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Greenville, SC: Out with the cars, in with the people

Leaders and residents in Greenville, South Carolina had been working for decades to transform their neglected, denuded downtown into a walkable, dynamic place. But the most significant catalyst was the removal of a highway bridge through downtown and the installation of a beautiful pedestrian bridge in 2004, creating a popular new attraction for people and restoring the city’s relationship to the river that birthed it.

History and context

Greenville, SC emerged from World War II as a thriving mill town. In the 1950s, this prosperity drove development into the suburbs, replacing the residential neighborhoods downtown with department stores and restaurants. While cars were becoming the primary mode of transportation, people continued to return to walkable Main Street, the hub of retail and social life. Many consider this decade to be the economic heyday of Greenville.

The 1960s brought changes to Greenville, similar to many cities across the United States. Increased sprawl, fueled by nearly free federal money for new highways, drove demand for highway access, and decision makers didn’t think twice about displacing residents and businesses to build infrastructure. Following the conventional wisdom of the day, and plenty of assistance from the South Carolina DOT, Greenville was transformed.

In 1960, the city built the Camperdown Way Bridge, a four-lane highway overpass, across the polluted Reedy River and Falls, the very spot where the earliest settlers gathered and eventually founded the city. Located in the West End section of the city (though technically positioned on the southern end of Main Street), the Camperdown Way Bridge turned this once-warehouse district into “a place you drove through…nothing but derelicts and dilapidated buildings.”¹

Camperdown Bridge over Reedy River, with car travel — *The Camperdown Bridge. (2000). Photo courtesy of Greenville Online.*

Saving Main Street

In 1968, the Greenville downtown development plan proposed a redesign of Main Street to create “a pedestrian friendly environment” in the name of economic revitalization. Max Heller, the mayor of Greenville from 1971-79, was determined to bring this plan to fruition. Fighting upstream against the prevailing wisdom of the day when it came to accommodating vehicles at all costs, Heller’s vision of Main Street included a lane reduction (four-lanes to two-lanes), angled parking, street trees, lighting, and widened sidewalks suitable for outdoor dining. His government formed public-private partnerships to maximize success implementing the 1968 plan, and downtown began to flourish. While Heller’s continued influence fostered the extension of Main Street into the West End (1981), the neighborhood lagged behind, continuing to struggle for two more decades.

*Main Street Greenville, circa early-1970s. Photo courtesy of The City of Greenville.*

*Main Street Greenville, circa 1980. Photo courtesy of The City of Greenville.*

Restoring the city’s relationship to the river that birthed it

Throughout Greenville’s infrastructure transitions, the Carolina Foothills Garden Club was working on a transition of its own: giving pedestrians, not cars, priority access to the Reedy River and Falls Park and in doing so, restoring the history of the city. But realizing the full fruit of their effort would take decades.

The Club, with support from the City and Furman University, reclaimed the land in 1967. Although still hidden under the unsightly Camperdown Way Bridge, the park began to re-emerge in the 1970s. The shutdown of the mills together with the Clean Water Act (1972) resulted in a much cleaner Reedy River. The following year, 1973, the park was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. This was just the beginning.

In the 1980s, a group of performing artists set their sights on replacing Greenville’s last industrial complex with a center for the arts. The Peace Center, opened in 1990 on the south end of Main Street, is seen as the link between Greenville’s natural resources and Main Street. Its success inspired the Duke Power Company to fund infrastructure upgrades, carrying the feel of Main Street to the West End. Today, a footpath connects Falls Park, the Peace Center, and the West End.

Efforts to tear down the Camperdown Way Bridge began in earnest during the 1990s. The Greenville Central Area Partnership (GCAP) funded a study of the bridge in 1989, with a clear finding that the bridge “needed to come down. It blocked views of the majestic falls…. It divided the area. It made any potential growth moot.”²

This was quickly followed by a city-funded feasibility study in 1990 with outcomes focused on the chaos that would certainly ensue if the bridge was removed, the exorbitant cost to drivers for fuel (due to rerouting)—not to mention the embarrassment of removing perfectly good bridge paid for by the state. In spite of the latter findings, an independent task force recommended removing the bridge in 1991. But there was still a long road ahead.

Replacing a highway bridge with a people bridge

In 1995, Knox White was elected mayor of Greenville (1995-present). A former city council member, White was a longtime advocate for removing the Camperdown Way Bridge. He immediately began using his new position to lobby for removal. Together with his ally in the arts, Virginia Ulderick, White gained support from the governor by showing him the falls on a site visit to the future home of the South Carolina Governor’s School for the Arts and Humanities. The opening of the school (1999) clinched the turnaround for the West End, bringing foot traffic back to the area and strengthening the call to remove the unsightly obstacle standing in the way of resurgence. White next welcomed the head of the state Department of Transportation to visit the school and the park, in an effort to convince the state to give the bridge to the city. Then a state senator. Finally, he began to gain ground.

Even following another traffic study (1998) calling for removal of the bridge, there was still dissent. Naysayers were more interested in roads being fixed, traffic increasing, and any risk of stifling development in the West End just as it was getting going. White recognized the need for a “story,” something beyond tearing down a bridge, something that looked ahead, to the future of Greenville. He found exactly that in the decades-old vision of the Garden Club: a pedestrian bridge over the falls. In 2000, the Camperdown Way bridge became part of the Greenville road system. Greenville published the Reedy River Corridor Master Plan, funded through hospitality tax money, and set about the process of removing the Camperdown Bridge, restoring access to the river, and making the once-hidden falls a showpiece attraction once more.

Within five years, the Camperdown Bridge came down (2002) and the Liberty Bridge opened (2004), funded through the city council budget. Foot traffic replaced vehicle traffic. Liberty Bridge quickly became known as an architectural and engineering marvel, meant to emphasize the livable, walkable beauty of Greenville.

Falls Park, Greenville, SC (2023). Credit: City of Greenville, Parks, Recreation & Tourism.

Today Greenville, South Carolina is alive with pedestrians. What began with Max Heller’s vision for a walkable Main Street grew to include the beauty of Falls Park. The West End of Greenville is now a thriving mixed-use residential neighborhood, known for its artistic community and proximity to nature. A network of paved trails extends through multiple parks, over Liberty Bridge, around the city, and beyond. While the city is still ringed by plenty of other highways, including another highway viaduct through the heart of the city, downtown Greenville is now a thriving, walkable urban center.

Lessons for Community Connectors

Greenville demonstrates a few impactful lessons for future reconnecting communities projects.

First, leadership and advocacy from the local government can be the driving force of change. Max Heller and Knox White recognized and fought for the potential they saw in Greenville. They used the power of their positions to change the direction of the community, resulting in economic and cultural success.

Second, partnerships go a long way in achieving a vision. The buy-in of public companies helped initiate the redevelopment of Main Street. Their combined vision and advocacy uncovered the natural beauty for which Greenville is now known. Artists also took part in the collaborative work of connecting nature, downtown, and history.

Third, attractions accessible to both visitors and residents foster success. Paved walking paths connect Falls Park and the Peace Center to each other, to the West End, and to Main Street. In a single walk or bike ride you can be in nature, experience art, dine in a local restaurant, and return to your home or a hotel.

Finally, in the words of Knox White, “Find your waterfall!!!” Find what is distinct, what makes your city unique, what features create this “place.” That is the first challenge. Only then can you draw in residents and tourists—who will not just live, work, shop, and dine, but will love this beautiful, walkable, historical (yet innovative), locale.

Urban areas, including but not limited to city centers, grow stronger through investments in walkability (and transit). Urban walkability creates a livable, connected community. Foot Traffic Ahead outlines this concept, using the top 35 largest metropolitan areas as examples. From Greenville, as well as Foot Traffic Ahead, cities can determine which aspects of their predecessors’ paths apply to their own future connected communities.

Community Connectors: tools for advocates

You may be fighting against a freeway expansion. You may be trying to advance a Reconnecting Communities project to remove an old highway. You might be just trying to make wide, dangerous arterial roads a little safer for people to cross. This Community Connectors portal explains common terms, decodes the processes, clarifies the important actors, and inspires with helpful real-world stories.

Follow the money: Where does your state stack up on supporting transit?

A passenger hops onto a bus on a sunny day

Even though transit service is a localized experience, the state you live in actually has a massive impact on your access to frequent, reliable transit. As with interstates, ports, or other vital parts of a state’s transportation network, state governments have a major role in supporting the planning, operations, and maintenance of public transportation service. But the financial commitment to transit varies widely from state to state.

In partnership with the National Campaign for Transit Justice, we assessed the quality of transit support and availability across all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. We’ll unpack our four criteria in a series of blog posts. This first post focuses on the dollars and cents: transit spending and restrictions on state tax dollars.

At a time when transit agencies are facing heavy financial stress, state support can be a key source of funding that allows transit to continue delivering reliable service. Most large transit systems, many of which are vital for supporting the largest regional economy in a state, operate with some level of support from their state. But that’s not always the case. There are statewide policies that impact a state’s financial commitment to transit, which can range from robust support down to almost nothing.

Transit agencies across the nation are nearing a fiscal cliff in 2023 as Covid-era relief packages expire. Click here to learn more.

Transit spending

If you’ve ever wanted to know what your state’s priorities are, take a look at the budget. That’s one of the first places we looked to assess state support for transit.

The 2021 infrastructure law increased federal transit spending, but in almost every case (with the exception of small agencies), these funds are not permitted to be used on operations, which means they don’t cover expenses like bus drivers’ salaries or bus maintenance. These expenses account for two-thirds of transit agencies’ total expenses, and without federal support, the burden of this funding can only realistically come from a few sources: state funding, local funding, and farebox revenue. The amount of state funding can have a major impact on the reach and quality of transit, especially in rural areas that don’t have as much local funding to supplement state dollars.

Click here to learn how transit spending on operations impacts local driving habits.

In the first graphic below, transit spending refers to each state’s total spending on public transportation in 2021—adjusted to per person rates to fairly compare states of varying size. We identified six bands of state transit spending per person:

Less than $12
$12.50-$25
$25-$50
$50-$100
$100-$200
More than $200

To see where your state lands, take a look at the figure below.

Map of state transit spending. For more information, see the text under "Transit spending." A table showing each state's spending will be available in our upcoming report, The Transit Report Card. — *Map depicting statewide spending on transit per capita (or per person) in each state in 2021. Map is not drawn to scale.*

While the map above shows each state’s most current spending levels (from 2021) on public transit, it’s not a full picture. Annual transit spending is also volatile, subject each year to the whims of state legislators, so these numbers from 2021 could look very different today. To get a stronger sense of long-term transit funding, we had to take a look at one of the frequent key sources—gas taxes.

State restrictions on gas tax revenue

Gas taxes are the taxes you pay every time you fill up a tank, and they’re the bedrock revenue stream for most states’ transportation systems. In fact, this is how we fund transit capital improvements nationally, by devoting a small share of the 18.4¢-per-gallon federal gas tax to a trust fund for transit. Yet in many states, it’s illegal to use state gas taxes for public transit.

Restrictions on gas tax revenue create a counterintuitive cycle, where all gas tax funding goes only toward building more roads, resulting in people having to drive more, which means more gas sold, which means more money spent on only new roads and no other travel options—leading to more driving and more spending. Without the reliable source of funding fuel taxes would provide, many transit agencies have had to rely on sales taxes, which are an incredibly volatile funding source subject to the swings of the economy. As a result, transit agencies can be forced to raise fares or cut service to stay afloat.

Gas tax restrictions can come from state statutes or state constitutions. Statutes are laws that can be written, passed, and repealed by state legislators. On the other hand, to repeal any law in a state constitution, an amendment needs to be passed. It is more difficult to pass a constitutional amendment than to repeal a statute.

In seven states, gas tax revenue is restricted by state statutes. Though these prohibitions can be a frustrating roadblock for advocates and transit agencies, they can be repealed. In the figure below, these states are shown in medium blue.

23 other states have a clause in their state constitution prohibiting gas tax revenue from being spent on public transit. Edit 2/23/2023: Three additional states (MI, OK, and CO) have partial restrictions on the majority of gas tax revenue being spent on transit. All of these states are shown in dark blue below. Though constitutional restrictions are much more difficult to overturn, advocates who see their states have these restrictions shouldn’t give up. In some cases, the language may be vague or flexible enough to leave room for transit to receive funding, even if the law hasn’t been interpreted that way in the past. For example, Colorado advocates were able to win transit support by making their fight about the way their gas tax law was interpreted.

States with no restrictions, like California, Virginia, South Carolina, and New York, are shown in light gray. These states allow gas tax revenue to be used for transit, which can serve as a lifeline in times of economic stress.

Map of gas tax revenue restrictions by state. For more information, see the text under "State restrictions on gas tax revenue." A table of each state's restrictions will be available in our upcoming report, The Transit Report Card. — *Map depicting restrictions on usage of motor fuel tax revenues in each state as of 2022. Map is not drawn to scale.* **Edit 2/23/2023:** A previous version of this map erroneously included Illinois, Wisconsin, Florida, Massachusetts, Vermont, and Louisiana as states with constitutional or statutory restrictions. These states have no restrictions.

The bottom line

State spending is a strong indicator of state priorities, and low spending (coupled with a lack of funding options) is a clear sign that transit service is not at the top of state legislators’ minds.

Across the country, the transit fiscal cliff is looming. To weather the storm, agencies require financial assistance, or they’ll be forced to cut valuable service. Now is the time to increase transit spending at the state level. States with statutory and constitutional restrictions on funding for transit will need to think critically about how well these restrictions are serving them and their residents.

Keep an eye out for our next post in this series, which will focus on transit access and driving levels in each state.

Once-in-a-generation opportunities in passenger rail—but the time to act is now

T4America works with partners all over the country to develop passenger rail service, and we’re telling them all the same thing: now is the time to act. We’ve never seen this amount of support for passenger rail from Congress and the Federal Railroad Administration, and federal funding is there. But there’s a procedure—with deadlines—to follow. Here’s how to take advantage in the year ahead.

*Amtrak Cascades at Mt. Vernon station. Photo via Flickr/Joe A. Kunzler Photo*

Legislative and administrative stars aligning

For decades, the development of a national passenger rail system has been low on the priority list for Congress. Who could blame them? So many of their districts are poorly served, and Amtrak focused almost exclusively on the Northeast Corridor and left the rest of the country out to dry. (Read more about the history of Amtrak and Congress here.)

In 2021, despite Amtrak’s lack of focus on the national system, Congress made leaps and bounds in their support for passenger rail by passing the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), which funded the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) and Amtrak at historic levels. The IIJA also re-oriented the mission of the national passenger rail system toward serving more communities, both urban and rural, across the country. In the past, Amtrak has been required to make a profit—unlike other modes of transportation—above all other goals, often to the detriment of its riders.

If Amtrak, states, interstate compacts, regional passenger rail authorities, and localities play their cards right, these historic funding levels coming from the FRA and the renewed national mandate for Amtrak can result in a much improved and expanded national network of passenger rail. The IIJA charted out a process for this expansion, which focuses infrastructure improvements to passenger rail corridors within interstate compacts. We have narrowed this process down to three steps, which we outline below.

Step 1: Corridors

The first and most immediate step in advancing passenger rail service across the country is the identification and development of passenger rail corridors. The IIJA created the Corridor Identification and Development Program (CIDP), which is designed to focus federal funding on key passenger rail corridors across the country. The term “corridor” refers to a stretch of rail right of way where applicants can build or improve station stops—as well as the rail infrastructure between them—to give more people access to the route.

Where will these corridors be built? The short answer is: we’ll have to wait and see. States, localities, interstate compacts, or other applicants will determine where they want to establish corridors based on many economic and social factors. But the possibilities are immense. FRA has challenged state and local leaders to, in their words, “dream big” with the CIDP. Governments from around the country have already expressed their interest in developing corridors, which Amtrak presented during a public board meeting in December (rendering of Amtrak’s map pictured below, with potential corridors in light blue).

*Recreation of map presented at Amtrak’s public board meeting (Source:* *Ryan C on Twitter*)

As an incentive to create official corridors, the FRA is offering successful applicants $500,000 in no-match federal funds to start planning their corridors. New corridors will also get preferential treatment during future federal grant applications. These incentives are what make applying to the CIDP a critical next step for the development of passenger rail service.

The CIDP is currently open, with applications due March 20.

Step 2: Infrastructure improvements

Officially recognized passenger rail compacts and corridors will be at the front of the line at FRA for funding opportunities. The IIJA greatly expanded the two main federal passenger rail infrastructure programs: the Federal-State Partnership for Intercity Passenger Rail Program (Partnership Program) and the Consolidated Rail Infrastructure and Safety Improvements (CRISI) Program. This should encourage regional, state, and local governments to apply, given that the possibility of receiving an award is higher than it ever has been.

The Partnership Program is live right now, with applications due on March 7.

These funding opportunities can be used to plan for, design, and construct grade crossing eliminations, stations and multimodal station areas, track improvements, and create capacity improvements (addressing bottlenecks). These improvements are all critical for the safety and viability of passenger rail service on new and expanded corridors. In addition to these infrastructure improvements, compacts and corridors will have priority in applying for operational support through programs like the Restoration and Enhancement (R&E) Program to begin to operate new or restored passenger rail service.

Step 3: Compacts

In order to solidify the gains made from forming corridors and funding infrastructure improvements, interested states should form interstate rail compacts. The IIJA created the Interstate Rail Compact Program (IRC) to help states work together to further the development of regional passenger rail networks across the country.

The IRC Program is seeking to build off the success of interstate rail compacts like the Southern Rail Commission (SRC), the oldest rail compact in the country. The SRC consists of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama and works to coordinate stakeholders in those three states to restore passenger rail service throughout the deep south. Watch this video to see the SRC’s work in action.

Through the IRC, the FRA is seeking to create 10 such compacts (SRC included) to serve 10 different regions across the country. During the formation process, the FRA will support these compacts in building coalitions of support, identifying opportunities for new or restored passenger rail service, and pursuing federal funding.

The IRC is likely to open later this year.

Support is fleeting

Congress is changing hands. Sam Graves, who has little to no track record on passenger rail, is the new chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. We expect Ted Cruz—an opponent of passenger rail—to run the Senate Commerce Committee if Republicans take the Senate next cycle.

This constant shuffle in Congress means that, at any moment, the programs generously funded by the IIJA could once again be defunded. So while the IRC and CIDP will be available in coming years, this year is the only guaranteed opportunity for full program funding and support from the FRA.

Local advocates have opportunities to get involved as well. Round up your state or regional passenger rail authority. If you’re looking to get long-distance service, find ways to participate in the FRA’s Amtrak Daily Long-Distance Service Study. If you want to see your community served by new or improved passenger rail corridors, now is the time to go out and get things moving.

Transit fiscal cliff or transit fiscal doom?

When ridership plummeted at the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, transit agencies across the country experienced substantial operating budget deficits. The federal government responded by rolling out multiple relief packages to help agencies make it through the worst of the pandemic. Now, in early 2023, funds are running out. We surveyed transit agencies nationwide to see where they stand as federal support dwindles.

*Baltimore Charm City Circulator. Photo via Flickr/Elvert Barnes Photography*

What is the transit fiscal cliff?

According to the American Public Transportation Association, in the five years leading up to the pandemic, ridership was slowly declining across a range of transit agencies. Even with relatively stable ridership, transit agencies were already struggling to make ends meet.

When the Covid-19 pandemic caused national lockdowns, ridership plummeted, causing revenues from fare collection to drop to almost zero. Without fare revenues, transit agencies no longer had the funding to cover their operating costs. And the federal government stepped in, rolling out three separate emergency relief packages, and incorporating increased support for transit agencies in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA). (Learn more about what the IIJA could accomplish for transit here.)

However, this funding alone was not enough. Ridership still hasn’t returned to pre-pandemic levels, and workforce shortages have only applied additional stress. Some local and state leaders also misinterpreted the new influx of federal cash as an opportunity to cut back on their own spending on transit, further delaying the recovery.

These combined stressors have created the transit fiscal cliff: the operating budget deficit expected at transit agencies across the country once their federal relief runs out. And for many transit agencies, the cliff is coming very soon—in some cases, as early as next year.

Above is a depiction of the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) operating budget outlook for Fiscal Year 2024. The area outlined in the red dashed line represents the budget deficit. This graph is just one example of the drop-off, or fiscal cliff, many transit agencies expect to experience when federal funds run out.

How bad is it?

The National Campaign for Transit Justice (NCTJ) and T4America conducted a sample survey to paint a picture of the fiscal health of transit agencies around the United States as they approach the two-year anniversary of the last emergency relief package. In an effort to hear from a representative sample, we contacted about 40 transit agencies across the country, operationally diverse in size, around the country.

Out of the agencies we contacted, we received 27 responses. Here’s what we found:

1. Urban ridership recovery lags behind rural ridership.

We started our analysis by separating agencies into groups based on geographic area. 5 survey participants serve rural populations, 19 participants serve urban populations, and 4 participants serve both rural and urban populations.

While there is a broad range, the majority of urban transit agencies report recovery levels lower than 75 percent of pre-pandemic levels. Rural agencies reported a range of ridership recovery as low as 60 percent and as high as 90 percent. Meanwhile, jurisdictions that serve both rural and urban populations hovered near the top, reporting ridership around 80 percent of pre-pandemic levels.

Increased workplace choice might explain the slow ridership recovery in urban areas. Workers who have greater workplace choice could have the option to work remotely and no longer rely on public transit to commute. We also found that urban riders are experiencing less reliable service due to workforce shortages. Service reliability is imperative to workers dependent on public transportation, and a lack of reliability could push riders to other travel options.

2. Most agencies are experiencing workforce shortages.

Since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, workforce shortages have been a major issue across sectors, including public transportation. We knew that the agencies participating in our study might be experiencing shortages, but we were unprepared for the prevalence of workforce issues.

Of our 27 participants, 24 continue to experience workforce shortages, starting when the pandemic began. Some agencies are short over 800 operators and maintenance workers who are vital for the day-to-day operation of transit agencies. As a result of the limited personnel, some agencies have had no choice but to cut service.

To address these shortages, agencies are working to incentivize workers to join their team. See this blog post for more information on their efforts.

3. Two-thirds of transit agencies predict budget deficits by 2025.

We separated participants into three groups based on their timelines for expected operating budgets. An overwhelming majority of transit agencies expect budget deficits with start dates rapidly approaching. Transit agencies began running out of funds as early as Fiscal Year 2022, and only 5 of our 27 participants didn’t project an operating budget deficit.

10 out of 27 projected deficits starting in Fiscal Year 2024, and an additional 10 projected deficits starting in Fiscal Year 2025. Only 3 transit agencies projected operating budget deficits starting in the Fiscal Year 2026 or later and expected funds to last long term without intervention.

4. Transit agencies are implementing unique tactics to address budget shortfalls.

Participants varied in how they plan to address their deficits. Seven participants plan to increase fare prices, five plan to cut services, three are discussing ballot measures to increase funding, and the remaining are looking at solutions unique to their situations. One agency is looking to change service hours to reflect new traffic patterns. Another is looking to create a coalition of local businesses and institutions to philanthropically support the transit system, which would help replace missing fares.

It’s clear that transit agencies know the fiscal cliff is coming, and they’re not turning a blind eye. To continue delivering the service communities need, these agencies are offering creative solutions, showing a steadfast commitment to the operation of public transportation.

Help transit succeed

The Stronger Communities Through Better Transit Act (H.R. 3744), sponsored by Congressman Hank Johnson of Georgia, would allocate $20 billion annually to transit agencies’ operating budgets for four years, starting in FY23. The additional federal funding would empower agencies to make significant improvements to transit service. This could mean providing additional service or developing services for underserved communities. You can show your support for this legislation by calling your congressional representatives.

In addition to calling for federal funding, you can contact your state legislators and tell them to support similar legislation at the state level. In some states, that may mean advocating for constitutional and statutory changes that would allow the state to provide funding support for transit and alternative modes of transportation.

Another way to advocate for transit is by getting involved with your local government meetings. Providing feedback for members of local government is an integral step in improving transit service.

For too long, transit agencies have struggled to provide necessary service to our communities. So that all Americans are able to take advantage of this valuable resource, transit agencies must be given the support they need to deliver quality, reliable service.

TRB: Transportation’s Really Broken

The Transportation Research Board’s Annual Meeting was held earlier this January in Washington, D.C. Despite claiming to be at the forefront of innovation, most of the conference avoided the truth: any system based primarily on moving cars as quickly as possible will leave many people behind.

Earlier this month, I attended portions of the Transportation Research Board’s (TRB) Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C. Across all the conversations, committee sessions, and social events, there was significant discussion of using technologies like modeling, automated vehicles, and intelligent transportation systems to solve the most pressing problems in transportation. The overriding ethos of many panels was that through technological innovation and computational analysis, we could address the increasing congestion, worsening traffic safety, and drop in transit ridership that all persist as we get farther from the darkest days of the COVID-19 pandemic.

This is how much of the transportation ecosystem—from engineers and planners to many private companies and public policymakers—has disconnected innovation from progress. Although many of the new technologies presented in and around D.C.’s convention center may be considered “advancements” by those who worked on them, they do not meaningfully advance one simple goal: to move people and goods where they need to go as quickly, efficiently, and safely as possible, with a variety of mobility options.

The many innovations discussed at TRB seemed far better ways to avoid confronting the truth—that a system that requires 90 percent of the population to own a private vehicle will never be an efficient system—than serious attempts to ensure our transportation system works better for all.

This did not apply to all of the conference’s participants. Students like Evan Taylor presented posters looking not just at vehicular traffic, but bicycle and pedestrian traffic as well. Organizations like the Parking Reform Network hosted happy hours where they discussed local efforts to improve affordability and efficiency through tweeks to transportation policy. I personally was able to have a great conversation with two planners from Montréal’s commuter railroad, one of whom was presenting on on-demand transit efforts they were undertaking. Perhaps most importantly, even federal government officials didn’t kowtow to automobile autocracy. In the conference’s keynote, panel on roadway safety, and the release of a national transportation decarbonization blueprint by DOT, HUD, EPA, and the Department of Energy, prioritizing cars above all else was described as the obstacle to addressing crises of safety and sustainability.

*A panel discussion by state DOT leaders on implementation of the 2021 infrastructure law at the TRB Annual Meeting.*

Part of the reason these points of view are exceptions to the rule are policy choices, many of which administration officials have limited wiggle room in implementing. The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act did increase funding for passenger rail and complete streets to historic levels. But at the same time, it allocated hundreds of millions of dollars to worsen the same sprawl, pollution, and safety problems that rail and active transportation investments are supposed to fix.

Policy isn’t created in a vacuum, though. If there’s any field where that’s true, it’s transportation, where a century of greed-oriented campaigning by the automobile industry and its allies has pushed protecting pedestrians from cars to the background. It has pushed transportation as a field to treat congestion writ large as an enemy, even though many industry professionals experienced the opposite at TRB. Congestion may not be pleasant coming home from the grocery store in a car, but in person it allows for the mingling in bars, impromptu run-ins in hallways and on street corners, and memorable nights at restaurants that give conferences, and cities more broadly, their value. In short, congestion can be a sign of inefficiency, but also of community. Whether it’s a crowded conference or a busy street, congestion can be a clear sign that we’ve created places where people want to be.

See a T4A comic showing why our solutions for congestion are worse than the problem.

TRB and many of its participants have gotten used to instinctively adding vehicle capacity onto every individual problem the transportation system has—and destroying countless communities in the process—instead of asking what tools can move more people, more safely without simultaneously decimating destinations where they gather.

That also means that this status quo isn’t predetermined. During a TransportationCamp session on fighting freeway expansions, one employee at a west coast transportation consultancy described how there are efforts at their firm to make reconnecting communities projects an established team in their organization. The Complete Streets policy passed by Howard County, Maryland, in 2019—which will be reviewed in Smart Growth America’s upcoming Best Complete Streets Policy Report—explicitly described slowing down car traffic as a net positive for the community at large.

At Transportation for America, our three principles are based on the idea that we already have all the tools we need to make sure our transportation system doesn’t divide communities, heat our planet, and kill our friends, family, and neighbors. We don’t need new technology, we don’t need to reinvent the wheel, we just need the will to better use the tools we have.

Repealing jaywalking laws to refocus on street design

Washington could be the next state to repeal jaywalking laws. While the repeal could address racial and social justice issues, the effort could also lead the conversation toward more just and safe street design.

*Photo by Steve Davis from Dangerous by Design 2022*

One of the intersections of transportation safety and social justice is how we structure our safety strategy with an emphasis on victim-blaming. American transportation planners and engineers have built roadways that mix high-speed traffic with turning vehicles and people walking and biking, killing thousands of people every year. Meanwhile, collision reports focus on whether the person killed while walking or biking was wearing reflective clothing or a helmet, and police clamp down hard on people “jaywalking” without paying significant attention to street design.

Kansas City and several states (Virginia, Nevada, and California) have taken steps to decriminalize jaywalking, and this year advocates in Washington State are ramping up to follow suit. A coalition of groups called “Free to Walk Washington” has worked with the state legislature to get companion bills introduced in both the house and senate in-effect repealing state and local jaywalking laws across the state.

While safe street design is the primary way to improve transportation safety, jaywalking laws couldn’t hurt, right? Wrong. It turns out that jaywalking laws are problematic in a few ways. Besides being ineffective at improving safety, jaywalking laws are frequently enforced disproportionately on Black and brown people, in some cases leading to well-known stories of violence. In Seattle, more than one quarter of jaywalking citations (2010-2016) went to Black pedestrians who make up only 7 percent of the population. And with government budgets stretched thin, enforcing jaywalking laws is an inefficient use of limited police resources.

In a press release announcing introduction of the senate bill, the bill’s sponsor Senator Rebecca Saldaña said, “While jaywalking laws may appear well-intended, they don’t actually keep pedestrians safe and may instead put them at risk. National data shows that jaywalking laws are disproportionately enforced against Black people and in neighborhoods lacking infrastructure and resources. Our streets and right of ways need to have the safety of all users built into the infrastructure.”

The first three states to decriminalize jaywalking have each taken slightly different approaches. Virginia’s law prohibits police from stopping someone just for jaywalking. Nevada’s law reduced the severity of a jaywalking infraction, making it no longer a misdemeanor. California’s law allows pedestrians to cross the street at places other than an intersection as long as it is safe to do so. Washington’s law as currently proposed would go much further, essentially making walking across the street legal in the vast majority of situations, as long as it is safe to do so, and preempting local jaywalking laws.

The concept of jaywalking was originally advanced by automobile manufacturers in the 1920s to shift the responsibility for safety on city streets from the automobile driver to the pedestrian, thus carving out street space for motorists to drive at higher speeds on city streets. Since then, jaywalking laws have become ubiquitous until the last few years.

Unfortunately, the injustice wrought by jaywalking laws is compounded by the injustice of thousands killed while walking. Smart Growth America’s 2022 Dangerous by Design report found that people of color, and particularly Native and Black Americans, are far more likely to die while walking on America’s dangerous streets.

Planners and engineers need to design streets for people first. That means designs that compel people to drive more slowly since the risk of killing a pedestrian drops significantly as speed drops. Narrow lanes, frequent intersections, and edge features like street trees and bollards tend to cause drivers to go slower. Protected sidewalks, and crosswalks in the places where pedestrians want to cross (at bus stops, for example) create safe space for people walking or rolling.

What final form the Washington law takes and whether it passes remains to be seen. We’ll be watching to see what happens in this state and others. And most importantly, we’ll be watching to see if all of these states can rethink the dangerous high-speed street designs that kill so many.

Sparking Progress: A new report on our electric future

The federal government provided billions of dollars to make transportation cleaner and greener. But to reduce emissions, we need to do more than spend money on the same tired solutions. A new report from the Coalition Helping America Rebuild and Go Electric (CHARGE) explains how federal investments can advance equity and clean energy goals.

*A King County Metro bus charges at the Transit South Base charging facility. Flickr/Seattle Department of Transportation*

To avoid the most harmful impacts of climate change, the time to reduce emissions is now. And when it comes to transportation (the largest contributor to U.S. greenhouse gas emissions), policymakers have an opportunity to make significant progress. After all, two massive infusions of federal cash have provided states with a wealth of resources to advance their emissions goals.

President Biden’s Justice40 Initiative pledges at least 40 percent of the overall benefits of federal clean energy investments to underserved communities. The $1.2 trillion infrastructure law and $500 billion Inflation Reduction Act can both support a more equitable, cleaner, healthier, and more affordable transportation future. However, conventional methods of reducing transportation emissions—namely, incentivizing the production and purchase of private electric vehicles—are insufficient to meet our nation’s goals and would likely leave Justice40 communities behind. Find out why investing in electric vehicles alone won’t advance equity.

As a new report from the CHARGE Coalition explains, there’s a better approach—one that will not only reduce emissions but ensure that the benefits of pollution-free transportation will improve the health and economic well-being of a large number of people. Federal policy and investment can help move the needle by prioritizing three key areas.

1. Public transit

Transit is a longstanding, low-emissions travel option that has suffered across the country due to a lack of investment. Increasing public transit investments into operations, e-fleets, reliability, maintenance facilities, and workforce development will also boost the number of trips people take outside of a private vehicle—lowering emissions.

See how investing in transit operations can reduce private vehicle trips and lower emissions.

2. Electric vehicle charging infrastructure

Garage access shouldn’t be a prerequisite to electric vehicle access. Decision makers can ensure our emerging charging network is developed to be seamless and efficient, supports all types of mobility, is located strategically, and effectively serves people in multi-unit dwellings as well as stand-alone houses, as well as car-share, rental and business fleets.

Learn more about what smart EV infrastructure could look like.

3. Medium- and heavy-duty vehicles

The report also looks at opportunities to spur the conversion of our most polluting vehicles to zero emissions, reducing carbon while sparing the health of all Americans, especially for low-income and communities of color that are disproportionately harmed by air pollution from diesel-powered vehicles.

Click here to read the report.

Case studies throughout the report offer examples of initiatives deserving of federal support and that can serve as national models to meet the needs in the above three areas. The report also includes additional topics to consider in electrifying our transportation system, including the rise of micromobility—e-bikes, scooters, and myriad other battery-powered devices—and the need to make significant investments in our electric grid.

The report recommendations are defined through the Coalition Helping America Rebuild and Go Electric (CHARGE) coalition’s principles, which were developed in partnership with 50 of the most influential clean transportation stakeholder groups in the country. Learn more about CHARGE here.

Looking back on a rich day of learning at TransportationCamp 2023

Just before the start of the 102nd annual (and massive) Transportation Research Board meeting in downtown DC, more than 300 passionate and knowledgeable transportation pros and advocates gathered on the other side of the river in Virginia (with over 100 more tuning in online) for an incredible day of spontaneous learning. Here’s a few things we learned or heard.

people looking at board to the right of image where session proposals are tacked to wall

Transportation Camp is always a leap of faith—both for us on the organizing side, and for every single person who shows up early on a Saturday morning. Because the agenda is created by participants, other than a keynote speaker and a panel discussion, there’s no real guarantee there will be anything more. But year after year, an incredible group of people meet up, propose a surprising range of sessions and topics, and everyone’s faith is rewarded. This year was no different.

TransportationCamp is truly a “you had to be there!” sort of experience, but here are five things that we took away from another great event this year:

1) Power is in the people, and the level of participation is truly impressive—down to the youngest Camper

For those who have never attended, the day always begins with breakfast and a giant empty wall for session proposals. Any Camper can propose one, and the proposals truly span the range from someone presenting on complex academic research down to “I have an idea I want to discuss.” Just as impressive as this wall being quickly filled up with session proposals is the fact that somewhere in the range of 20 percent of all participants propose a session. We had somewhere in the range of 65+ sessions proposed. With 50 available slots (10 rooms and 5 periods), we combined a few similar proposals and only had to leave a few out entirely as we finalized the “big board” schedule for the day.

As a parent of three kids who bike and transit in the city, my personal highlight was a session proposal by an eight-year-old (!!) about making it safer and more convenient for kids to bike. (She was attending with her parents who run a transportation startup, itselectric, but it was her idea!) After a wide ranging discussion with the 15-20 people who showed up, she assembled the group’s final recommendations on a whiteboard:

2) This year’s hybrid format provided an expanded way to participate

Covid hasn’t just disrupted travel and commuting patterns (a session topic this year, of course!) So our hybrid format allowed people to participate who couldn’t be physically present. The keynote and the panel discussion were live streamed, allowing everyone to participate together. And then we had a handful of sessions that were virtual only—including a look at predatory microtransit (from a labor angle) and the unique challenges of making the case for active transportation in rural areas—and a few in-person sessions were repeated for the virtual-only audience during the breakout periods.

It can be nerve-wracking to submit a virtual session without cues from other Campers to help you form ideas and a plan. Even more so when you, like in-person Campers, have very limited time to put the finishing touches on a presentation! But our virtual attendees delivered, and some even took to Slack to share their reflections, notes, and presentation materials between sessions with both in-person and virtual attendees.

3) Have an appetite for something different? This is a great place to find “your people”

Students, activists, professionals, advocates, nerds, planners…for anyone who thinks our overall approach to transportation wastes our money, fails to connect people to jobs and opportunity, puts people in danger, and produces inequitable outcomes, TransportationCamp is a great place to find your crew. While we love participating in TRB during the week that follows, you never know if you’re striking up a conversation with someone who thinks the status quo is just fine. There’s always some investigation required, you know?

a smiling face on a woman talking to someone around a round table

TCamp is what it is because most participants share some core values about overhauling our approach to transportation spending and policy from the federal level down to every local street. This like-mindedness, while certainly still spanning a range of different perspectives, makes both the sessions and the endless side conversations so rich and rewarding. There’s an element of trust between participants that makes it easy to have challenging conversations and disagreements, and that’s not always easy to find.

a wide shot of a full room of people around round tables eating lunch and talking

While TRB largely requires deeply researched presentations or papers to get onto the agenda (a model which has its place), the informality and inherently collaborative environment of TCamp allows presentations on issues that don’t easily come up at other events, or which are really about just teeing up a good, open-ended discussion with engaged, interesting people.

4) Speaking of side conversations, they go on all day (and night)

It was an uphill battle trying to coax participants out of the large multipurpose room and into the first sessions of the day. After an hour or two of meeting and networking with other attendees in the large room, a huge number of people just didn’t want to stop. Keynote speaker Shabazz Stuart kicked off the day talking at length about how much of the entrepreneurship in transportation has failed because venture capital has demanded short term profits over long term sustainability. All day long after that, I periodically saw him talking to two or three people at a time who were constantly approaching him to chat.

wide shot of 12 people in room listening to someone speak up front

And thanks to our platinum sponsor Inrix, when Camp formally ended, a huge share of the attendees took the Metro eastward into the District for our first ever TCamp reception, continuing those conversations deep into the night, with occasional breaks for photos. Speaking of, meet (some of) our Smart Growth America and T4America staff!

5) Some of the longest lasting impacts are invisible—for now

What important connections were made at TCamp? Who will end up in a new job as a result of someone they met this year? Who had a germ of an idea turn into something that will be a tangible project on the ground this year or next? What research was proposed that will turn into a paper or report to fuel some good advocacy somewhere? Who had their perspective changed in a way that will impact a local issue where they live? There are always a few stories like these we hear from time to time.

a woman talking in a small group around a table

As just one example, we realized this year we were introduced to Ben Holland from the Rocky Mountain Institute at a TransportationCamp, which ultimately led to our work together to produce and release the SHIFT Calculator to quantify the impacts of induced demand from new highway expansions. Other Campers will surely have similar stories down the road. That’s the kind of collaboration that so often springs out of Camp.

One last thank you to the army of volunteers who showed up early on Saturday to help organize things and keep the day running smoothly. We couldn’t have done it without you.

And TransportationCamp would literally not happen with the hundreds of people who show up and propose and attend sessions. We thank you for coming out and hope to see you again!

And one last time, a big thank you to our sponsors INRIX, Uber, Lyft, Hayden AI, WGI, and itselectric, as well as our partners the Parking Reform Network, Greater Greater Washington, the Coalition for Smarter Growth, and Young Professionals in Transportation, for being a part of this terrific event and making TransportationCamp possible.

The incoming Congress still has plenty of transportation work to do

As the sun sets on the 117th Congress with the bipartisan infrastructure law under their belts, it is up to the 118th Congress to deliver meaningful oversight and leadership on implementing those funds and guide the future of America’s transportation system.

Legislators like Rep. Peter DeFazio (in focus) retired in 2023, turning leadership over to other members of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. Source: Flickr/Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure Democrats

What did the 117th Congress accomplish?

When it comes to transportation policy, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) and the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) collectively authorize nearly $700 billion in programs that directly touch America’s transportation industry or play a supporting role.

The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act

The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, known as the IIJA or 2021 infrastructure law, provides around $643 billion in new federal funding for a wide range of surface transportation infrastructure projects. (Get everything you need to know on this law here.) Congressional appropriators now decide (each year) how much of the law’s annual funding is allocated to its programs. While parts of the funding are virtually guaranteed by statutory formulas, legislators have some discretion and congressional appropriators are already maintaining the status quo at the expense of needed change.

For example, while the highway formula program received nearly all of its funding commitment (97 percent of the funds promised by the IIJA), other vital programs did not. The Active Transportation Infrastructure investment program would fund pedestrian sidewalks and cycling infrastructure, providing more choices in transportation, but it received $0 of the $200 million committed in the IIJA in fiscal year 2022 (FY22) and only $45 million funded in fiscal year 2023 (FY23). The Amtrak Northeast Corridor also received only 80 percent of what IIJA committed, while the national passenger rail network received only 66 percent of its expected funds.

While it’s good news that transit formula funds were at nearly 100 percent of the IIJA funding commitment, overall transit funding is still too low to keep up with the extensive transit repair backlog or the operational cost needed to fund America’s transit system.

The Inflation Reduction Act

The IRA’s primary focus is on economic investment and innovation in reducing America’s carbon emissions, focusing on electric vehicles, buses, and other freight trucks. Electrifying our many different vehicle fleets is necessary, but this is not a sufficient step to curb our emissions without other investments in transit and changes to the transportation network overall. (Don’t miss the new report on that very topic from the CHARGE Coalition, of which T4America is a core member.) In this regard, the 117th Congress has failed to ensure a secure and efficient future for American transportation. The IRA’s goals for electrification will only be attainable if other policies are tapped to produce fewer and shorter vehicle trips, and fewer cars on the roads overall due to improved alternative modes of transportation.

However, the IRA also codified the $3 billion Neighborhood Access and Equity Program, which can be used to cover highways or convert them into boulevards, add bike lanes or sound barriers, provide better connections to transit, build green stormwater infrastructure, and make roadway safety improvements. These programs build on the momentum of past projects that have reconnected communities, like this one in Milwaukee.

Click here to learn more about the IRA.

Transportation work is not over for Congress — far from it

While we now have a long-term authorization in place that shapes the broad contours of funding and policy, the members of the 118th Congress do not have the luxury of checking out on transportation. They have ample opportunities to build upon the previous Congress’s successes—and even improve upon their work and make up for past mistakes. Here’s where they can start:

Even in a divided and polarized House, there could still be opportunities to work together

The 118th Congress was sworn in on January, 7th, 2023 after a slight delay, as House Republicans struggled to cooperate to elect a new Speaker. However, in the compromise to elect Speaker McCarthy, a new House rule was adopted that will allow representatives to debate bills on the House floor before being called to a vote.

Given the realities of the slim majority Republicans possess in the House (eight seats, five of which are held by far-right representatives) analysts believe this rule could provide opportunities for moderate Republicans to reach across the aisle and work with Democrats on key transportation legislation and IIJA appropriations, which will continue to be debated year after year during the IIJA’s five-year lifespan. What gets 100 percent of the funding spelled out in the IIJA, and what gets a reduced share? Congress will decide.

Set better goals, measure progress

Congressional oversight is one of their most important responsibilities. To pass bipartisan legislation, Congress should strive for goal-oriented oversight. For example, the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure has an important role as a watchdog, and should be regularly asking whether or not this historic infusion of infrastructure funding is actually producing what was promised by their predecessors when it comes to the state of good repair, improving access and mobility, and other goals. Legislators (and the president) made hefty promises what this funding would accomplish, and this Congress should be asking hard questions about where the money is going.

They should also clearly define the transportation problems facing Americans, clearly restate the implementation goals of the federal transportation program, and investigate solutions supported by the programs in the IIJA and IRA. One smart way for Congress to accomplish this is through fact-finding oversight hearings. Fact-finding hearings feature one or more panels of witnesses who are selected for their expertise or their representation of a particular group. Developing goal-oriented policy in this manner could cultivate a collaborative atmosphere in Congress as they pass appropriations during these next two years of the IIJA’s funding lifespan.

Take advantage of new opportunities

A proposal from Congressman Hank Johnson focuses on allocating funds to the operational budgets of transit systems to improve services and boost ridership. $20 billion provided annually over four years would provide more frequent service on bus and rail lines and prioritize improving service in areas where it is currently subpar, in disadvantaged communities, and in areas of persistent poverty. Funding under this bill would make “substantial improvements to transit service” working towards a more equitable America.

Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) funding is set to expire in FY23 and should be low-hanging fruit for bipartisan action. While T4America focuses specifically on surface transportation, FAA authorization does present opportunities to integrate America’s airports with their surrounding urban transit, active transportation, and intercity passenger rail systems and leverage other funding provided through the IIJA.

The bottom line

The next two years of this new Congress will help determine whether or not the historic funds in the IIJA and the IRA result in changes to our deeply embedded car-centric transportation network.

The ability to capitalize on this moment of inflection depends on the House and Senate’s ability to collaborate and pass bipartisan legislation to meet the needs of the American people. Over the next two years, Congress should work together to increase funding for projects that advance mobility choice (i.e. rail, transit, and active transportation) while also addressing important issues of safety, equity, and reducing emissions.

How DC’s local transportation trends emerged within TransportationCamp DC

Shabazz Stewart giving keynote on stage at transportation camp with audience in foreground

Last Saturday, we hosted more than 300 people for TransportationCamp DC at George Mason University’s Arlington campus. This “unconference” lends attendees the mic to discuss their transportation passions, ideas, and concerns with other advocates and experts. TCamps are also products of their local context, so here’s a quick glance at some of the issues that emerged—through that specific local lens.

Shabazz Stuart, CEO of Oonee, delivers the keynote address on civic entrepreneurship at TransportationCamp DC.

Transit

On December 6, the DC Council made national headlines by voting to advance the Metro for DC bill, which would make all WMATA bus rides in the District free and improve those rides by investing $10 million in service and reliability. The bill also left open the possibility to provide all DC residents with $100 a month to ride MetroRail, the fate of which will be decided in 2024 budget talks next year. (DC Mayor Muriel Bowser is not yet supportive of the plan.)

Expert opinions are mixed on the matter and the debate even made its way to an August episode of Freakonomics. Yonah Freemark put out a great Twitter thread on the matter as well.

Meanwhile, transit agencies across the country continue to struggle to recover from the pandemic and find new ways to get things done. As we head into 2023, concerns about transit delay, access, and operations are still at the front of many riders’ and agencies’ minds.

How it came up at Camp:

Layers of transit delay
What can we learn from unlimited tickets and fare capping?
Making transit the default
Measuring transit safety
Using cell data in transit planning and operations
Incentivizing local orgs to buy transit passes
Small transit tech success

Road safety and Vision Zero

On October 27, DC Mayor Muriel Bowser released an update to the District’s Vision Zero plan, the city’s pledge to eliminate all traffic deaths. The update serves as a tacit admission by the city that its original 2015 plan failed to reduce traffic deaths, which have been steadily increasing. The plan also focuses on the impact of traffic violence on more vulnerable and diverse communities, particularly east of the Anacostia River in Wards 7 and 8, which also have some of the lowest rates of car ownership in the city. As traffic deaths rise across the country, DC’s focus aligns with the majority of evidence that points to changing road designs to slow vehicle speeds as the most effective (and unused) strategy for reducing traffic deaths.

How it came up at Camp:

A panel discussion on data and safety, from TCamp platinum sponsor INRIX.
Let’s rethink enforcement
How can we best protect/support nondrivers?
Why do Complete Streets projects fall apart in the preliminary engineering phase?
Colorado needs advice — how to tackle reducing transportation emissions
Streets, roads, and stroads

Advocacy and reducing emissions

With a new federal rule on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, new tax incentives for electric vehicles (EVs), a burgeoning plan (and funding) for building out the national rail network, and funds for transit to reduce emissions, it’s no wonder that emissions and EVs are on many people’s minds as we head into 2023.

Advocates continue to mobilize around issues of climate justice and public health, and TransportationCamp is an excellent place for these advocates to expand their circles, offer each other support, and learn new ways to advance their goals.

How it came up at Camp:

Power collab: BIPOC and disabled activists fight for climate mobility
The national passenger rail landscape (a joint session with T4America staff and Amtrak presenting together)
Moving single-passenger gas-powered vehicles to EV
Beyond EVs
Ask your doctor if hydrogen is right for you
Power from the people!!

five panelists on stage discussing data in front of big screens
Our panel discussion on data, organized by our platinum sponsor INRIX.

Closing divides and connecting communities

On October 25, the Montgomery Council approved the county’s new General Plan, entitled Thrive Montgomery 2050. (Montgomery County borders the District of Columbia to the immediate northwest.) This vote came after years of planning, political battles, and protests, largely over the plans to build new and denser housing. But now that the plan has passed, the county will look to implement it by building more walkable communities through denser land use, better transit service, and more bicycle facilities. While the implementation process will take years, the passage of Thrive Montgomery 2050 is a major step forward, and gives local advocates a platform to fight for a smarter county-wide transportation system.

The county has also been the site of a contentious battle over the plan to expand Interstate 270, a priority of Maryland’s former Governor Larry Hogan. Montgomery County Executive Marc Elrich has long opposed the plan and nearly succeeded in killing it in 2021 when he got the Washington Council of Government’s Transportation Planning Board to remove the project from its plans, jeopardizing the ability of the project to gain federal approval. But the Board reversed their decision only five days later, after Hogan acquiesced to including bus priority lanes in the project. On August 25, 2022, the Federal Highway Administration finally approved the project, but the project’s ultimate fate rests with Maryland’s new Governor, Wes Moore, whose opinion on the project is not yet clear.

Montgomery County advocates are fighting hard for land use and transportation decisions to better serve people, but are up against powerful interests that want to continue the same failing approach to address mobility and congestion through incredibly expensive highway investments alone. Advocates across the country can learn lessons from the way local officials leveraged the environmental review process and the importance of supportive statewide leadership, though the final verdict also isn’t in yet.

How it came up at Camp:

Calling all Community Connectors!: A discussion on the resources needed to oppose divisive infrastructure
Let’s all get on the same page about why highway expansion is idiotic
It’s time to move from mobility to access
Procedural bike planning
How to make cities bike-friendly for kids (led by an eight-year-old!)
Gender & transportation

Lastly, for much more on the local DC angle, please turn to our two DC-area Community Sponsors of Transportation Camp DC: Greater Greater Washington organized a heavily attended session all about what’s happening in the DC region on these issues and how to get involved, and longtime Smart Growth America member Coalition for Smarter Growth is the go-to source for advocacy in the greater DC region.

We’ll have some more thoughts and reflections about the incredible day that was Transportation Camp here soon. But we want to say an immense thank you to the 300-plus participants who showed up (about 20 percent of whom proposed or led a session!), our many virtual participants who joined us online, and our incredible sponsors who made it all possible and also kept the costs minimal for participants.

Thanks to our Transportation Camp DC 2023 sponsors!

Continue the conversation in February at the virtual Equity Summit!

Want to keep talking? Join us at the Smart Growth America Equity Summit from February 7-9 for more discussion on the transportation topics that are most important this year. During this three-day virtual event, presenters will discuss keeping equity at the forefront of every smart growth approach—and February 8th focuses entirely on transportation. Join us for a day packed with conversation around reconnecting communities. Learn more and buy your ticket today.

Doing justice to Justice40

USDOT has finally added more substance to their plan to implement the Biden administration’s Justice40 Initiative. Despite some questions about how many programs can meet Biden’s goal of spending 40 percent on disadvantaged communities, the projects and programs they’ve moved toward Justice40 suggest a real effort to improve equity.

Back in May, we wrote about Executive Order 14008, signed by President Biden a week after his inauguration to establish an initiative known as Justice40. This is the administration’s effort to fulfill Biden’s campaign promise to direct “at least 40 percent of the overall benefits from federal investments in climate and clean energy to disadvantaged communities.”

At the time, we identified two main concerns with Justice40’s upcoming implementation. First, because over two-thirds of the money that USDOT distributes is through formula funds, we were worried that USDOT didn’t actually have the ability to direct 40 percent of its investments to disadvantaged communities. Second, we were concerned whether the concentration would actually help those communities, especially given what happened the last time the federal government concentrated transportation spending within marginalized communities.

Now, based on information that USDOT has released shedding light on their plan to implement this policy, as well as a webinar the agency conducted on November 17, 2022, we have a much clearer picture of how much money will be subject to Justice40 and what projects it may be used to fund.

One word worth tens of billions of dollars

USDOT stated in its webinar that it plans to apply Justice40 to approximately $204 billion of funding, which is slightly more than the sum total of its discretionary funding as authorized in the 2021 infrastructure law (the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act or IIJA). However, based on the list of covered programs, over one-fifth of that is formula funds over which the agency has questionable control.

For example, the Carbon Reduction Program and National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) Formula Program together have just over $11 billion authorized by the IIJA. Both of these programs require states to detail how they plan to spend these funds before receiving them. If USDOT wants Justice40 to apply to these programs in more than name only, it could threaten to withhold funds from states with inadequate plans. However, this muscular implementation strategy would result in substantial political backlash and possible legal challenge.

Similarly, the Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality (CMAQ) Improvement Program has some statutorily-required set-asides that the IIJA also mandates benefit “disadvantaged communities or low-income communities.” However, this set-aside is significantly less than 40 percent of the program’s total funds. This calls into question whether the department will actually be able to apply Justice40 to this and other less-prescriptive formula programs.

These discrepancies extend to the whole Justice40 umbrella. The 39 programs seem to be authorized at $20 billion less than the agency claimed in its webinar. By either estimate—ours or USDOT’s—the department’s Justice40 targets are tens of billions of dollars below 40 percent of surface transportation spending. This may explain why the department’s language defining Justice40 in its webinar changed to “that at least 40 percent of certain federal investments flow to disadvantaged communities” (emphasis ours).

Some of the right funds in most of the right places

Thankfully, how the money going to Justice40 communities is being spent is much more promising. This starts with defining the disadvantages a community must face to identify as a Justice40 community. The agency focuses on six criteria—transportation, health, environment, economic, resilience, and equity—to inform these decisions.

Within transportation, the focus will be on addressing transportation access, health, environmental, economic, resilience, and equity disadvantages. Overall, this is an excellent set of priorities. The one thing worth watching is how one criterion within transportation access disadvantage is interpreted: percent of total population with a drive time to employment greater than or equal to 30 minutes.

First of all, a 30-45 minute commute is pretty standard and not generally seen as a disadvantage. Second, the only mode with a time focus is driving, while transit trips tend to be much longer creating a much bigger disadvantage to those impacted. And finally, this kind of measure has typically been used to justify the same old highway expansions that are at least as likely to create problems for disadvantaged populations. It is just one factor of many, but this is one area where the administration could improve and lead the way in modernization by using a multimodal access measure.

Thankfully, the other five criteria of disadvantage more than make up for this. Access to jobs and services, as opposed to travel time, is mentioned in both the health and economic categories. The environment criterion focuses on “pollutants and poisons,” and equity criterion highlights shared communal discrimination and oppression, much of which can be tied directly to highway infrastructure. Together, these criteria imply that Justice40 funds will go to the right places.

USDOT also considers benefits and burdens beyond just dollars and cents in its five impact areas: safety, jobs and economic competitiveness, resilience, access, and emissions. In both safety and emissions, increased speeds and traffic volumes are identified as burdens. Reducing congestion and improving traffic flow are even listed as ways to introduce these burdens. In at least one part of USDOT, it seems that the 1970s-induced fear of idling’s impact is finally in the rearview mirror.

The jobs and economic competitiveness category speaks to the focus on increasing the vitality of communities, even linking air quality to economic competitiveness. By even mentioning access, but expressly describing division of a community as a burden, the agency’s entire effort to implement Justice40 is imbued with the spirit of the new Reconnecting Communities Program.

Still, there are places to improve. Construction impacts are described as a burden without discussing different types of construction impacts. Building improvements for transit or active transportation is disruptive, but they are temporary compared to the permanent disruption of many highway projects. In addition, the resilience category rightly mentions judging a project’s ability to withstand an accelerating climate crisis. But, adjudicating whether an individual project would help speed up said climate crisis—such as by entrenching emissions-intensive modes of transportation—could ensure that Justice40 doesn’t fund projects that sow the seeds of other projects’ destruction. Furthermore, these drawbacks don’t change that USDOT conceives of benefits to communities as more than lines in their local and state DOTs’ balance sheets.

But the agency also seems set to ensure that they are actually able to deliver said benefits. Whether or not they control all of the funds they claim to, the programs they apply to Justice40 are overwhelmingly climate-friendly and community-connecting. Nearly one-fourth of the funds the agency will apply the initiative to are for rail programs. The covered Federal Highway Administration programs aren’t ones that easily allow for building more lanes: CMAQ is explicitly dedicated to VMT reduction and the Congestion Relief Program has many eligible applications that will be looked upon favorably given the agency’s definition of benefits and burdens. Especially important is the $30 billion under the purview of the Federal Transit Administration, given the disproportionate reliance of historically underinvested-in communities on transit. Choosing programs like these means the investments being made in Justice40 communities will be good for equitable access to economic opportunity, public health, the climate, and quality of life.

Infrastructure Week becomes implementation years

According to the agency’s website, these targeted infusions of resources are “not a one-time investment.” Making information about grant programs more accessible and creating tools developed to help communities bolster their applications to these programs are two efforts that reflect this desire to lower administrative burdens far beyond the end of a Biden administration.

Justice40’s long-term impact will be most greatly influenced by state capacity. For decades, planning capacity in the United States has slowly atrophied, like soil during a drought, with significant repercussions. This means that when Congress rains new resources down as it has with the IIJA, DOTs are unable to take full advantage of it. This can be seen even at the federal level: methodical steps taken by staff since the very week the initiative was announced still haven’t covered new formula programs like the Carbon Reduction Program, about a fifth of authorizations.

Fully implementing this initiative was always going to take years, and USDOT’s webinar acknowledged that transportation policy will continue past the IIJA, detailing ways that states and MPOs can include Justice40 principles in their longer-term plans. When combined with the types of projects that will likely be delivered, this has the potential to make the initiative transformational for U.S. transportation policy. However, whether it is a one-time investment, whether resources make it from the balance sheets to the streets—whether Justice40 becomes runoff or soaks deep enough to change how communities across the country move through their day-to-day lives—depends on each state’s capacity and commitment to the goals of the initiative.

The long fight for connectivity in Milwaukee

Successfully halting construction on the Park East Freeway in Milwaukee in 1977 was a major early win for advocates. But removing highways is more complicated. Milwaukee confronted that problem in the late 1990s and early 2000s when they attempted to remove the portion that had been built—a story which can serve as a model for other highway removal efforts.

*Google Maps street view of a section of North Water Street within the Park East Corridor*

Freeways built over communities

In 1966, officials in southeast Wisconsin had penned the quickly growing area’s first comprehensive regional transportation plan, which called for 16 freeway routes in the seven-county region. Many of those (pictured below) would cut through the city itself, destroying thousands of homes and businesses. The plan was created to rearrange Milwaukee’s transportation system around the growing suburban sprawl of the 1940s and 1950s, with a priority on creating ways for suburban residents to quickly drive into and through the city. The needs of city residents in the neighborhoods those people would pass through were never the prime consideration, if their needs were considered at all.

*The Southeast Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission’s 1966 plan for downtown freeway development. The Park East Freeway is the top east-west connection on this map. (Source:* *City of Milwaukee*)

Some Milwaukeeans quickly grew concerned and frustrated over the destruction of thousands of homes, businesses, and parks as the first sections of the region’s freeways were built. One of the most destructive new freeway projects was the Park East Freeway. Black communities, most notably the thriving community of Bronzeville, faced the brunt of the damage and many were largely leveled to pave way for freeway construction. The Park East Freeway destroyed nearly all of what was a thriving community in Bronzeville, which once surrounded Walnut Street west of the Milwaukee River. Other freeways repeated this process across the city.

The staunch opposition of Black Milwaukeeans was ignored by the city and the Southeast Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission (SWRPC), which jointly completed the first section of the Park East Freeway in 1969 — the east/west segment marked in green and gray on the graphic above. As with many other cities, the tide in the fight against freeway construction would turn only when interstates were proposed to be built in whiter, more privileged neighborhoods.

Residents fight to halt construction

In the early 1970s, residents in nearby, primarily white neighborhoods like Sherman Park and Bay View in north Milwaukee organized citizens’ associations to formally resist construction of the Park East Freeway through their communities. These newly formed groups, which had significant resources at their disposal, turned to the legal system to fight the freeways.

Their legal challenges were enabled by a new law that radically changed the highway construction process. Congress had just passed the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA), which required all construction projects utilizing federal funding to conduct environmental impact studies that measured projects’ impacts on the environment, which included tangible impacts to people in the community. Armed with new NEPA regulations, those wealthy Milwaukee residents were able to not only halt the construction of the Park East Freeway, but successfully got the SWRPC to institute a ten-year moratorium on all new freeway construction in the region.

This seemed like a major win, but the fight was far from over. Much of the Park East Freeway and other freeways had already been built, crisscrossing the Milwaukee region with damaging road infrastructure that disconnected scores of communities.

By the time the courts and the SWRPC had halted construction on the Park East, city, regional, and state agencies had already displaced thousands of residents, torn down thousands of homes, and laid miles of asphalt. What was left of the Park East Freeway—a spur of a half-completed highway (pictured below)—remained a gaping hole in the middle of several neighborhoods in north Milwaukee, dividing the people that lived there from neighbors, jobs, and essential services. Repairing these holes would prove to be a greater challenge than halting construction had been.

Removing the Park East Freeway

*The former Park East Freeway (Source:* *City of Milwaukee*)

The one-mile spur of the Park East Freeway from I-43 to North Milwaukee Street destroyed or disconnected 17,300 homes and as many as 1,000 businesses. Only a few decades later, the underutilized and expensive freeway would become a clear candidate for removal.

For decades, the area around the Park East Freeway languished in underdevelopment, devoid of essential services or transportation facilities designed to serve the needs of people living in the area. Developers refused to build anything but surface parking on land adjacent to the freeway, not because parking was in high demand but because other uses were a tough sell right next to the highway. But in 1991, one developer finally took a chance on the area. Mandel Group built a remarkably successful development of luxury apartments and condominiums, selling homes for as much as $500,000.

The success of this newly created real estate company—and the buzz of nearby redevelopment activity that followed—caught the attention of Milwaukee’s new mayor, John Norquist. He had been elected to the Wisconsin State Assembly on an anti-freeway platform during the height of Milwaukee’s freeway legal battles of the 1970s, and saw an opportunity to revitalize his home city by removing the old, blighted freeways that divided it. He began drafting a plan to replace the Park East Freeway with McKinley Boulevard, restoring the urban street grid in the area and freeing up 26 acres of land for redevelopment.

Illustrations of the urban street grid overlaid on the former Park East Freeway right-of-way (Source: City of Milwaukee)

Norquist and his allies, however, still needed to convince other regional and state government agencies to approve the removal project and commit funds to it. They opted to make economic development their core message, proving that removing the freeway would draw new investment and economic activity to downtown Milwaukee. In 1998, they drafted a plan for downtown Milwaukee that tied freeway removal to economic development goals. The plan was approved shortly afterward, in 1999. Another 1998 report, this one by the SWRPC, helped to allay fears that removing the Park East Freeway would increase traffic. The Milwaukee Board of Supervisors and City of Milwaukee Common Council were convinced, approving the plan in quick succession in 1999.

Over the years, NEPA has also been utilized in counterintuitive ways to fight proposed highway removals. The well-researched removal plans helped Norquist’s plan survive one of these NEPA-based legal challenges from local businesses concerned about congestion. And in 2002, the city broke ground to remove the one-mile stub of the Park East Freeway and replace it with an urban street grid—dubbed the Park East Corridor—in 2003.

Milwaukee funded the project through a compromise with the State of Wisconsin that redirected $21 million in federal highway dollars originally appropriated to the State of Wisconsin for a bus priority lane on I-94. The state matched this money with $1.2 million of its own, and the city followed suit with $2.5 million to bring the full project funding to $25 million. The SWRPC made this agreement official in its 2001 plan, cementing the joint commitment of all three parties toward removing the Park East Freeway.

*Park East Freeway being torn down. (Source: City of Milwaukee)*

As with other similar projects to remove freeways or highways across the country, the hefty congestion predicted by opponents or skeptics never materialized. Traffic just disappeared, as every state DOT’s expensive models consistently fail to accurately predict. The project was a major success, reducing congestion and attracting billions of dollars in new investment to the Park East Corridor. One block of the new corridor, “Block 22”, has attracted over $3 billion in investment. The corridor was slated to host the 2020 Democratic National Convention before the COVID-19 pandemic spoiled the event. The area has attracted several new corporate headquarters, recently including The American Family Insurance Company.

With this proven example in mind, officials in Milwaukee are studying the removal of an outdated portion of State Highway 175 that walls Washington Park off from the Washington Heights neighborhood to the west. As Milwaukee looks to continue healing from its era of roadway-based demolition and division, localities across the country can learn from its successes.

Lessons for budding community connectors

Milwaukee benefitted from a skilled and motivated political leader in John Norquist. Advocates should cultivate political champions of freeway removal of their own, but they also can learn from Norquist’s success in other key ways.

For highways that are still on the books or being advanced toward construction, the NEPA process is as relevant now as it was in the 1970s, still requiring projects of a certain size and scope to engage communities before proceeding. NEPA public engagement processes are a great opportunity for advocacy groups and concerned residents alike to fight for projects that avoid harmful roadway construction.

Mayor John Norquist succeeded with a simple, well–supported argument for removal that focused on a broadly shared value of economic growth. While Norquist and the coalition supported the project for scores of other worthy reasons and benefits, this economic framing was decisive in convincing skeptical public officials in Milwaukee, the greater region, and Wisconsin state government to approve the project. Local policymakers and advocacy groups should document the benefits of their plans, framing them in ways that will resonate with their communities—and with the people they need to convince.

While Milwaukee is a good model, it is not perfect. While the destruction of neighborhoods like Bronzeville can never be undone, officials should seek to replace the freeways that destroyed them with development designed to serve the needs of those affected communities. Other communities have prioritized finding ways to restore some portion of lost wealth and income to those who were affected. Milwaukee has developed the Park East Corridor to include luxury apartments and corporate headquarters, but city officials should also seek out ways to provide affordable housing and invest in Black-owned businesses in the area. Undoing the damage created in the first place has to be part of the equation, as does creating a plan from the ground-up with those left behind or neglected, rather than just delivering a top-down plan to them and asking for their support.

But the bottom line is this: resisting and reversing highway construction is possible. The destruction of American communities is not inevitable, and when it happens it need not be permanent.

Community Connectors: tools for advocates

Two years in and a changed Congress—How does Biden stack up and move forward on transportation?

The sunsetting 117th Congress passed historic investments in infrastructure, via the 2021 infrastructure law and the Inflation Reduction Act. In parallel, the Biden Administration has rolled up its sleeves to implement those infrastructure investments with an eye towards safety, repair, and equity. Now with the incoming and divided 118th Congress, the Biden team is running out of time to make inroads on advancing its goals.

Since our last check-in, Congress passed the Inflation Reduction Act, FHWA finally has a confirmed administrator, and USDOT proposed a greenhouse gas emission rule which garnered thousands of comments in support. Meanwhile, USDOT continues to send out billions of dollars in formula and competitive dollars from the infrastructure law.

However, with two years left in Biden’s term, time is running out for the administration to take decisive action on its transportation priorities. Progress made has been uneven and timid at best, concerned about political acceptance at the state and federal level instead of achieving the goals they’ve outlined. With one year down and four more to go for the IIJA, Biden’s USDOT will have to get creative to influence state DOT implementation of the law while also facing stiff headwinds from an incoming GOP-led House, bent on obstructing transportation spending that is counter to a car-centric status quo.

The good: Taking steps to advance equity and climate in transportation

Recognizing local capacity constraints, USDOT invests in Thriving Communities

Thanks to Congressional appropriations in FY22, USDOT has created the Thriving Communities program to bridge the gap for marginalized communities to pursue and manage federal grant opportunities by building local capacity and providing technical assistance. This program is a $25 million down payment on an equitable and accessible discretionary grant framework for all communities, regardless of capacity and resources.

Long overdue proposed rule aims to advance climate accountability

In July 2022, the Biden administration proposed reinstating a rule that would require states to track their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Save from a few minor adjustments, this 2022 version parallels the previously enacted Obama administration GHG emissions rule. FHWA is in a solid position to officially implement the proposed rule, especially because 24 states and the District of Columbia (not to mention local and regional instances) have already implemented it on their own. The rule is imperfect and limited in scope, but is nonetheless a crucial step towards intergovernmental climate accountability.

Money and action on Reconnecting Communities

The IIJA also included the Reconnecting Communities program, an effort to repair the harm done by divisive transportation infrastructure that destroyed community wealth and vibrant cultural centers for black and brown communities. The USDOT started rolling it out with a NOFO in late June. Congress doubled down on this effort by passing the Neighborhood Access and Equity Program (23 USC 177) in the Inflation Reduction Act. Furthermore, USDOT took a notable step within its RAISE program to demonstrate its commitment to Reconnecting Communities by investing in a project in Detroit and another project in NYC that aims to remove divisive highway infrastructure and restore community connectivity and vibrancy. In lieu of just making money available, USDOT is showing up in its leadership to steer the transportation program towards meaningful actions towards Reconnecting Communities.

The incomplete

Perfection is the enemy of the good

The above actions are commendable, but will do little to change state DOT investment strategies. Much of this past year, USDOT has rolled out new and updated guidance for various formula and discretionary grant programs stemming from the 2021 infrastructure law. At the same time, USDOT has been sending out a deluge of requests for information, with little followup action stemming from such requests. The search for the perfect approach to implement the infrastructure law has sapped up considerable precious time and stirred up opposition to administrative actions, in lieu of taking bold steps.

In the same vein, the much-anticipated MUTCD update is still pending. Rather than spend months overhauling the entire manual, USDOT should push ahead and release updates to the manual that advance a safe systems approach, put vulnerable road users first, and continue to make progress.

Non-representative Amtrak Board appointments

The 2021 infrastructure law reoriented Amtrak to focus on customer service and connecting communities across the country, both rural and urban. This reorientation included new standards for the composition of the Amtrak Board, which now must include representatives from not only the Northeast Corridor (NEC), but also the National Network (both long distance and state supported routes), as well as representation from the disability community. Unfortunately, the administration’s nominees, with the exception of one nominee from Illinois, hail exclusively from states served by the NEC. It will be up to the remaining nominees coming from Republicans to rebalance the Amtrak Board to steward its customer oriented, community connecting mission.

Lots of focus on moving goods, but what about moving people?

Supply chain has been the transportation buzz term of 2022, with logistical and labor hurdles in goods movement from the nation’s ports, to the freight railroads, to last mile delivery in communities across the US. The administration and Congress dove in and spent considerable time and money to improve resiliency of the nation’s supply chain. But at the same time, there has been an acute and worsening crisis in transit operations.

Transit is a lifeline in many communities, ferrying essential workers to work and carrying lower-income members of the community to essential community services. Akin to the administration’s leadership on addressing challenges in the nation’s supply chain, the Biden administration needs to take leadership to address the nation’s transit operations across the country.

The opportunity: Actions the administration can take right now

Our list of specific actions are in the table below, tracking the progress the Biden administration has made since taking office. Since our last update, not much has changed (and there’s a notable lack of progress on value of time guidance and ensuring models account for induced demand, both of which we highlighted in our six-month update).

Issue area	Department	Status	Detail	Action
Access to federal funds	USDOT			Simplify applications for discretionary grant programs (like the Better Utilizing Investments to Leverage Development (BUILD) program) by creating an online application and benefit-cost analysis (BCA) process so that small, rural and limited-capacity agencies can more easily access federal funds.
Climate change	USDOT	In progress	Started rulemaking process	We only measure what we treasure. Re-establish the greenhouse gas (GHG) performance measure for transportation abandoned by the last administration, follow this up with annual state GHG rankings, and provide guidance for projecting GHG emissions at the project level.
Climate change	USDOT	Done		Repeal the June 29, 2018, Federal Transit Administration (FTA) Dear Colleague to public transit agencies regarding the Capital Investment Grant program, specifically the treatment of federal loans as not part of the local match, inclusion of a geographic diversity factor in grant awards, and encouraging a low federal cost share.
Climate change	USDOT			Allow rural transit systems to receive funding from the Low and No Emission bus program.
Equity	USDOT			Identify infrastructure that creates barriers to mobility (such as highways or rail beds that divide a community). Then prioritize resources to address those barriers and the disparities they create (e.g., by removing infrastructure barriers or creating new connectivity).
Passenger rail	White House, USDOT		The board is functionally empty, with all members serving on expired terms and no-showing for meetings.	Appoint new members to the Amtrak Board of Directors and assess the balance of the board with respect to support for and experience with vital long distance, state-supported, and Northeast Corridor routes, as well as civic and elected leaders from local communities actually served by the existing network.
Safety	USDOT	Limited progress	Called out in Roadway Strategy release, but they did not include or mention consideration of the visibility issues.	Revise the New Car Assessment Program to consider and prioritize the risk that increasingly larger automobile designs pose to pedestrians and cyclists and the driver’s ability to see pedestrians (particularly children and people using wheelchairs and other assistive devices).
Safety	USDOT	Limited progress	Comments reopened and then closed in May 2021. Limited revisions underway Admin not rewriting or reframing the guide, per their Roadway Strategy release.	Reopen the comment period on the handbook of street engineering standards (the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices or MUTCD) used by transportation agencies to design streets, and reframe and rewrite it to remove standards and guidance that lead to streets that are hostile to or dangerous for those outside of a vehicle.
Technical guidance	White House, HUD, USDOT, GSA		Re-activate the Location Affordability Portal created by DOT and HUD and establish a location efficiency and equitable development scoring criteria to be applied to decisions involving location of new federal facilities, particularly those that serve the public.	Re-activate the Location Affordability Portal created by DOT and HUD and establish a location efficiency and equitable development scoring criteria to be applied to decisions involving location of new federal facilities, particularly those that serve the public.
Ensure more accurate traffic and emissions modeling	USDOT			Require the measurement of induced demand and a review of the accuracy of current travel demand models by comparing past projections with actual outcomes, reporting their findings, and updating the models when there are discrepancies.
Replace value of time guidance with more equitable, multimodal approach	USDOT			Help states and metro areas accurately calculate the benefit of their projects by updating the value of time guidance and its focus on vehicle speed with consideration of actual projected time savings for all people, whether they travel by car or use other modes of travel.

Looking ahead into 2023, the administration will be put on defense with what could be a hostile GOP-led House, bent on overzealous oversight aimed to claw back any progress on administration goals and implementation of the 2021 infrastructure law. Instead of being timid on their actions and allowing oversight to overwhelm USDOT’s agenda, USDOT will need to lean in and flex as much of their authority as they can in advancing their goals; forcing Congress to confront challenges to the administration’s flexed authority in the next session in a bipartisan manner and cultivate a reckoning within the federal transportation program that will sorely need to be revisited in the next transportation reauthorization.

Assessing safety for the most vulnerable road users

A pedestrian navigates a busy street — *Flickr photo by Eric Allix Rogers*

Beginning in November of 2023, Vulnerable Road User (VRU) safety assessments will be required as appendices or addendum to Strategic Highway Safety Plan (SHSPs). While the goal of these assessments is to strengthen the Highway Safety Improvement Program (HSIP), recent federal guidance falls short on addressing dangerous road design.

In the United States, pedestrian deaths by vehicles are at an all-time high, rising more than 50 percent between 2010 and 2020. Change is needed—in road design, in policy, and in policy implementation. Thanks to the highly touted 2021 infrastructure law, there is funding available for improvement, but only if states are willing to budget for safety.

Since 2005, states have been required to set safety measure targets. These targets are intended to help states monitor their progress on road safety, but they face two central issues. First, states can set rising fatality targets—so if fatalities go up, they’ll still be considered “on track.” Second, states don’t face any significant penalty for failing to meet a target. In other words, a state can set a goal to have more traffic fatalities than they had last year, and they face no punishment if traffic fatalities go up even higher than they expected.

In October 2022, the U.S. Department of Transportation’s (USDOT) Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) released guidance on requirements and recommendations for the Vulnerable Road User (VRU) Safety Assessment. The guidelines are meant to assist states in developing design-focused infrastructure improvements. In comparison to the more general requirement of measuring safety targets, the goal of VRU assessments is to specifically address reducing traffic fatalities and serious injuries on roads that are particularly dangerous for vulnerable road users.

While the guidance is a step in the right direction, limits on data requirements and potential funding streams to implement change will likely hinder the impact of the policy.

Connecting VRU safety assessments to traffic fatalities

The guidance requires states to analyze roadway characteristics in order to identify high-risk areas. Two of the roadway characteristics that must be reported are speed and roadway classification. (Roadway classification relates directly to speed—you’ll never see a freeway where the speed limit is 15 mph, and you’ll never see a residential street where the speed limit is 65.) These are important components of crash data, because the higher a vehicle’s speed, the more likely a crash will end in a fatality.

Watch Smart Growth America’s video on why safety and speed are incompatible goals.

The guidance also requires reporting demographic information—race/ethnicity, income, and age—of the population surrounding the crash area. Fatal crashes disproportionately impact communities of color, the elderly, and low-income individuals, but these impacts are often underreported. If collected effectively, states will be able to more fully consider not only where traffic fatalities occur but who the traffic fatalities impact. An additional category, disability, would further the effort.

In addition to the VRU safety assessment requirements, the FHWA recommends including data such as surrounding land-use patterns, the presence of sidewalks, and the presence of transit stops. These three data references speak to the importance of street design as it relates to pedestrian safety. For example, walking a mile to a bus stop along a busy street without sidewalk access is significantly more dangerous than walking a block on a wide sidewalk.

Projects for high-risk areas

The guidance requires states to propose projects to improve conditions faced by road users in high-risk areas. Complete Streets projects, for example, are proven to reduce safety risks for all street users—pedestrians, cyclists, motorists, and transit riders. Another example of a project aimed at improving road safety for all users is a Road Safety Audit (RSA). The FHWA works with state and local jurisdictions, as well as tribal governments, to conduct RSAs. With guidance and the resources to back it up, jurisdictions do not have to figure out how to meet this requirement on their own.

What’s missing?

Roadway design has a clear impact on safety. Factors like width, multiple lanes, traffic control at intersections, and the presence of crosswalks all play a part in whether or not drivers speed—and make fatal mistakes. Yet the current guidance does not require states to consider the layout of the road.

This guidance also fails to provide direction on where to seek funding for safety projects after an assessment is conducted. For example, local public agencies have access to formula funds through the FHWA. States receive 60 percent of their federal highway dollars from the National Highway Performance Program (NHPP). This massive source of funds can and should be used to address designing roads for safety. The Surface Transportation Block Grant (STBG) is another readily available resource, comprising one quarter of the federal money sent to states.

However, these funding sources are often used for projects that make streets more dangerous. Stronger guidance would require states to prioritize funding projects to address the results of safety assessments and provide information on obtaining funding.

Vulnerable road users have the right to expect safety, but by ignoring key design elements, the guidelines fail to provide this. States need to critically assess infrastructure design flaws—and the extent to which they disproportionately impact vulnerable road users—so that funding can be directed towards necessary remedies.

The bottom line

The specific requirements set forth under the new guidance are an overdue upgrade in reporting on vehicle and pedestrian crashes. However, the guidance falls short by failing to require data collection on key safety factors. To address the ongoing crisis of roadway fatalities, states would benefit from more direction, including information on how to access and use their available funds to advance their safety goals.

Hybrid TransportationCamp DC, explained

TransportationCamp DC 2023 is quickly approaching, and we’re excited to see what you all have to bring to the table. TransportationCamp is an “unconference,” which means that you, the participants, will determine the agenda by proposing and leading sessions. This year, we’re doing things a little bit differently with a hybrid format using virtual and in-person sessions.

In-person sessions

The classic way to join TransportationCamp, in-person sessions are what most people think of when they think about Camp. These sessions are submitted the morning of the event, and the result is usually a mad scramble as hopeful session leaders brainstorm their ideas, find others looking to discuss the same topic, and come up with a plan. Then attendees get to vote on which sessions they want to see!

Do: Think about what you want to present, and be open to new, creative ideas from other attendees.

Don’t: Submit a session until the morning of TransportationCamp. That would just spoil the fun!

These sessions will be in person at George Mason University’s Arlington campus. Register to participate here by clicking “Buy Tickets” and selecting “General Admission.”

Virtual sessions

Virtual admission is the other option for joining TransportationCamp. We hosted TransportationCamp completely virtually in 2021 and 2022 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and we know the flexibility was helpful for many of our attendees across the country and the globe.

Attendees still propose and lead sessions, but unlike in-person attendees, your sessions will be all virtual and you get to propose your sessions in advance. Submissions are open now until 12:00 p.m. ET on December 21, and the link to submit will show up in your confirmation email.

Do: Register now for virtual Camp, and keep an eye on your inbox for a confirmation email with session submission details.

Already registered? Check your inbox for an email from info@t4america.org with subject line “Submit your sessions for #TransportationCampDC.”

Don’t: Wait until January to propose a session. That’ll be too late!

What about hybrid sessions? Both in-person and virtual attendees will have access to the morning welcome, keynote address, and one hybrid session presented by INRIX.

What’s next?

Think it would be fun to lead a session, but not sure you have what it takes? Read this advice from past session leaders.

TransportationCamp DC is just around the corner. We’re looking forward to a day packed with new ideas, creative thinking, and relationship building. Register today!

A new program to help communities thrive

For the Biden administration to achieve its goals, all communities will need to be able to take advantage of federal funds. But some cities, towns, and territories with limited resources face a steeper hurdle to accessing these dollars. The Thriving Communities Program is a small step in the right direction to ensure every community is set up for success.

*All communities deserve an equal opportunity to obtain federal funds.* *Flickr photo by Ken Lund.*

The 2021 infrastructure law, called the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act or IIJA, provides a wide range of funding opportunities for communities to access and leverage at their discretion. Given this structure, the IIJA has the potential to increase direct funding to local, tribal, and regional government entities. Direct access to funds could empower communities to pursue dedicated funding for projects most important to them at the local level, such as advancing equity, sustainability, safety, and connected communities.

There are various requirements to be eligible to access the IIJA’s funds. These requirements are intended to ensure federal funds are used responsibly and with accountability. However, they also cause grant applications to be costly and time-consuming tasks.

This rigorous application process can exclude the very communities that need federal funding the most. That poses a challenge for the Biden administration, particularly in their ability to reach their goal laid out under the Justice40 initiative, which states that 40 percent of the benefits of certain federal investments will go to communities that are marginalized, underserved, and overburdened by pollution.

Even if a disadvantaged community is able to overcome the barriers of federal grant applications, having the resources to execute the funded project is a second hurdle to overcome. When a disadvantaged community lacks the resources to effectively administer their awarded grant, they risk being disqualified for future funding opportunities due to poor grant management.

In order to make good on its goals for the transportation system, how is the administration closing these funding gaps?

Enter the Thriving Communities Program

To address the inequities in the grant applications process, the Biden administration created the Thriving Communities Program. Funded with $25 million through the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2022, the U.S. Department of Transportation’s new Thriving Communities Program (TCP) aims to ensure that disadvantaged communities adversely or disproportionately affected by environmental, climate, economic, and human health policy outcomes have the technical tools and organizational capacity to compete for federal aid and deliver quality infrastructure projects that enable their communities and neighborhoods to thrive.

In addition to assisting with writing IIJA grant applications, the TCP will provide technical assistance, planning, and capacity building support to teams of communities who have historically experienced underinvestment and are awarded a grant. This will provide underinvested communities with the staffing or technical expertise required to scope, fund, and develop infrastructure projects that advance the community’s needs. The TCP will provide two years of deep-dive assistance to communities awarded IIJA funds.

In total, the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) anticipates that its Thriving Communities Program will be able to fund and assist a minimum of 30 disadvantaged communities. The White House Council on Environmental Quality indicates that 30 percent of America’s population resides in what is defined as disadvantaged communities, based on socioeconomic, environmental, health, climate, energy, and infrastructure indicators.

The professional services offered by the TCP to selected communities would help community partners to plan and develop a pipeline of comprehensive transportation, housing, and community revitalization activities. There is no cost to receive these professional services and project planning support. However, interested applicants must identify community partners and submit a Letter of Interest (LOI) by December 6, 2022 to be considered for selection.

The bottom line

The minimum 30 communities the USDOT anticipates funding through the TCP would only be a drop in the bucket, but it’s a small step in a positive direction for our nation’s communities. To build on these small beginnings, future federal appropriations should be allocated to expand upon this progress.

Without programs such as the TCP, the federal government would be unable to count on communities to help achieve fundamental goals, like Justice40. But in four years, the IIJA will expire, and the TCP could expire with it. To sustain local capacity building, the TCP should be permanently absorbed into the federal transportation program as part of the next infrastructure law. This will help ensure that federal funding is distributed equitably—not skewed to the communities with the most resources.

Transportation for America members have access to exclusive resources that provide further detail on this topic. To view memos and other members-only resources, visit the Member Hub located at t4america.org/members. (Search “Member Hub” in your inbox for the password, or new members can reach out to chris.rall@t4america.org for login details.) Learn more about membership at t4america.org/membership.

How to engage with new elected leaders

New state and federal leaders will take office in January. Where they stand on transportation will have a significant impact on the future of mobility in America. Here’s how you can engage with your new elected officials to help improve our transportation system in coming years.

The federal government hands states hundreds of millions of dollars on an annual basis, with few strings attached. Governors, state legislators, and local leaders have a great deal of money to deliver the projects, services, and results that voters demand.

Yet the goals of state transportation programs are often misaligned with voter priorities. For example, a recent report from the National Cooperative Highway Research Program showed that by one measure, states use less than four percent of flexible federal dollars on transit, even though they could spend much more. Learn more on TransitCenter’s blog.

Too often, state leaders focus spending on only one result: eliminating congestion. This approach overlooks voter concerns like equity, maintenance, safety, and climate emissions—and by the time decision makers get around to addressing those issues, they’ve spent a great deal of money and time on roadway expansions. (And these expensive new lanes often fill with more traffic, thanks to a process called “induced demand.” We wrote about this costly cycle in our report The Congestion Con.)

We don’t have to settle for more of the same. With new leaders headed into office, advocates have an opportunity to change this old pattern and help create a better transportation system for their community.

New governors can steer the transportation system in the right direction by providing clear instructions on the goals of the state transportation program so that the transportation department can start making progress on those priorities. In addition, governors can choose strong leadership in their own office, the state DOT, and in some cases, the transportation commission that oversees the DOT. The governor should choose leaders that understand the transportation program and are motivated to make needed changes.

Though often overlooked, local leaders, like mayors, might be the most crucial stakeholders in transportation decision-making. When pushes for smart transportation in communities succeed, it’s often due to support from local leaders who lobby for the project on the state and federal level and bring other elected officials to the table.

Finally, the federal government still has an important role to play. The authorized funding levels set in the infrastructure law aren’t guaranteed, and we’ve already seen federal policymakers underfund transit and defund certain active transportation programs. The Biden administration also makes the final calls on competitive grant funding, determining which projects will benefit from key funding programs like the Reconnecting Communities Program. By making these decisions, the administration can help ensure federal dollars are advancing the President’s goals, including enhancing equity in the transportation system.

With critical decisions happening at all three levels of government, engaging with new leaders can feel like a daunting task. These three pieces of advice can help you maximize your influence to achieve connected, healthy, equitable communities.

Check in early and often

As their constituent, you have unique power to educate elected officials on the challenges and opportunities that impact the transportation space. State and local leaders will ultimately determine how much funding will go to projects and programs near you, including safety improvements, transit, and highway expansions. Engage with them early to develop an understanding of how and when transportation funding will be used and let them know what your priorities are. Take part in public comment and review periods to encourage them to make the right calls on key policy, investment, and implementation actions.

There are many ways you can reach out to your elected leaders, including joining sign-on letters, engaging with their social media, writing them a letter, calling them up, and even visiting their offices. If they start to move the needle in the right direction, don’t forget to praise them.

Invite your state leaders to join the State Legislator Champions Institute so that they can become effective Complete Streets advocates. Learn more about the Institute here and join an information session on December 6 at 3 p.m. ET.

Find the linchpins

Government decision making happens in phases. Elected officials set their priorities, identify issues and approaches to addressing them, create a plan (including time, resources, and budget parameters), and seek input on their budget, policy, or implementation decisions. Once these steps of the process are complete, they’ll evaluate their progress on their priorities and begin the process again.

When having conversations with elected leaders, seek out information about where they’re at in the process and tailor your asks to the present moment. Find out when public hearings are scheduled and attend them. Get in touch with your local advocacy organizations and follow their lead. Finally, don’t be afraid to point out if important details were missed at an earlier stage of the process (as activist Michael Moritz did in Texas).

T4A members receive regular updates on opportunities for advocacy on the Hill. Learn more about T4A membership here.

Look for common ground

Our transportation needs are frequently touted as bipartisan concerns, and for good reason. The success of our transportation system has a direct impact on every constituent, influencing economic vitality, public health, climate emissions, and everyone’s ability to access the goods and services they need.

Often, elected officials enter office without a clear understanding of how the transportation system can help them reach their goals. By making these connections clear, you can create strong allies, even with leaders who initially disagree with you.

Transportation for America Chair John Robert Smith had just that experience when he brought passenger rail to Meridian, MS—he found that Republican politicians, opposed to passenger rail, were willing to support his project once he explained its economic benefits. To further build support, he humanized the issue by bringing decision makers face to face with constituents to explain how passenger rail impacts them.

The bottom line

It’s not uncommon for federal, state, and local elected leaders to lack a strong understanding of our infrastructure needs. But decision makers at all levels need to know that the transportation program can help them deliver on key issues for their constituents, regardless of their political affiliation. By engaging with your new leaders, you can help them make progress on climate, safety, equity, access, and repair goals.

A Gulf Coast win opens the door for national long-distance passenger rail service

On Monday, CSX, Norfolk Southern, the Alabama State Port Authority, and Amtrak filed a motion to the Surface Transportation Board stating that they’d reached an agreement to restore passenger rail service on the Gulf Coast. In response, Transportation for America Director Beth Osborne issued the following statement:

Transportation for America is pleased that the Port of Mobile, CSX, and Norfolk Southern have reached an agreement with Amtrak, clearing the way for Amtrak to restore the long-awaited passenger rail service on the Gulf Coast. This settlement is a tremendous victory for the Gulf, but its impact extends beyond those states. The restoration of this service is pivotal for expanding passenger service across the nation, making good on the promise of the 2021 infrastructure law.
This settlement is a clear indication that we can find mutually-agreeable resolutions that benefit both freight and passenger rail—shippers and the people they serve. We thank the Federal Railroad Administration for making a strong stand to precisely that effect. We also commend the Surface Transportation Board for their leadership in guiding the parties through mediation to reach this agreement.
For freight, this is an opportunity to strengthen their partnerships with elected officials. For Amtrak, it is a call to action for the Board to use their collective authority to further the expansion of passenger rail. Urban and rural communities across the country have been closely monitoring this process, and they can now look at this agreement with hope for the expansion of passenger rail. We stand ready to help them achieve this goal.

Eliminating driver error doesn’t work. What does? Part II: Designing solutions

In part I of this blog series, we reviewed the evidence on three roadway safety strategies that rely on changing driver behavior—education, enforcement, and technology—to show where they fall short in making America’s roads safer. Design-based solutions, which accept and plan for human mistakes, can avoid the pitfalls of behavioral solutions. A recent report from New York City’s Department of Transportation sheds some light on which of those solutions work best—and for whom.

Streets and roads designed for safety—not speed—are tried and true interventions that reduce injuries and deaths. They require minimal driver education, because self-educating driver cues are built in. They have self-enforcing geometric features that force drivers to obey traffic laws without the threat of police violence. And while technology can be a critical part of safe road design, slower vehicle speeds lessen the need for fast-acting automated systems to avoid crashes.

What does a safely designed street look like? Fundamentally, it is a street with features—like narrower and fewer lanes, extended curbs, and bike lanes—that accept the mistakes made by human drivers and induce slower vehicle speeds to minimize the danger caused by those mistakes. Safe streets better reflect the complexity of a street with many different types of traffic, and are often called Complete Streets. Safe streets are going to look different in every place they’re implemented, since they are necessarily responsive to local contexts. But across the board, safe street design 1) lowers speeds and 2) considers all road users.

Learn more about safe street design, and the fatal impact of ignoring it, in Smart Growth America’s Dangerous by Design report.

Evidence from the Big Apple

A recent report from New York City’s Department of Transportation (NYC DOT) provides some of the best data to date on the effectiveness of seven specific features of NYC’s safe street design efforts: road diets, conventional (unprotected) bike lanes, protected bike lanes, pedestrian islands, curb and sidewalk extensions, turn calming, and leading pedestrian intervals. Read more on each of these features in the report.

*Percent change in pedestrian injuries and those killed or seriously injured (KSI). Source: NYC DOT*

The results of the report show a massive impact from safe street design. In the above table, KSI stands for pedestrians killed or seriously injured. All the design features significantly reduced pedestrian deaths and injuries, with all but conventional bike lanes reducing pedestrian deaths and serious injuries by over 25 percent. These safety benefits were even more pronounced for senior pedestrians.

*Percent change in driver injuries and those killed or seriously injured (KSI). Source:* *NYC DOT*

The safety benefits also extended to motor vehicle occupants, with all the features but turn calming (which was affected by a small sample size) reducing injuries and deaths for motor vehicle occupants at nearly the same rate as pedestrians.

Street design as a core safety strategy

*One of T4A’s core principles is to design for safety over speed. Read our full platform.*

The cross-user benefits of safe street and road design are not unique to New York City. A review done by the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) of rural roadways in Warren County, Pennsylvania and Augusta County, Virginia found that self-enforcing, safer street design led to fewer crashes. RAO Community Health, a nonprofit in the highly car-dependent Charlotte, North Carolina, has begun modeling the benefits of safer street design to the city’s most vulnerable communities.

Every year, more states and localities all around the country recognize the safety benefits of Complete Streets, adopting policies to promote their construction. The U.S. Department of Transportation has incorporated the principles of safe street design into their national Safe Systems Approach.

The core of the success behind design is simple: it slows vehicles down. The basic fact of the matter is that vehicle speed and road safety are opposing forces. The higher a drivers’ speed, the greater risk of fatalities. No amount of education, enforcement, or technology can make up for the fact that mistakes are inevitable. Safe street design can ensure that mistakes need not be fatal.

Want to learn more about the benefits Complete Streets can bring to your community? Try this tool from the National Complete Streets Coalition.

What’s next?

Advocates and governments should leverage the well-documented track record of safe road design in reducing crashes, injuries, and fatalities (both domestically and internationally) to push for its adoption in every jurisdiction around the country. The Vision Zero movement has done excellent work in shifting the paradigm toward design. Nearly 40,000 people were killed on our roadways in 2020. If the U.S. wants to cut down this unfathomable number of fatalities, every community will need to rethink its road design standards.

Changes at the federal level could work to support these local efforts. For one, the FHWA needs to incorporate its Safe Systems Approach into its new Manual for Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD), the national standards for roadway design used by every jurisdiction around the country. Better national guidance on safe streets will encourage more localities to act. But it’s worth noting that the MUTCD is not gospel. State and local governments can design roads in any way they want. Advocates should remind their local officials of this fact.

In addition, FHWA must marshal all available federal funds toward safety projects. This includes not only small, safety-specific competitive grant programs like Safe Streets and Roads for All, but also broader programs like RAISE grants and federal formula dollars. We’ve outlined a strategy for federal safety spending here > >

Now you know what works, but how can you communicate the need for design to practitioners? Stay tuned for part III of this series, which will include useful advice on doing just that.

How to present at an unconference

TransportationCamp DC is coming back as a hybrid event on January 7, 2023. This “unconference” is a place where attendees get to set the agenda and lead the conversation. Here are the top 4 pieces of advice for people interested in proposing a session.

*Campers propose sessions at TransportationCamp DC*

At TransportationCamp, every attendee has the opportunity to propose and lead a session on a topic that matters most to them. But how should you decide, and what makes for an engaging session? Read advice from our team and past session leaders below.

In-person attendees propose sessions the morning of the event. Virtual attendees will propose sessions in December. Have a ton of ideas that you can’t wait to share, or are you just eager to hear what other people come up with? We’ll share session previews from our sponsors before the event to give you a sense of where the conversation can go. Register today so you don’t miss a thing.

1. Start brainstorming now

A lot’s changed since our last Camp, including the challenges our transportation system needs to overcome. Transit agencies continue to recover from pandemic shifts. Federal dollars can boost transportation equity, but there’s even more money available to make equity issues worse. States are tasked with building out their EV infrastructure, and a proposed federal rule would require states to monitor their greenhouse gas emissions created by transportation. Plus, there are new opportunities available to explore the role technology can play in improving our system.

Want to talk about these national trends, but not sure where to start? Last year Anna Zivarts, Director of the Disability Mobility Initiative at Disability Rights Washington, co-led a session called “A Quarter of Us Can’t Drive: How BIPOC & Disabled Nondrivers Will Change Transportation.” Her advice: “It’s always good to ground your discussions in stories from people who are most impacted by the work.”

2. Bring in more viewpoints

“The best panels evidence diverse thought—find people with a different perspective and invite them,” said Steven Polunsky, Senior Energy Policy Specialist in Clean Transportation at the Washington State Department of Commerce, and a session leader for “Electric Vehicles Pros and Cons” at last year’s TransportationCamp.

The early morning at TransportationCamp can feel like pandemonium as Campers share their session ideas and forge connections with others who could help lead the session. Whether you’re joining us in person or online, bring in more perspectives and strengthen your idea by pulling in another Camper to get the conversation rolling. Give folks a head’s up in advance and ask them to join you at TransportationCamp.

Social media can be a useful tool to share ideas and build connections. Join our LinkedIn event and tweet out your plans with #TransportationCampDC.

3. Make it fun!

TransportationCamp is known for out-of-the-box thinking and creative sessions. We’ve seen shark tank-style sessions, mock trials, and even a shared mobility caucus. Sessions often come with memorable names, like “WTF Does That Mean?” (on using plain language in transportation advocacy) and “Cage Fight!” (a debate over whether electrification or modeshift had a better chance of addressing climate change).

*Campers participate in a shared mobility caucus*.

“TransportationCamp is a great opportunity for the young and young-at-heart to come together, throw ideas on the wall, and see what sticks,” said Benito Pérez, T4A Director of Policy and a former session leader. “In our schools, firms, and other professional areas, we might find ourselves in an echo chamber. TransportationCamp gives us the opportunity to jump out of the box, hear from new perspectives, and maybe walk away with changed minds—or at least new respect and awareness of different points of view.”

Past session leaders also urge future leaders to boost the conversation by being open and considerate to the multitude of perspectives in the room. “Be open to different viewpoints. The key word here is ‘and’ not ‘but,’” said Polunsky. “Remember that some people don’t process groups well. Be gentle when redirection is needed.”

4. Jump in

You don’t have to be an expert to host a session. In fact, some of our best sessions have come from people who have a question to ask. A former TransportationCamp DC organizer, Jenna Fortunati, put it best when she described the power these sessions can hold.

Here’s an example of why TransportationCamp is so special to me: [at TransportationCamp DC 2019], my mom hosted a session. She’s a city council member in my hometown, and was worried (rightly so) that a street widening project in our neighborhood would increase vehicle speeds. She needed advice from Campers on street designs she could propose that would keep speeds low.
And the Campers delivered: a group of about 10 urban planners, engineers, and students brainstormed that the best solution to my mom’s problem was a small roundabout. And that’s exactly what my hometown decided to build when my mom brought the idea back home.

TransportationCamp is the place to air out your concerns, explore new ideas, and share your point of view.

“Don’t be afraid to post a session—you may not be the most expert in the topic but your unique perspective may be the most valuable to potential attendees. Your strength is your experience,” added Polunsky. “Lead with that.”

Excited to attend TransportationCamp? Space is limited, so register today to secure your spot. We’ll see you there!