• Train executives see the link between climate change, energy, and transportation. (CNN)

• Zipcar founder Robin Chase speaks about ride sharing, transportation costs, and infrastructure. (Infrastructurist)

• A look at the worst cities for angry drivers. (Reuters)

In our previous post breaking down the T4 America Blueprint, we discussed our national objective of creating an energy efficient transportation system that boosts our economy and helps America use less oil. Today, we’re going to look at this issue from a slightly different angle, by explaining how we plan to achieve this goal — and measure our success — through strong, accountable reforms.

It may seem obvious that our federal transportation program should encourage less fuel use. Unfortunately, our existing policies do the exact opposite.

Instead of giving Americans options like public transportation, high-speed rail, and walking and biking, federal policy still has a heavy bias towards new road construction, promoting more driving — even as Americans continue to drive less and use transit in record numbers. And while research shows that transferring even a moderate portion of our goods movement from trucks to rail would have a huge impact on our overall fuel use (not to mention congestion), recent federal transportation bills have done nothing to incentivize this smart and essential shift in our freight policy.

To jumpstart the needed transition to an energy-efficient transportation system and a secure economy, Transportation for America has created a road map to reform that includes strong, clear policies and programs that we recommend Congress adopt in the next transportation bill. Continue reading below the fold to learn more about some of the specific policies and programs we’re proposing to lead this transition:

Build our passenger and freight rail networks

Westbound Freight Originally uploaded by Clark Westfield

While the United States has historically lagged behind other countries in its investment in rail systems, T4 America’s Blueprint includes multiple programs to help us create a 21st Century network of passenger and freight rail infrastructure. Our Intercity Passenger Transportation program (page 35 in the Blueprint) would use a competitive grant process to create a passenger rail network to be completed by the year 2030, focusing on establishing connections between the country’s largest towns and cities.

Our Transportation Projects of National Significance program (page 40), echoed in President Obama’s plan for a National Infrastructure Bank, would fund the kinds of large-scale transportation projects that have a national scope and national benefits — but cross jurisdictions or include different modes, resulting in a level of complexity that poses a significant challenge within our current program. Projects of this scope deserve special consideration for federal funding.

This program would give priority to the projects that promote energy security, like passenger and freight rail. Additionally, the Green Freights and Ports program (page 93) would support the transition to a green, energy efficient economy by targeting federal funding to freight investments that will use less fuel and emit fewer pollutants.

Help create walkable, livable communities

Helping Americans drive less isn’t only about giving them better options — it’s also about investing in communities to make them more accessible and give people the choice of living near the office, grocery store, or their children’s school. For this reason, we’re calling for the federal government to create programs that will link up transportation investments with other issues like land use planning, housing, and economic development, (Sustainability Challenge Grants, page 42) and incentivize investment in biking and walking infrastructure (Active Transportation Innovation Program, pg. 42). Additionally, we support setting aside certain federal funds for direct investment in “livable communities” to support investment in transit-oriented development, allowing people to live closer to jobs and public transportation.

In order to ensure that our communities are accessible to transportation users, T4 America  recommends that any federally funded roads should be built as “Complete Streets,” and include accommodations for bikers, pedestrians and people with disabilities, when appropriate.

Revitalize our public transportation systems

Public transportation use saves us about 1.4 billion gallons of fuel per year, according to the American Public Transportation Association. In the next transportation bill, we are fighting to get rid of the modal silos that separate funding for public transportation from spending on roads and bridges, freeing up localities, regions, and states from inflexible federal mandates to spend money on specific modes, allowing them to decide which type of investment best suits their needs for mobility.

Our Multimodal Access Program (page 87) — which breaks down into categories geographically, instead of by mode — will give communities expanded opportunities to expand their transit capacity while increasing the overall pot of money available for these investments. For significant new investments in transit, Transportation for America supports creating a Major Transit Capital program (page 39) that would create a streamlined federal review process, thereby making it much easier for local and regional governments to get federal approval for new transit projects — compared with the long, uphill battle they often face now to build transit projects.

In November 2008, President Obama described America’s dependence on oil as resembling a “shock and trance” cycle. Our growing demand for foreign oil, he said, creates skyrocketing energy prices, leading to dramatic calls for energy independence and sudden cutbacks in our consumption that quickly dissipate once the price of oil drops — beginning the cycle all over again.

Transportation for America believes that the push to make our country less dependent on oil begins with a smarter, cleaner transportation system, and for this reason we’ve made one our top national transportation objectives to promote energy efficiency and achieve energy security.

While we’ll talk later this week about the programs in our Blueprint that help us reduce our dependence on oil, we wanted to explain today why we have this national objective, why our transportation system has such deep effects on our country’s energy consumption, and what performance targets are linked to this goal. As you’ll recall from the previous posts in this series, our 10 performance targets are measurable goals that will help us ensure that we achieve our objectives. While nearly all of these performance targets are important to create a more energy-secure economy, we are including two here that are particularly critical as we look towards this goal:

The transportation sector is, simply put, a massive engine behind our addiction to oil.

Each second, our transportation sector burns through 6,300 gallons of oil and produces more CO2 emissions that any nation’s entire economy except China’s. A full two-thirds of the oil consumed in the United States is used for our transportation system, and 40 percent is used to fill up gasoline tanks in our personal vehicles. Our economy is responsible for nearly 25 percent of oil consumption globally, despite the fact that we have less than three percent of the world’s oil reserves.

Click to enlarge. Reducing how much we have to drive is a popular idea.

The president made big news last week when he declared new federal fuel standards, mandating that new cars must have an average fuel economy of 35.5 miles per gallon by 2016. But as many experts have told us, creating a more fuel-efficient, energy secure country does not revolve only around cars that use less gasoline. Extensive research has shown that unless we actually reduce driving by shifting to more fuel-efficient modes of transportation and meeting the pent-up consumer demand for more accessible, walkable communities, we’ll completely wipe out any gains we see from driving more fuel efficient cars and continue on the exact same energy-dependent path.

While few of us spend a lot of time thinking about how our goods movement is tied to energy efficiency, this sector of our transportation system is a critical component in our push for energy security. Trucks currently use 27 gallons of fuel for each ton of freight moved from coast to coast; at the same time, bringing the same ton of freight buy rail only uses seven gallons of fuel. And as you may have seen in their commercials for freightrailworks.org, 1 gallon of gasoline can move a ton of freight 436 miles by rail. Transferring a mere 10 percent of freight currently moved by truck to our railways would save more than one billion gallons of fuel per year.

Click to enlarge. Where we live and its impact on the cost of transportation.

As we’ve noted many times on this blog, reducing total miles traveled in automobiles is an essential part of this equation. Thanks to the automobile dependence required in many areas and the high cost of gasoline, families living in areas where the only option is to drive spend a full quarter of their income on transportation, nearly three times the percentage for people with good access to public transportation. (See graphic at right)

Americans are already changing their driving habits, supporting investment in rail, and expressing their desire to live in walkable, accessible neighborhoods. But in order to tap into these shifting preferences in our transportation policy, Transportation for America believes the federal government needs to make bold changes and targeted investments in the modern infrastructure that will make us more energy independent.

To get the details, come back later this week and see some of the specific policies and proposals included in our Blueprint that will help our transportation system achieve this goal.

Nearly 150 transportation practitioners, environmental advocates, and green energy supporters signed up for our second webinar yesterday, focusing on Transportation and the Environment.

Transportation is the second largest and fastest growing source of greenhouse gas emissions. In addition to producing many other benefits, public transportation, rail, and bike and pedestrian infrastructure already help reduce greenhouse gas pollution by millions of CO2 tons each day.

Transportation for America held this online discussion to explore how building the second half of our transportation system and reforming our local, state and federal transportation policies can help conserve oil and contribute to meeting the nation’s energy goals.

Deron Lovaas, Federal Transportation Policy Director for the Natural Resources Defense Council, moderated the discussion and provided an overview of the greenhouse gas reductions possible from the transportation sector and the potential benefits of a U.S. cap-and-trade system.

John Holtzclaw, of the Sierra Club’s 21st Century Transportation Committee, discussed the costs of sprawl versus the benefis of compact, walkable develoment patterns. Joshua Saks, with the Chesapeake Bay Foundation presented an overview of the impacts of transportation on water quality. Finally, Michael Replogle, Transportation Director for the Living Cities Program at the Environmental Defense Fund, discussed the impacts of the transportation system on climate change and opportunities to ensure a low-carbon transportation system is possible in the future.

For those of you who attended the session, check out the Transportation for America Policy Brief on the issue and view a transcript of the presenters’ responses to your questions. This policy brief (available for download now), Transportation and Climate: A Critical Linkage, covers three basic ideas:

1. The transportation system no longer supports the American Dream – a dream of livable communities free from pollution with less time spent in traffic, less oil use, and less global warming.
2. Poorly planned transportation spending out of step with local needs has restructured America’s landscape and put enormous pressure on our natural resources
3. While federal legislation has done much to mitigate environmental degradation, the benefits of these efforts — especially in air quality and water quality — are gradually being overtaken by growth in motor vehicle traffic and urban sprawl.

Download it now and feel free to pass it along to friends and colleagues. And be sure to join Transportation for America to help us tell Congress that smarter transportation investments should be part of any climate solution.

Webinar resources:

• Audio and video recording of the entire webinar (click to launch in a new window)
• A summary of the questions asked and responses (pdf)
• T4 Policy Brief on Transportation, Climate and Energy (pdf)
• Register for more upcoming webinars

After oil prices hovered at record levels throughout the summer, it’s not altogether surprising that as the price of oil has plummeted alongside our economy, some are looking for new excuses to avoid our most pressing global issues. For influential players in this debate, it’s an easy time to argue that an economic recessions give us little leverage to create bold alternative energy plans or fight climate change with investment in new technologies.

As president Obama indicated, we have to break down the illogical notion that our efforts on energy security and climate change should come to a halt in order to rebuild our economy. Fortunately, the most obvious answer here is also the simplest: We can do both.

Policy insiders, political pundits, and top administration members have all argued that making the right investments in modern, green infrastructure — repaired highways and bridges, expanded mass transit capacity, new bicycle and pedestrians paths, improved freight and passenger rail –- would support millions of sustainable jobs and help us transition to a more sustainable, energy independent, 21^st-century economy. If we can absorb that lesson, we might be able get something big done with an economic recovery package next year — and help kill our ‘shock and trance’ mentality for good.