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How can we reinvigorate and refocus our country’s transportation program?

Though the FAST Act is just six months into its five-year lifespan, it’s never too early to start discussing how to overhaul the outdated priorities of our nation’s transportation policy — especially when Congress failed to address them in that five-year transportation bill. One of our experts was a featured guest in a congressional briefing intended to move that conversation along.

Beth Osborne, senior transportation advisor for T4America, discussed these ideas at a short briefing on Capitol Hill entitled New Vision, Principles and Funding to Reinvigorate the Transportation Program, organized by Senator Tom Carper (D-DE) and Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR).

Senator Carper at Hill hearing

Senator Carper introducing the briefing on Wednesday, June 15th.

We hear a lot about how the gas tax has lost its value and we need to find ways to increase funding for our country’s transportation system. While this is all true, we also must use our existing resources far better.

Beth Osborne at hill hearing

Beth Osborne presenting at the briefing

In New Principles for Our Transportation Program, a report Beth Osborne recently penned for The Century Foundation, she laid out four key changes we should make, which she presented in yesterday’s hearing: fix what we have first, focus on moving people and goods instead of vehicles, use competition to spur innovation, and come up with an honest way to fund transportation that doesn’t depend on general tax dollars to shore up an outdated, broken funding mechanism.

While a lot in Congress point to the need for more funding, “there is a lot that is not understood about the problem,” Beth suggested.

“There’s a disconnect between the policy, programs and the way the money is spent.” When faced with a funding shortfall, rather than assessing how bad development decisions drive the need for further transportation investments, Beth asked the crowd while referring to the map below, “is this really a funding problem or a planning problem we [federal government] are being asked to pay for?” she asked.


Denham Springs, LA, where even a short trip requires a car

One way to spend money more wisely is to find ways to award it to the best projects, rather than formulas that spread money around like peanut butter across states, regardless of need or merit, funding as many (if not more) ill-conceived projects as wise ones.

“Competition in TIGER and other programs provide a great incentive for bringing in the best possible projects and generating innovation,” she said. “But more competitive funding programs and better measures of success are needed.”

Private investment and more public-private partnerships have been regularly invoked by members of Congress across the political spectrum as solutions to the funding shortfall for transportation, but why don’t we see more public-private partnerships (P3s), and how can local communities ensure they’re getting a good deal?

Beth was joined in the briefing by T4America alumnus Sarah Kline, who just wrote a paper for the Bipartisan Policy Center showcasing practical solutions that can get support from both parties, focusing also on what the private sector can do to meet more of America’s infrastructure needs.

One suggestion was that projects need to have a clear statement of public benefit before receiving any public funds — what should the public expect to receive for their investment? Projects also need a full accounting of life-cycle costs. Whether a P3 or not, too many municipalities have a solid plan for upfront costs and aren’t prepared for maintenance or operation costs with projects down the road.

We were grateful to be invited to speak by Rep. Blumenauer and Sen. Carper and look forward to continuing this incredibly important debate.

Virginia approves its first transportation plan based on a new system of scoring and prioritizing projects

Today Virginia’s Commonwealth Transportation Board approved the first set of transportation projects selected and prioritized through the state’s new scoring process to objectively screen and score them based on their anticipated benefits. The newly renamed SMART Scale directs $1.7 billion to 163 projects across the state.

Following the release of the first list of recommended projects back in January, today’s approval from the CTB marks the first complete cycle of a brand new process created by the legislature a few years ago to improve the process for selecting projects and awarding transportation dollars — all in an effort to direct the new money to the best, most cost-effective projects with the greatest bang for the buck.

“Political wish lists of the past are replaced with a data-driven process that is objective and transparent, making the best use of renewed state funding,” as Gov. Terry McAuliffe said earlier this year.

This new scoring system became law under HB2, passed unanimously in 2014. Following after earlier legislation that raised new money to invest in transportation, the law established five fundamental goals for the state’s transportation investments: reduce congestion, support economic development, expand accessibility, improve safety, and protect environmental quality. We covered these changes in detail in one of our Capital Ideas reports in 2015.

The Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) developed a data-driven system to evaluate projects across the commonwealth and advance those that will deliver the greatest return from each dollar of state funds, adding valuable transparency to the once-murky process of directing state money. The score for every project considered was listed publicly on VDOT’s www.virginiahb2.org web page during the last four months of public comment.

In a press release announcing the approved program today, Transportation Secretary Aubrey Layne says, “In the past, Virginia had a politically driven and opaque transportation funding process that was filled with uncertainty for local communities and businesses. The SMART SCALE process makes the best use of renewed state funding approved in 2013 and the recently approved federal transportation bill.”

Virginia’s new scoring process offers a model for other states. As legislators see transportation dollars dwindling, it is more important than ever to ensure funds go to the best projects.

Since Virginia’s General Assembly passed HB2 in 2014, Louisiana, Texas, and Massachusetts have all advanced their own new processes to objectively score or prioritize projects. This year Maryland’s assembly overrode Gov. Larry Hogan’s (R) veto to enact a new, objective scoring process. Though the policy is similar to HB2, Maryland will face a challenge to replicate Virginia’s success in a climate with a far less collaborative political process — which was as crucial to Virginia’s success as the underlying policy.

How can other states replicate this?

Virginia’s shift to a more transparent system of selecting transportation projects is just one of the many smart policy changes that we’ll be covering in detail in Sacramento this November at Capital Ideas II, our one-of-a kind conference on state transportation policy. Come and be inspired and educated!

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Join us for the release of Planning for a Healthier Future

2016_0504 Kresge Calthrope PM ReportThanks to 2012’s MAP-21 legislation, all metro areas and states will soon be using a limited array of performance measures. While the in-progress federal requirements will cover a limited range of measures, T4America is releasing a new resource next week to help metro areas find ways to use performance measures to improve public health, address social equity concerns, and advance environmental quality.

Join us next week on Wednesday, June 22 at 4:00 p.m. EDT for a special online discussion about the new report, including firsthand experience from some of the metro regions that participated in a related two-year collaborative — more about that below. Sign up and be the first to get a copy of the Planning for a Healthier Future report in your inbox next Wednesday.

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While the federal performance measures currently being developed will cover limited metrics like safety, condition of roads and bridges, or how to measure congestion, this report lays out additional measures that enable MPOs and regions to understand the health impacts of transportation and land use decisions within three other dimensions: physical activity, traffic safety, and exposure to air pollution.

This report is the result of our two-year Planning for a Healthier Future collaborative with teams from the regions of Seattle, WA, Portland, OR, San Diego, CA and Nashville, TN. These four regions are actively working to improve health, increase access to opportunity for vulnerable populations, protect the environment and promote economic competitiveness by developing and implementing transportation performance measures for their respective metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs)

Performance measures and health?

urban design for health transportation impacts health

Cities and regions around the country face important choices about how and where they want to grow, how to connect people to economic prosperity and how to use limited resources to promote healthy communities and provide a great quality of life for all of their residents.

Performance-based planning allows stakeholders and decision-makers to understand how a given investment, policy, or decision “performs” across certain measures over time — providing more clarity and transparency on exactly what state or regional transportation dollars are accomplishing. As a result of the transportation projects that get built, is the air cleaner? Do more people have access to opportunity? Is environmental quality made better or worse? Are the impacts on people’s health — especially vulnerable populations — positive or negative?

This detailed report summarizes current best practices in the development of health, equity and environmental measures that can be used to evaluate the performance of transportation investments at a regional scale. It aims to explore and test a variety of different data-driven measures that can evaluate packages of transportation investments — such as those frequently bundled together by MPOs in transportation plans.

Join us next week to learn more and get your copy!

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California officially dumped the outdated “level of service” metric — your state should too

California made a small but crucial change to how they measure the performance of their streets in 2013, shifting away from a narrow focus on moving as many cars as fast as possible and taking a more holistic view and measuring a street’s performance against a broader list of other important goals. So what is this outdated “level of service” measure and how can other states follow California’s lead?

Wanting to rejuvenate their local economy, a community cooks up plans to redesign the local street running through downtown that was perhaps even short-sightedly widened or converted to one way travel in the 1960’s or 70’s. But as the street is also a state highway, they soon hear from the state department of transportation (DOT) that their proposed changes will slow down traffic and fail to meet “level of service” requirements and won’t make the cut of the state’s short list of projects. Worse yet, the community is told that in order to make a street safer, they actually need to widen it and smooth out any curves, making it a virtual speedway, undercutting their plans to build a place with more enjoyable places to walk and visit — a framework for creating economic prosperity. Heard this story before?

What is level of service, and how do DOTs come to this conclusion?

Though there are no formal or federal requirements to do so, most DOTs, metropolitan planning organizations and traffic engineers rely on a metric known as level of service (LOS). According to Jason Henderson, professor of geography at San Francisco State University, “Every city I’ve ever come across has some use of [LOS].” Because of the ubiquity of LOS, this largely misunderstood measurement has profound influence on the design of our communities.

Level of service is a system by which road engineers measure how well a road is performing based on the number of cars and the delay that vehicles experience on that roadway. Letters designate each level, from A to F. A, B and C represent free-flowing conditions and F is stop-and-go traffic. The score is assessed based on the highest level of congestion on that roadway, even if it only occurs a few minutes a day. Traditionally, roadway conditions are acceptable if they score a C or higher on non-urban streets and a D or higher on urban streets.

The LOS measurement is calculated by first measuring the amount of traffic during the busiest 15 minutes of an evening rush hour. Next, traffic engineers project the amount of traffic on the road in 20 or 30 years to determine if the road has enough capacity to cover the lifespan of the asset. If a road is projected by traffic engineers to lack capacity 20 years in the future — an incredibly fuzzy practice that’s far more art (or magic?) than math — that road still receives a failing LOS grade today, even if the road is adequately suiting capacity needs.

This heavy reliance on LOS has dramatically shaped our cities. As Gary Toth from the Project for Public Spaces brilliantly put it in this piece, transportation professionals, “in search of high LOS rankings, have widened streets, added lanes, removed on-street parking, limited crosswalks, and deployed other inappropriate strategies” all because LOS has been the de facto standard over the last 50 years. This terrific cartoon from Andy Singer that Toth includes shows the rationale in practice:

A guy rototills his garden to eliminate weeds

andy singer cartoon rototil congestion city level of service street road design

Where did this measure come from?

The 1965 federal Transportation Research Board Highway Capacity Manual introduced the LOS metric and it quickly became accepted as the standard measure of roadway performance. One reason that states adopted the LOS so quickly was that it suited our country’s transportation goals in the 1960’s of building out a network of interstates and prioritizing automobiles to travel quickly.

Although LOS quickly became the standard, transportation agencies at any level are not explicitly required to use it: there are no planning or project design requirements that mandate the use of either LOS or travel modeling. FHWA recently issued a memo clarifying that level-of-service was never a federal requirement. Read more about that (and some other important changes) in this recent story:

Feds get out of the way of communities that want to design safer, more complete streets

If we are going to change the way our streets and communities are designed, we will need to change the way we measure their performance. And that’s exactly what California has set out to do. In 2013, California legislature passed a law that began the shift, directing the Office of Planning and Research (OPR) to use an alternative of measuring vehicle-miles traveled (VMT).

In 2013, Governor Jerry Brown signed into law SB 743, eliminating the use of LOS for projects within designated transit priority areas (TPAs). As Streetsblog LA reported in 2013, because most urban areas fall within the state-defined parameters of a TPA, this means that LOS is largely eliminated for urban projects. Additionally, SB 743 authorized Governor Brown to develop a new way of measuring traffic impacts of major projects statewide and based the new way on total vehicle miles traveled (VMT) rather than intersection congestion. This will change how development projects are analyzed and scored in traffic impact studies and thus the type of projects that match up with the state’s goals for development.

In short, instead of measuring the success of a project by only the limited measure of whether or not it will make it less convenient to drive, CalTrans will now measure whether or not a project contributes to other state goals, like reducing greenhouse gas emissions, developing affordable multimodal transportation options for residents, preserving open spaces, and promoting diverse land uses and infill development. It is expected that this change will make it easier to build transit projects, as well as bicycle and pedestrian-friendly infrastructure — instead of encouraging more development that works against California’s own environmental and other goals.

How can other states replicate this move?

Great question.

This change in California is just one of the many smart policy changes that we’ll be covering in detail in Sacramento this November at Capital Ideas II, our one-of-a kind conference on state transportation policy. We’ll have experts on hand from California who will be discussing their legislative and policy shift away from level of service. Expect to hear more about that as we finalize the agenda in the coming weeks and share it here with you.

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National media applauds T4America and Sidewalk Labs partnership

We recently announced that we’re teaming with Sidewalk Labs to help cities strategically use data and technology to develop better transportation options for all. With USDOT’s Smart Cities challenge wrapping up in the next month with the selection of just one winner, our collaborative will engage the 77 other hopeful cities and provide guidance on ways to proceed thoughtfully and intentionally with their ambitious plans. The announcement of our new partnership was met with approbation and excitement—take a look at some of the excerpts below:

“But what about the dozens of cities who submitted ideas [to USDOT’s Smart Cities contest] but didn’t win? Whose proposals are now collecting dust? Sidewalk’s collaboration with T4A is tailored to that problem…To understand why Sidewalk wants to work with T4A, it helps to know a bit about its history. T4A is actually part of Smart Growth America, a nonprofit that helped popularize a planning idea called “complete streets,” a set of design and policy recommendations that, in a quietly revolutionary way, suggest that streets should be designed not just for cars, but for buses, cyclists, walkers, and more. Sidewalk Labs sees [T4A] as the perfect partner to develop the next generation of recommendations, which are digital: “connected streets.” – Fastco Design

“The collaboration will tap into the superpowers of each entity. Sidewalk Labs has digital technology expertise, while the Transportation of America has experience working with state and local governments to develop transportation and land use policy. Transportation for America, or T4A, is an alliance of elected, business, and civic leaders from across the United States.” – Fortune.com

“Sidewalk Labs will bring the tech, as the group’s already developing platforms for connected cities, like Flow, which lets cities aggregate and analyze data from multiple sources such as sensors, cameras and apps. T4A’s bringing the muscle, as it already has experience working with cities and their governments, experience tech companies don’t necessarily have. T4A will develop a study on the current state of transportation and tech, to help guide cities to answers for transportation issues.” – CNET

“Helping cities tackle transportation problems with emerging technology is the thrust behind a partnership announced Wednesday between Sidewalk Labs and Transportation for America.” ­ – Route Fifty

“Transportation For America has a vision that aligns with the goals of Sidewalk Labs: Both aim to transform urban areas big and small to better serve the needs of its citizens with an emphasis on infrastructure within communities, rather than the highways that connect them.” – Inverse

Check out additional coverage in Next City and Curbed.

Empowering cities to shape their urban mobility future, a Q&A with T4America’s James Corless and Russell Brooks

In an era of constantly emerging technology and mobility solutions, cities face a critical choice—they can either play a role in shaping the technology to accomplish their goals, or passively be transformed by it. Our new partnership with Sidewalk Labs will work with dozens of U.S. cities to thoughtfully and intentionally use emerging technologies to meet their most pressing transportation challenges. By harnessing powerful data and new digital tools, cities have the potential to develop efficient and affordable transportation options for all.

In addition to yesterday’s big announcement, we sat down with Eric Jaffe of Sidewalk Labs for a Q&A about the role cities can play in building connected streets, and T4America’s plan to make it happen. Read an excerpt below featuring James Corless, Director of Transportation for America, and Russell Brooks, Director of T4A’s Smart Cities initiative. The full Q&A is available on Sidewalk Talk.

Let’s start with the basics. What do you mean by “connected streets”?

CORLESS: Connected streets is similar to complete streets in as much as it’s not a checklist. It’s an approach. In complete streets, it’s an approach to actually designing a street and a network of streets that works for everyone. If this is the next generation, in connected streets, it’s really about using data and technology to make sure that transportation systems work for everybody and works for cities — to move people regardless of the mode of transportation seamlessly, quickly, efficiently, and affordably.

What are the benefits of connected streets for city residents and communities?

CORLESS: If cities aren’t shaping and driving this conversation, we could make problems worse. But if we do drive the conversation, and cities actually shape this proliferation of technology and services, then I do think we’ll going to be able to reduce the divide between what I’d call the transportation haves and have-nots. If you’re on a fixed income or work a late shift, you’re going to be able to actually get home faster, more affordably. You’re going to be able to connect to more opportunity, be able to get your kids to child care much more easily than you could before. I do think we need to remember from a consumer perspective that if we can get this right and we can empower cities with the tools, the authority, and the funding, we’re going to make transportation networks work for everybody, regardless of income, age, and ability. That’s a promise of connected streets.

T4A spends a lot of time on the ground with local governments. How do you counsel them in terms of getting ready to partner with the private sector in ways that might be unfamiliar to them, but that need to be productive for everyone to gain the advantages of these technologies?

BROOKS: I think part of it is educating the cities around the possibilities. As I’ve been talking with cities around the Smart City Challenge, I think some of them don’t understand that they have that lever of power, or the extent of what’s possible. I think that’s a really big part of it. I think it’s helping them generate the partnerships from the local community to actually drive that change. Which is something we’ve been doing for a long time. When it comes to the work we’re doing building consensus and coalition in local communities. And helping them identify those outcomes and needs, so they understand that technology isn’t the goal but it is the tool.

T4America is partnering with Sidewalk Labs to help cities thoughtfully use technology to solve their transportation challenges

With 77 hopeful cities leaving USDOT’s Smart Cities challenge empty-handed after the winner is announced later this month, we’re excited to announce a new partnership with Sidewalk Labs to help those cities and others develop efficient and affordable transportation options for all by thoughtfully and intentionally using emerging technologies. 

t4america sidewalk labs partnership

If you’re not familiar with Sidewalk Labs, they’re a relatively new city-focused company developing technology to solve big urban problems like transportation, housing, energy, and data-driven management. It was formed by an affiliation between Alphabet (Google’s new umbrella company) and Daniel Doctoroff, who has firsthand experience with these challenges as a local official himself, serving in the Bloomberg administration as the former Deputy Mayor of Economic Development and Rebuilding for the City of New York.

At T4America, we’ve been spending the last few years shifting away from a sole focus on federal policy and have expanded into equipping local leaders at all levels to find ways to get more people where they want to go quickly and affordably. And now, over the course of the next year, our two organizations will work with dozens of U.S. cities to better define how technology can help them meet their pressing transportation challenges by harnessing powerful data and the availability of new digital tools.

Here’s what Anand Babu, COO of Sidewalk Labs, had to say about our new partnership in our joint press release:

“Too often there’s a disconnect between tech interventions and transportation outcomes. We’ve seen cities embrace a more holistic approach in our collaboration with the U.S. DOT Smart City Challenge, but it’s important to broaden that discussion to all the other cities looking for better tools to improve mobility. By drawing on Transportation for America’s long experience working within local communities, we can focus the conversation on cities’ goals and break down the divide between technologists and city leaders. And as a result, we’ll build a network where best practices and ideas for solving these problems through emerging technologies can be shared among cities across the country.”

Cities can’t be passive right now as technology and new mobility solutions are combining to change the landscape of cities almost overnight. Cities can either help shape the technology transforming their cities and accomplish their goals, or have themselves be shaped by it. There’s no real third option. It’s crucial for cities to know what kind of city they want to be and set some tangible goals before pursuing technology solutions.

Any dog can be a guide dog if you don’t know where you’re going, right? And if you don’t know where you’re going, any technology will get you there.

“Working with Sidewalk Labs, we can help local leaders learn about the possibilities presented by emerging technologies, but also help first codify what they want to achieve in terms of transportation equity, reliability, and access, so the technology can be put to best use,” said T4America Director James Corless in today’s release.

With the Smart Cities Challenge from USDOT wrapping up in the next month with the selection of a winner, 77 other cities that miss out on the $40 million will be left with only the proposal they crafted and their ambitions. Money or no, many of those cities will be serious about finding ways to move their plans forward. In addition, many cities may be navigating a range of third-party private providers and other companies at their doorstep selling products or offering solutions as a result of the competition.

This partnership will not only allow us to provide guidance to cities to proceed thoughtfully, but even more importantly, help them to learn from each other as they set goals and start to figure out how to intentionally move forward with their ambitious plans.

We’re excited to team up with Sidewalk Labs to find yet another way to support smart, local, homegrown transportation plans that will help move more people more quickly and affordably.

Sidewalk Labs and Transportation for America Announce Partnership to Help Cities Solve Local Transportation Challenges with Emerging Technology

press release

Outreach Effort to More Than 70 Cities Will Help Cities Get Smarter About Transportation and Share Best Practices on Creating “Connected Streets”  

Sidewalk Labs and Transportation for America (T4A) announced today a new partnership to engage cities in developing efficient and affordable transportation options for all. The two organizations will work with dozens of U.S. cities to define how technology can help them meet their pressing transportation challenges. This collaborative will help local leaders get more people where they want to go quickly and affordably, enhancing livability and sustainability, by harnessing powerful data and the availability of new digital tools.

The partnership will build on Sidewalk Labs’ expertise working with cities to develop digital technology that solves big urban problems, combined with Transportation for America’s experience collaborating with state and local governments to develop forward-looking transportation and land use policy. Through the partnership, T4A will launch an in-depth study on the state of current transportation policy and technology in American cities, and build a peer-learning collaborative of city leaders to define and design the “connected streets” of the future.

Connected streets will advance the concept of complete streets into the digital realm. Just as the complete streets framework gives local leaders the policy tools to improve the safety and equity of streets for all users across all modes, connected streets offers tech-enabled interventions that can support local efforts to move people more seamlessly, efficiently, and affordably. Connected streets can help create a truly balanced, multimodal approach to urban transportation that expands access to job opportunities and improves quality of life across a city.

“Too often there’s a disconnect between tech interventions and transportation outcomes. We’ve seen cities embrace a more holistic approach in our collaboration with the U.S. DOT Smart City Challenge, but it’s important to broaden that discussion to all the other cities looking for better tools to improve mobility,” said Anand Babu, COO of Sidewalk Labs. “By drawing on Transportation for America’s long experience working within local communities, we can focus the conversation on cities’ goals and break down the divide between technologists and city leaders. And as a result, we’ll build a network where best practices and ideas for solving these problems through emerging technologies can be shared among cities across the country.”

“In the course of providing technical assistance to local communities over the past few years, we continually hear from cities who want better tools to tackle the same problems of congestion, growing commutes, and access to affordable transportation options,” said James Corless, director of Transportation for America, a project of Smart Growth America. “Working with Sidewalk Labs, we can help local leaders learn about the possibilities presented by emerging technologies, but also help first codify what they want to achieve in terms of transportation equity, reliability, and access, so the technology can be put to best use.”

Sidewalk Labs announced in March that it is building a new transportation coordination platform called Flow, in partnership with the U.S. Department of Transportation and seven finalist cities from the DOT’s Smart City Challenge. The Flow team has met with all the finalists to understand the challenges they face and what tools might help them meet their goals for creating efficient, sustainable, equitable, and safe transportation systems. The winner of the Smart City Challenge will be announced in June, and will receive Flow at no cost.

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ABOUT TRANSPORTATION FOR AMERICA:

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.

ABOUT SIDEWALK LABS:

Sidewalk Labs is an urban innovation company that works with cities to develop technology that solves big urban problems across transportation, housing, energy, and data-driven management. It’s the result of a partnership between Alphabet and Daniel Doctoroff, the former Deputy Mayor of Economic Development and Rebuilding for the City of New York and the CEO of Bloomberg LP.

After years of trying to slash funding, the House proposes solid funding for next round of TIGER grants

After several years of consistently trying to cut or outright eliminate the program’s funding entirely, House appropriators last week approved $450 million for competitive TIGER grants within the annual budget bill for all transportation and housing programs.

Perhaps the House got the message delivered back in March?

Over 170 elected officials and local, civic and business leaders from 45 U.S. states today sent a letter to congressional appropriators urging them to provide at least $500 million for another round of TIGER competitive transportation grants as well as the full amount authorized in last year’s FAST Act for new transit construction. As Congress begins to craft the transportation budget for the 2017 fiscal year, the 170-plus local leaders of all stripes, representing an incredible diversity of places, sent a powerful message that opportunities provided by TIGER and FTA’s New Starts program are crucial to their long-term success.

While they fell short of the mark set in this year’s Senate spending bill of $525 million, the House seems to be coming around on TIGER, which is terrific news.

Overall, the House Transportation, Housing and Urban Development (THUD) bill would provide $19.2 billion for the discretionary programs that include TIGER grants, New Starts transit construction and Amtrak, which on the whole, represents an increase of $540 million compared to the current year. Though it would provide $75 million less than the Senate’s funding level for TIGER grants, at $450 million, it represents a big change from just three years ago when the proposed House THUD bill contained zero funding for TIGER. And at least once, the House tried to restrict TIGER funding only to highway projects, leaving the huge number of smart multimodal projects that normally apply out in the cold.

The New Starts transit construction program would receive a significant boost at $2.5 billion total, which is $160 million more than what’s called for by the FAST Act and $320 million more than last year.

What’s the TIGER program?

The fiercely competitive TIGER program is one of the few ways that local communities of almost any size can directly receive federal dollars for their priority transportation projects, and represents one of the most fiscally responsible transportation programs administered by USDOT.

Unlike the overwhelming majority of all federal transportation dollars that are awarded via formulas to ensure that all states or metro areas get a share, regardless of how they’re going to spend those dollars, the federal government has found a smart way to use a small amount of money to incentivize the best projects possible through TIGER. Projects vying for funding compete against each other on their merits to ensure that each dollar is spent in the most effective way possible.  It’s a roadmap to a more efficient way to spend transportation dollars that spurs innovation, stretches federal transportation dollars further than in conventional formula programs, and awards funding to projects that provide a high-return on investment.

Why isn’t the funding guaranteed by the FAST Act?

TIGER, in addition to Amtrak funding and the program used for almost all new transit expansion, are not guaranteed funding each year from the highway trust fund. Unlike federal highway and transit formula programs, these programs have to go before appropriators in Congress each year who decide how much to give each program, resulting in this same debate nearly every year. (An attempt to provide dedicated annual funding for TIGER in the FAST Act failed during negotiations over that bill.)

While this House budget is indeed good news, just like the Senate’s version passed several weeks ago, it could face a shaky path forward. President Obama issued a veto threat to the Senate bill due to the potential for “problematic ideological provisions” included in the bill, including a Senate provision to relax hours-of-service rules for truckers that the House also includes similar language on.

Though it’s unlikely that the House and Senate will complete this budget bill before the October 1 deadline, as in past years, the content of the House and Senate transportation funding bills are incredibly important. They form the starting point for the debate and will likely be consolidated at some point early in the upcoming fiscal year.

Read more about a policy provision also included in this House budget, which instructs USDOT to begin measuring how transportation investments will connect all Americans to opportunity and essential daily needs such as jobs, schools, healthcare, food and others.

House transportation spending bill takes unprecedented steps to increase access to opportunity for all Americans

House transportation spending bill takes unprecedented steps to increase access to opportunity for all Americans

press release

Transportation for America, PolicyLink, and The Leadership Conference for Civil and Human Rights applaud the House Appropriations Committee for directing the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) to measure how transportation investments will connect all Americans to opportunity and essential daily needs such as jobs, schools, healthcare, food and others.

For immediate release
May 26, 2016

Our organizations thank Representatives Waters, Carson, Ellison, Grijalva, and Quigley for their leadership in including this important provision in the 2017 House Transportation, Housing and Urban Development (THUD) Appropriations report that passed the House Appropriations Committee yesterday.

“Connecting people to opportunities is one of the primary reasons we build transportation infrastructure, plain and simple,” said Transportation for America Director James Corless. “It’s incredibly encouraging to see the House Appropriations Committee recognize the fact that transportation isn’t an end in itself. To determine if we’re building the right things in the right places, it’s critical that we measure — and improve — the access people have to opportunities. Jobs, healthcare, schools, grocery stores full of healthy food — it’s critical that the streets and transit systems we invest in give as many people as possible more affordable access to all of these things.”

“Each day, millions of Americans — particularly low-income communities and communities of color — struggle to access the resources they need to thrive, simply because they have no transportation to get them where they need to go,” said PolicyLink President and CEO, Angela Glover Blackwell. “By calling on USDOT to work with communities to measure how well we are connecting people to opportunity, Congressional leaders have taken a key step toward equipping local leaders with the equity-focused data they need to reimagine and build a more just transportation system.”

“We are encouraged that the House Appropriations Committee has acknowledged the importance of measuring how our transportation investments stack up in terms of connecting our communities to opportunity, and the Department of Transportation must take up the charge to establish an accessibility performance measure without delay,” said Nancy Zirkin, Executive Vice President of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. “Without access to transportation, our communities lack the ability to connect to all of the things that they need to sustain their families, including jobs, child care, and affordable housing. With access to transportation, our communities have a world of opportunity opened up to them. The Department of Transportation should leave no stone unturned in ensuring that dollars spent on transportation are being used in the smartest way possible to connect our communities to opportunity.”

The report accompanying this bill encourages the Secretary of Transportation, in coordination with the Federal Highway Administration and the Federal Transit Administration, “to establish an accessibility performance measure to be available to states, metropolitan planning organizations, and transit agencies to assess the degree to which the transportation system, including public transportation, provides multimodal connections to economic opportunities, including job concentration areas, health care services, child care services, and education and workforce training services, particularly for disadvantaged populations.”

USDOT is in the middle of an ongoing process to establish a new series of performance measures for transportation spending — resulting in a new system that will require states and metro areas to measure the impact of their transportation dollars. But the measures developed so far have been limited to metrics like road and bridge conditions, safety and congestion, among others — failing to consider whether or not investments give all people better access to what they need each day.

Do the projects proposed by state and local transportation agencies divide communities or knit them back together? This new accessibility measure will direct USDOT to find ways to measure the answer to questions like that.

The House THUD Appropriations bill, in its current form, also provides robust funding for the Federal Transit Administration’s capital investment program and has strong funding for the important TIGER multimodal discretionary grant program. Both of these programs are essential to helping communities throughout the country build cost-effective multimodal transportation systems that can help connect all residents to opportunity.

Our organizations look forward to working with House leadership as the bill moves forward to ensure USDOT, states and local leaders have the resources needed to successfully build and measure our transportation investments to ensure that all Americans have access to basic needs and economic opportunities.

For more information, contact:
Steve Davis
Director of Communications
202-971-3902
steve.davis@t4america.org

Copy this strategy: CUMTD wins TIGER grant, assisted by T4A Technical Assistance program

Champaign-Urbana’s leaders are clear on what they want for their future: a progressive environment with urban amenities while maintaining small city affordability. To achieve that vision, the region is pinning its future on the transformation of a few key corridors that connect the cities of Champaign and Urbana with the University of Illinois’ flagship campus in Champaign, IL. While this effort will consist of many projects over a number of years, Transportation for America Technical Assistance partnered with the lead agency to secure a substantial and important federal TIGER grant, jumpstarting the project.

Success and its challenges

Since the 1990’s, regional leaders have charted future development to be denser, greener, and provide more transportation options. Over that time, transit ridership has increased and more people are biking and walking. But the confluence of pedestrians, bicyclists and drivers can mean a chaotic atmosphere, especially during events or when school is in session. “There are a lot of conflicts between bikes, pedestrians, buses and cars,” said Dave Clark, City Engineer for the City of Champaign.

Heavy pedestrian traffic at the intersection of Wright and Armory Streets.

Heavy pedestrian traffic at the intersection of Wright and Armory Streets.

These conflicts can be dangerous and city planners realized that their solutions would need to take into account not just the safety of their residents and visitors, but also the livability and affordability of the region. “The streets really needed repair,” said Jane Sullivan, sustainability planner for the Champaign-Urbana Mass Transit District (CUMTD) “but we didn’t just want to pave over them and leave the same problems.”

The solution

In order to achieve these multiple goals, CUMTD approached the cities of Champaign and Urbana to work collaboratively and transform the two-lane roads along the downtown corridor to complete streets that prioritize pedestrians, bicyclists, and transit users. Ultimately, this became known as the Multimodal Corridor Enhancement (MCORE) project. MCORE consists of five individual street projects and centers on Wright Street, the street dividing Champaign and Urbana. This is where the hub of the campus transportation system meets Green Street, the heart of Campustown for the University of Illinois and its entertainment, shopping, and cultural center. As Dave Clark noted, the campus is “directly sandwiched between Champaign and Urbana’s respective downtowns and over 80% of the region’s jobs are located within a mile of the thoroughfare.”

The rendering of what Green Street will look like when completed.

The rendering of what Green Street will look like when completed.

Using a complete streets approach to accommodate all modes of travel (bus, pedestrian, bike and vehicles), each street will undergo either full reconstruction or major rehabilitation, transforming each into a multimodal corridor that better serves everyone who uses the street. In addition to the road improvements, other project benefits will be improved bus capacity and frequency on these key bus routes; improved sidewalks, new street lighting and the addition of on-street bicycle lanes.

 

Third time’s the charm

In order to make this ambitious project happen, CUMTD applied for USDOT’s highly competitive TIGER program twice before but, had struck out in both attempts. The third time, CUMTD turned to Transportation for America Consulting to help develop a strong grant application and organize support from Illinois’ congressional delegation — the latter of which was crucial for a successful application.

“It was very important that both cities & the university were involved in the application and able to commit time and funding”, said Sullivan, who also manages CUMTD’s grants. “We knew this wouldn’t work unless all partners were supportive and able to make the investment.” In 2014, with T4America Consulting’s help, the group of local agencies finally won a $15.7 million TIGER grant to rehabilitate and redesign these busy, crucial streets to safely accommodate all roadway users.

Partnership pays off

“This project is a great example of the municipalities, the CUMTD and the University working together to maximize their leverage to accomplish infrastructure needs for all,” said Michael DeLorenzo, associate chancellor for the University. “It is a true local partnership, with the assistance of our Congressional delegation, which has enabled us to get the resources necessary to make this possible.”

The project is expected to spur additional development and increase accessibility in some areas where transit-oriented development is already occurring. It will be easier and safer for people to get around whether they are on foot, bike, transit or driving. “Pedestrians and bicyclists and transit users will get to see and feel the experience of feeling safer and more comfortable” said Sullivan, “and I think even more people will be willing to walk, bike, and take transit.”

TIGER supports neglected local needs

The MCORE project is a great example of how direct federal investment to communities can incentivize local partnerships and fund smart, homegrown transportation projects to solve locally identified issues. White reinforces this:

“So often, federal dollars are spent on the bare minimum for highways and bridges, and aren’t spent on the projects that are closest to the people, the communities. The state DOT focuses on its own bridges & roads, different jurisdictions operate in their own silos, and then the systems in our cities are not integrated. The TIGER program smashes those silos, providing an incentive to collaborate and look at the most sustainable and effective solutions.”

“The TIGER model just works better,” White says, “because it demands cooperation and allows communities to focus on the solutions that work for them.” In Champaign-Urbana, collaboration through the TIGER-funded MCORE project will help all members of the community get around more safely, quickly, and conveniently, helping to bring local partners even closer together.

Transportation for America has long supported the federal TIGER program and continues to do so in this year’s appropriations process. This year, T4A—in partnership with over 170 elected officials and local, civic, and business leaders from 45 states—sent a powerful message to congressional appropriators that the competitive TIGER and New Starts programs are crucial to local economic prosperity and competitiveness. Of note, the letter urged Congress to include at least $500 million for TIGER transportation grants. Congressional appropriators listened, with the US Senate providing $525 million for TIGER and the US House providing $450 million in their respective FY2017 T-HUD bills.

If you are interested in how Transportation for America Technical Assistance can support you and your community in creating better, more livable communities; please contact Erika Young, Director of Strategic Partnerships at Erika.young@t4america.org.

Ask USDOT to #MakeMeCount this Bike to Work Day

This Friday, thousands of people across the country will put on their helmets and take to the streets for National Bike to Work Day, an annual event promoting active commuting options and safer streets. 

CiGfqFXUgAArtpOWill you be joining the event this week? If so, make your ride even more impactful by telling USDOT to #MakeMeCount and look at people, not just vehicles, when it comes to measuring how well a street works.

More and more Americans are choosing to bike — as well as walk, take transit, or share a ride — to work each day. Yet a recent USDOT proposal for measuring traffic congestion would ignore all these people when evaluating whether a street is working well or not.

If you bike to work this week, snap a photo and share it on Twitter or Facebook with the following text:

Hey @USDOT, I biked to work today! #MakeMeCount when measuring congestion. http://bit.ly/make-me-count #BTWD2016
Twitterlogo

USDOT’s proposed rule would make driving fast the ultimate goal of our transportation system—regardless of what type of street you’re on. That means driving fast could take precedence along streets where children are walking or commuters are biking, as so many people will be doing this week.

Don’t plan to bike this week but still support streets that work for everyone? Sign the petition to USDOT and then help spread the work with our gallery of shareable images.

I’ll be asking USDOT to #MakeMeCount this Friday. I hope you’ll join me.

Spokane is one of a growing slate of cities considering transit ballot measures to help stay competitive and successful

With a ballot measure for transit looming this fall, T4America Chairman John Robert Smith traveled to Spokane, WA to speak to city officials, business leaders, and other community stakeholders about the long-term economic and social benefits of public transit investments.

Spokane residents will be deciding on an upcoming ballot measure that would improve the city’s existing transit infrastructure and provide operating funds for a new bus rapid transit line. Echoing his appeal in an op-ed in the Spokesman that ran shortly after his visit, John Robert called upon voters to consider how important transit access is not only for connecting all residents to jobs, but also for staying competitive and helping to keep some of the thousands of students from the region’s universities in town after graduation:

Is Spokane the kind of place where young, mobile, talented workers want to stay after they graduate? Will the Lilac City be able to compete with other midsize cities in the Pacific Northwest and beyond to attract a younger workforce and prosper for decades to come?

While these questions may have been addressed to the city of Spokane, it’s a question that scores of other mid-sized cities are attempting to answer right now. As we covered last week, Indianapolis will be going to the ballot this fall to dramatically expand and improve their bus system. Atlanta voters could approve adding more than $2.5 billion in new transit service. Raleigh could join other regions in the Triangle region by raising a small sales tax to begin beefing up transit service in the booming region. And larger metropolitan areas including Seattle and Los Angeles will vote on whether to raise new money for transportation and transit.

Young, mobile workers are increasingly locating in areas — big and small — that offer connected and dependable public transit, a movement that cities ignore at their own peril. Mayor Smith continued:

I heard a story out of Indianapolis recently (a city facing similar talent retention challenges as Spokane). A younger resident testified in the Statehouse about efforts to build a new system of bus rapid transit lines across the region. Lawmakers were told that “selling a city without transit to millennials is like selling a phone without a camera.”

Along with Spokane’s upcoming measure, T4America will be following these measures closely and watching these cities attempt to take crucial steps towards securing long-term economic success.

Feds get out of the way of communities that want to design safer, more complete streets

The Federal Highway Administration made two big moves this last week to clear the way for states, metro areas, and local communities to use federal dollars to design safer, more complete streets.

atlanta highway local street

Good news: old federal street design guidelines that often required local streets to be designed like this have been radically scaled back.

Both of these updates are great news for anyone advocating for streets that better meet the needs of everyone that uses them, as well as better serving the goals of the surrounding community. FHWA deserves a big round of applause for making these changes.

If you are working on a local transportation project and your DOT or some other agency cites vague federal rules when refusing to build a safe and complete street, show them the FHWA memo below. Their guidance makes it extremely clear: there’s wide latitude to design streets to best suit local needs, and old regulations that treat all roads like highways have been rolled back. 

Federal street design guidelines just got a lot simpler

Last week, FHWA finalized new street design guidelines that eliminated most of the criteria that local communities and states must adhere to when building or reconstructing certain roads — especially those with speed limits under 50 mph. Of 13 current design criteria for certain roads under 50 mph, 11 criteria have been scrapped, because, in FHWA’s words, they have “minimal influence on the safety or operation on our urban streets.”

Until now, states or cities would have to go through an arduous process of requesting an exception to do common sense things like line a downtown street with street trees, reduce the width of lanes to add a bike lane, or curve a street slightly to slow traffic and make it safer for people in cars and on foot. (This old post explains the change in more detail.)

Tfhwa design guidlines thank youhe new criteria recognize that successful streets running through a bustling downtown of any size need to be designed far differently than rural highways connecting two towns or cities. They have to meet a far more diverse range of needs than simply moving cars fast, and these smart new guidelines reflect that wisdom.

Thousands our supporters sent in letters to FHWA on this issue, and FHWA listened. From the final rule:

The FHWA received comments from 2,327 individuals and organizations on the proposed changes to the controlling criteria. Of these, 2,167 were individual form-letter comments delivered to the docket by Transportation for America. …The overwhelming support for changes to the controlling criteria indicate that the changes will support agency and community efforts to develop transportation projects that support community goals and are appropriate to the project context. The provisions included here for design documentation will result in more consistent evaluation of exceptions to the adopted design standards when controlling criteria are not met on NHS highways.

Even more encouraging, FHWA responded strongly to the handful of state DOTs that sent in comments noting their desire to keep the old design guidelines intact.

The FHWA finds that removing these controlling criteria from application in low-speed environments is supported by research and provides additional flexibility to better accommodate all modes of transportation. No new controlling criteria are proposed at this time.

In their comments, FHWA affirmed that local communities should have more leeway in how they design streets — after all, they know their local needs best — and that research shows that the old guidelines made it more difficult to accommodate all modes of transportation.

Vehicle speed- and delay-focused “level of service” metric is not a federal requirement

When planning a new street, reconstructing an old street, or conducting traffic studies for new development, most transportation agencies rely on a metric known as level of service or “LOS”. While commonly accepted amongst many traffic engineers, it’s an outdated, narrow metric that assesses how well a road performs only by looking at the number of cars and the amount of delay experienced by vehicles.

If the only goal of your community’s streets is moving cars fast, then level of service is the way to go. If your community also wants to keep people safe, or allow people to walk, bike or take transit, or support a vibrant downtown, then relying only on level of service isn’t going to cut it. It’s like trying to decide if a new pair of pants will fit by measuring the waist and ignoring the inseam.

Similar to the street design requirements that FHWA just scrapped, level of service is often used to halt plans to make streets safer for everyone or boost economic development by narrowing lanes, adding bike lanes, mid-block crosswalks, bulb-outs, or other improvements. It’s even been cited as a federal requirement in some cases. To those agencies, planners and engineers, FHWA made an announcement on May 6: (emphasis added.)

We have received several questions regarding the minimum level of service (LOS) requirements for projects on the National Highway System (NHS).

…FHWA does not have regulations or policies that require specific minimum LOS values for projects on the NHS. [National Highway System] The recommended values in the Green Book are regarded by FHWA as guidance only. Traffic forecasts are just one factor to consider when planning and designing projects. Agencies should set expectations for operational performance based on existing and projected traffic conditions, current and proposed land use, context, and agency transportation planning goals, and should also take into account the input of a wide cross section of project stakeholders.

This might seem like a minor clarification, but FHWA just gave the green light to localities that want to implement a complete streets approach. By making clear that there is zero federal requirement to use level of service (and that there never has been), FHWA is implying that transportation agencies should consider more than just traffic speeds when planning street projects.

Changing policy is one thing but changing behavior is another, however. Level of service is an instructive example. It’s never been a federal requirement, but that hasn’t stopped transportation agencies all over from relying on it. And though the design guidelines have been radically pared back for most streets, that doesn’t mean that a state DOT won’t continue to adhere to them as a matter of course.

Engaging with your city, metro planning organization and state DOT will continue to be important for your community to realize its plans for safer, complete streets.

Yet, USDOT is going the opposite direction on measuring congestion

Of course, these encouraging changes from FHWA stand in sharp contrast with USDOT’s narrow, vehicle-focused proposal for how to measure congestion. While FHWA acknowledges that “traffic forecasts are just one factor to consider,” the proposed rule from USDOT would measure congestion in a way that places vehicle speed and delay far above any other factors.

This would penalize places that have made it easier to avoid congestion by making it easier to get around on transit, by foot or bike, or through telecommuting. And it would have the effect of rewarding places with long commutes that move quickly over places with shorter average commutes that move slower.

We need to measure congestion in a way that lines up with these two very encouraging moves from FHWA.

Have you sent a letter yet? Join the nearly 2,000 people who have already told USDOT they can do better.

Nashville street comparison

After city council action, Indy voters will decide on expanding and improving regional transit this November

Indianapolis took another big step forward this week in their ongoing efforts to expand and improve transit service across the city and region. Monday night, the Indianapolis City-County Council voted to place a measure on this November’s ballot to allow voters to decide whether or not to raise new funding for transit service.

If approved, the measure would allow IndyGo, the city’s transit agency, to dramatically expand and improve public transportation service, tripling the number of residents and doubling the number of jobs within a five-minute walk from frequent transit service. It will also extend the hours of service for transit, making it a viable choice for more workers. This base of new funding will also support the start of building out the city’s visionary network of bus-rapid transit (BRT) lines.

Indy profile featuredRead more about Indy’s long-term plan and their journey to this point in our can-do profile: “Action by the Indiana legislature in early 2014 cleared the way for metro Indianapolis counties to have a long-awaited vote on funding a much-expanded public transportation network, with a major emphasis on bus rapid transit. With that legislative battle behind them, the broad Indy coalition is working toward a November 2016 ballot measure to fund the first phase of their ambitious Indy Connect transportation plan.”

With the council’s vote now completed, voters in Marion County will decide on supporting a 0.25% increase in income taxes — a tax of about $100 for a resident earning $42,000 a year — specifically for transit. This additional revenue source will provide an additional $56 million a year for IndyGo.

Improving transit service has been a top priority for Indianapolis’s business community and many of the city’s elected, civic and faith-based leaders, who recognize that investing in transportation options is vital both for connecting low-income workers to economic opportunity and for the competition for talented workers and new businesses.

“It’s…a growth issue; employers and younger workers are moving to more walkable areas served by transit. Rapid transit also attracts people and investment,” Indy Chamber President Michael Huber said in a statement after the council approved the measure.

As it happened, on the day that the city council vote took place, T4America Director James Corless was an invited guest at the Indy Chamber’s quarterly policy breakfast, speaking about the challenges facing mid-sized cities like Indy and affirming the region’s plans to invest in transit to help stay competitive.

And that night, James got to watch the Indianapolis City-County Council debate the measure and ultimately vote to put it on this November’s ballot:

The Indy Business Journal took a look at what lies ahead for the campaign to win at the ballot this Fall:

Now comes a months-long campaign to convince voters to vote “yes.”

…“We feel very comfortable heading into November that if we’re able to get our message out and speak to the different reasons people would support transit, polling does show we have a path for success,” said Mark Fisher, Indy Chamber’s vice president of government relations and policy development, to a room full of business leaders and government officials.

Fisher and a handful of other local leaders were supported and encouraged over the last year by the Transportation Innovation Academy, a program convened by Transportation for America and TransitCenter last year to train local leaders from three mid-sized regions on the critical role transit can play in their cities. The Indy Chamber convened a diverse team of community leaders that participated in the yearlong program, and today, we’re so proud to see participants in the academy from Indy playing key roles in building community support for the ambitious vision for new transit service.

Though ballot measures are common in other parts of the country, it is a new tool for this region. A first step for regional transit champions was winning approval from legislators in 2014 to allow the local tax measure to go on the ballot. If successful, this will be the first time Indianapolis raises dedicated funding for public transportation through a ballot measure.

Along with a handful of other regions, we will be watching Indianapolis carefully this November.

What progress did states make this year on raising new funding or improving policy?

Nearly all state legislatures have adjourned for the year. Here’s our regular look at the progress made in states working to create more transparency, build more public trust in transportation spending, or raise new money.

Though most states have wrapped up their legislative sessions, transportation funding fights still loom large on the agendas for many of the states still in session. And one key issue to watch is the scores of local governments putting forward ballot measures for this November’s election to approve new local funding.

tracking state policy funding featuredOur state policy bill tracker is the best way to keep tabs on the most current information about these states attempting to raise new funding in 2016, states attempting to reform how those dollars are spent and states taking unfortunate steps in the wrong direction on policy — all tracked in three separate searchable, sortable tables of that information.

In addition, our hub for state policy and funding related resources includes all past and current reports, bill trackers, and other state-focused resources.

STATE FUNDING

New Jersey faces perhaps the worst transportation funding crisis in the country with a trust fund that is bankrupt. Transportation funds will be shut off completely on July 1st unless state leaders find new funding.

Legislative leaders are reportedly developing a “tax fairness plan” that would raise new revenue for transportation and cut other state taxes. Negotiating a package that will pass the assembly and senate with bipartisan, veto-proof supermajorities would sidestep Gov. Chris Christie (R), who has not supported any new revenues for transportation. In fact, the governor and transportation commissioner have downplayed the crisis and put the obligation on the legislature to find new revenue.

A tax agreement would likely include income tax deductions and a reduction of the estate tax, resulting in cuts to the general state budget, while a fuel tax or other new revenue would add to the state’s Transportation Trust Fund. Another possible funding source under consideration is adding new tolls on highways that are now free.

The state has the second lowest gas tax in the country and $30 billion in outstanding debt from past transportation projects. As a result, 100% of the dollars collected through the gas tax go to cover debt on past projects. The Transportation Trust Fund will run dry when it reaches a borrowing limit on June 30th.

Democrats are pushing for $2 billion in annual transportation spending; Republicans are looking for $1.6 billion annually, the average amount of state funding each of the last five years. The state’s transportation needs — especially the need for expanded transit service — are growing. The population around rail transit stations in the state is booming.

Illinois Senate President John Cullerton (D-Chicago) proposed a per-mile driving charge (SB 3267) as an alternative to the state’s per-gallon fuel tax. Though after receiving feedback he says he will not move forward with the proposal.

There’s been little visible progress toward any sort of agreement on transportation funding in Minnesota, and other policy and budget issues stand in the way of a bipartisan agreement.  A bill (SF3211) introduced in the senate by Sen. Vicki Jensen (DFL-Owatonna) would direct the state DOT to develop a new, objective process to score and select projects. Moving in this direction could help steer the limited funds to the best projects while also building up public support for additional transportation funding.

The Colorado House passed a bill (HB1420) 39-26 to make budget changes that would allow additional state funds to flow to transportation. The bill faces an uncertain future in the Republican-controlled Senate.

The Oregon Legislature has named a new, special, bicameral, bipartisan study committee to develop a transportation funding package. The committee will begin regularly holding public meetings in May. This is a big improvement in transparency from the closed-door negotiation that resulted in a dead-end transportation funding proposal last year.

LOCAL FUNDING

Sacramento County, California, is moving ahead with a $3.6 billion, 30-year local sales tax. A deal struck by the Sacramento Transportation Authority will split these funds, with 70 percent going toward highways and streets and 30 percent toward transit. The county transit agency had reportedly anticipated as much as half of the new funding. In the first five years, three-quarters of the local road money would be used exclusively for repairing city streets. The proposal will need to be approved by the county board this summer and then supported by two-thirds of county voters in the November election.

We’ll see the results when we are in Sacramento November 16-17 for Transportation for America’s Capital Ideas state policy conference. Which reminds us…

Registration is now open for Capital Ideas, the premier conference on state transportation funding and policy, coming up this November 16-17, 2016, in Sacramento, CA. Sign up today to secure your seat and grab one of the limited number of discounted hotel rooms available.

As Sound Transit, the transit agency for metro Seattle, Washington, finalizes a $50 billion local funding plan to go before voters in November, free parking has become a major point of contention. The plan initially called for thousands of free parking spaces alongside new transit lines, but local leaders are calling for more housing and business development alongside transit stops, instead. Spokane-area voters will decide on a major expansion of transit service and the addition of a new bus rapid transit line at the ballot this November. Voters will consider a 0.1 percent sales tax increase in April 2017 with a second 0.1 increase to follow two years later and both running through 2028.

The county commission in Hillsborough County, Florida (which includes Tampa) voted 4-3 against putting a transportation sales tax measure on the November ballot. The long-debated measure would have raised new funding for highways and transit.

Stay up to date on all progress with state transportation funding and policy issues with our bill tracker.

Watch the recording of T4America’s discussion on USDOT’s rulemaking on traffic congestion performance measures

congestion webinarYesterday, Transportation for America hosted an online event to discuss USDOT’s recently announced transportation performance rulemaking on measuring traffic congestion and its implications for communities nationwide.

The rule will govern how states and metro areas will have to measure and address congestion, along with freight movement and emissions. These new requirements will help measure what America’s transportation dollars are actually buying us—which is great, except the rule as currently written would measure success in outdated ways.

Watch the archived version of yesterday’s webinar to learn more about the rulemaking and the critical ways it can be improved.

Then, take action by calling on USDOT to change what’s included in the rule. Click here to sign and send a letter that we (along with Smart Growth America) will deliver in person to USDOT before the comment period closes.

When it comes to traffic congestion, we need to measure more than just vehicles

UPDATE:

The comment period closes Saturday, August 20th but we are sending in all of your comments to USDOT on Friday, August 19th. If you haven’t sent in a letter yet, you can do that right here.

Last week, USDOT issued a draft rule that will govern how states and metro areas will have to measure and address congestion, along with other metrics like freight movement and emissions. However, the rule as it is currently written would measure success in outdated ways. Old measures leads to old “solutions,” like prioritizing fast driving speeds above all other modes of transportation and their associated benefits.

Congestion We All Count

The comment period is finally open: So tell USDOT to take a wider view of success and change the proposed rule.

The rule as it is currently written fails to consider people taking transit, carpooling, walking, and biking. It would also penalize communities where people live close to work, or travel shorter distances at slower speeds.

This rule makes driving fast the ultimate goal of our transportation system, regardless of what type of road you’re on. Should driving fast be the highest priority on our main streets where people might be shopping or dining at an outdoor café? Should that be the priority in residential neighborhoods where children might be biking or walking.

Photo by NACTO. httpswww.flickr.com/photos/nacto/14442453218Of course not.

Success is about a lot more than moving cars fast. Tell USDOT to improve their proposed rule. Sign an individual letter that we will deliver on your behalf to USDOT.

This rule is particularly disappointing in light of Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx’s unprecedented effort to improve Americans’ access to economic opportunity through better transportation options. Those are worthy goals, and passing the rule as currently written would be a missed opportunity to achieve them.

Deciding what projects we consider “successful” will influence which transportation projects are selected and built for years to come.

Tell USDOT that #WeAllCount and that the new rule should reflect that.

Senate transportation appropriations bill adheres to local leaders’ call to fund TIGER, public transit and passenger rail

The annual transportation and housing appropriations bill – known as T-HUD – was approved last week by the Senate Appropriations Committee and contains good news for transportation. The annual spending bill fully funds FAST Act-authorized programs receiving support from the Highway Trust Fund and funds important competitive programs such as TIGER, public transit construction grants, and intercity passenger rail.

Earlier this year, T4America—in partnership with over 170 elected officials and local, civic, and business leaders from 45 states—sent a powerful message to congressional appropriators that the competitive TIGER and New Starts programs are crucial local economic prosperity and competitiveness. The letter urged Congress to include at least $500 million for TIGER transportation grants as well as the full $2.3 billion authorized in last year’s FAST Act for the ‘New Starts’ public transit construction program. Senate appropriators listened and provided $525 million for TIGER and $2.3 billion for New Starts in the FY2017 T-HUD bill.

TIGER

The Senate bill increases funding for the TIGER program by $25 million, for a total of $525 million for FY17, of which $25 million is reserved for planning grants. This is a big win for a couple of reasons.

First, the TIGER competitive grant program is one of the few ways that local communities can apply for and win funds for their priority projects, helping to get smart, locally-supported projects with a high return on investment off the ground. The TIGER competition ensures the best projects receive funds based on merit and cost-benefit analyses, and provides a level of accountability and transparency not currently available in many statewide transportation programs.

Second, TIGER was not even authorized in the five-year FAST Act, making it all the more important that this vital program receive strong support this year.

Public transit

TIGER isn’t the only crucial program up in the air. The federal government’s primary resource for supporting new, locally planned and supported transit expansion projects was up for consideration. The Senate T-HUD bill fully funds the New Starts program in FY17 with $2.3 billion.

Passenger rail

The FAST Act authorized passenger rail programs along with the larger highway and transit authorizations for the first time ever. The Senate T-HUD bill continues support for passenger rail by providing $1.4 billion for Amtrak, and for the first time since 2010, allocating competitive funds for safety, state of good repair for the Northeast Corridor, and operating and capital support for restored or new passenger service throughout the rest of the country. The Senate Appropriations Committee has placed a heavy emphasis on safety and short-line railroads in FY17.

Next Steps

The transportation funding bill now heads to the Senate floor for further consideration, with action likely starting this week. The House has yet to introduce its FY17 T-HUD bill, a measure that could get stalled by disagreement from party leaders over their broader budget blueprint. T4America will continue keeping a close watch as the critical annual FY17 spending bill progresses.

Join us as we break down FHWA’s most recent rulemaking on measuring traffic congestion

Do you want a transportation system that makes you count? Join Transportation for America for a free, public webinar on Wednesday, April 27 at 1:00 p.m. EST to discuss the recently announced Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) national transportation performance rulemaking on measuring traffic congestion and its implications for communities nationwide.

For the first time, USDOT has released new requirements for how states and metro areas will have to measure traffic congestion. However, the rule as proposed doubles down USDOT’s focus of prioritizing single occupancy vehicles over multi-modal solutions and completely discounts non-vehicular users. How we measure congestion matters, and this rule applies to the lives of all who use our transportation system.

Joe McAndrew, T4’s Policy Director, will cover what’s in FHWA’s performance rulemaking, a few high-level first principles to guide change, and how civic, business and elected groups can impact the outcome of this rulemaking.

Register for Webinar

There’s a direct connection between how we decide to measure congestion and how we choose to address it. If we focus, as this rule does, on keeping traffic moving at a high rate of speed at all times of day on all types of roads and streets, then the result is easy to predict: our solutions will prioritize the investments that make that possible, regardless of cost vs. benefits or the potential impacts on the communities those roads pass through.

Sign up for Wednesday’s discussion, and in the meantime, here are ten things you should know about this new rule and what you can do about it.