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Urban bike trails in cities like Indianapolis, Dallas and Atlanta are proving to have rich economic benefits to city neighborhoods

Affirming a trend seen in other cities, Indianapolis’s eight-mile Cultural Trail has been a boon to the neighborhoods adjacent to it — as well as the city as a whole — increasing property values of homes and businesses and giving residents and tourists a convenient, attractive, unbroken path to walk, bike and move around the city.

Since opening in 2008, the value of properties within a block of Indy’s high-quality biking and walking trail have increased an astonishing 148 percent, according to this recent report on the impacts of the trail. The value of the nearly 1,800 parcels within 500 feet of the trail increased by more than $1.01 billion from 2008 to 2014.

The $62.5 million investment, funded mostly by private or philanthropic donations that leveraged a federal TIGER grant, is an eight-mile landscaped bike and pedestrian pathway through the heart of the city that is, in the words of the New York Times in 2014, an “accessible urban connective tissue — an amoeba of paths shot through with lush greenery and commissioned works of public art.”

Residents and tourists alike have been drawn to the trail, and it’s proven to be not just a quality-of-life asset but an economic one as well, with business and property owners witnessing firsthand the benefits of being close to high-quality infrastructure that makes it safe for almost anyone of any age to safely walk or bike through the heart of the city.

The Cultural Trail is an important cog in the city’s transportation network, which the city hopes to dramatically expand through increased public transportation service in and around the city. It provides an unbroken loop around Indy’s downtown that allows cyclists and walkers of almost any age or ability to safely traverse the city. The trail stitches together neighborhoods and connects to various theatres, hotels, sports venues and shopping areas, among other popular destinations. Spurs reach out into neighborhoods and connect to other city trails, making bike commutes to downtown easier.

A family walking along Indy’s Cultural Trail. http://indyculturaltrail.org/about/

The numbers in this report are eye-opening, but Indy isn’t the only place where investment in ambitious projects to make cities more livable and functional for people have netted sizable economic rewards over the last few years. Dallas and Atlanta have both invested in their own similar in-town, separated, high-quality multipurpose paths to great economic rewards, just to name two.

Some bars and restaurants in Dallas claimed a threefold jump in business since the first day the new Katy Trail opened, centered in Dallas’s Uptown district. In a story last summer, The New York Times described how the Uptown neighborhood changed after the opening of the Katy Trail:

Since 2006, property value in Uptown has climbed nearly 80 percent to $3.4 billion, based on the improvement district’s assessment income. In the early 1990s, it wallowed around $500 million, said Joseph F. Pitchford, senior vice president for development at Crescent Real Estate Equities, based in Dallas. Crescent will begin building a $225 million, 20-story tower this summer that the law firm Gardere Wynne Sewell will anchor.

Dallas added 95,900 jobs in 2013 and is looking to attract young, talented professionals. While the Katy Trail helps, they still have work to do to change their reputation: Dallas was identified as one of the least walkable cities in America by Smart Growth America and George Washington University in their Foot Traffic Ahead report.

In Atlanta, when fully completed, the Beltline will be a 26-mile loop of walking and biking trails (along with transit eventually) in a loop around the city following mostly old railroad right-of-way. The few finished segments are already making a notable difference in property values of homes and businesses that surround it.

Pedestrians and cyclists enjoy the Atlanta BeltLine’s Eastside Trail. http://beltline.org/explore/photos/?setId=72157651531843045

In a 2013 Curbed article, the REMAX realty firm claimed homes near the BeltLine and other city cycling infrastructure that used to stay on the market for 60 to 90 days were now selling within 24 hours. Maura Neill, a realtor who has specialized in the Atlanta market for over 12 years told Curbed, “The new bike lanes are absolutely an attractive selling point, putting Atlanta in the limelight as a progressive city.”

“When people realize the savings of not relying solely on a car, they’re much more inclined to pay a little more now in exchange for saving a lot later,” said Rebecca Serna, executive director of the Atlanta Bicycle Coalition, pointing to some buyers’ willingness to pay upwards of $5,000 extra for a home if it means less traffic and less time spent commuting.

“The old ‘drive to qualify’ [for a mortgage] paradigm is shifting as people forego the family car. Factors like time and money saved are much more valuable than the number of square feet.”

Other cities have also seen a boost in housing prices thanks to nearby bike trails, including Vancouver, which saw 65 percent of realtors featuring new bike paths as a selling point; Pittsburgh, which “ignited commercial and business activity”; and in North Carolina, where property prices increased by $5,000 or more alongside the small Shepherd’s Vineyard greenway in the town of Apex, outside Raleigh, just to name a few of the many recent examples.

The uptick in property values and economic development are often attributed to the preferences of millennials, whom are shown (in our recent survey and others) to have a clear preference for places that provide a range of mobility and transit options, including biking and walking.

With transportation dollars more limited than ever, it’s clear that even relatively small investments in projects like Indy’s Cultural Trail or the Beltline or Katy Trail in Atlanta and Dallas are smart bets to bring significant economic benefits, and also help attract the younger, talented workforce so envied by many top employers.

“How Do We Become the Department of Yes?”

A new T4America member is hoping to successfully leverage the exploding landscape of new mobility options to meet more of their goals for encouraging smart development, reduce the amount of required single-occupant car trips and create a better city for tomorrow along the way.

Scott Kubly, Seattle DOT

At the Intelligent Transportation Society of America Symposium at University of Washington in Seattle, July 16-17, I had the privilege of hearing Seattle DOT Director Scott Kubly speak to the challenges local governments are facing as they attempt to adapt to new forms of mobility exploding all over the country — ride-for-hire services like Lyft and Uber, car share services like Zipcar and Car2Go, and bikeshare. (Seattle is a new T4America member.)

I was impressed by Scott’s ability to step back and look at the whole picture in the context of the City of Seattle’s goals.

Seattle is growing quickly. There simply isn’t enough physical space for business as usual, and the city is adjusting accordingly. In the last 4 years, downtown Seattle added 40,000 employees, made possible in part because they planned for, and achieved, a drop in single occupant vehicle mode-share from 35 percent to 31 percent.

New mobility options are often sprouting so fast that it’s difficult for local governments (and regulations) to keep up, but they present a great opportunity for Seattle given the geometric constraints on physical space. “As we keep growing, we need to keep setting that mode-share target lower and lower and get people to use different types of modes, and we need to look at new options,” he said.

Scott suggests re-imagining departments of transportation less as infrastructure providers, and more as systems integrators whose actions are driven by the idea of improving the user’s experience.

As some examples of where that sort of integration to improve overall mobility for users, Scott pointed out the big return on investment for bike-share, and the potential for Uber and Lyft to provide more affordable late-night service than transit can accomplish.

The advent of Uber and Lyft certainly raises questions about drivers’ wages, equitable access, and the risks of congestion caused by oversupply of rides-for-hire that must all be addressed, but in a call to move the ball forward, Scott asks this:

“How do we become the department of yes? How do the public and private sectors work together and say ‘this is what our shared goal is’, so when there is a new service with no regulatory framework, how do we say ‘yeah that’s a cool idea and let’s figure it out.’”

Seattle seems to be figuring out a lot, and we’re excited to have them on board as a new T4A member.

Don’t settle for the limited things Congress could agree on: Performance measures for members, part II

If states and metro areas don’t act now to establish their own priorities for their transportation system, they’ll end up only measuring what Congress deemed important in MAP-21. The time is now to start the conversation of what else also matters to the leaders and citizens in your area.

This is the second post in a series on performance measures by Beth Osborne, T4America Senior Policy Advisor. Read the rest of the series and dive into a high-level overview of the concept, learn more about choosing the best measures for addressing your priorities, and learn how to demonstrate to the public that their dollars are being used wisely. -Ed.

With federal performance measures rolling out, what happens next?

Beth Osborne, T4America

The transition to a new system of “performance measurement” represents an attempt by Congress to get a better sense of how our transportation system is performing nationally, to allow states and regions to be compared with against another, and to communicate with the public about what they are getting for their tax dollars.

With USDOT nearing the end of the rulemaking process for establishing new performance measures for our transportation dollars, attention will turn to state DOTs and MPOs which will soon need to establish accompanying goals for their transportation system in these limited priority areas set by Congress, including safety, infrastructure condition, air pollution and congestion.

Each state DOT and MPO will set a target for each of USDOT’s measures. For example, State A may currently have 700 highway fatalities a year and want to bring this down to 650. The state would announce that goal, describe which projects will help them attain it and then report back to USDOT and the public about whether they hit their target.

In the case of the safety and infrastructure conditions measures, if a state or MPO fails to hit their target then they’ll have to spend a minimum amount of funding in that area. In the case of the other measures, there is no specific implication or consequence if targets are missed. But the process should still help improve accountability and transparency for priorities and spending: the public will have the chance to help set those targets, scrutinize whether or not the projects being chosen are likely to help meet the state and/or regional goals and to hold leadership responsible for the results.

Should we do more? Why won’t these federal measures alone be enough for our state or MPO?

If you have other important priorities and big picture goals for your transportation dollars outside of the limited set of measures agreed to by Congress — and many of you do — you need to begin work now to establish your own system. If not, with all the time and attention going into Congress’ limited measures, they could easily overwhelm your other priorities not addressed by them.

If your other priorities are to get the same emphasis, they need to receive the same treatment, including a system for measuring and setting goals for those priorities. Failing to have your other measures in place could easily lead to a system where projects get funded to satisfy federal measures but neglect certain regional priorities or even do damage to them. For example, building a highway expansion to address auto congestion (federal measure) that cuts off local access to jobs in a commercial center (metro priority).

One example of how to ensure your priorities are in the mix

The Salt Lake City region has conducted extensive outreach to the public and stakeholders to identify goals for the region with excellent results. Through a (widely admired and emulated) visioning process called “Envision Utah” that engaged thousands of citizens in its feedback process, the booming Salt Lake City region looked at future challenges and considered different ways to grow, including the infrastructure needs associated with each vision. They developed several approaches and evaluated them against their valued priority outcomes, like protection of open space, household transportation cost, and disaster resilience — all measures that the federal performance measure system will not take into account.

By doing this a decade ago, the region chose a growth pattern that saved $4.5 billion in avoided infrastructure costs over 10 years. And the public involvement led to strong support and excitement for the eventual projects selected based on this process. Citizens see their views reflected in the vision, and feel included in the process — which, incidentally, makes it easier to raise new revenue to invest in transportation, as the state recently did.

Transportation is just a mechanism to reach your shared vision and goals, so focus on the goals first

What is particularly exciting about Utah’s approach is that it isn’t rooted in the notion that transportation is a separate thing; an end unto itself. Their analysis of transportation needs flow from the shared vision for the region overall and aren’t simply reactive to current traffic conditions. The region believes that transportation should be planned to support economic development in the area and that traffic flow alone does not equal economic development.

Remember almost no one travels just to travel. There’s always a destination in mind. The goal is to get to work in order to earn money or to get to school to pick up your kids or to get to the doctor for medical care. The end goal isn’t just to drive the designed speed of the roadway or never spend a minute in congestion, though that is often where traditional engineering standards can take you. On the other hand, it is not the job of the engineers to decide our values or choose the community’s broader goals and outcomes. That is the job of the political and civic leadership.

And performance measures are where that process happens.

Now is the time to start the conversations with stakeholders and the public to ensure all regional priorities are being considered and measures are chosen to address those goal areas. And if you want your regional and local priorities to be reflected in the state DOT’s performance management system, a discussion about how to align those priorities should occur before the federal rules are pushing states to implement the new system.

For more information, feel free to check out our report on performance measures, Measuring What We Value.

New traffic congestion report raises more questions than it answers

Most people sitting behind the wheel each day won’t be surprised by the findings of the latest edition of the Texas Transportation Institute’s report on urban congestion that shows, once again, that (surprise!) the roads in most major American cities are very congested during rush hour each day. The report’s methodology is flawed, but what really matters most is what policymakers and citizens decide to do about congestion in their communities.

(Updated: 8/27/15 12:15 a.m. with other articles at bottom.) Once again, The Texas Transportation Institute is in the headlines today with the release of their Urban Mobility Report and its Travel Time Index (TTI), which purports to rank metro areas by congestion but is mostly disconnected from what commuters experience on a day-to-day basis.

While TTI is striving to provide easy to understand measures and rankings to the complex issue of traffic congestion, their methodology is once again drawing criticism on a number of fronts.

The report’s touchstone metric is a blunt measure of peak-hour speeds compared to an empty road in the middle of the night. Did you know that trips take longer during rush hour compared to the middle of the night? You did? The comparison of rush-hour to free-flow traffic begs the question about the goal: is it reasonable or even possible to build enough road capacity to keep traffic moving at free-flow speeds from 6-9 a.m. when the bulk of the populace is going to work? (Those free-flow speeds being used as the baseline comparison also exceed the speed limit in many cases, by the way.)

The economist Joe Cortright wrote a comical April Fools post that showed how silly that logic is when applied anywhere else, in this case, at Starbucks, where consumers lose “$4 billion every year in wasted time” because of long lines during busy mornings. Yet:

No one would expect to Starbucks to build enough locations—and hire enough baristas—so that everyone could enjoy the 15 second order times [at 9 a.m.] that you can experience when there’s a lull [at 9 p.m.]. Consumers are smart enough to understand that if you want a coffee the same time as everyone else, you’re probably going to have to queue up for a few minutes.

The report focuses only on drivers — not commuters as a whole. The millions of people using growing modes like transit, walking or biking or skipping the trip entirely by telecommuting at peak aren’t included in the analysis. So when the report says “person” or “commuter,” what they’re really saying is “car commuter.” The nearly 1 million trips taken per day in Washington, DC —#1 on the “list of gridlock-plagued cities — on metro (bus and rail) and therefore not in a car? Not included in this analysis.

Trips not taken can be crucial, yet they’re ignored here. In February 2009, Inrix, the company partnering with Texas A&M on this release, reported that just a 3.7 percent drop in vehicle miles traveled in 2008 resulted in a 30 percent drop in congestion in the 100 most congested metro areas. We don’t need everyone to shift their trip, take transit, move closer to work, or telecommute — among many possible options. But smart investments and incentives that lead to very small reductions in trips taken can have huge benefits in reduced congestion. And they’re often far cheaper than massive projects proposed to shave a few seconds off of average commutes.

Live close to where you work? Oops. Your short commute can come out looking worse than someone else’s much longer commute. TTI completely ignores the actual time and distance of commutes. If you have a 20-minute commute home but move at a lower speed, your commute scores worse than the person driving 80 minutes at a higher speed. Yet who has the better experience each day?

We share a graphic like this almost every time this report comes out, but it’s telling. According to this year’s Travel Time Index, Atlanta (1.24) is actually less congested than Chicago (1.31). Yet…

In Chicago in 2007, the average peak hour car trip to work was 38% shorter (in time) than the 57.4 minutes it took Atlantans to drive to work in rush hour. Even the average non-peak commute in Atlanta in 2007 was longer than the average congested peak hour commute in Chicago. A major reason for the better highway performance in Chicago is that drivers do not have to travel as far as drivers in Atlanta – 13.5 miles compared with 21.6 miles. Yet TTI rates Chicago worse.

Ranking congestion is fine, but what should we do about it? How can we manage congestion in the most cost-effective way possible given limited transportation dollars?

Doing more of the same certainly won’t solve the problem. Regions that have been aggressively investing in additional travel options, eliminating trips, reducing trip length, creating more places to live close to jobs or more effectively managing demand have seen their congestion numbers get better, according to this landmark CEOs for Cities report from a few years ago.

That’s why it’s so critically important that the rule for the congestion performance measure being developed by USDOT measure success (or failure) in ways beyond just this limited and flawed TTI measure. We do need a better measure of congestion if we want to avoid making the same decisions that got us into this mess.

How far do most people have to travel for work? How long does it take them? What is most effective at reducing the amount of time it takes to get places? How many people are exposed to the congestion? Congestion may be bad, but people telecommuting, in a vanpool or on a bike might not experience it. Credit should be given to areas that allow people to opt-out of the traffic. Those are the kinds of metrics we need to use in order to find real solutions.

The proposed rule for congestion being drafted right now by USDOT will lay out exactly how states and metro areas will have to begin measuring congestion — and measuring whether or not the projects they want to build will improve it. We’ve got some posts in the works that will discuss how some alternatives would work, so stay tuned on that front.

Updated: The quotes from the report’s author in this WAMU story from Washington, DC essentially acknowledge that their report is a limited measure of congestion, largely because it only focuses on auto commutes and ignores essentially everyone else.

In response to the coalition’s criticism, Lomax conceded the report’s methodology does not take into account non-car commuting modes.

“They have some good points,” Lomax said. “And they are points that we have included not only in our proposed solutions, but also in terms of our methodology.”

“We have backed away from trying to make estimates of what is happening on the transit side because we don’t have very good transit data. We don’t have good data about how people are walking. So we concentrated on where we have the data,” he said.

Here’s a sampling of other articles questioning the measures in the report and suggesting some better ways to measure a more accurate picture of congestion.

City Observatory: Another Tall Tale from the Texas Transportation Institute
http://cityobservatory.org/another-tall-tale-from-the-texas-transportation-institute/
Frontier Group: News Flash: Congestion Still Not Getting (Much) Worse http://www.frontiergroup.org/blogs/blog/fg/news-flash-congestion-still-not-getting-much-worse
Brookings: Rethinking urban traffic congestion to put people first
http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/the-avenue/posts/2015/08/27-urban-traffic-congestion-puentes
Greater Greater Washington: Hey look, that flawed Texas A&M traffic study is back and grabbing the usual headlines
http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post/27908/hey-look-that-flawed-texas-am-traffic-study-is-back-and-grabbing-the-usual-headlines/
Litman/Planetizen: 2015 Urban Mobility Scorecard: Still Measuring Urban Travel Conditions Incorrectly http://www.planetizen.com/node/80588/2015-urban-mobility-scorecard-still-measuring-urban-travel-conditions-incorrectly

Phoenix voters approve a plan to raise money for transportation; vastly expand the city’s light rail and bus networks

On Tuesday night, voters in Phoenix, AZ, approved a slight increase in the sales tax to help fund a 35-year, $31.5 billion package to greatly improve and expand Phoenix’s light rail and bus systems, as well as other transportation improvements. The vote is further evidence that voters are willing to tax themselves for transportation — especially when they know what they’re getting.

* Final results won’t be in for a few days but at a 55-45 margin in reported results so far, advocates are claiming victory. -Ed.

The measure on yesterday’s ballot, Proposition 104, will raise $17.3 billion by nearly doubling the current 0.4 percent sales tax that’s currently devoted to transportation, increasing it by 0.3 percent on purchases in the city and devoting those extra dollars to transportation.

The city will use the bulk of the new revenue, plus other money from grants and transit fares, to improve and expand bus service and expand the city’s new light rail system. The plan also includes money for improving streets, sidewalks and bike lanes. The anticipated funding breaks down like this:

55% ($17.5 billion) will go to improve bus service, including $2.9 billion to increase frequency of current service and and $1.9 billion for new bus service.
28% ($8.9 billion) to expanding light rail or high-capacity transit—allowing for 42 new miles of light rail, tripling the current system length.
7% ($2.2 billion) will go toward existing light rail service
7% ($2.4 billion) for city streets, sidewalks, and bike lanes, which includes a plan to add over 1,000 miles of new bike lanes.

Expanding the city’s transit system (and new light rail service) was a core part of incumbent Mayor Greg Stanton’s campaign platform — who also won re-election yesterday. Mayor Stanton has repeatedly stated his belief that a robust transit system was essential for Phoenix’s long-term economic prospects.

“(It will be) getting people to educational opportunities, getting them to jobs, creating economic development opportunities. Bar none, it’s going to be awesome,” Stanton told KTAR news this week.

MovePHX , a local transportation advocacy group that also ran the campaign for Proposition 104, presented a compelling vision to the voters that transit is essential for moving citizens around more effectively and efficiently and for helping the region cope with expected population growth. With a specific plan in place for how and where to invest the money, the voters agreed that a more robust transit system is needed for the city to grow to its full potential.

Phoenix’s light rail system, which began running December 27, 2008, has had over 14.2 million riders so far in [fiscal year] 2015, and the service has been successful in attracting companies to the city that want to be close to reliable transit service to better serve their workers. Companies – like State Farm insurance – have moved to downtown Phoenix in search of a good spot near Phoenix’s light rail system to attract younger workers that like having a convenient transit options.

Votes like Phoenix’s are further evidence that city and state residents are willing to pay for transportation-related projects when they know what they’re getting. Ballot measures for transportation pass about 70 percent of the time, and success (or failure) often correlates with how specific (or vague) the proposal is.

Voters in Seattle and Utah will be going to the ballots over the next few years to vote on similar transportation plans. Seattle-area voters will decide in 2016 whether or not to approve a $15 billion package that will allow the region’s Sound Transit agency to expand light rail there. In Utah, voters (in 12 counties so far) will be deciding this November whether to increase countywide sales taxes to raise new money that can be invested in almost any local need, whether roads, transit, or safer, complete streets.

More and more cities (and states) are seizing the opportunity to raise new money to invest in their ambitious transportation plans crafted to help them stay competitive in the future. Former NYC DOT head Janette Sadik-Khan had a succinct takeaway about the Phoenix vote on Twitter this morning:

PHX passes transit tax. More proof there’s no red/blue divide-just cities that move forward while others fall behind http://t.co/xAPrZcLuRT

— Janette Sadik-Khan (@JSadikKhan) August 26, 2015

Diving into performance measures with T4’s resident expert

Feel a little lost when it comes to the concept of transportation performance measures? In the first post of a short series expressly for T4A members, Our resident expert and USDOT veteran will help bring you up to speed with a high-level overview of the concept and a quick look at the current state of practice.

This is the first post in a series on performance measures by Beth Osborne, T4America Senior Policy Advisor. Read the rest of the series and find out how and why you should go beyond the federal requirements, learn more about choosing the best measures for addressing your priorities, and learn how to demonstrate to the public that their dollars are being used wisely. -Ed.

Beth Osborne, T4America

As Congress debates a new surface transportation reauthorization bill, it is easy to forget that the transition to performance measurement required by MAP-21 has not yet been fully implemented. The language in MAP-21 required that states and metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) determine the success or failure of their transportation system by measuring the performance of their investments against federally-required measures, but USDOT has been slow to finalize those benchmarks and kickstart this new process for states and MPOs.

While USDOT continues to work their way through this process via three rulemakings, there are two big issues with which everyone will grapple.

First, though MAP-21 requires specific areas to be measured, the areas were limited to those on which Congress could agree — measures including safety, system condition, system performance, mobile source emissions, and freight movement on interstates and congestion, among others. MAP-21 did not address other measures like economic impact, access to opportunity, transportation cost, freight movement (beyond interstates) and other environmental impacts beyond air quality.

T4A members should be concerned about these missing areas. Regions that fail to consider them may end up only building projects that address Congress’ priorities and not the priorities of their constituents. If you or your community want to consider other factors and measures when picking projects and choosing where to invest, it is time to confer with political and civic leaders, stakeholders and the public to identify those priority areas and the measures that go with them.

Nationwide, states and MPOs are discussing this issue now — before the rule is completed by USDOT and everyone is forced to get moving on USDOT’s tight implementation timeline. We will talk more about how this can be done in the next post, with some specific examples.

Second, regions should pay close attention to the development of each performance measure rule by USDOT because those rules will establish exactly what each state and region will measure. There are more ways to measure “National Highway System performance” and even “congestion,” for example, than you may realize, with a wide range of impacts based on how each issue is measured.

Congestion could be a measure, as engineers have traditionally treated it, of moving cars through an area as fast as possible. Or we could focus on moving people instead of cars. Keeping cars moving so that traffic never slows — no matter how many cars are on the road — is an extremely expensive, if not impossible, proposition. If your goal is moving people, the solution will be much more affordable, flexible and tailored to the overall community goals.

We will dig in deeper to the issue of how the wrong measures can send a community in the wrong direction in an upcoming post.

USDOT split their full rule for performance measurement into three parts. Their first part covered safety measures; the second, system condition measures (i.e., road and bridge condition); and the third contains all the other measures mentioned above. The first two parts of the rule have already been released, commented upon and closed. The third (the biggest one) is still pending and will probably be released to the public for comment toward the end of this year.

Stay tuned right here, T4A members! Over the next few weeks, we will unpack the thorny issue of performance measures and provide you with insights into preparing for this new decision-making system and how you can use it to build support for your programs and help make a case for needed funding.

For more information, feel free to check out our report on performance measures, Measuring What We Value.

Stories worth reading – August 13, 2015

Good afternoon. Here are a few curated stories we’re reading and talking about this week.

First, did you catch this story from the T4A blog?

Utah makes a bipartisan move to increase state and local transportation funding to help meet the demands of high population growth
From the T4A blog
Earlier this spring Utah became the third state in 2015 to pass a comprehensive transportation funding bill, raising the state’s gas tax and tying it to inflation. Unlike most other states acting this year, Utah raised revenues to invest in a variety of modes and also provided individual counties with the ability to go to the ballot to seek a voter-approved sales tax to fund additional local transportation priorities.

T4A in the news

Ten years after Katrina, a wait continues for restoring Gulf Coast passenger rail
AL.com
“The concern is whether there is a bill passed in the near future,” John Robert Smith, chairman of the board for Transportation for America. “Continuing extensions doesn’t bring into play the working group. These issues … are a timely issue and you wouldn’t want to wait for two years after a presidential election to getting into answering (questions about restoring passenger rail on the Gulf Coast). It’s been 10 years already.”

Headlines

Expanding transit is the dominant political issue in Phoenix’s mayoral and city council races
The Arizona Republic
By far, the dominant issue in this summer’s election for Phoenix mayor and City Council has been Proposition 104, a ballot initiative that would pay for a massive expansion of Phoenix’s transportation system. The $31.5 billion, 35-year plan would extend and increase the city’s current transit tax to fund operations and expansions of light rail and bus service, along with street improvements. Phoenix voters will decide Prop. 104’s fate in the city’s Aug. 25 election; early voting started last week.

Want a Bike Path? Why not try crowdsourcing one?
Bloomberg
“More and more, people are seeing this as a great alternative avenue … to going through your tax dollars or local public servant,” says Slava Rubin, the chief executive officer of Indiegogo, a crowdfunding platform. Rubin says he started seeing public works projects on the site in 2011, with campaigns funding such small-scale infrastructure projects as a $1,000 dog park in Chicago, and that he expects interest only to increase.

‘Transportation Armageddon’ Is Coming to the Northeast Rail Corridor
CityLab
For the Hudson River rail crossing, it seems, the dystopian future is now. The existing rail tunnels are a fragile chokepoint whose failure could asphyxiate the entire Northeast rail corridor—all the way from Boston to Washington, D.C.—and, by extension, further strain the already nightmarish roads in the metro New York region.

The Environmental Impacts of Land Development Depend Largely on Where We Put It
SGA Board Member Kaid Benfield in the Huffington Post
But our nomenclature gets tricky when applied to new development located on or beyond the fringe of metropolitan areas. Outlying newer developments are typically built on what was formerly farmland or forests, sometimes “leapfrogging” over available closer-in sites to do so. Those are classic characteristics of suburban sprawl. Nevertheless, many of them today are designed to mimic the feel of older city neighborhoods, with higher densities, more walkable streets, and more diverse land uses than conventionally sprawling “pod” subdivisions? Does that make them “urban” and environmentally benign?

L.A. will add bike and bus lanes, cut car lanes in sweeping policy shift
Los Angeles Times
City leaders endorsed a sweeping policy that would rework some of the city’s mightiest boulevards, adding more lanes for buses and bikes and, in some places, leaving fewer for cars. The goal is to improve safety for cyclists and pedestrians while also luring more people out of their cars.

Utah makes a bipartisan move to increase state and local transportation funding to help meet the demands of high population growth

Earlier this spring Utah became the third state in 2015 to pass a comprehensive transportation funding bill, raising the state’s gas tax and tying it to inflation. Unlike most other states acting this year, Utah raised revenues to invest in a variety of modes and also provided individual counties with the ability to go to the ballot to seek a voter-approved sales tax to fund additional local transportation priorities.

Fueled by the highest birthrate in the country, Utah’s population is expected to double by 2060. The state’s existing transportation funding sources — unchanged since 1997 and losing value against inflation — would not be sufficient to meet the demands posed by the rapidly growing population. Working proactively, the Utah Legislature and stakeholders worked together to raise new funding for transportation and ensure that the state stays ahead of the population boom.

TRAX Red Line to Daybreak at Fort Douglas Station. Flick photo by vxla. https://www.flickr.com/photos/vxla/

What does the new funding package do?

The new law, passed in March 2015, will generate approximately $74 million annually by replacing the cents-per-gallon gas tax with a new percentage tax indexed to future inflation. The bill also enables counties to raise local option sales taxes, which, if adopted by every county, would generate $124 million in new annual revenue specifically for local needs.

In specific terms, the bill replaces Utah’s current fixed 24.5 cents-per-gallon rate with a new rate of 12 percent of the statewide wholesale gasoline price, beginning January 1st, 2016, and indexes that rate to inflation. The bill also specifies that the tax can’t dip below the equivalent of 29.4 cents per gallon (i.e. a floor mechanism) or climb above 40 cents per gallon (i.e. a cap mechanism). Additionally, diesel, natural gas and hydrogen will see an incremental rise in their taxes until they reach 16.5 cents per gallon (an eight-cent increase for diesel and natural gas).

Importantly, the bill also enables all Utah counties to ask voters to approve a 0.25 percent local sales tax, the proceeds from which can be used to fund almost any locally-identified transportation need, whether roads, transit, bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure or other related projects. Revenues from these county sales taxes would be split between the county (20 percent), cities (40 percent), and a county’s transit agency (40 percent). If a transit service area doesn’t exist in the county, the money is split between the county (60 percent) and cities (40 percent).

Due to a constitutional restriction, all state gas tax revenue generated in Utah may only be used on roads, so this new optional sales tax gives counties and local governments a new mechanism to raise funds for their pressing needs, whatever they may be. While the state will see a much-needed revenue increase that can be invested in the state’s Unified Transportation Plan, the local option sales tax is a very important provision that could give localities of all sizes extremely flexible resources to meet their pressing local needs.

Lynn Pace, Vice President of Utah League of Cities and Towns

“There was a major push to say that we need a more multimodal transportation system,” said Lynn Pace, vice president of the Utah League of Cities and Towns. “We needed more flexibility, and that pushed people towards the [local option] sales tax because it was flexible, more flexible than the gas tax.”

Political compromises on the way to passage

At the end of 2014’s legislative session, a transportation bill that, much like this year’s bill, would have allowed counties to impose a voter-approved quarter-cent sales tax to fund transportation was defeated. There were other funding bills that died, including one that would have increased the gas tax by 7.5 cents per gallon and another that would have reduced the gas tax from 24.5 to 14 cents per gallon while adding a 3.69 percent fuel tax. In the end, there wasn’t adequate consensus between legislators to get a bill done in 2014.

This year was different, however.

The 2015 session started with an effort to raise or otherwise reform Utah’s gas tax. The Speaker of the House, Rep. Greg Hughes (R-Draper), wanted to drop the per-gallon flat tax and change it to a percentage tax so that the tax rose and fell with gas prices. Senate President Wayne Niederhauser (R-Sandy), however, felt that tying the gas tax to fluctuating gas prices was too risky. Prices could rise and fall dramatically, he said, subjecting Utah drivers to suddenly higher gas prices (or declining revenues coming to the state with low prices). To eliminate the uncertainty, Niederhauser wanted a straight increase in the gas tax.

Hughes however, didn’t believe that representatives in the House would pass a tax increase, fearing political fallout. Pegging the tax rate to gas prices would allow the state to eventually see revenues increase as gas prices rise without the political risk of imposing taxes immediately. In the end, the bill indexes the gas tax rate to inflation, but with a floor and ceiling put in place to counter destabilizing fluctuations in the gas price.

The importance of including the local option sales tax

Legislators had a similar back-and-forth on the bill’s other major revenue-raising provision: the local option sales tax.

Rep. Johnny Anderson (R-Taylorsville), the sponsor of this provision, wanted to ensure that money from the sales tax went to transit before it went to roads. Rep. Jim Dunnigan (R-Taylorsville), however, wanted to put that decision in the hands of the voters and local elected officials.

As legislators moved towards the end of the session, the House and Senate passed different versions of the transportation bill. The Senate opposed allowing counties to impose a voter-approved sales tax, but the House insisted. Eventually, the chambers came to an agreement, provided that local option sales tax revenues could go to not just transit but all forms of transportation, from roads to transit, bike and pedestrian infrastructure.

Staying on message

The 2014 debate on transportation funding by Utah legislators laid some of the important groundwork for this year’s success. But this time, several ingredients (and some notable changes) came together this year to help convince formerly skeptical legislators to vote yes.

The bill’s supporters — which included the Wasatch Front Regional Council, the Utah League of Cities and Towns, and the Utah Transportation Coalition, among others — were able to present a compelling and winning message about why Utah needed to raise additional dollars to invest in the transportation system. They talked about the critical economic development connection, as well as accommodating and moving more people and goods within the booming state over the next 25 years. Supporters educated both the public and legislators about why Utah’s communities need to be able to raise funds for and invest in multimodal transportation projects.

In a conservative state like Utah, supporters found that economic arguments worked best for convincing legislators and the public that transportation is a worthwhile investment. Their argument was two-pronged: first, a state with a good transportation network can more easily attract businesses, which need solid transportation infrastructure to attract talent, get their employees to work, and ship their goods, and, second, that waiting to repair critical transportation infrastructure will make maintenance cost more in the long run.

Read T4America’s separate 2014 profile of Utah’s “Can-Do” transportation ambitions.

With stories of partisan gridlock making headlines every day, Utah stands out as a model of collaborative planning for a better future. State leaders and citizens have managed to stare down a recession while making transportation investments that accommodate projected population growth and bolster the economy and quality of life.

Click through to read the full story.

To make sure that the message really resonated, supporters made sure that they were all singing from the same sheet.

The Utah Transportation Coalition — a group that includes the Salt Lake Chamber of Commerce and the Utah League of Cities and Towns — conducted two years of studies to find the facts they needed for their education campaign.

“What we did differently this year versus last year — in years past — is that we worked together, we were all in lockstep together, we knew our message, stayed on message,” said Abby Albrecht, Director of the Utah Transportation Coalition. “We worked really hard to be the voice in the community and in the legislature about transportation, why it was so important for our economy, for our quality of life, to our healthcare.”

A clear, unified plan for future investment

That singular message is captured in Utah’s Unified Transportation Plan, a statewide transportation plan synthesized from several regional plans and plans from the state DOT and the Utah Transit Authority. The unified statewide plan prioritizes those needs and outlines the $11.3 billion most critical projects to fund.

Having a statewide plan in which everyone could see their needs reflected helped everyone feel that the entire state was working together to develop a holistic vision for the future instead of a bunch of regions competing against each other for the same funds. That unity of purpose across the state helped bring legislators on board.

“Every legislator has skin in the game at that point,” saidMichael (Merrill) Parker, Director of Public Policy at the Salt Lake Chamber of Commerce. “It’s not urban versus rural, or region versus region; every legislator is in the same camp trying to solve one problem, not their local district’s problem.”

With a clear vision in hand, supporters worked hard to spread that message.

“There was a [unified] plan in place, an agreed-upon plan in place, saying, ‘This is what needs to be done, we all agreed that this is the plan, and here are the gaps in funding,’” said Pace, from the Utah League of Cities and Towns. “So, it put us in the position to say, ‘We all agreed what needs to be done. Utah’s population is going to double in the next 30 years, we need funding to implement the plan, to help make it happen.’”

All of that education paid off.

The law passed the House on March 9th and in the Senate on March 12th. Governor Gary Herbert signed the law on March 27th. This provides counties the ability to place local sales tax referendums on the ballot as early as November 2015.

On to the ballot box

Supporters cheered the bill’s passage in March, but there are still important hurdles to clear to reach the bill’s full potential. The bill could raise an additional $124 million annually for transportation if adopted by all Utah counties. Groups like the Salt Lake Chamber and Utah Transportation Coalition are embarking on public education campaigns in the counties that are placing local sales tax questions on their November ballots.

110 of Utah’s 244 cities have passed resolutions urging their county governments to put the proposition on November ballots, and as of August 24th, 12 of Utah’s 29 counties have taken action to do exactly that. That list of 12 counties includes Salt Lake County, the state’s most populous county, and where, according to the Salt Lake Tribune, elected officials in all 16 cities supported the county’s action in August 2015 to place the initiative on this November’s ballot.

Salt Lake County Mayor Ben McAdams

The mayor of that county, Salt Lake County Mayor Ben McAdams, knows how important investing in Utah’s transportation is, especially since his region is the most populated in the state:

“We want to have a visionary approach to transport, where we look into the future and forecast what our region is going to look like. We know that a transit-oriented future will improve quality of life, save tax dollars, and really help us develop the kind of community we want to live in. That all takes forethought and planning.”

This year’s move by the legislature was a triumph of bipartisan cooperation and compromise, undergirded by the clear vision for investment that local leaders and civic groups have bought into. As a result of their successful work, the state will see an increase in transportation funding in 2015, but we’ll be watching especially closely this November as Utah counties join countless others in deciding measures at the ballot to also raise new local money for transportation.

Need a quick summary of Utah’s transportation law? You can read it here.

Want more information on states moving to raise new transportation revenues at the state or local level? Don’t miss our page of resources chronicling the active and enacted plans since 2012.

Improving Health and Opportunities: Programs Designed to Save Lives

Community health and transportation are inextricably linked. Residents in vulnerable communities face a number of threats posed by poor street design, CO2 emissions, and inadequate pedestrian infrastructure. Investments in curbing threats posed to low income communities in particular are a matter of life and death for residents that call these communities home. In Arizona and Washington State, two new transportation programs intended to improve community health are seeing positive results for the most vulnerable populations.

Air quality and pollution in Phoenix, AZ and surrounding Maricopa County persisted as major threats to the community for well over two decades. Under the federal Clean Air Act, the region was dubbed a “non-attainment area” in 1978 and remained noncompliant with pollution. High rates of single-occupancy vehicle driving commutes have contributed to increases in pollution.

Flickr photo by Devin: https://www.flickr.com/photos/kingdafy/321019324/

The region’s transit agency, Valley Metro, uses their robust trip reduction program to reduce the rate of single-occupancy vehicles commuting to and from work. This was accomplished by actively engaging employers in the region. Their work was bolstered by a state statute requiring employers to make a good-faith effort to reduce solo driving trips by participating in the regional effort. Click here to learn more about the comprehensive program and how Valley metro is reducing trips: http://bit.ly/1WcYgAB.

Vulnerable populations disproportionately suffer negative health and safety affects from poorly planned transportation systems. High numbers of pedestrian fatalities is one of those harsh consequences. Communities of color and senior citizens in particular make up a significant portion of these avoidable traffic deaths. In the year 2000, Washington State became the first state in the nation to adopt a policy aimed at eliminating deaths on its roadways, a movement most known as Vision Zero. Since then, the state has made remarkable progress, dropping to the 4^th lowest fatality rate in the country.

Similarly, Washington’s Target Zero blueprint relies on four tenants: educating, enforcement, engineering, and emergency medical services. Washington State finds its continued partnership with the governor’s administration, federal, state and local agencies, local organizations, and interested stakeholders remains vital to achieving the goal of zero traffic deaths and fatalities by 2030. Learn more about how your region and community can implement a vision zero plan here: http://bit.ly/1DDcLYy.

Check out additional regional case studies in our series on Improving Health and Opportunities . Interested in more transportation equity news and trends? Contact Program Manager, Alicia Orosco, for more information at Alicia.Orosco@t4america.org.

T4A’s Beth Osborne Highlights Economic Development in Pacific Northwest Appearances

T4A is pleased to announce upcoming events featuring T4A’s Senior Policy Advisor Beth Osborne in Oregon and Washington September 10^th and 11^th. Ms. Osborne brings five year’s experience at US DOT – including serving as Acting Assistant Secretary for Transportation Policy – and a national perspective on prospects for improvements to transportation policy and funding.

Osborne and local speakers will discuss economic development implications stemming from how we plan and develop our roads, transit systems and freight networks, and how we might measure success. Come learn how regions across the country have made investment decisions, and what the results they have achieved with regard to economic development and competitiveness. As a benefit of being a T4A member you are able to get discounts on T4A events. To receive a discount on upcoming events enter the promo code: T4A1707 and receive 50% off your tickets.

If you have any trouble with the promo code or have any questions regarding these upcoming events please contact Alicia Orosco at alicia.orosco@t4america.org.

Thursday, Sept. 10, 12:00-1:30pm at the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce

Friday, Sept. 11, 7:30-9:00am at the Metro Regional Center, Portland

The Senate’s multi-year transportation bill misses the mark on multimodal freight

Below is an in-depth explanation of one of the 10 things you need to know about the Senate’s DRIVE Act.

The Senate’s multi-year transportation bill recognizes that efficient freight movement is important, but the bill prioritizes freight moving on highways over that moving by rail, air, ports and pipelines.

The DRIVE Act (HR 22) is unique from past transportation bills in that it creates a program for freight. The bill includes almost $1 billion for freight in its first year and up to $2.5 billion toward the end of the authorization in 2021. (The bill was more robust when originally introduced in the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, providing $2 billion in the first year and rising to $2.5 billion. It was scaled back to a smaller cost when some of the DRIVE Act’s “pay-fors” were deemed too controversial).

The program features a comprehensive and thoughtful national- and state-level planning framework to analyze the condition and performance of the national freight transportation system. It would require states to identify priority projects for improving freight movement regardless of mode – including rail, seaports, pipelines and airports. Yet the program restricts the majority of funds to highway projects. Only 10 percent of the money it provides to states can go to other modes.

This funding model would fall far short of the costs of multimodal freight projects. California, for example, would be allocated $90 million under this program in 2016, only $9 million of which could be used for non-highway projects. The Port of Los Angeles’s West Basin Railyard project – a rail and port project – costs $137.7 million.

Similarly, Illinois would have less than $4 million available. Chicago’s CREATE program – one of the most significant freight projects in the nation, which would improve rail freight efficiency throughout much of the country – costs over $3 billion.

This restriction seems burdensome, particularly since the new program would be paid for out of the general fund, not by roadway users. Congress has taken funding from across the board and restricted it to highway projects, even if a state says that its priorities for freight are elsewhere.

Also troubling is the fact that the National Freight Program’s funding would be distributed among the states evenly, using a formula that ignores where freight volumes are highest or where goods get stuck in congestion or bottlenecks. It’s the equivalent of investing wildfire prevention dollars in all 50 states even though a majority of fires are in the dry, arid west.

Reducing the country’s freight bottlenecks and helping businesses efficiently move commerce is a worthwhile goal, and one that can only be achieved with a truly multimodal freight program. When the House takes up their transportation bill in the early fall, we hope they rethink the DRIVE Act’s distribution formula and the restrictive funding cap on non-highway projects to ensure this program lives up the goals outlined for the National Freight Program.

Stories worth reading – August 6, 2015

Good afternoon. Here are a few curated stories we’re reading and talking about this week.

First, did you catch these stories from the T4A blog?

A proposal in the U.S. House could send more transportation funding to local communities
From the T4A blog
ISTA provides local communities access to a larger share of federal transportation funding by setting aside a portion of statewide transportation money and allowing communities to compete for funds to pay for their innovative and ambitious transportation projects. Those awarded funds will provide the greatest return on investment and ensure every dollar is spent on the most cost effective project.

10 things you need to know about the Senate’s DRIVE Act
From the T4A blog
Though the Senate finally moved beyond repeated short-term extensions to the nation’s transportation program with a multi-year bill, their DRIVE Act is also major missed opportunity to give cities, towns and local communities of all sizes more control over and access to federal transportation dollars. Here are nine other things that you need to know about the Senate’s bill.

The Senate’s multi-year transportation bill misses the mark on multimodal freight
From the T4A blog
The Senate’s multi-year transportation bill recognizes that efficient freight movement is important, but the bill prioritizes freight moving on highways over that moving by rail, air, ports and pipelines.

Headlines

How Car-Centric Cities Like Phoenix Learned to Love Light Rail
Governing
To those who fought for it, light rail in Phoenix was always about more than shiny new trains and faster travel times; it was a machine to transform urban life. Advocates in Phoenix, like those in many other cities, claimed light rail would introduce a whole new type of development, one that would appeal to both working millennials and retired snowbirds. Less developed neighborhoods would morph into walkable communities. Residents who live along transit corridors would be able to hop on a train to see a show, catch a game, head to class or get to work. The transit system would attract new residents, new businesses and new jobs, making the region competitive for years to come.

So Congress wants to get serious about highways?
Politico
Are we stuck? Maybe not. This is not the first time Congress has faced an impasse on an important issue. On budget issues, it happens frequently. Congress has found ways to resolve budget impasses. Maybe those techniques could preserve our infrastructure, too. Here’s a blueprint for how it would work for transportation.

If autonomous vehicles rule the world: From horseless to driverless
The Economist
The difference is that self-driving vehicles that can be summoned and dismissed at will could do more than make driving easier: they promise to overturn many industries and redefine urban life. The spread of driver-assistance technology will be gradual over the next few years, but then the emergence of fully autonomous vehicles could suddenly make existing cars look as outmoded as steam engines and landline telephones. What will the world look like if they become commonplace?

Congress Should Look Beyond the Gas Tax
New York Times
But even the gas tax will eventually become ineffective at raising sufficient money for road and mass transit systems. That’s because as Americans increasingly buy more efficient hybrid and all-electric cars, they will use much less gasoline and diesel. Congress thus needs to consider proposals for putting fees on the number of miles people drive on public roads.

The Most Persuasive Evidence Yet that Bike-Share Serves as Public Transit
CityLab
The denser the urban environment (particularly for rail), the more bikesharing provides new connections that substitute for existing ones. The less dense the environment, the more bikesharing establishes new connections to the existing public transit system.

Lyft to lobby on a range of issues
Politico
Ride-share company Lyft has registered to lobby on a range of issues, including “transportation and environmental issues in the 2015 highway reauthorization bill; shared economy issues including labor, consumer safety, privacy, technology; commuter tax benefits,” according to Senate lobbying disclosures.

A proposal in the U.S. House could send more transportation funding to local communities

Last week, the Senate passed their multi-year transportation bill, the DRIVE Act, which authorizes funding for six years but with only enough funding for the first three years. The House left for August recess before taking up the Senate’s long-term bill, so Congress passed a three-month extension of MAP-21 that extends the program until the end of October.

Unfortunately, the Wicker-Booker amendment that local communities across the country pushed so hard for did not make it into the Senate’s DRIVE Act.

But there is still an opportunity to get a similar proposal into the final bill. The House is expected to begin debate on their own multi-year transportation bill when they come back in September and it’s critical that they hear strong support for the Innovation in Surface Transportation Act (ISTA) to ensure it is included in their bill.

Send a message to your Representative and urge them to support ISTA to give local communities more control over their transportation funding while also ensuring the best projects receive the necessary investments.

SEND A MESSAGE

ISTA provides local communities access to a larger share of federal transportation funding by setting aside a portion of statewide transportation money and allowing communities to compete for funds to pay for their innovative and ambitious transportation projects. Those awarded funds will provide the greatest return on investment and ensure every dollar is spent on the most cost effective project.

For more information on the DRIVE Act, you can read Transportation for America’s statement on the bill on our blog, as well as read our list of the top 10 things to know about the bill.

Congress returns in September after Labor Day so stay tuned for further information.

Help fill your Representative’s inbox to tell them to support this critical proposal.

Improving Health and Opportunities: Job Connections for Working Communities

Local civic, business, and elected leaders face a tough dilemma. The elimination of JARC (Job Access and Reverse Commute) has led to service cuts that are crucial to connecting citizens to jobs, health care, school and other essential destinations. MAP-21 missed a major opportunity to fund the once authorized JARC, leading to a handful of states and localities develop innovative ways to supplement true job connections.

In Washington State, flexible and cost-effective, vanpools have become an increasingly popular mode of transit. Ben Franklin Transit (BFT), a privately operated municipal vanpool company located in Southeast Washington, has filled a significant gap in fixed route coverage in 12 cities, 8 counties and two states. A combination of user fees and local & state dollars support the system that serves a diverse mix of riders. Through direct partnerships with major area-employers, vanpooling subsidies are offered to offset the cost of transportation for riders.

How did BFT get started? What results are being seen by riders and employers in Southeast Washington? Read the original T4America case study here: http://bit.ly/1P0Rf0J.

The Monongahela Valley is home to 13 of the 15 poorest communities in Allegheny County, PA. These communities once heavily relied transit to access now non-existent manufacturing jobs. The elimination of JARC led to systemwide cuts by the Port Authority and left many with 4 to 7 mile commutes before reaching their Port Authority bus stop. In 2013, the Pennsylvania legislature raised significant new revenues for transportation statewide through the passage of Act 89, which enabled Heritage Community Initiatives, a human services non-profit, to restore and operate the service, now known as Heritage Community Transportation. 97% of riders on the important link would have no other way to get to work.

What prompted the state legislature to raise additional funding for transit? For more information about Heritage Community Transportation’s work and for the extended T4America case study click here: http://bit.ly/1IBaiJE

Look out of for more regional case studies on Improving Health and Opportunities over the next couple of weeks. Interested in more transportation equity news and trends? Contact Alicia Orosco, for more information at alicia.orosco@t4america.org.

ICYMI: T4A Members-Only Transit ROI Webinar; Materials Included

Today, T4A hosted a members-only webinar on Transit Return on Investment and how to assess impacts in your region.

As a T4A member, you can access the webinar anytime through this page.

Given the number of regions across the country contemplating similar transit investments, T4A created a rubric for understanding the full range of economic impacts that transit projects have in a region. As detailed by the report’s lead author, Sarah Kline, this methodology includes both near term and long-term economic impacts, including: Employment, Business Attraction, Real Estate Development, Impact on Disposable Income, Fiscal Impacts.

Access the webinar powerpoint here.

View the complete Weighing Maryland’s Economic Future report as a guide to help assess economic impacts of proposed projects and what this can mean for your region.
Also check out The Benefits of Transit in the United States: A Review and Analysis of Benefit-Cost Studies by the Mineta Transportation Institute.

Please don’t hesitate to contact Alicia Orosco at alicia.orosco@t4america.org with questions on this members-only webinar.

10 things you need to know about the Senate’s DRIVE Act

The Senate approved their multi-year transportation authorization bill by a 65-34 vote this week. You can view our full statement on the DRIVE Act here from T4America Chairman John Robert Smith. Meanwhile, here are 10 things that you need to know about what’s in the Senate bill.

1) Funding from deficit spending vs. pay-as-you-go

How do you pay for a six-year transportation authorization when the transportation fund is broke and Congress is unwilling to raise the federal gasoline tax? For the DRIVE Act, the Senate bridged the gap between dwindling user fee revenues and total spending by getting creative. In the end, they cobbled together $46 billion in non-transportation-related funds, fees and accounting maneuvers.

Among some of the more controversial “pay-fors” in the Senate bill is a requirement to sell 100 million barrels of the 693 million barrels in the nation’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) between 2018 and 2025, estimated to bring in $9 billion if it can be sold at $95 per barrel ($30-40 more per-barrel than today’s price). Add to that the indexing of customs fees (ironic for a Congress unwilling to index gasoline taxes), an extension of airport TSA fees through 2025, closing estate fee loopholes, and reducing the “fixed dividend rate” the Federal Reserve pays to banks.

But while the bill needs 10 years to recognize some of the new revenues or savings that won’t occur until the 2025, it would instantly transfer billions from the general fund to the transportation fund, increasing the deficit. Senator Bob Corker (R-TN) called it “generational theft,” while T4A Chair John Robert Smith asked, “Is it fiscally responsible to place the cost of paying for three years of transportation investments on the backs of our children and grandchildren?”

A final point of clarification on the length of Senate bill: the DRIVE Act authorizes six years of spending, but provides only three years of funding certainty. In 2018, Congress will have to find an additional $51 billion to fully fund the bill for the remaining three years of its authorization. Despite calls from a diverse cross-section of industry and advocacy groups for a “long-term, sustainable funding solution” for transportation, the DRIVE Act is patched together with temporary and speculative “pay-fors,” the type that are only going to get harder to find three years from now.

Policy	Ten-year savings
Reduce the fixed dividend rate the Federal Reserve pays larger banks	$17.10 billion
Sell 101 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve	$9.05 billion
Index customs fees for inflation	$5.70 billion
Extend current budget treatment of TSA fees from 2023 to 2025	$3.50 billion
Use private debt collectors to collect overdue tax payments	$2.48 billion
Extend Fannie/Freddie guarantee fees	$1.90 billion
Require lenders to report more information on outstanding mortgages	$1.80 billion
Close an estate tax loophole about the reporting of property	$1.50 billion
Clarify the statute of limitations on reassessing certain tax returns	$1.20 billion
Revoke or deny passports for those with seriously delinquent taxes	$0.40 billion
Devote civil penalties for motor safety violations to the Highway Trust Fund	$0.35 billion
Stop paying interest when companies overpay for mineral leases	$0.32 billion
Adjust tax-filing deadlines for businesses	$0.30 billion
Allow employers to transfer excess defined-benefit plan assets to retiree medical accounts and group-term life insurance	$0.20 billion
TOTAL	$45.80 Billion

2) Local communities get the short end of the stick…again

The DRIVE Act bypasses America’s cities and towns, reducing the already small amount of funding they directly control to invest in locally-driven projects by nearly $200 million in the first year alone compared to MAP-21. We were extremely disappointed to see a bipartisan amendment from Senators Roger Wicker (R-MS) and Cory Booker (D-NJ), with support from Sens. Casey (D-PA), Durbin (D-IL), Peters (D-MI) and Stabenow (D-MI) fail to receive a fair hearing on the floor. Their plan would have put a larger share of transportation dollars in the hands of local governments by increasing the amount of flexible federal Surface Transportation Program (STP) dollars directly provided to metropolitan areas of all sizes and allowing direct access to the funding for rural areas through a grant program. By failing to bring more dollars, control and accountability closer to the local level, the bill fails to restore the trust of the American people in how our transportation decisions are being made.

3) Progress on a national freight policy but with funding stuck in 20^th century silos

The Senate recognized the economic importance of moving goods efficiently throughout the country by including a new freight program that also includes real funding: almost $1 billion in the first year, and up to $2.5 billion annually towards the end of the authorization.

Unfortunately, 90 percent of the dollars reserved for the freight program are restricted to highway projects. This decision runs counter to the realities of how our freight moves: generally, no one product gets to its destination by one mode of transportation, but rather relies on a interconnected and efficient system of ports, rail lines, highways, urban streets and intermodal yards all working together.

There’s a mixed message here. The bill requires USDOT, states and MPOs to conduct thoughtful national- and state-level freight planning to analyze the condition and performance of the freight transportation system and identify the highest priority needs to create greater efficiency and reliability in freight movement, regardless of mode. After all this planning is done, the Senate bill instructs states and MPOs to focus only on highway projects at the expense of rail lines, ports and a truly intermodal network.

4) For the first time, intercity passenger rail is included in a surface transportation bill

While the popular shorthand for the transportation authorization is “the highway bill,” the nation’s transportation program has included dedicated funding for public transportation and bicycling and walking since 1982 and 1991 respectively. But intercity passenger rail has been consistently left out of the overall surface transportation legislation – until now.

For the first time, the nation’s passenger rail policy is included in the bill, laying the groundwork for further improvements and expansion of the nation’s passenger rail service to match the recent unparalleled growth in ridership. Previously, the passenger rail bill has always passed as a standalone authorization, but the DRIVE Act would enshrine the policy in the nation’s surface transportation bill. While the rail programs would still require annual appropriations for funding, it takes an important step forward in providing Amtrak sustainable funding and helping to expand service to meet booming demand.

5) Popular TIGER program fails to win a permanent seat at the table

The USDOT’s competitive TIGER grants represent one of the few ways local communities can directly access federal funds for their local priority projects. While disaster was averted as the bill was being drafted and TIGER hasn’t been changed in this bill, the Senate missed a major opportunity to authorize the program and make it a permanent part of the nation’s transportation policy. If this bill passed, supportive lawmakers will have to continue to fight each year for TIGER funding through the annual appropriations process, resulting in up and down fluctuations in available funding year to year. That makes it tough for local communities to plan and compete within this popular and oversubscribed program.

Nearly one-third of the Senate endorsed Senator Patty Murray’s (D-WA) amendment to authorize TIGER and provide $500 million per year in contract authority via the transportation fund. Unfortunately, along with the Wicker-Booker amendment, this important provision was not given an open and fair hearing on the floor.

6) TIFIA loans can fund TOD, but under a dramatically scaled back program

One of Senator Barbara Boxer’s (D-CA) signature achievements in MAP-21 was an expansion of the TIFIA loan program from nearly $125 million up to $1 billion in annual financing authority. This move greatly expanded an innovative program of low-cost federal financing that doesn’t have to be repaid immediately, allowing the financial benefits of a project to accrue before payments are due. While two good changes were made in the DRIVE Act — making transit-oriented development (TOD) an eligible expenditure and making it easier for local projects, TOD and ITS to access this program by lowering the total project cost threshold lowered from $50 million to $10 million — the program’s funding was scaled back significantly, from $1 billion to $300 million annually.

7) Transit wins additional funds, but projects with private involvement can ‘skip the line’

Overall, public transportation was spared any cuts and in fact received a larger portion of overall authorized funding. As initially introduced by Majority Leader McConnell (R-KY), the DRIVE Act provided transit with 24 percent of the bill’s funding, but the new money used to fill the gap in the transportation fund was directed almost entirely to the highway program. As a result, the mass transit account was set to end the third year of the bill (FY2018) with a negative balance of $180 million. This was fixed on the Senate floor with help from Sen. Durbin (D-IL) and others, and in the end transit received a nearly 25 increase in funding over the six years of the authorization.

One provision in the transit title of the DRIVE Act generating controversy is the ability for projects with any private sector involvement in design, construction, operation, or maintenance of transit projects to jump to the front of the line for the already oversubscribed transit New Starts Program.

8) Active transportation funding survives intact

While the bill represents a missed opportunity for local communities on the whole, the bill slightly increases funding for the popular Transportation Alternatives Program (TAP) to $850 million, but it caps the growth there over the life of the bill. Unlike other programs, this means TAP will not be able to grow with inflation over the life of the six-year authorization.

On a positive note, communities that use TAP to help make biking or walking safer and more convenient will receive 100 percent of the program’s funds, meaning all $850 million will be available to communities. States formerly controlled half of the program’s funds — but no longer.

9) Limited progress to improve accountability through performance measures

The DRIVE Act takes one small step to build on project selection and performance management, a key reform of MAP-21. The DRIVE Act provides MPOs and states support in developing their performance measure programs by requiring USDOT to develop datasets and data analysis tools. This includes addressing data gaps for trip origin and destination, trip time and travel mode.

While USDOT has yet to complete their assignment to establish rules for the performance measures contained in MAP-21, there were steps available to the Senate such as including measures such as connectivity and access to jobs or improving project selection processes to open up the “black box” and provide greater transparency and understanding for why one project receives funds over another. None of these positive ideas were included in the DRIVE Act that passed the Senate.

10) Positive advances for next-generation transportation research

At a time when transformative changes in technology are beginning to reshape the transportation landscape, providing an outcome-based 21^st century transportation research program is needed now more than ever. Fortunately, this is an area that the DRIVE Act did well. First, the bill establishes competitive funding for local governments and MPOs, among others, to deploy and test innovative research. This is important, since MAP-21 provided limited dollars outside of formula funds to test and deploy the next generation of transportation innovations. Second, the bill would require USDOT to study “shared use mobility” (car-sharing, bike-sharing, ride-sharing, etc.) and other innovative concepts, and provide local and regional leaders best practices and better understanding of the shared use transportation sector. This is important since we need to provide our leaders the understanding of this new transportation sector so that they can adequately plan and provide for its growth.

The last thing you need to know is that the work is far from over. While the Senate passed this long-term bill, both chambers also passed short-term extensions to MAP-21, setting up October 29th as the next deadline to agree on a multi-year transportation bill. Will the House pass the Senate’s bill? Will they draft a bill of their own? Will they fail to do anything and move to another short-term extension in October? Stay tuned.

Stories worth reading – July 30, 2015

Good afternoon. Here are a few curated stories we’re reading and talking about this week.

First, did you catch these stories from the T4A blog:

Senate’s DRIVE Act Bypasses America’s Cities and Towns
From the T4A blog
While we’re thankful that the Senate has finally moved beyond short-term extensions and toward the multi-year funding certainty needed by states and cities to see their ambitious plans come to life, the final product needs to do much more. We look forward to working to improve it as the House drafts their bill and Congress seeks consensus on a multi-year transportation authorization bill before the recently-extended MAP-21 expires on October 29.”

Amendment to provide stable funding for TIGER program has a long list of Senate co-sponsors
From the T4A blog
In the week before tomorrow’s final vote on the Senate’s three-year transportation bill, Senator Patty Murray’s (D-WA) amendment to enshrine the TIGER program’s funding into law picked up at least 27 co-sponsors. The TIGER program represents one of the few ways local communities can directly access federal funds for their local priority projects.

Headlines

The old suburban office park is the new American ghost town
The Washington Post
There are 71.5 million square feet of vacant office space in the Washington region, much of it piled in office parks. That’s enough emptiness to fill the Mall four times over, with just enough left to fill most of the Pentagon, the granddaddy of office buildings. If office space was a commodity, we would make a killing by selling our excess in bulk to San Francisco, where it’s so scarce and costly, according to Quartz, that start-up employees are starting to work in shopping malls.

Aging Infrastructure Plagues Nation’s Busiest Rail Corridor
The New York Times
The [Northeast] corridor’s ridership has doubled in the last 30 years even as its old and overloaded infrastructure of tracks, power lines, bridges and tunnels has begun to wear out. And with Amtrak and local transit agencies struggling for funding, many fear the disruptions will continue to worsen in the years ahead.

“Uber now spends more on lobbyists in California than Wal-Mart, Bank of America or Wells Fargo.”
The Los Angeles Times
The stakes for Uber are high. Having to treat drivers like employees would pose huge costs and headaches for a company that says it only manages a smartphone app — and could dramatically affect the start-up’s estimated $40-billion valuation. Turning over troves of ride data could lead to even bigger headaches, opening the door to intense regulatory scrutiny of issues such as worker hours, traffic violations, accommodations for the disabled and service in impoverished neighborhoods.

As Congress delays, mayors across the country are taking transportation funding into their owns hands
The Modesto Bee/Associated Press
As Congress considers a long-awaited transportation funding bill, some Republican governors as well as Democrats say they aren’t waiting to raise or borrow money to fix or build roads, bridges and highways.

Rising fear of car hackers sparks action in Washington
The Hill
Cars are not safe from hackers. That’s what two security researchers showed this week when they commandeered a car from 10 miles away, forcing it off the road. The demonstration, profiled in a Wired article, caught fire and made the rounds among federal agencies, Capitol Hill and automakers. It brought fresh attention to long simmering worries, prompting lawmakers and the auto industry to scramble to get ahead of the looming threat.

Valley Metro: Development along light rail tops $8 billion
Phoenix Business Journal
Development driven by light rail now tops $8.2 billion, with nearly $5 billion in Phoenix alone along the 20-mile route, according to data compiled by Valley Metro and announced today by a coterie of local mayors. Almost $6 billion was put into play by the private sector, with an additional $2.2 billion from public sector development.

T4A in the news

Expanding mass transit in St. Louis calls for unified demand and diversified funding
St. Louis Public Radio
The first priority for expanding mass transit needs to be a regional decision about what project to put forward, said Beth Osborne at the St. Louis Regional Chamber Thursday. Osborne is a senior policy advisor for a nonprofit research group, Transportation for America, and author of the finance study.

Senate’s DRIVE Act Bypasses America’s Cities and Towns

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

WASHINGTON, DC — Following the Senate’s successful vote to approve the DRIVE Act, a six-year transportation reauthorization bill with three years of funding, the Honorable John Robert Smith, former mayor of Meridian, MS, and the Chairman of Transportation for America, issued the following statement:

“While the Senate is to be commended for taking the lead in moving beyond the repeated short-term extensions to the nation’s transportation program, this bill represents a major missed opportunity to give cities, towns and local communities of all sizes more control over and access to federal transportation dollars. We were extremely disappointed to see a bipartisan amendment from Senators Roger Wicker (R-MS) and Cory Booker (D-NJ) to direct more funding to towns and cities of all sizes fail to receive a fair hearing on the floor.

Instead of increasing funding for local communities, as the Wicker-Booker proposal would have done, the DRIVE Act bypasses America’s cities and towns, reducing the overall amount of funding they control to invest in their locally-driven projects by nearly $200 million in the first year of this bill alone compared to the 2012 authorization (MAP-21). By failing to bring more dollars, control and accountability closer to the local level, the bill fails to restore the trust of the American people in how our transportation decisions are being made.

The Senate also failed to tackle the hard choices required to raise new, sustainable revenues — as at least 21 states and governors have done over the past three years — in order to truly put the nation’s transportation trust fund on stable footing. The Senate cobbled together $46 billion in non-transportation-related funds, fees and accounting maneuvers to keep the nation’s transportation trust fund solvent for the next three years — in some cases by relying on funding from sources ten years in the future to pay back the next three years of spending. Is it fiscally responsible to place the cost of paying for three years of transportation investments on the backs of our children and grandchildren?

The Senate bill does take a few positive steps forward. We’re encouraged to see the nation’s passenger rail policy finally included in the surface transportation program for the first time ever, laying the groundwork for continuing to improve and expand the nation’s passenger rail service in the years to come. Congress recognized the economic importance of moving goods efficiently throughout the country by including a new freight program — though the bill shortsightedly chooses not to take a more comprehensive approach, restricting 90 percent of the freight dollars to highway projects and ignoring ports, rail and other multimodal solutions that are urgently needed to unclog America’s freight bottlenecks. The bill also preserves funding for the popular Transportation Alternatives Program and public transportation in general, and includes an important Safe Streets Act provision that ensures a more comprehensive approach to road design and safety for everyone.

While we’re thankful that the Senate has finally moved beyond short-term extensions and toward the multi-year funding certainty needed by states and cities to see their ambitious plans come to life, the final product needs to do much more. We look forward to working to improve it as the House drafts their bill and Congress seeks consensus on a multi-year transportation authorization bill before the recently-extended MAP-21 expires on October 29.”*

* The Senate is expected to approve a three-month extension to MAP-21 this afternoon.

CONTACT: Steve Davis
Director of Communications
steve.davis@t4america.org
202-955-5543 x242

Amendment to provide stable funding for TIGER program has a long list of Senate co-sponsors

In the week before tomorrow’s final vote on the Senate’s three-year transportation bill, Senator Patty Murray’s (D-WA) amendment to enshrine the TIGER program’s funding into law picked up at least 27 co-sponsors. The TIGER program represents one of the few ways local communities can directly access federal funds for their local priority projects.

This amendment to the Senate’s transportation bill, though not currently included in the Senate’s draft bill heading for a vote tomorrow, would authorize the TIGER program and provide $500 million per year in contract authority via the Highway Trust Fund. This would provide this popular and oversubscribed program with some long-desired certainty and give local communities more resources they can access directly and win on the merits of their projects.

These TIGER grants have rewarded communities all across the country that are thinking outside the box to cut congestion, improve safety, promote economic development, or improve access to jobs and opportunities through smarter transportation investments.

Check the list below for Senate co-sponsors to date. If your Senator is on the list, call them and say thanks for co-sponsoring this important amendment. If you don’t see your Senator, call them today and ask them to join their fellow colleagues and co-sponsor this important amendment to make TIGER a permanent part of the nation’s transportation program.

Current co-sponsors of Senate Amendment #2416

Blumenthal, Richard – (D – CT)
Booker, Cory A. – (D – NJ)
Brown, Sherrod – (D – OH)
Cantwell, Maria – (D – WA)
Carper, Thomas R. – (D – DE)
Cassidy, Bill – (R – LA)
Cochran, Thad – (R – MS)
Collins, Susan M. – (R – ME)
Coons, Christopher A. – (D – DE)
Durbin, Richard J. – (D – IL)
Franken, Al – (D – MN),
Feinstein, Dianne – (D – CA)
Hirono, Mazie K. – (D – HI)
King, Angus S., Jr. – (I – ME)
Leahy, Patrick J. – (D – VT)
Markey, Edward J. – (D – MA)
Merkley, Jeff – (D – OR)
Mikulski, Barbara A. – (D – MD)
Murphy, Christopher – (D – CT)
Reed, Jack – (D – RI)
Schatz, Brian – (D – HI)
Schumer, Charles E. – (D – NY)
Shelby, Richard C. – (R – AL)
Udall, Tom – (D – NM)
Warner, Mark R. – (D – VA)
Warren, Elizabeth – (D – MA)
Wyden, Ron – (D – OR)

Senate on the verge of passing a multi-year transportation bill

After several contentious procedural votes to keep the bill moving forward over the past week, the Senate is likely to be taking a final vote on their three-year transportation bill at some point before the end of the week. Here’s a short update on where things currently stand.

First, here are the six most useful tidbits to know right now:

The Senate is a few more procedural votes away from a final vote on their three-year transportation bill.
Little in the bill has substantially changed since it was first introduced, though a few fixes were made to issues in the first draft having to do with transit funding and complete streets language.
The contentious amendment to reauthorize the Export-Import Bank through 2019 was approved and included in the base bill last night.
The first manager’s package of amendments has been moved to consideration, though nothing has actually been approved yet.
Whether this long-term bill passes the Senate this week or not, there will likely be an extension to MAP-21 for 3 to 5 months. This is intended to provide time for the House and Senate to negotiate a final agreement.
Including the Wicker-Booker amendment to increase transportation funding going directly to local communities is still our best chance to improve this bill. Getting more support for this amendment from other Senators is the best method to have it included in a manager’s package or as one of the few (if any) amendments considered on the floor. But the prospects are not good without more support. We’re working hard to drive up sponsors — Sen. Durbin from Illinois and Sen. Peters from Michigan hopped on as co-sponsors yesterday! — but we still need your help. Send another letter, or make a phone call as soon as possible.

After one failed vote early last week, the overall Senate transportation bill passed a cloture motion late last week that cleared the way for the bill to be considered and debated on the Senate floor.

Before they can take a final vote on the bill, the Senate has to work through the amendment process. Because of Sen. McConnell’s parliamentary actions to “fill the amendment tree,” we don’t forsee the usual open amendment process playing out where individual amendments are offered on the floor and debated. Instead, for the most part, any amendments to the bill will have to be included in the manager’s package to be voted on all at once or adopted by unanimous consent.

Last night, the Senate took small steps toward a final vote by successfully voting to include a reauthorization of the Export-Import Bank in the base bill and begin the debate on the manager’s package of amendments. Whether there is a third manager’s package or not, once they are approved, it clears the way to take a final cloture vote to halt debate on the underlying bill and move to a vote on final passage.

If that passes, we’ll have 30 hours of debate on the bill before a vote on final passage sometime before Friday night.

As to MAP-21’s expiration, the House already passed a five-month extension. However, the House has now agreed to move a shorter 3-month extension tomorrow and Speaker John Boehner has said they are leaving town after the vote for August recess. We expect the Senate to take up and pass the House’s 3-month patch and very likely pass their multi-year surface transportation authorization package this week as well.