT keeps people, businesses and the economy moving by operating and improving the state’s transportation systems. To learn more about what we’re doing, go to www.wsdot.wa.gov/news for pictures, videos, news and blogs. Real time traffic information is available at wsdot.com/traffic or by dialing 511.

Get to know Washington state’s new artists-in-residence

We announced earlier today that Kelly Gregory and Mary Welcome have been selected to serve as artists-in-residence with the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) in a new fellowship program created by ArtPlace America and T4America, bringing a dose of creativity to the statewide transportation agency. Get to know this team of two artists with this brief Q&A.

WSDOT is launching the country’s first statewide artist-in-residence program, embedding this team of two artists within the agency for a year starting later this summer. Kelly Gregory (left, above photo) and Mary Welcome (right) will help develop new ways to achieve WSDOT’s goals through a first-of-its-kind program. They took a few minutes to answer a few questions from Ben Stone, the director of arts and culture for Smart Growth America.

What was it about the WSDOT artist residency that inspired you both to apply? Now that you’ve been selected, what excites you most about the residency?

As artists and activists, we have a history of working in collaboration with non-arts communities and building relational bridges between fun and function. We are excited for the opportunity to shape what a statewide artist-in-residence can look like on a national level because we really believe in the power of artists to bring fresh perspectives and strengthen community connections. As a nationally recognized transportation agency, WSDOT addresses the needs of every resident and visitor of the state and we are excited to help build relationships with communities across the entire state. What an incredible opportunity—to study the communities of Washington based on how we move around.

While you’ll have a lot of time to formulate project ideas once the residency starts, what are your initial thoughts on how you’ll approach the residency?

We’re especially interested in the statewide services and the many different people (from road crews to planners) and places (both rural and urban) that make up the WSDOT community. We think some of the best outreach is done on a conversational level, spending intentional time with folks outside of formal meetings and work hours (riding in a snow plow! hanging with the captain of a ferry!). During this residency we hope to develop meaningful, equitable, and impactful ideas into a long standing project that WSDOT can take ownership of in order to continue to be national leaders in the transportation sector.

Tell us about one of your recent projects that you feel is relevant to the residency.

Our collective Homeboat has spent the past three years working with the town of St. James, Minnesota with funding from an ArtPlace America grant. Using an extensive community research process, we collaborated with city employees and local leaders to create a Community Advocate Program that equips community members to connect neighbors, family members, and friends to critical resources, information, and opportunities. We also collaborated with the St. James community on a Healthy Housing Initiative that developed strategies for improving options for affordable, safe, housing to neighbors.

This kind of work is really relational, necessitating a lot of listening and grappling with the complex layers of what makes up a community in order to identify invisible barriers. We appreciate the added challenge of problem solving within our creative practice, but we’re also pretty good at keeping it fun for everyone involved.

In our Arts, Culture, and Transportation Field Scan, we profiled seven roles that artists play in solving transportation challenges, from generating creative solutions to healing wounds and divisions. How would you describe your roles as artists working on transportation projects and how to do these roles match up with or expand beyond those seven roles?

The seven roles profiled are focused on equity—from planning and construction to collaboration and engagement. Equity is at the core of our work, and manifests in our practices by working toward equal access, collaborating with the spirit of a place, building hyperlocal, designing for shared stewardship, moving at the pace of trust, and including all community voices. It is critical that all of our transportation systems are equitable, safe, and inclusive for all people from rural to urban places.

How do our transportation systems shape the places we inhabit or experience? We feel especially close to role number five: Fostering Local Ownership. Local stewardship of valuable shared resources, like our streets, that serve as the country’s connective tissue, are critical to more equitable, connected communities.

What kind of professional or personal experiences do you have in Washington state? What lessons from your work outside of Washington do you hope to bring to the residency at WSDOT?

Mary is based in Palouse—a small rural town on the eastern edge of the state that is inaccessible by any type of public transportation and sits at the intersection of three small highways. She cares deeply about cultural equity in the state of Washington. Her projects seek to build systems of exchange across the rural-urban continuum and she’s excited to collaborate with an agency that recognizes—and also has to effectively serve—the entire state. WSDOT is more than the sum of its parts. The agency is a living network of people and place. She brings a keen and curious place-based practice, a deep affection for the hinterland, and extensive experience as a long-haul cross-country driver who has never taken the same way twice.

Kelly has long been an advocate for alternative transportation. She has worked on a number of transportation related initiatives throughout the last decade. With the urban design firm Gehl, Kelly helped create the National Street Service, a participatory social movement to transform America’s streets into enjoyable and fulfilling places for all people. She also co-founded Post-Car Adventuring—a micro-publisher which creates guidebooks for outdoor adventure using public transport and bicycles. She loves long train travel and rides her bike everywhere.

Full artist and team bios

Mary Welcome (Palouse, WA) is a multidisciplinary cultural worker collaborating with complex and often under-represented rural communities. As an artist-activist, her projects are rooted in community engagement and the development of intersectional programming to address hyper-local issues of equity, cultural advocacy, inclusivity, visibility, and imagination. She collaborates with local schools, city councils, civic groups, youth, summer camps, libraries, neighbors, and friends to build cooperative environments that encourage civic engagement, radical education, and community progress. She believes in small towns, long winters, optimists, parades, and talking about feelings. www.bangbangboomerang.com  

Kelly Gregory is an itinerant social architect based on the Pacific coast. Her practice is rooted in socially-engaged work: affordable housing projects, exhibitions, reimagining spaces of incarceration, democratic public space, and in-depth community-driven research. Her projects fold current communities and future solutions into functional, beautiful spaces for collaboration and engagement. www.rovingstudio.com

As a team, with a multi-disciplinary backgrounds in arts, outreach, architecture, and activism, they listen with communities and imagine new solutions in collaboration with neighbors.

Minnesota Department of Transportation to host a Community Vitality Fellow to advance transportation goals

Minnesota Department of Transportation joins Smart Growth America’s artist-in-residence program, by hosting a Community Vitality Fellow to creatively meet the agency’s goals of promoting economic vitality, improving safety, supporting multimodal transportation systems and creating healthier communities.  

A Community Vitality Fellow will spend a year working with the Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) to help develop new ways to achieve agency goals through a program created by ArtPlace America and Transportation for America, a program of Smart Growth America. MnDOT will be among the first state transportation agencies in the country to participate in the artist-in-residence program by hosting a Community Vitality Fellowship position.

Applications are now open for artists interested in the year-long Fellowship position, which will be located within the St. Paul Office of MnDOT. The call for artists and application can be found here: https://www.smartgrowthamerica.org/program/arts-culture/mndot-air

Learn More & Apply Here

Have questions? Watch a recording of our recent webinar about the program.

Recognized as a tool for pioneering innovative and creative solutions, artist-in-residence programs have been piloted across the nation in municipal governmental agencies, including the cities of Los Angeles and Seattle, but never before at a statewide agency. In Fergus Falls, Minnesota, artists-in-residence have increased cultural programming to support community development. In Lanesboro, MN, the artists-in-residence have used art as a catalyst for deeper community engagement. In Minneapolis, artists-in-residence have used theatre to help the city’s Regulatory Services Department staff develop more empathetic policies and better relate to their constituents, while St Paul’s artists-in-residence have worked to make community meetings more creative, fun, and productive.

Several organizations collaborated on the Community Vitality Fellowship position, including Smart Growth America, ArtPlace America and MnDOT. Transportation for America (T4A) will administer both the funds and the overall program, including providing staff and consulting assistance. The State Smart Transportation Initiative (SSTI) will also provide staff support. Both T4A and SSTI are programs of Smart Growth America. MnDOT will supply in-kind contributions consisting of work space for the selected Fellow and staff time for agency workers to collaborate on the groundbreaking new program.

“Artists can provide fresh approaches and new ways of doing things, interpret complex processes, and provide unique perspectives for existing programs,” said Ben Stone, Smart Growth America’s director of arts & culture. “While a handful of cities have embedded artists in various departments over the years, MnDOT will be the second statewide agency to embark on such a program. We’re excited to be a part of helping Minnesota harness arts and creativity to create better supported and more beloved transportation projects that help accomplish the state’s goals.” Minnesota will join Washington State DOT in joining the artist-in-residence program with Smart Growth America by hosting a Community Vitality Fellow.

Why employ a Community Vitality Fellow?

MnDOT is interested in creative ways of engaging communities and bringing in new partners to help solve problems in the delivery of efficient and dependable transportation systems. Transportation infrastructure that reflects the assets and distinct character of communities will enhance economic vitality and community development efforts across the state.

What will the Community Vitality Fellow do?

The Fellowship will run for one year with rotations through MnDOT’s core divisions to gain knowledge on the agency’s operations, priorities and challenges. The Fellow will then propose process improvements to address MnDOT’s overarching goals while improving community engagement, supporting safe places to walk and bike and enhancing equity in the planning, building, operations and maintenance of transportation infrastructure. The Fellow will develop processes and procedures to further evaluate and integrate elements that elevate the unique character of each community within the transportation system.

Cities across the country have engaged fellowships and artists-in-residences to support their efforts. The Los Angeles Department of Transportation’s artists-in-residence have installed interactive artistic elements to bus shelters, taught storytelling skills to the DOT staff to help them better communicate their projects to the public, and served as a bridge between transportation advocates and DOT staff.

“We are delighted to support the establishment of a Community Vitality Fellowship to the Minnesota Department of Transportation. Embedding artists in state government can transform the way transportation challenges are solved,” said Sarah Calderon, ArtPlace America’s Managing Director. “MnDOT will establish a valuable Fellowship model for how artists can contribute toward the planning, creation and utilization of safe, sustainable and integrated multimodal transportation system and share results with state departments of transportation across the county.”

The Fellow will be based in MnDOT’s headquarters in St Paul, but may also work from one of MnDOT’s district offices in greater Minnesota for part of the Fellowship.

CONTACT: Ben Stone, bstone@smartgrowthamerica.org / 410.370.3843 and Jessica Oh, jessica.oh@state.mn.us /651-366-4939.

Equal Opportunity Employment

Equal opportunity and having a diverse staff are fundamental principles at Transportation for America. Employment and promotional opportunities are based upon individual capabilities and qualifications without regard to race, color, religion, gender, pregnancy, sexual orientation/preference, age, national origin, marital status, citizenship, disability, veteran status, or any other protected characteristic as established under law.

###

Transportation for America is an alliance of elected, business, and civic leaders from communities across the country, united to ensure that states and the federal government step up to invest in smart, homegrown, locally-driven transportation solutions — because these are the investments that hold the key to our future economic prosperity. T4America is a program of Smart Growth America. www.t4america.org

The State Smart Transportation Initiative promotes transportation practices that advance environmental sustainability and equitable economic development, while maintaining high standards of governmental efficiency and transparency. It is jointly operated by the University of Wisconsin and Smart Growth America.

ArtPlace America is a ten-year collaboration among a number of foundations, federal agencies, and financial institutions. We began our work as an organization in 2011, and will finish in 2020. Our mission is to position arts and culture as a core sector of community planning and development.

Minnesota Department of Transportation oversees transportation by all modes, including land, water, air, rail, transit, walking and bicycling. The agency is responsible for maintaining, building and operating the state highway system to ensure a safe, accessible, efficient and reliable transportation system that connects people to destinations and markets throughout the state, regionally and around the world.

Uber and Lyft fight local control over city streets in Oregon

A bill in the Oregon state house would preempt local control over transportation network companies (TNCs) like Uber and Lyft. While cities have historically had the ability to manage vehicles on their streets to address congestion, improve access, ensure safety, and raise revenues, aggressive lobbying from TNCs has resulted in a number of states preempting local control. Such state bills should be carefully crafted to preserve city authority over the safe and efficient operation of their streets.

Over the past few years new mobility providers such as Uber and Lyft have led a massive lobbying push in nearly every state to pass state-level regulation, often in an effort to preempt local control over this burgeoning industry. Transportation network companies (TNCs)—and other new mobility companies—have shown they prefer a single, relaxed regulatory environment and oppose what they call a “patchwork” of local regulation. In reality, state laws preempting local authority remove control from the local officials who are best able to manage transportation on the ground.

This was one of the many concerns that Transportation for America shared with local officials and other advocates around the federal AV START bill, an effort to preempt both state and local control over automated vehicle regulations. The TNC and auto manufacturing industries—which are both pursuing AV technology—supported the bill that was crafted largely without input from locals who have historically been responsible for managing their streets.

Local governments can most effectively respond to concerns such as noise, congestion, or safety on a community’s streets. They need to be able to manage new mobility on their roads in the same way they manage all other vehicles, commercial and non-commercial, in order to ensure safe and equitable transportation system that serves everyone. Preemption strips local governments of this authority and leaves them without the tools necessary to protect the public and to address the problems that have and will surely continue to arise.

State preemption is a “solution” in search of a problem

As a result of the rapid proliferation of state laws affecting TNCs, only six states currently do not have statewide, comprehensive state laws over TNCs. In one of those six states, Oregon, the legislature is poised to hold an important hearing next Monday (March 18) on industry supported legislation which could have an enormous impact on the ability of cities like Portland and Eugene to manage their transportation systems.

The following are important issues that legislators in Oregon and around the country should consider when debating legislation that will preempt local authority.

Revenue

Cities have historically had important powers to raise revenue through mechanisms such as fees for parking or individual taxi trips. The rise of TNCs has already impacted the demand for parking and taxi trips but also presents cities with an opportunity to raise new revenue necessary to ensure that the transportation system works for all users, including TNCs. However, state laws preempting local TNC regulations have eliminated cities’ ability to raise revenue from TNC trips.

For example, Chicago, IL enacted a 15-cent fee on TNC trips, with revenue dedicated to improving the city’s public transit system. Chicago argued that TNC trips create additional congestion and divert riders, and revenue, from the transit system and therefore should help pay for improving the system—a claim that is supported by research. Similar fees have been proposed in Philadelphia and other cities. However, when transit advocates in Cleveland proposed a fee on TNC trips to fund that city’s transit system, they found that a preempting state law prevented the city from creating such a fee.

Congestion

A growing body of research points to the proliferation of TNCs as increasing congestion in already crowded cities. To manage congestion, cities currently have a broad set of tools they can use to manage street congestion. For example, most cities regulate where commercial loading and unloading can occur to manage traffic flow and protect people. Many cities also regulate where taxis can pick up and drop off passengers, often around major transportation hubs or destinations. Several cities are considering new tools like congestion pricing as an additional way to manage traffic. State law preempting such regulations for TNCs handcuffs local officials and limits their ability to manage a significant (and growing) cause of congestion.

Safety

Under city-controlled taxi regulations, cities can track for-hire drivers and ensure that only safe drivers are picking up riders. Preempting state law would remove this local power.

For instance, Austin, TX, set a requirement that TNC drivers be subject to a fingerprint-based background check. But the state preempted this power (after heavy lobbying from Uber and Lyft that were unhappy with the regulations), and removed the ability of the city to set these safety requirements over drivers.

State preemption could even remove local governments’ power to enforce basic traffic laws necessary to ensure safety on city streets.

State should tread carefully & preserve local control

While there may be a place for state law in setting some basic ground rules for TNCs and other mobility services, such laws should be carefully crafted to preserve a city’s ability to manage their streets as they see fit. (There is currently another proposed bill in Oregon that would set a floor on regulation while still allowing cities to regulate beyond that state-imposed baseline.) The same thing can be said about regulations on automated vehicles and other new mobility services—locals need a complete toolbox to be able to manage their streets; preemption laws put a lock on that toolbox.

After all, Portland, OR may have very different needs than Bend, OR; local officials are best positioned to address those needs. While TNCs offer an important transportation option, they are just one of many options that cities are managing and should be treated as such by preserving city authority to regulate.

President’s budget dramatically cuts transit grants while USDOT sits on billions of unobligated funds.

President Trump’s just-released 2020 budget would cut federal transit capital grants by $1 billion. Although this is a slight improvement from the administration’s past efforts to eliminate all funding for new transit projects, it comes after a backlash against USDOT—stoked by Transportation for America’s ‘Stuck in the Station’ resource—for failing to administer the grant program in good faith and in a timely fashion.

Specifically, the 2020 budget requests just $500 million for new transit grants, a 64 percent cut from the $1.4 billion Congress appropriated explicitly for new projects in 2019 earlier this year. (The president’s budget includes $1 billion for projects already underway that the administration is legally required to continue funding.)

The U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) under Secretary Elaine Chao’s leadership has empowered President Trump’s strange crusade against transit funding. When Congress ignored the president’s previous budget requests to eliminate the program and made bipartisan moves to allocate billions in funding for improving and expanding transit, USDOT neglected to award grants.

Even after responding to the backlash by advancing several projects in 2018, USDOT is still sitting on more than $2.77 billion in available funds for new transit projects, as Transportation for America shows with Stuck in the Station.

“USDOT and the president are responding to the backlash to their past efforts to eliminate this popular program that provides transportation options, offers alternatives to soul-sucking congestion, and supports manufacturing jobs across the country,” said Beth Osborne, director of Transportation for America. “Unfortunately they are still proposing a massive cut in funding for building or improving transit systems. And while they are calling for cuts, USDOT is still sitting on billions intended to advance projects across the country.”

Following the release of Stuck in the Station last summer, USDOT picked up the pace of its grant awards slightly as public pressure mounted, funding nine more transit projects and bringing the total up to 10—just 10 projects in two years. That pace is wholly inadequate, and they are failing to keep up with the money that Congress continues to provide each year to advance new projects. They’ve awarded less than 30 percent of the more than $3.8 billion Congress has appropriated since 2017.

Combined with less transparency from the department about where projects stand in the grant process and what money is being used, it leaves communities, advocates, and even Congress guessing.

Congress has not taken kindly to USDOT’s blatant attempts to hamstring transit funding nor its disregard for congressional intent. In both the 2018 and 2019 appropriations bills, Congress inserted unprecedented language requiring USDOT to award at least 80 percent of each year’s funds by the end of the following calendar year—a direct rebuke of USDOT’s intransigence. USDOT now has until the end of 2019 to award at least 80 percent of their 2018 funds to the more than two dozen projects awaiting funding. Stuck in the Station now counts down to the Congressional deadlines and tracks how far USDOT has to go to meet that minimum requirement.

It’s important to note that even if USDOT reaches their 80 percent benchmark—which is an open question—that’s only a ‘B-‘ grade. Satisfactory.

USDOT’s unnecessary funding delays are increasing project costs, hindering construction in places with small fair-weather construction windows, and potentially jeopardizing projects altogether, leaving local communities on the hook as bureaucrats play politics in Washington. And this isn’t just happening in theory; according to reporting from Indy Midtown Magazine, “Federal delays in making appropriated funds available to [Indianapolis’ transit provider] IndyGo added approximately six months to the construction schedule.” Construction on the Indianapolis Red Line bus rapid transit project is now being accelerated to make up for federal delays.

Transit projects like the Indianapolis Red Line and the other two dozen projects in the pipeline for federal funding help spur local investment, support high-paying manufacturing jobs around the country, and provide the foundation for robust regional, state, and national economies. This budget is clearly out of step with what Americans need and want as communities across the country are trying to address looming crises like climate change and burgeoning inequity in our communities, and boost economic activity.

Congress considering a smarter way to measure transportation investments

Having thousands of jobs within a region doesn’t do much good if residents can’t use their local or regional transportation network to reach those jobs. A bill being reintroduced in Congress this week will provide transportation agencies with robust data to support smarter transportation planning that can better connect residents to jobs and services by all modes of travel.

The Connecting Opportunities through Mobility Metrics and Unlocking Transportation Efficiencies (COMMUTE) Act was introduced in the Senate by Senators Baldwin (D-WI) and Ernst (R-IA) and in the House by Congressman DeSaulnier (D-CA) along with Reps. Curtis (R-UT) and McAdams (D-UT). The COMMUTE Act requires the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) to create a competitive pilot program to provide five states, 10 metropolitan planning organizations, (MPOs), and five rural planning organizations with data sets to calculate how many jobs and services (such as schools, medical facilities, banks, and groceries) are accessible by all modes of travel. These data sets will also be made available to local governments and researchers.

This simple concept—measuring whether transportation investments improve access to jobs and services—can be transformative. Improving access to jobs and services, not merely aiming for a high speed of travel within a corridor or minimal delay, should be the goal of our transportation system.

In Virginia, they are using this approach to prioritize projects for funding. Some of the leading experts on this issue are our colleagues at the State Smart Transportation Initiative (SSTI) in Senator Baldwin’s hometown of Madison, Wisconsin. SSTI has worked closely with the Virginia Department of Transportation to develop a national model for selecting projects based on how they will improve access to jobs and services. In 2018, Utah took a similar step by passing legislation to overhaul its transportation planning system to prioritize improving access to jobs and services.

The key thing that makes these better approaches possible is more robust data—data which most communities do not have access to.

The incredibly blunt metrics that most planners or communities have used since the 1960s, like overall traffic congestion and on-time performance for transit, paint a grossly two-dimensional picture of the challenges people face while trying to reach jobs and services. They don’t provide sufficient information for agencies to make accurate decisions about what to build in order to best connect people to the places they need to go. These 1960s metrics lead to singular and expensive solutions (like highway expansions), while often failing to solve the problem or even creating new ones.

Today, precise new tools allow communities to accurately calculate accessibility to employment opportunities, daily errands, public services, and much more. These tools allow states and MPOs to better understand where people are traveling and to design transportation networks to maximize the ability of people to travel. It also allows states and MPOs to optimize their transportation networks to utilize all modes of transportation and even to understand how their investments interact with land use policies.

States such as Utah, Delaware, Virginia, California, Massachusetts, and Hawaii along with the cities of Sacramento and Los Angeles are already utilizing this type of data and seeing results.

Unfortunately, states and MPOs must currently pay for access to this data while the far less useful congestion data is made readily available to them by USDOT.

This bill will start to change that, creating a pilot program to give a small group of states, metro areas and rural areas access to better data, and allowing them to choose the best possible investments and make better use of limited taxpayer dollars.

The bipartisan introduction of this bill, in both the House and Senate, with support from members of the relevant committee’s is a huge step forward. We are grateful for the bipartisan leadership of Senators Baldwin and Ernst and Congressmen DeSaulnier, Curtis, and McAdams.

Exclusive Resources from T4A Micromobility Playbook

Produced in collaboration with 23 cities, Transportation for America released a new “Playbook” in January to help cities manage shared micromobility services like dockless bikes, electric scooters, and other new technologies that are rapidly being deployed across the country. The Shared Micromobility Playbook is intended to help cities better understand their policy levers and explores the core components of a comprehensive shared micromobility policy for local governments.

If you want the information from the playbook in a more digestible form, or are delivering a presentation to others about this issue, use our slide deck. If you want a T4A staffer to help you understand the playbook, or are interested in having someone do a presentation about it in your community, reach out to us!

What to watch for in Tuesday’s transportation and climate change hearing

The intersection between climate change and transportation will be on full display during a committee hearing in the U.S. House of Representatives. But will members of Congress take the opportunity to examine the critical role that federal transportation policy has played in creating the climate crisis? Here are six things we’ll be looking for during the hearing.

On Tuesday, February 26, at 10 a.m., the House Transportation and Infrastructure (T&I) Committee will hold a hearing entitled, “Examining How Federal Infrastructure Policy Could Help Mitigate and Adapt to Climate Change.” This hearing will give members of Congress a unique opportunity to discuss the merits and flaws in our transportation system.

When this topic has come up in the past, Congress has often focused exclusively on the role of auto manufacturers in improving fuel economy and the oil industry in reducing the carbon content of gasoline. But will the T&I Committee take advantage of this opportunity to ask probing questions about its own role in reducing GHG emissions by the way it funds the transportation system?

To help the committee inform its discussion, we recently produced two fact sheets outlining the links between transportation and climate change and some solutions.

Here are six things we would like to hear from today’s hearing:

1. A real conversation about the links between transportation and climate change

Transportation is now the single largest source of greenhouse gases (GHG), contributing 28 percent of the United States’ total GHG emissions, surpassing electrical generation. 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 more efficient vehicles and cleaner fuels—because people are driving more and making longer trips.

2. Focus on policy, not technology

EV’s will not solve the climate crisis alone: The State of Minnesota recently found that, “the average Minnesotan would have to drive an estimated 1,500 fewer miles per year” to achieve its climate goals. The State of California found that, even after a ten-fold increase in the number of zero emission vehicles, it would have to reduce vehicle miles traveled (VMT) per capita by 25 percent to achieve its climate goals. Hawaii came to a similar conclusion. Electric vehicles alone will not be sufficient to reduce transportation sector emissions, even if we replaced every gas car on the road with an electric one tomorrow.

3. A discussion about whether federal policy should continue to disproportionately subsidize driving over all other modes

80 percent of federal transportation formula funding is for roads. Though they are permitted to, states rarely use these funds for other purposes and there is no requirement to prioritize maintenance first. Funding for new roads is guaranteed through the highway trust fund. Funding for new transit is discretionary and has been repeatedly targeted for cuts or outright elimination. The federal government will only cover up to about 50 percent of the cost of new transit projects, while covering around 80 percent of the cost of new roads.

With new roads subsidized by the federal government, localities struggle to stay ahead of development that spreads further from the center of metro areas, forcing people to travel further to access jobs and services. Often, state and local authorities use funding intended to make walking or bicycling safer to build roadways instead. The resulting growth in driving and congestion leads to a demand for more roads, which induces even more driving. The U.S. has added lane miles faster than our population has grown. This strategy has failed to “solve” traffic congestion and has significantly increased greenhouse gas emissions, offsetting the modest gains made in vehicle efficiency and cleaner fuel.

4. An acknowledgment of the perverse incentives in the current system

States are rewarded with more federal funds if they burn more fuel, increase vehicle miles traveled, and build new lane-miles. That’s one example. There are scores of others.

5. Call out the role of speed in degrading safety, increasing pollution and congestion

Because free flowing traffic is considered the gold standard, roads are built to ensure traffic flows quickly. This means that a long-distance commute where a car moves very quickly (even over a very long total trip time) would be considered more successful than a far shorter commute at a slower speed in traffic. Designing roads with speed as the highest goal is what leads us to more and wider roads, and more and longer trips. Instead, roads should be considered as part of a network which is judged on whether people can reach jobs and services by any mode of travel, not the simplistic measure of whether some of them travel at high speed when driving.

6. A discussion about measuring progress (or failure), and holding states accountable

In 2012, Congress gave states more discretion over spending in exchange for a weak, opaque system of accountability in which states are required to set targets for transportation safety, state of repair and traffic movement. These targets can be negative (e.g., a safety target of increasing roadway deaths) with no rewards for hitting targets nor penalties for missing them. After seven years most of those targets are still not public. There are also no requirements for states or communities to measure and report the GHG emissions and VMT per capita effects of their transportation investments.

Congress got snowed by the states.

Looking for solutions?

A conversation along these lines above would be new and an important step forward, but we also need to start talking about some thoughtful solutions. With driving responsible for 83 percent of all transportation emissions—which are growing despite more efficient vehicles and cleaner fuels because people are driving more and making longer trips—it is critical for Congress to make major changes to the federal transportation policy that’s making it all possible.

What will the committee members propose? We have some ideas:

  • All modes should receive the same federal share: Currently, the federal government will fund up to 80 percent of a road project (even 90 percent in limited cases), while it will only fund up to 50 percent of a transit project.
  • Reform federal funding distribution: Currently, each state receives dedicated road funding through the highway trust fund formulas, which increases as states increase their VMT. New public transit, bike, and pedestrian infrastructure funds are either discretionary (transit Capital Investment Grant program), or an underused option within roadway funding (eg. Transportation Alternatives Program and Surface Transportation Block Grant). Congress could organize the formula funding around efficiency goals and create more parity between the modes.
  • Prioritize maintenance with formula road funding: Historically, states have used this formula funding for new road construction, encouraging far-flung auto-oriented development that increases the length and number of car trips. The program should focus on getting greater efficiency from the roads we have already built.
  • Measure the right things: Communities need accurate tools to make informed choices. So what should we measure and replace?
    • Measure GHG, and VMT per capita: States and communities should measure and report the GHG emissions and VMT per capita effects of their transportation investments.
    • Measure how well the transportation system connects people to destinations: Roadways are designed to move cars quickly with the assumption that there will always be more traffic, a self-fulfilling prophecy that leads to more and wider roads. Instead of measuring speed and traffic flow on roads, we should measure how the system, and any new investment, connects people to jobs and services by all modes of travel.
  • Set climate goals and penalties for failure to achieve goals: Just measuring our impact won’t quite cut it. The federal government should set GHG and VMT per capita reduction goals and require all states to implement policies to achieve these goals. States failing to achieve their goals should be penalized. States that exceed goals should be rewarded.
  • Align new construction with GHG goals: In the transit program, new capacity projects have to compete for funding and successful projects must demonstrate that they advance national and local goals, including environmental benefits and economic development. There is no such standard for new highway projects. Congress should require funding for new highway capacity to compete for funding, and preference should be given for projects that reduce GHG emissions and VMT per capita.

Policy Memo: THUD Conference Agreement

This information was supplied to members via email on January 22, 2019. We are posting it here today so members can use this option to find it.

On January 17, the House of Representatives released the full conference agreement between the House and Senate for the remaining six appropriations bills that have not been signed into law. The Transportation, Housing and Urban Development (THUD) FY19 appropriations bill conference report is included in this package. If Congress passes a full year FY19 appropriations bill this year, it is extremely likely that these are the final THUD funding levels and provisions.

T4A’s policy team has provided this memo exclusively for members. In addition, here is a brief power point slide deck that puts funding levels for various programs in context.

116th Congress Begins

This information was supplied to members via email on January 4, 2019. We are posting it here today so members can use this option to find it.

There are a lot of issues in play as the 116th Congress starts this week: a continuing government shutdown, new leadership in the House of Representatives, a new FY19 Appropriations bill from the Democratic-led House, committee leadership decisions, and discussions on an infrastructure package, reauthorization of the FAST Act, and the beginnings of FY20 appropriations discussions looming in the next few months. To keep you informed and prepare you for what almost certainly will be an interesting year, our policy team has provided what you need to know in this memo.

For those of you who like charts, and to help place the Democratic House FY19 Appropriations bill funding levels in context, check out this slide deck.

Also, not on the memo linked above because it just happened a a few hours ago ago: Senate Republicans finalized their committee memberships. As a reminder, committee assignments for Senate Democrats are here.

State of the Art Transportation Workshops: Addressing local challenges with community-driven solutions

As part of the State of the Art Workshop, Bozeman’s participants ride the local Streamline bus to experience first-hand the challenges riders face. (Image: staff photo)

The participants from the 2018 State of the Art Workshop—Mariposa County, CA; Buffalo, NY; and Bozeman, MT—will share how arts organizations can work with transportation agencies to address unique transportation challenges and the impact that’s having in their communities.

With generous support from the National Endowment for the Arts, T4America partnered with Americans for the Arts to help three communities build capacity among local arts and transportation agencies to better collaborate with each other. Through State of the Art Transportation Workshops, each community worked to integrate artistic and cultural practices into transportation projects. On Wednesday, March 6, we’ll feature workshop participants from Mariposa County, CA; Buffalo, NY; and Bozeman, MT in a webinar to share their stories.

Be sure to tune in to learn about the diverse role that art and culture can play in solving local transportation projects, from better engaging residents in planning a multi-use path in Mariposa County to helping the City of Buffalo better engage with artists and residents through the Buffalo Arts Council. Register for the webinar to hear more.

Register now

Join us on the webinar at 2:00 p.m. EDT on Wednesday, March 6 to hear from these three communities, and how the State of the Art Workshop can play a role in your own community.