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As the House aims to slash, tell the Senate to protect money for rail, transit & TIGER in next week’s budget vote

The two chambers of Congress at the moment are looking at very different paths for funding transportation.

The House path — though stopping short of cutting all funding by a third as proposed in the past — slashes passenger rail funding by $400 million, eliminates money for the innovative TIGER grants, and reduces the funding communities depend on for new transit projects.

Meanwhile, a Senate committee has drafted a budget that increases funding for new transit construction, keeps and expands TIGER, provides support for Amtrak and passenger rail improvements, and funds a new grant program to jumpstart progress on repairing critical bridges.

Can you take a moment to write your two Senators and tell them to support this smart budget in the Senate? It’s likely to come up for a vote next week.

The House transportation budget is unabashedly bad, and the only way to counter it is with a strong Senate alternative.

The Senate proposal embraces the reality that communities everywhere are looking for smart ways to keep people and goods moving, promote prosperity and keep their infrastructure in good shape. The House would thwart them on every front.

The Senate budget acknowledges that Amtrak ridership is breaking records and that Americans deserve a convenient rail option. It acts to do something about the fact that we take 260 million trips each day over deficient bridges that urgently need repairs.

So let’s make sure that the Senate hears this message loud and clear: Face up to reality and pass a transportation budget that funds solutions to our problems, whether it’s fixing bridges or providing more viable ways to get around.

Take action today and tell your Senators to vote for this budget.

One in 9 bridges still “structurally deficient” as average age nears 50 years

One in nine of the bridges and overpasses American drivers cross each day is rated in poor enough condition that some could become dangerous or be closed without near-term repair, according to an updated analysis of federal data released today by Transportation for America.

New data and report: https://t4america.org/resources/bridges

Nearly 67,000 of the nation’s 605,000 bridges are rated “structurally deficient” and are in need of substantial repair or replacement, according to bridge inspections analyzed in The Fix We’re In For: The State of the Nation’s Bridges 2013. Nearly 8,000 are both structurally deficient and “fracture critical”, meaning they are designed with no redundancy in their key structural components, so that if one fails the bridge could collapse. The Federal Highway Administration estimates that the backlog of troubled bridges would cost $76 billion to eliminate.

The report ranks states and the District of Columbia in terms of the overall condition of the their bridges, with one having the largest share of deficient bridges, 51 the lowest. Twenty-one states have a higher percentage of deficient bridges than the national average of 11 percent. The five states with the worst bridge conditions have a share over 20 percent: Pennsylvania has the largest share of deteriorating bridges (24.5%), followed by Oklahoma (22.0%), Iowa (21.7%), Rhode Island (21.6%), and South Dakota (20.3%).

At the other end of the spectrum, five states have less than 5 percent of their bridges rated structurally deficient: Nevada and Florida lead the rankings with 2.2%, followed by Texas (2.6%), Arizona (3.2%), and Utah (4.3%).

“With the collapse of the I-5 bridge in Washington state last month, coming just six years after an interstate collapse in Minnesota, Americans are acutely aware of the critical need to invest in our bridges as our system shows its age,” said James Corless, director of Transportation for America. “Today, though, there more deficient bridges in our 100 largest metropolitan areas than there are McDonald’s locations nationwide.” Put another way, laid end to end, all the deficient bridges would span from Washington, DC to Denver, Colorado or from Tijuana, Mexico to Seattle — more than 1500 miles.

The need is growing rapidly, the report notes: While most bridges are designed to last 50 years before major overhaul or replacement, American bridges average 43 years old. Age is a major factor in bridge conditions. Roughly half of the structurally deficient bridges are 65 or older. Today there are nearly 107,000 bridges 65 or older, and in just 10 years, one in four will be over 65.

Congress has repeatedly declared the condition and safety of our bridges to be of national significance. However, the money to fix them is getting harder to come by with declining gas tax revenues and a fiscal squeeze at all levels of government. At the same time, Congress made the prospects for bridges even more uncertain last year by eliminating a dedicated fund for them in its update of the federal transportation program. The new law also reduces access to funds for 90 percent of structurally deficient bridges, most of which are owned by cash-strapped local governments.

We’ll have much more later today, but don’t miss the new data, new report, new interactive map and infographic over at the home for the bridge report.

About those 66,000+ deficient bridges: What did last summer’s transportation law change?

With the second collapse of an Interstate bridge in six years, Americans might expect Congress to leap into action to ensure adequate funding for bridge rehab and replacement. But as we have reminded numerous reporters since an I-5 bridge dropped into Washington’s Skagit River, federal lawmakers took a gamble and eliminated the nation’s dedicated bridge fund last summer.

I-5 photo by the Washington DOT on Flickr.

The bridge fund came into being in 1991, and especially in the first decade afterward, the country made enormous progress repairing deficient bridges. But that progress had slowed to a trickle when Congress took up the transportation funding bill, MAP-21, last summer.

With the I-35W collapse fresh in our minds and progress on repairing deficient bridges slowing, many assumed Congress would think about ways to make bridge repair more of a priority.

Not quite.

Instead, they took a gamble, eliminating the dedicated repair fund so that states could “set their own priorities,” as long as they promised to set targets for the repair of bridges on the National Highway System. That sounds great in principle, until you remember that competition for funds is growing rapidly, with no corresponding drop in the political pressure to build pet projects.

Though they won’t say it out loud, many DOT chiefs like a dedicated maintenance fund because it allows them to say “no” to projects they can’t afford, while helping to ensure existing facilities stay safe and functional. The changes in MAP-21 also don’t give similar attention to bridges not on the National Highway System – 90 percent of all bridges in need of repair – more on this below.

T4America has been a strong advocate of measuring performance against clear targets and goals. But for something as critical as bridge maintenance, there needed to be a well-considered transition period to understand how the new performance management system works, and establish clear targets and guaranteed enforcement mechanisms.

Instead, Congress scrapped the existing bridge repair program and directed USDOT to work with states to cooperate on setting measurable targets for things like bridge condition — but without significant penalties for failure. And considering that MAP-21 is only a two-year bill, states won’t be reporting on these measures until after this bill has already expired.

The second big change made last summer will force state and local communities into painful choices about priorities.

Before MAP-21, all 600,000+ highway bridges were eligible to receive funding for repair under that dedicated bridge repair program.

From the biggest interstate bridge down to that crucial bridge that connects your town across the river to another nearby town, all 66,500-plus deficient bridges could get the dollars dedicated for bridge repair.

Under MAP-21, Congress decided to focus the former bridge repair dollars almost exclusively on a narrow set of roadways known as the National Highway System (NHS). Think of the NHS as the interstates, state highways and most major four-lane and larger highways. The bridges on these roads are our most heavily traveled, no doubt, but they represent only about 10 percent of all structurally deficient bridges.

The other 90 percent will now have to compete with all of the other transportation needs in your community for the flexible funding that can be used on almost anything. And all of those needs will compete for less funding too, reduced from about 60 percent of all funding to 40 percent.

Bridge repair is added into the mix of choices along with regional transit investments, safe streets for all users, congestion relief, other transportation options, and other road repair — leaving communities with tough choices to make.

Bridges STP NHPP

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All this comes as our transportation network begins to show its age. At an average age of 43 years, the typical bridge is nearing the end of its 50-year design life, and many thousands are far older than that. Structurally deficient bridges are more than 20 years older on average.

The federal government should be all about making sure that bridges are being systematically upgraded, repaired or replaced. And in the wake of a calamity like the closure of a key commercial corridor, we Americans ought to be all about letting Congress know we’re willing to pay for a safe and secure transportation network, and making lawmakers pay at the ballot box if they won’t deliver it.

58-year-old bridge collapses in Washington State on west coast’s most major interstate

Shortly after the evening commute last night (around 7 p.m. local time) an entire section of the Interstate 5 bridge — both north and southbound lanes — over the Skagit River an hour north of Seattle, Washington collapsed and fell into the river, sending two cars tumbling down into the river, injuring three yet miraculously killing no one. One of those who plunged into the river along with his wife called it a “miracle” that no one was killed or more severely injured.

From the Seattle Times:

Rescuers pulled three people with minor injuries from the water after the collapse, which authorities say began when a semitruck with an oversized load struck a steel beam at around 7 p.m.

That caused a massive piece of the northern side of the bridge to wobble, and then fall into the water, taking with it a gold pickup, its travel trailer and an orange SUV.

Rescuers did not believe there was anybody else in the water but were planning a morning search to be sure.

Seattle Times photo by Dean Rutz. Link to gallery of images here.

Perhaps the most amazing part of this story is that on a bridge that carries more than 70,000 cars daily and at a time of day when traffic could be expected to be moderate at the least, only two vehicles fell into the yawning gap and into the water. Along with everyone else, we at T4 America are relieved that no one died in this tragic bridge collapse.

Just like several years ago in Minnesota, attention quickly turned to the bridge itself. So what do we know about it today?

The Interstate 5 bridge over the Skagit River actually predates the creation of Interstate 5. It was built to carry old US 99 over the river in 1955. When Interstate 5 was built in 1957, it largely followed the US 99 corridor and just like many other bridges, this bridge was folded into the interstate system, though it certainly wasn’t built to today’s interstate standards.

Because of that (and likely other design considerations), the bridge was considered “functionally obsolete” by state and federal inspectors, which is a designation that could mean any number of things, none of which have anything to do with structural safety. The lanes could be narrower than today’s standards, the weights allowed could be less than an interstate bridge built today, or built using materials that would be considered obsolete today.

However, the bridge was not considered “structurally deficient” at the time of collapse, which means that a bridge requires repair, rehabilitation or replacement, along with much more regular inspections. To be considered structurally deficient, one of the three major components of a bridge (deck, superstructure, substructure) has to score a 4 or below on a scale of 1-10.

The data in our interactive map is not the most recent release of federal data, but the ratings for this specific bridge have not changed in the federal National Bridge Inventory that was reported in early to mid 2012 by Washington State. WSDOT likely inspected the bridge again sometime in 2012 after they reported annual bridge data to the federal government, and WSDOT is saying publicly today that the bridge was not structurally deficient and was still only considered functionally obsolete.

Here’s the snapshot from our interactive map of U.S. bridges, which you can use to look up the condition of the bridges near any U.S. address.

(Amazingly, you can see that Google Maps has already updated their map to show that Interstate 5 no longer crosses the Skagit River.)

On a list of structurally deficient bridges in Washington compiled by WSDOT in September 2011, this bridge is not included, though there is at least one other nearby Interstate 5 bridge in Snohomish County that is included, built in 1933. (It’s scheduled for repair, per WSDOT.)

It’s hard to accurately describe how crucial this interstate connection is. I-5 runs from Canada to Mexico within the U.S. and touches almost every single major city on the west coast. It’s a vital corridor not only commuters but also for freight traffic — 12 percent of the daily traffic on this bridge was truck traffic. And this is the main route from Seattle up to Vancouver, certainly a direction that many Seattle region residents might have been planning to travel for the long holiday weekend starting this afternoon.

Those plans are surely on hold, and the ripple effect for freight and other travel up and down the west coast will be felt for some time to come as Washington authorities decide how to handle this painful gap in their transportation network.

We will be back later this morning with a short statement, and follow us along on twitter at @t4america for other news and developments.

PS, here’s the cover of the Seattle Times this morning.

Seattle Times bridge collapse cover

Update: this post incorrectly said the bridge 63 years old at first publication. That has been corrected.

What happens when driving rates continue to drop?

Anyone who follows this blog, or transportation discussions in general, is well aware that the miles driven per American has been dropping in recent years and that the millennial generation (16-34) is leading the charge. Indeed, the typical American drives less today than at the end of Bill Clinton’s first term.

But how likely is that trend to hold in the future? And if it does, what does that say about what we should be building, and how we will pay for it, if not with the gas taxes raised from driving? A report out today from the U.S. PIRG Education Fund and Frontier Group seeks to answer the first question, and to fuel a conversation about the second.

None of the likely scenarios sees miles of driving returning to the heights of previous trends.

None of the likely scenarios sees miles of driving returning to the heights of previous trends.

The short answer to Question 1: No plausible scenario sees per capita driving rates continuing their formerly inexorable climb, and all fall well below current government projections. And no, the authors do not assume that we are entering permanent economic recession, because the underlying are likely to trends persist whatever the strength of the economy:

Millennials. Americans under 35 drive nearly one-fourth less now than those who where the same age a decade ago. There are myriad likely reasons: The cost of car ownership, their tendency to live in more urban locales, reduced employment rates during the recession, etc. But the authors site many reasons why their driving rates may remain lower than previous generations, even during child-bearing years.

Baby boomers. The post-war generation drove workforce participation rates to unheard of levels, and now those workers are nearing the end of their commuting years. And while self-driving cars might allow granny to keep motoring, they will not replace those commute trips.

Technology. We already know the Internet allows work-from-anywhere and online shopping, replacing trips for those purposes. But now mobile tech makes riding transit far more accessible, and enables transit use to be complemented by a burgeoning array of options: Zipcar, Car2Go, bike share, Lyft, Scoot, etc.

Vehicle operating costs. The era of dirt cheap motoring really does seem to have come to a close. It’s not just gas prices, which have helped fuel much of the recent shift; they’ll stay high for a while. But more and more tolls are coming into our lives, parking is astronomical, insurance is usurious. As long as options are available and cheap, a lot of households will own one car rather than two, and leave the one they have parked, until they decide they don’t need it.

[See how these trends are playing out in Charlotte in the NY Times’ excellent piece on 1A of today’s edition.]

Based on these and other factors, authors Phineas Baxandall and Tony Dutzik ran three scenarios for the future. None assumed a wholesale continuation of the depressed driving rates among millennials; all forecast younger folks to drive more in the child-rearing years. Still, none of the scenarios approached a return to the yearly mileage growth of the previous 60 years, and all fall below current government projections.

What does this mean for the future of our transportation programs? A lot less money, for one thing, unless we change our dependence on the gas tax:

Coupled with improvements in fuel efficiency, reduced driving means Americans will use about half as much gasoline and other fuels in 2040 than they use today, making the real value of gas taxes fall as much as 74 percent.

Indeed, we are already seeing the impact of that fall-off. The tightening revenue suggests, first, that we should make sure we are setting aside existing dollars to ensure the good repair of our existing system. Second, we should review projects in the pipeline that assume escalating rates of driving. Third, we should help the metropolitan regions and mid-sized cities – our economic production zones – that are trying to give their citizens more reliable and affordable options. All of this suggests that we need shift to a mix of revenue sources to build a unified transportation fund that can cover all our infrastructure needs. You’ll be seeing a lot more from us on those ideas in the weeks and months to come.

NPR: 19 states (and counting) creating plans to raise more transportation dollars

More than a third of all U.S. states have plans of some sort to raise new money for transportation to help cover yawning budget shortfalls and keep up with maintenance and new construction of their state transportation networks.

NPR picked up the story this week that we’ve been following very closely and spent some time talking to T4 America director James Corless about the growing trend of states stepping out on their own to raise their own money for transportation to augment the federal funding that did not increase with the last transportation bill.

One major reason federal transportation funding did not increase is that “cars are getting more efficient, and people are actually driving less,” James Corless told NPR. “So that has conspired really to put less revenues into these state and federal funds — trust funds out of the gasoline tax. So purchasing power is declining, and so states are getting creative,” he said.

Listen:

From the story:

According to figures released by Transportation for America, which advocates for modernizing the nation’s infrastructure, 19 states have approved or are considering legislation to increase transportation funding.

One creative approach was taken by Virginia, which actually eliminated its gas tax while raising sales taxes and imposing a tax on wholesale fuel. The state is also allowing the congested Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads areas to raise their own tax revenue.

Republican William Howell, the speaker of the Virginia House, helped broker the deal. “It was a true compromise,” he says. “As with most any compromise, no one’s 100 percent happy with every feature of it. There are some things that I’m not crazy about. I’m sure there’s some features that other people don’t relish. But we had to do it.”

Though a third of all states do have some sort of proposal in the works, they’re all certainly not created equal. Ohio is looking to borrow more than a billion dollars against future turnpike revenues to build yet more roads. Gov. Walker in Wisconsin wants to borrow $1.2 billion and repay it with dwindling trust fund dollars and general tax revenue. A bill in Indiana would allow Indianpolis counties to tax themselves and invest that money in transit. Massachusetts has a plan to raise as much as a billion dollars a year for multimodal needs, including budget relief for their amazingly indebted transit agency.

Want to learn more and see what your state is planning, if anything?

Visit our home for state plans here.

Tracking state transportation funding plans

Maryland State Route 200 CC Flickr photo by Dougtone With MAP-21 signed into law last summer, attention has shifted from Washington out to the states.

In many cases, states have looked at the bottom line in MAP-21 and are deciding that they need more money for transportation and are embarking on ambitious and often groundbreaking plans to raise additional revenues for transportation.

Visit the home for state plans here, where we’re tracking all of the proposed (and enacted) plans in one easy, simple chart. If you see something we’ve gotten wrong or a state we should add, drop us a line and let us know.

And don’t miss our series of posts examining the plans and debates in a few key states.

Ambitious Maryland plan moves forward to index gas tax, add sales tax for transportation

When Maryland’s Intercounty Connector (ICC) highway opened in 2011, it did more than create a new east-west toll road between I-270 and I-95 in the northern suburbs of Washington, DC: It also severely hampered Maryland’s ability to build other large-scale transportation projects for years to come. But now there’s significant momentum to raise new state revenues for transportation to ensure that the state won’t have to shelve their plans for a 21st century transportation system.

Update 4/3/12: The Senate passed the House bill (HB515) last Friday, heading to Gov. O’Malley for his signature. The separate “lockbox” bill will require a conference to reconcile the differences in House and Senate versions.

With MAP-21 out the door, attention has shifted from Washington to the states. In many cases, states are deciding that they need more money for transportation and are embarking on ambitious and often groundbreaking plans to raise additional revenues for transportation. This post is part of a longer series we’ll be doing in 2013 examining how states are addressing the need for more transportation dollars, along with key policy changes. Visit the home for state plans here, where we’re tracking all of the news. – Ed.

While half of the ICC’s almost $2.6 billion cost was paid for with future tolls that don’t really impact the state’s transportation budget year to year, the other half ($1.3 billion) was covered by sources that have huge impacts on Maryland’s ability to build any other significant large transit or road projects.

The state spent $265 million in general funds and though the $180 million from the state’s Transportation Trust Fund represents only about 10 percent of what the state gas tax and vehicle fees bring in each year, Maryland is also devoting $750 million in future federal funds they haven’t yet received to the project — or almost 130 percent of what the state receives from the feds each year for all of their state highway needs. ($580 million in FY12.)

That means that a large share of Maryland’s future federal transportation dollars under MAP-21 — which itself represents a loss in real dollars over previous transportation bills — are already spoken for by this mammoth project.

The ICC under construction in 2011, Creative Commons Flickr photo by Dougtone.

Even without building the ICC, like a lot of states, Maryland would certainly have to make some tough decisions. But with it, it’s easy to understand how state and independent analysts have been saying that by 2018, Maryland will only have enough money to cover maintenance and repair, making it nearly impossible to fund any new highway projects or any of the long-awaited and much needed public transportation projects, including the new Red Line subway in Baltimore, the Purple Line rail link for Metro and the innovative Corridor Cities Transitway rapid bus line in the DC region.

Get Maryland Moving, a new coalition of advocates of all stripes from across the state, coalesced around the urgent need to keep these worthy projects (and many others) from being relegated to a perpetual “wouldn’t that be nice” wish list, providing Marylanders with other options for getting around, and ensuring that Maryland doesn’t have to cease all investment in their transportation network.

Since the (state) gas tax was set at its current level of 23.5¢ in 1992, construction costs have doubled, according to this report from the CA DOT. Simply put, just like the federal gas tax that was last increased in 1993, inflation has far outpaced the value of the gas tax, and with Americans driving fewer and fewer miles each year in more fuel efficient vehicles, they each bring in less revenue.

A rally in Annapolis at the State House organized by Get Maryland Moving in March 2013.

Urged along by the diverse Get Maryland Moving coalition, the current proposal started from a plan put forward by Governor Martin O’Malley, the President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House, though it has been modified as it has moved through the state legislature. The House passed the bill (HB1515) just last week, and the Senate is due to debate and vote on it soon.

You can view the Governor’s initial plan on our page of state transportation funding plans, but here is the deal as it currently stands in the Maryland legislature. The plan would:

Index the gas tax to inflation starting immediately (with a ceiling of 5 cents maximum increase in any given year.)
Add a three percent sales tax at the gasoline pump, phasing that in over a period of three years starting this summer.
There are other provisions that could change the sales tax rate on gasoline that have to do with internet sales tax. In short, if Congress allows states to tax internet sales, Maryland will devote that revenue to transportation. If not, they’ll raise the sales tax on gas to five percent.-=
Raise $4.4 billion for transportation over six years (including the ability to borrow against increased future revenues.)

A popular argument against the tax has been the supposed increase that residents will see at the pump — 13-20 cents per gallon as reported by state analysts and trumpeted loudly above the fold by the Washington Post and other outlets. But gas prices fluctuate wildly even within submarkets — many places may see gas prices go up by 20 cents a gallon in just a few weeks at certain times of year.

Along those lines, the Get Maryland Moving coalition visited a bunch of Maryland gas stations on one particular day to show the wild variety in prices, sometimes at locations within sight of one another, and produced this terrific graphic.

The Get Maryland Moving coalition consists of some of T4 America’s core local partners in the region as well as strong representation from local elected officials and business groups that don’t want to see Maryland drop the ball on projects like the Purple Line that would create a vital (and decades overdue, many would argue) east-west transit connection in the region that would also eliminate long rides through the core of the Metro system to reach the opposite end of the Red line.

Most of the leaders of the suburban counties in the DC metro region have been strong advocates for the plan in the legislature. From The Washington Post:

“This is a big problem, and we need a big solution,” Montgomery County Executive Isiah Leggett (D) testified at a hearing of the Senate Budget and Taxation Committee. “My view is go big or go home.”

Leggett appeared on the same panel with Prince George’s County Executive Rushern L. Baker III (D) and Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake (D). All three praised a bill introduced by Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. (D-Calvert) but said they remain open to alternative methods to raise more money for transportation.

The moment of truth is coming soon for Maryland’s transportation future. The 90-day legislative session ends in just a few weeks in early April.

America’s infrastructure improves slightly over 2009, still a failing grade

America’s civil engineers raised the grade given to our country’s infrastructure from four years ago, but unfortunately, it’s still a failing grade for America.

With the $3.3 trillion dollars needed by 2020 (according to ASCE) unlikely to arrive in this current climate of reduced budgets and austerity, is there a way forward that can make smarter decisions with the money we have and knock back our maintenance backlog while still investing in the 21st century infrastructure our country needs?

The latest edition of the every-four-years report card from the American Society of Civil Engineers gives America a “D”, up from the “D-minus” we received in 2009. Improvement is always good, but a failing grade is still unacceptable, like a baseball player who hits a homer in a game his team loses.

“While our country’s association of civil engineers continues to do the yeoman’s work of sounding the alarm on our country’s infrastructure,” said T4 America director James Corless this morning, “it’s a sad reality that little has changed since the last Report Card in 2009.”

The truth is that few should be surprised at the state of things when they log on to the fantastic new ASCE interactive report card app (available on the web as well as for Android, iPhone and tablets) and sift through the national and state data.

Few would be surprised, because has anything here in Washington changed to drastically improve the condition of our roads, bridges and transit systems? Last summer, Congress finally passed a replacement to the transportation bill that expired just a few months after the last ASCE report card was issued — in 2009. Though a definite sign of progress in some areas, the new law provided no new dollars for transportation in the two years to come. The program dedicated to repairing our country’s 69,000 structurally deficient bridges was eliminated after making steady progress on reducing the backlog over the last 20 years.

Beyond the federal bill, which only represents about a quarter of all transportation spending, state and local revenues in many places are falling rapidly (MAP-21 held federal funding level at least) leading many Governors and state legislatures to float alternate plans for raising for revenue to make needed repairs and build anew.

While we certainly believe we need to increase the amount of money that we spend on infrastructure (especially transportation), simply increasing the amount of money is no panacea — ASCE is certainly right that we need to change how the money is spent — it’s not enough to pour more money into a cup with a hole in the bottom.

ASCE has some encouraging recommendations in this year’s report card moving the discussion in the direction of smarter, more transparent spending on infrastructure. We do need more leadership, more transparency, and a “focus on sustainability and resilience,” as they say in their recommendations. And we can no longer ignore growth patterns and things like a housing-jobs mismatch when making transportation decisions, affirmed by ASCE’s insistence that “infrastructure plans should be synchronized with regional land use planning.”

Some states aren’t waiting for billions that are unlikely to come and are already far ahead of the curve, thinking about ways to make their dollars do more. Like Massachusetts, where the DOT director issued a goal of tripling the number of trips taken by foot, bike and public transportation — reducing the load on roads and bridges that are among the oldest in the country. Or Tennessee, where the state DOT has taken a long look at their list of their proposed projects to see if they’re really necessary at a time when funding is dwindling, resources are scarce, and residents are looking for options to sitting in traffic.

Pushed between a rock and a hard place with forced austerity through reduced budgets yet being asked to do more with less, it’s time for a different approach.

With $1.7 trillion in needs by 2020 for surface transportation identified by ASCE and MAP-21 funding levels only due to bring in about $400 billion in that same time period, it begs the question: Who’s going to pay the difference? While ASCE avoids the question specifically, they do assert, much as we do, that there will continue to be an important role for the feds in planning and paying for infrastructure. “Federal investment must be used to complement, encourage, and leverage investment from the state and local government levels as well as from the private sector,” the report says. But it doesn’t stop there. “In addition, users of the infrastructure must be willing to pay the appropriate price for their use.”

Will we be willing to pay for what we need? Or do too many people think that we need to make the spending smarter before we make it bigger? However you answer, there’s not really an option other than smarter spending for the next two years, because MAP-21 didn’t provide any new money to states.

Yet MAP-21’s expiration is already on the horizon and the Highway Trust Fund is still headed towards its own fiscal cliff. The Senate budget resolution and the President have both suggested big increases in transportation spending. But where will the money come from? Despite key questions about where that revenue would come from, the simple fact that the 113^th session of Congress has started with a number of proposals to increase investment in infrastructure, along with supportive comments from new House Transportation Chair Bill Shuster, have given transportation advocates a reason to be hopeful.

“With the federal gas tax bringing in less money every year, strong leadership from Congress is needed now more than ever,” said T4’s James Corless.

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Some comparisons with 2009 at a glance:

Bridges improved from a C to C+
Rail improved from a C- to C+
Roads improved slightly from a D- to D
And transit was unchanged at a D

Rethinking the gas tax: Suddenly it’s the theme of 2013

Is the per-gallon gas tax going the way of the full-service filling station?

To look at the flurry of proposals coming out lately, you might think so. Since the start of the year, major new proposals from industry leaders, governors and state legislatures have sparked a new debate over the ways we collect revenue collection for transportation — at the federal, state and local levels.

Earlier this month, the outgoing head of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, John Horsley, proposed replacing the per-gallon federal tax with a sales tax on fuel. Although he didn’t specify a level, an AASHTO press release indicated it should be set “at a level that restores solvency” to the transportation trust fund, meaning it would have to take in at least $15 billion more a year just to keep spending at current levels. While some no doubt will deride it as a stealth tax increase, Horsley said, “The cost of the reform to taxpayers would be less than $1 per week, per vehicle.”

At the same time, 2013 already has seen several ambitious proposals for funding transportation outside of the excise tax on gas. Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick in his state of the state address proposed raising his state’s income tax rate from 5.25 to 6.25 percent and lowering the sales tax from 6.25 percent to 4.5 percent, while earmarking sales tax revenue for infrastructure, with a significant share dedicated to public transportation. Patrick said those moves would raise $1.02 billion in new revenue per year on average for the next ten years – none of it from a per-gallon gas tax.

Last week came a report from Pennsylvania that Republican Gov. Tom Corbett is preparing to a release plan to add nearly $2 billion to the state’s transportation funding pot. Though the details are speculative pending a public unveiling next week, he has pledged that the money won’t come from an increase at the gas pump.

These proposals come on the heels of the month’s most controversial, headline-grabbing pitch from Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell to scrap his state’s gas tax altogether. Instead, he would raise the state’s sales tax from 5 to 5.8 percent – ironically on everything but gasoline – while increasing vehicle-registration fees and adds an annual $100 charge for drivers of alternative-fuel cars. Those changes would raise an extra $3.1 billion over five years, he said.

At bottom, the recent move away from gas taxes as the go-to source of transportation funds is a nod to new realities: Their earning power is shrinking every year, and car-dependent voters will not stomach increases commensurate with their desire for a robust transportation network.

At the same time, both the highway lobby and environmentalists are seeing their long-held arguments undermined by experience. Environmentalists have contended that gas taxes should rise to slow consumption and speed the transition away from oil. The political reality is that gas taxes can’t be imposed in the U.S. in a way that changes behavior. Behavior now is changing, but for other reasons.

The highway lobby has spent years and millions making the case that gas taxes are “user fees” and are rightly devoted to roads. But with experts like DOT Secretary Ray LaHood predicting that nearly every vehicle will be a hybrid or electric a decade from now, most motorists will be paying little or no such “user fee” absent a major change.

That, of course, says nothing about meeting the needs of the vast majority of Americans who will be living in metro regions too crowded for one-person-per-car travel. State gas taxes certainly can’t meet those needs: 22 states have a constitutional prohibition against spending gas tax revenue on anything but roads, and eight states have similar statutory restrictions.

The reality today, though, is that gas taxes only cover half of the bill for building and maintaining our road network, and that ratio is dropping every year. At the local level, of course, nearly all road and transit costs are paid by sales, property or other non-fuel taxes.

While moving away from the gas taxes, all of the recent proposals — coming from Republicans in VA and PA or Democrats in MA, MN and MD – would amount to asking citizens to pay more for transportation infrastructure. That is something that polls show voters increasingly are willing to do when they understand what the money will be used for.

As we have said since the rollout of our “Blueprint” in 2009, we believe all options to increase funding for reinvesting in America’s infrastructure should be on the table. Back then, T4 proposed a variety of options including a 20 cent increase in the gas tax, converting the federal gas tax to a sales tax, or imposing a per-barrel fee on imported oil.

The gasoline tax has its merits, but given the lack of political will to raise it significantly, and the wide range of needs, it’s time to begin thinking of infrastructure as a basic government function that can, and should be, funded the full range of available revenue sources. Our global competitors, after all, have recognized this for quite some time, and are moving ahead of us in building a 21^st century infrastructure.

US Transportation Secretary departs, leaving a legacy of memorable initiatives

The news many had suspected was confirmed to be true this morning in a blog post from Secretary LaHood himself — the Transportation Secretary is planning to step aside for President Obama’s second term:

“I have let President Obama know that I will not serve a second term as Secretary of the U.S. Department of Transportation. It has been an honor and a privilege to lead the Department, and I am grateful to President Obama for giving me such an extraordinary opportunity. I plan to stay on until my successor is confirmed to ensure a smooth transition for the Department and all the important work we still have to do.

At a time like this, it’s entertaining to go back and read the wide spectrum of reactions from transportation reformers and local advocates back when the relatively unknown former Republican Representative from Illinois was tapped to be President Obama’s Secretary of Transportation.

Skepticism. Cautious optimism. Shock.

Our response was hopeful for the future as we faced the imminent 2009 expiration of transportation law and knew that a strong voice at DOT could be helpful in moving a bill along — that hope was rewarded with four years of a strong DOT Secretary who shared our vision for the future.

We released the first edition of our report on pedestrian safety (Dangerous by Design) in 2009 at a time when a new DOT secretary in his first year was still honing what would become his key message for his four-year term: safety. We arranged a meeting and took the names of 4,100 of our local supporters like yourself to his office and sat with him for an hour and explained how the design of our federally-funded streets and roads results in preventable pedestrian deaths every year.

After the meeting, he gave us his promise that he would review the report and direct his newly convened safety council to investigate these 76,000 preventable pedestrian fatalities and make recommendations on what DOT could do apart from Congress. He also became a champion for the cause on the Hill and released an official DOT policy statement on the issue.

Though he tried to apply pressure to Congress where he could to move the transportation bill along and offer his thoughts on the duration of the bill, those decisions were still ultimately up to the policymakers in Congress. But Sec. LaHood knew that he still had great influence over scores of day-to-day DOT decisions and the money that they spend. So he became the foremost champion of the innovative TIGER grant program — awarded by his office directly — touring and touting the projects at every opportunity and doing his best to advocate for the program with skeptical House members…some of whom who became defenders of the program, touting their own communities’ applications as worthy TIGER grantees and urging Congress to expand the program.

Perhaps one of his most valuable roles over the past four years has been as a plainspoken yet highly visible advocate for a smarter way of using transportation dollars to better line up with what Americans really want — which he described after seeing our national poll that affirmed that Americans want more transportation options

This is precisely what I’ve been talking about here in this blog with regard to livability, transit, and walking and biking. I have traveled all over this country in the past 14 months, and everywhere I go people want better options. Options that offer reduced greenhouse-gas emissions. Options that offer reduced fuel-consumption. Options that offer better health. Options that bring communities together.

Now, let me make this absolutely clear: I never said we would stop repairing, maintaining, and–yes–even expanding roadways. I said only that it’s time to stop assuming that putting more cars on more roads is the best way to move people around more effectively.

This survey demonstrates that, by and large, the American people get that. I never doubted them, but it sure is nice to see the numbers.

So, thank you, Transportation For America, for that 82%-strong vote of confidence.

So as a handful of critics began to assail President Obama’s focus on “livability,” Sec. LaHood became its most outspoken advocate, turning to his own personal experience to explain how livability was really just a newfangled buzzword to describe a lifestyle that many Americans knew anyway, by sight or memory:

Q. So tell me, what does this concept of “livability” really mean?

A. This is something I’ve never really talked about, but growing up, I lived on the east side of Peoria. When I was growing up, I could walk to my grade school. We had one car, but we would bike everywhere we went. We could walk to the grocery store. In those days, we had streetcars and buses, which people used to get to downtown Peoria, which was probably five miles from my house. I used to take a bus to my dad’s business. I grew up in an era [of] livable neighborhoods and livable communities — what we’re really trying to offer to people around America…

When the groundbreaking Partnership for Sustainable Communities — the partnership between DOT, Housing and the EPA — was under threat of budget cuts Sec. LaHood was a strong advocate for the partnership and its common sense approach of coordinating their efforts and making the most of these three agencies’ work.

Perhaps moreso than any other recent Transportation Secretary, LaHood leaves behind a signature initiative with his distracted driving campaign that registered with the national zeitgeist in a way that will be hard to match.

Sec. LaHood has proven to be a remarkably smart choice by the President, and all of us at T4 America will be sorry to see him leave the office. We hope his successor, whoever he or she may be, takes some cues from the hardworking Republican from Illinois as they craft their own agenda for the next four years.

Sandy relief bill will provide billions for repairing and improving transportation systems

The Sandy relief bill on the cusp of final passage will provide billions for cleanup and more than $12 billion for transportation — including an unprecedented step toward making transportation networks around the northeast and NYC more resilient in the face of climate change, more frequent and unpredictable storms, and rising sea levels.

The MTA A Train bridge to the Rockaways was heavily damaged during Hurricane Sandy. This photo shows early repair work underway as of November 3, 2012. Photo: MTA New York City Transit / Leonard Wiggins

It’s not completely a done deal yet — the House and Senate passed slightly different bills — but the $50.66 billion Sandy relief bill was passed by the House this week more than two weeks after the promised vote by Speaker Boehner to New Jersey Governor Chris Christie (and others) at the end of 2012.

The Senate passed their version of the bill back in 2012. The bills are almost identical in their funding amounts, though there are some small programmatic differences in funding. Also, earlier this month, Congress approved and President Obama signed a measure providing $9.7 billion in additional funding for the federal flood insurance program, bringing the total expected Sandy spending up around $60 billion.

Part of the reason the House did not vote on this comprehensive package was due to pushback from House Republicans against approving such a large emergency spending package, and particularly because the package included funds for “future disaster mitigation,” i.e., acknowledging that climate change exists and is something worth preparing for. As a result, northeastern legislators from both parties were livid at the delay in approving disaster funding for their hard-hit region — actually a longer wait than for Katrina funding in 2005.

So what’s in the two bills for transportation?

The Senate package included over $12 billion for transportation. The bulk of that ($11 billion) is for the damaged transit systems that millions of daily commuters and riders depend on, to be distributed through the new Federal Transit Emergency Relief program (created by MAP-21). Close to $5.4 billion of this funding is directed to mitigation efforts to reduce the risk of damage from future disasters. As noted above, this unprecedented inclusion of mitigation funding represents a major shift in the federal dialogue about the real need to address and prepare for the impacts of climate change.

The Senate bill also included $336 million in mitigation relief to Amtrak and the Northeast Corridor for damages caused by the storm as well as advancing projects critical to improving resiliency in the case of future disasters. (According to our partners at the Tri-State Transportation Campaign, that money also helps NJ Transit, which operates commuter service on the same tracks.) There was also about $920 million to repair Sandy-related damage on our nation’s highways and bridges.

The House-passed package included relief for all of the above, but there are some important differences in the transportation funding distribution. Amtrak’s relief was cut by about 64% down to $118 million. Transit system relief is still close to $11 billion with close to $5.4 available for projects to alleviate future damage (there were some slight language changes and a small boost in funding). Highway disaster relief increased to a little over $2 billion.

Though there was opposition to the package from many House Republicans, the measure was pushed through with the support of the House Republicans from the region as well as House Democrats. Now, the Senate will likely take up and pass the House bill, or potentially attempt to amend it before final passage.

MTA New York City Transit preparations for Hurricane Sandy. Photo: MTA New York City Transit / Leonard Wiggins

From state to town, Michigan takes strong steps toward a better transportation future

One place illustrating the national positive voting trends for transportation is Michigan, where citizens voted to raise taxes for transportation investments in cities and counties across the state, at least one anti-transit elected official was ousted, a Republican governor led the charge for regional transit investment in the state’s biggest metro and when given a chance to bail in the name of “cost savings,” local voters doubled down on their existing transit system.

There were a lot of eyes on Michigan during Transportation Vote 2012, in part because of the sheer number of transportation measures being decided there: over 30 different ballot questions in 2012 alone, according to the Center for Transportation Excellence.

Though there were dozens of worthwhile transportation ballot measures passed this year, Eaton County, Kalamazoo County, Muskegon City, and Ogemaw County all either renewed or passed new substantial tax millages to support public transportation specifically.

That’s no fluke, as Tim Fischer of the Michigan Environmental Council told us. Fischer, the Deputy Policy Director for MEC and part of the Transportation for Michigan coalition echoed a familiar refrain about the success of transit related ballot measures.

“I think the real message is that voters will support transit almost every time when they know where their money is going and what it will be used for,” he said.

Along those lines, a handful of cities around the country were offered a choice to secede from existing transit systems and decide to send that money elsewhere — a phenomenon explained in more depth by Angie Schmitt at Streetsblog Capitol Hill a few weeks ago — including one vote in Walker ~~County~~, Michigan, a city in the western suburbs of Grand Rapids. In a show of support for their existing system, voters in Walker rejected that attempt by a huge margin (73 percent opposed), “because residents see real value in their local transit systems even though they might not ever use them,” Fischer added.

“Road millages, by comparison, don’t always fare so well and have been rejected more often than passed in recent years. People perceive that they already pay for roads through the gas tax and are less inclined to pay for roads through millages.”

(That wasn’t the only good news in Grand Rapids, which also recently received $20 million in federal funds to build a BRT line.)

In a more recent development, just last week, the Michigan legislature passed landmark legislation finally creating a regional transit authority in Detroit, something that transit advocates and Detroit leaders have been trying to do for decades.

They were no doubt urged along by USDOT Secretary Ray LaHood, who told Michigan leaders they wouldn’t receive federal money for the Detroit Woodward light rail line without a regional authority to receive and manage the money.

“The RTA passage will trigger USDOT to release $25 million in promised federal funds which will add to about $80 million in private money,” Fischer said. “In addition, a component of that legislation is the development of about 100 miles of rapid bus transit (‘BRT light’).”

The coalition that helped the RTA legislation along to victory was a broad one.

MOSES (Metropolitan Organizing Strategy Enables Strength), which does faith-based organizing within over 40 congregations in southeast Michigan, was a key part of the successful coalition. MOSES did much of the legwork to push the bill through, holding scores of meetings with legislators to affirm to them the importance of investing in public transportation (pdf), and explaining how the lack of this regional authority was a significant roadblock to doing that.

Michael Tasse with MOSES said that their leaders and members had been having meetings with legislators for over two years on the regional transit bill.

“We pushed the governor to support it,” Tasse said. “We helped persuade legislators who were on the fence or who might not have initially supported it by helping them to understand the bill. A big part of what we spent a year doing is educating them on the bill and pushing them to read through it and understand it. We made scores of visits in district, and we went to Lansing more than ten times.”

MOSES is celebrating the passage of the bill as 2012 comes to a close. “This is important because it’s about transportation — not just rail lines to Chicago, but the bus lines that connect people across town and the factories across town and the suburbs,” he explained. “Connecting people to those jobs is how we’re going to build strong families and communities in Southeast Michigan. If people can’t get around, they’re stuck, and that creates a gap between the few and the many.”

But the wins go beyond just local or regional transit in Michigan. Passenger rail statewide has had a significant boost in the last year, certainly helped along by the leadership and straight-up boosterism of the Republican Governor Rick Snyder.

Michigan Governor Rick Snyder talks to the media at an event sponsored by the Michigan Municipal League.

Michigan has received about $500 million for the Chicago-Detroit/Pontiac passenger rail route, including funds to purchase about 130 miles of track from NS, adding to the 100 miles already owned by Amtrak. 234 miles of the 300 mile Chicago-Detroit route are now under public ownership. Trains are already running at speeds of 110 mph on some of this stretch, and they’ll run that fast for longer stretches once more track is upgraded next construction season.

Incidentally, this line from Detroit to Pontiac runs right through the town of Troy, where a mayor who refused a federal grant to build a new train station there was ousted by recall in November and removed from office.

All of these stories of Michigan communities and the state seizing control of their futures and declaring the importance of transportation at the ballot box are encouraging, but they still can’t go it alone — they need the feds to step up and support these kinds of communities leading the way.

“The rail projects wouldn’t exist without it [federal support], nor would the Grand Rapids BRT line,” Tim Fischer told us. “The locals must do their part, but federal money is necessary to turn the projects into reality.”

Michigan boosters like Fischer see the positive trend continuing.

“I am optimistic for Michigan’s future. Our passenger rail programs and transit systems have come a long way in just a few short years. Also, communities across the state have great interest in complete streets — over 80 have adopted complete streets policies or resolutions since we established our complete streets law in 2010.”

“Things are coming together at long last,” Fischer said.

T4 America releases new guide to implementing MAP-21

Transportation for America today released an easy-to-follow handbook to help stakeholders understand and engage in implementing the new federal transportation law adopted last summer.

Making the Most of MAP-21: A Guide to the 2012 Federal Transportation Law — And How to Use it for Positive Change in Your Community features both narrative chapters and two-page explainers on the key features of the new program, from the consolidated highway program to the new transportation alternatives, as well as new financing options.

“Making the Most of MAP-21 is in an invaluable tool for those at the municipal level who are seeking both to understand the scope of the changes in the federal law, and determine how they can effect change at the local level,” said John Robert Smith, the co-chair of T4 America and the former four-term mayor of Meridian, MS.

After nearly three years of extensions of the expired previous transportation law, Congress in July adopted Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st century, or MAP-21. While it stopped short of providing more robust funding or a sweeping vision for infrastructure in the 21st century, MAP- 21 makes significant changes to federal transportation policy.

For one, it will mean that much more will depend now upon how well state departments of transportation manage affairs and attend to the needs of all their constituents. Federal law no longer sets aside a minimum amount of money for repairing our roads and bridges, leaving it to states to decide whether to repair or replace what we have, or to build new facilities that will themselves need to be maintained. More types of projects now compete for the money allocated to metropolitan areas. The law cuts by a third the money dedicated to make our roads and neighborhoods safer for walking or biking, but it gives localities more direct control over what remains.

“MAP-21 provides some opportunities for communities like ours to win federal support for our vision for a better future – but only if we know when, where and how to affect the decision-making process,” said Peter McLaughlin, a commissioner in Hennepin County, MN. “With this handbook, T4America has given us a road map for doing that.”

The handbook includes handy reference tables for funding by program for each state, as well as public transportation apportionments, bridge conditions, pedestrian and bicycle fatalities, the impact of transit service on local congestion and transportation costs by metro. It also offers a compendium of arguments that community supporters can use to bolster their desire to broaden local transportation options, make their streets safer and keep their system in good repair.

Find the handbook on the web with all of T4 America MAP-21 resources at https://t4america.org/resources/map-21.

What the 2012 elections mean for the federal transportation picture

OK, now it’s official: Rep. Bill Shuster (R-PA) will replace Rep. John Mica (R-FL) as chair of the House Transportation and Infrastructure committee. That much has been resolved after a 2012 election that still leaves a number of key questions hanging in the balance.

It is too soon to say, obviously, what sort of chairman Rep. Shuster will be. His early remarks – seeking to strike a middle ground while avoiding dogmatic statements – appear to put him more in the mold of his father, Bud Shuster, who served 28 years in Congress and chaired T&I for six years in the 1990s. In remarks honoring him in 2002, former T&I Chairman Jim Oberstar praised Bill Shuster’s dad thusly: “His perseverance, patience and willingness to find common ground made him one of the greatest committee chairmen we have seen in recent years in the House.”

However, “Things are different (now),” Bill Shuster told The Hill last week. “To move legislation, I think certainly takes some of the skill set that he had. … But also, you’ve got to make sure that you’re listening to the … committee and the (GOP) conference to move these things forward. I’ve learned a lot from him, but there’s some things that happen around here today that he didn’t have to deal with.”

In other comments, Shuster has said that he does not support rolling back the federal role in transportation or giving the entire job to the states. Rather, he said he wants to find the additional revenue and financing strategies that can help make up the gap between necessary investment levels and a federal gas tax whose earning power is in decline. In a nod to reality, he also endorsed exploring the potential of transitioning to a per-mile fee, or vehicle miles traveled tax (VMT), rather than a per-gallon gas tax.

“Longer term, VMT seems to me to be the only way to stop the decline because we’re all going to be driving cars five, ten years from now that are going 40, 50 miles [per gallon] or more, or maybe not using any gas at all,” he told The Hill. Whatever the revenue source, he and his colleagues will need to move quickly: His committee needs to be ready to adopt the next transportation in just 22 months.

Rep. Bill Shuster, second from left, tours a Corps of Engineers lock facility in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

But what about raising the gas tax in the meantime?

Suddenly, almost everywhere you look in transportation land, people are talking about the possibility of a gas tax increase, and Shuster himself raised the possibility this week. Some argue that a lame duck session provides the perfect opportunity. They and others also see the potential to include a gas tax increase as part of the debt deal that is expected in the so-called “fiscal cliff” negotiations.

There is some justification for that argument. A shortfall in expected gas tax revenues already has led Congress to make increasingly large transfers from the over-burdened general fund to the highway trust fund, and was a key reason that last summer’s transportation bill lasts only two years, rather than the typical six. A gas tax increase large enough to cover all the highway and transit funding now coming from general revenues would hardly cure all the budget issues, but it certainly could help, the argument goes.

But will the Obama Administration end its opposition to talk of a gas tax increase? The President had declared it a non-starter as long as the economy is sputtering. Has the U.S. economy stabilized enough – even as fears of a Europe-led global recession lurk in the wings – to allow a gas tax increase to be put on the table?

Whither Ray LaHood?

And speaking of the Administration, if Ray LaHood has the old Clash song “Should I Stay or Should I Go?” on his iPod he’s probably listening to it a lot these days.

A year ago he announced – or rather blurted out – that he planned to step down if Obama got re-elected. The possibility has fueled much speculation as to replacements, but he has been silent since the election. That didn’t stop The Atlantic Cities from running a recent piece on why a mayor should get the nod for the job. The article quotes yours truly praising LaHood as one of the best to hold that job, and given his support for innovations like the TIGER program, his emphasis on the safety of everyone who uses road and transit systems, his strong support for local communities trying to improve their livability … Well, we’ll stand by those remarks.

Tuesday’s vote: Strong support for more transportation options nationwide

They say all politics is local. Well, that goes double for transportation.

During a federal election season that saw the presidential candidates making only the barest mention of our teetering system for funding transportation infrastructure, local voters took transit funding into their own hands in more than two-dozen locales Tuesday. Most of the measures that included public transportation and a more balanced set of transportation options appear to have passed – or in the case of California, came achingly close to the required two-thirds majority. (Read The Transport Politic for a great summary of important measures. -Ed.)

According to the Center for Transportation Excellence election tracker, 14 of the 20 measures whose ballots have been tabulated at this point passed, a 70 percent rate. And in two of the “losses”, the funding proposal actually won 65 percent of the vote. Despite continued doubts on the economy, voters confronted with a well-presented plan to fix or improve local transportation networks generally said “yes” to slightly higher taxes. Up until yesterday, 2012 had seen 33 of 39 such measures pass, for an 85 percent pass rate.

One of the most closely watched votes Tuesday was Measure J in Los Angeles, where voters were asked to extend their 2008 transit tax another 30 years out to 2069. It was an ambitious scheme to build more of the expansive rail and rapid bus network faster by taking larger upfront loans over the next several years. The longer repayment stream was necessary in order to be able to sell long-term bonds in the coming years. Outside observers thought it was a heavy lift to get voters to approve another transit tax just four years after passing Measure R, but Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and others felt that Angelenos are impatient to get the transportation options they’re seeking sooner.

Metro Board member Richard Katz, Los Angeles Mayor and Metro Board Chair Antonio Villaraigosa, Metro Board member and Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky earlier this year celebrating the new Expo Line light rail, funded in part by 2008’s Measure R. Photo by Metro Library and Archives.

Apparently they were right: The measure won 64.7 percent of the vote. Unfortunately, that’s just shy of the two-thirds required for revenue measures in California. (Notably, only 2.3 million Angelenos voted this year versus the 3.3 million who voted in 2008, when LA’s breakthrough sales tax for transportation, Measure R, passed with 67.8%.) A similar fate befell Alameda County, across the bay from San Francisco, where a half-cent sales tax would have helped improve local bus service and build a BART extension to Livermore. It’s likely to fail despite also receiving a strong majority of support — over 65.5 percent. (That vote is still too close to call and might not be decided for a few days, though it is still trailing. -Ed.)

Transportation issues played a significant role in a few mayoral races, as well. In Honolulu, the election became a referendum on construction of the $5.26 billion light rail line voters approved in 2008 (and which is already under construction today.) There, rail supporter Kirk Caldwell, the former city managing director, bested former Gov. Ben Cayetano, who came out of retirement to stop the rail project. Caldwell, who said he will “do rail better”, came from behind to win 54 percent of the vote to Cayetano’s 46 percent.

In Portland, OR, Charlie Hales – a longtime rail and streetcar proponent – beat state Rep. Jefferson Smith with 62 percent of the vote. In San Diego, U.S. Rep. Bob Filner, a Democrat, beat city council member Carl DeMaio in a race in which both candidates passionately embraced complete streets and safer conditions for walking and biking. And in Troy, MI, Mayor Janice Daniels, who rejected federal funding for a transit center in 2011, was recalled.

In other key votes, a few jurisdictions voted to join the transit party begun by neighboring communities. In Orange County, NC, home of Chapel Hill and the University of North Carolina, third city in the Research Triangle formed with Raleigh and Durham, voters approved a sales tax expected to raise $661 million for upgraded bus service and light rail to connect to Durham. Partly prodded by in-state rival Charlotte, which has seen multiple benefits from its own rail line, Durham County approved a half-cent sales tax for those purposes last year. Now it remains to be seen whether Raleigh will complete the triangle.

Rendering of a future light rail/Amtrak station in the Triangle Transit System in Durham, courtesy of Triangle Transit

Inspired by the success of light rail in neighboring Norfolk, voters in Virginia Beach approved an advisory measure in support of extending it to their city and, potentially, waterfront. The city council will make the ultimate decision whether to go forward. Elsewhere in Virginia, the D.C. “suburb” of Arlington approved a $32 million bond issue for transit, roads, bike, and pedestrian projects, with half going toward improvements related to the Metro rail service in Arlington. In Michigan, where four jurisdictions – Kalamazoo, Muskegon and Eaton and Ogemaw counties – passed transit levies, the Grand Rapids suburb of Walker overwhelmingly rejected withdrawing from the regional transit system.

In South Carolina, voters in Richland County – home of the state capital, Columbia – passed a penny sales tax to would widen and build roads, expand bus service and extend miles of sidewalks, bike lanes and trails. It passed with 54 percent and will be collected for 22 years.

Bucking the trend, voters in Clark County, WA – across the Columbia River from Portland – appear to have rejected a proposal to fund transit service on the proposed Columbia River Crossing, a controversial, multibillion-dollar bridge and freeway project connecting Vancouver, WA to Portland. That loss likely wasn’t just about transit — transit-supporters such as Mayor Tim Leavitt of Vancouver and the Clark County Chamber of Commerce opposed the sales tax measure, claiming there were other ways to fund operations and maintenance of proposed transit improvements. (This vote is still too close to call, though the measure is currently losing. -Ed.)

A couple of the ballot failures were nonetheless winners in the “worth a try” category. Memphis city leaders sought a one-cent per gallon gas tax to raise money to expand eight bus routes and build a downtown trolley, but were rebuffed. In Houston, transit advocates sought to end the practice of diverting a quarter of the one-cent transit sales tax to local roads. Voters confused by the fact that a “for Metro” vote continued the diversion and effectively ends light rail expansion, overwhelmingly approved it.

So many localities ponying up their share for expanded transportation options has led some to argue that the feds can shrink from their commitment to fund infrastructure. But ask any of the local communities that have just taxed themselves to improve transportation options and you’ll quickly hear that it’s not an either/or proposition.

Local communities have a vision for a 21st century transportation system that provides affordable options for every resident. They’re willing to tax themselves to get there, but they can’t do it alone. Stay tuned in the next several days for our take on what seems likely to change – or not – at the federal level as a result of election 2012.

With cities and suburbs clamoring to build new transit systems, a new book showcases creative financing approaches for getting them built

This new free guidebook from Transportation for America is designed to help community leaders across the country meet the demand for transit by raising money to build and operate it outside of the traditional federal funding sources.

Download the full guidebook (10.8mb pdf)

Find out more about the guidebook in the resources area.

The demand for public transportation service is at its highest point in 50 years.The causes are many: rising gas prices, an increasingly urbanized population, growing numbers of seniors, and the preferences of the “millennial” generation. These factors and more are contributing to soaring ridership on existing transit routes. And more communities today are looking for funds to build and operate rail and bus lines than ever before.

Yet a combination of ideological gridlock in Congress, dwindling federal gas tax revenues, and the elimination of earmarks have made the traditional approaches to building transit much more challenging. But despite these obstacles, many communities are finding creative ways to move ahead. From Tucson to Charlotte, communities across the country are rounding up funding from sources outside of the traditional federal funding sources to build tomorrow’s transportation system today.

Growing public interest in transit is leading many communities to look for ways to create or expand their transit systems, but as more communities apply for money from a shrinking piece of the pie, the already over-subscribed traditional federal programs for transit won’t be able to fund every project seeking assistance. To make the money go further, the New Starts transit program, the main source of funding for new transit systems, has recently covered one-half of project costs, down from 80 percent in the past, with some projects getting as little as one-third of their required total.

Even with this policy in effect the waiting list grows longer every year.

But all is not lost. There are ways to pay for new transit investments without waiting so long, and a growing number of communities are pursuing them. But doing so requires more sophistication in the art of project finance than has been needed in the past.

Someday—soon, we hope—the federal government may respond to the high level of demand for new transit investments by increasing funding available to communities. Those of us who aspire to provide these options for people in our communities must continue to work toward that goal. In the meantime, though, we can demonstrate the depth of the need and the strength of our desire by finding our own creative ways to make these projects happen.

This new guidebook is a first step toward that goal. We’ll be posting excerpts and stories here in the coming days, but you can download the full book today.

Top Left: Photo courtesy of the Metro Library and Archives, top right: Flickr photo by the Seattle DOT, bottom right: Flickr photo by Andrew Bossi, bottom left: Flickr photo by Steven Vance

Is metro Atlanta vote a bellwether for transportation funding?

Flickr photo of Atlanta’s “Spaghetti Junction” by Felicity Green

In my best grandpa voice: Way back in 19 and 96, as a reporter for the Atlanta Journal Constitution, I wrote a series of stories under the heading “Gridshock” that laid out the traffic hell facing metro Atlanta absent something resembling a plan. At the time, the Georgia DOT was wrapping up its $3 billion “Freeing the Freeways” paving bonanza, and the last planned extension of MARTA rapid rail was winding down.

Meanwhile, metro Atlanta was sprawling out of control, spreading out in all directions and in ways that ensured that options other than lengthening car commutes would be hard to provide. At the same time, the metastasizing traffic was far out-pacing the existing and projected highway funding, and the region was facing a collision with the Clean Air Act that would put federal dollars on hold for several years.

Fast forward to 2012. After three tries in the Legislature to win the right to vote on a regional sales tax for transportation and two years of a mandated political process to develop a project list, metro Atlanta voters July 31 finally had a say over a bold transportation spending plan.

The result: Still no plan. Two-thirds of the voters rejected the Transportation Local Option Sales Tax – or T-SPLOST – which would have put $7.2 billion toward 157 projects throughout the 10-county region, evenly split between highways and transit. It was a serious blow to the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce, whose leaders led the battle to get the right to have a regional vote, and to politician-supporters such as Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed. (His City of Atlanta voters, though, comprised the only jurisdiction to approve the measure.)

But is it a bellwether for transportation votes in other states and metros? The short answer, most likely, is “no”. To be sure, many were following it nationally. The vote came on the heels of MAP-21, a federal bill that seems to presage a shrinking federal role in transportation funding, at least for the near term. Many wondered: Will metro regions and localities be able to make up the gap and bootstrap their way out of congestion and mobility woes?

Like most ballot measures, the Atlanta vote failed for its own peculiar reasons. The Legislature had ensured an uphill battle by mandating the vote be held during the primary election, rather than the November general election. The vast majority of contested races were in Republican districts in the suburbs. The Republican primaries drew an anti-tax electorate to the polls, while residents in the core, who tend to be less tax-averse, had fewer reasons to turn out.

The vote also bore out what we heard in focus groups there last year: Georgia voters are especially negative about their government. Polls and exit interviews showed that many were mistrustful of Georgia DOT on the heels of outrage over the decision to continue tolls on Georgia 400 after the promised sunset. MARTA, too, has been under the cloud of a long fiscal crisis as a result of the economic slump and depressed sales tax revenues.

Many voters also complained of a sense that the project list was a goodie bag for various political interests and not a cohesive plan to address well-articulated needs. The Legislature-mandated process almost assured that outcome. It called for creating a 21-member “regional roundtable” made up of a mayor and county commissioner from each of the region’s ten counties, plus the mayor of Atlanta. While the “pro” campaign pitched the project list as a solution to congestion, the list struck many voters as a collection of pet local projects that did not necessarily add up to a thought-through plan.

Was this an anti-transit — or anti-transit rider — vote? Certainly, some of that sentiment exists. But remember there was plenty of money in this for road building too. As someone who lived in and wrote about the region for many years, I think the other reasons offered here had far more to do with the loss than the public transportation components did. Atlanta is made up of thousands of newer and younger residents who do not carry the baggage of race-based, anti-transit battles of previous decades. Most of them just want a system that works, regardless of mode, and they want efficiency and accountability in their operation.

Are there generalized lessons to be taken from the Atlanta experience? Two important ones:

First, regional votes in places without a tradition of regional institutions and decision-making are an extremely heavy lift. In our focus groups, the idea of a regional solution held a lot of appeal. But in reality, voters were being asked to send a lot of their money to a “regional” approach with unclear lines of accountability. The money would have gone to GDOT, MARTA, the Georgia Regional Transportation Authority and to local jurisdictions throughout 10 counties.

But with money spread all over the place, where did the buck actually stop? They were being asked to trust, not just their local electeds, but government writ large. In this day and time, with this electorate, that may have just been too much to ask.

And second, important though it is, a project list is not necessarily a plan. The Atlanta proponents understood that the 70 percent of transportation tax measures that pass nationwide almost always have a clearly articulated list of promised projects. Given the legislature-mandated process and the resulting list of 157 projects, voters perceived the T-SPLOST as a grab bag of pet projects, offered with a plethora of justifications.

If you can’t sum up the rationale for the plan in a couple of lines, and point to an elected official or body that is ultimately responsible, you are going to have a tough time. Again, our polling and focus group work, as well as lessons gathered from many of our members during ballot fights, bear this out.

So where does this leave metro Atlanta? Two follow-up pieces are worth reading. In one, longtime Atlanta columnist Maria Saporta – a devoted regionalist – suggests it’s time for the core to go it alone. (The piece also includes a very interesting map of the voting results, included below.) And in the other, Georgia Sierra Club President Colleen Kiernan recaps what happened, and suggests the Club’s “strange bedfellows” alliance with the Tea Party may offer a way forward.

Update: Also worth reading is this hopeful editorial in Creative Loafing encouraging those Atlantans that supported the measure to imagine a path forward together, similar to Maria Saporta’s suggestion of the core “going it alone.”

Graphic of the vote by precinct, provided by the Atlanta Regional Commission.

Weight of the Nation series highlights transportation’s potential to help fight obesity

HBO’s new film series highlights the shocking state of our country’s obesity levels and worsening health, highlighting the impacts of the transportation systems we build and where we live on those alarming trends. An influential public health expert weighs in for T4 America on the movie and the connections to transportation.

Ed Note: This guest post comes from Susan Polan of the American Public Health Association, a T4 America partner. You can also watch Weight of the Nation for free in its entirety on the HBO website.

by Susan Polan, PhD

With the launch of the four-part Weight of the Nation film series on HBO, the nation is getting another stark reminder that our health is impacted by how our communities are designed. Too many of our communities are sorely lacking opportunities for safe walking and biking or good access to public transportation. The film confirms this reality. We have engineered physical activity out of our daily lives and Americans spend approximately 100 hours each year commuting.[1]

The consequences from a lack of physical activity in communities across the U.S. are shocking. In January 2012, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a survey of America’s health, which showed that almost 32 percent of 2- to 19-year-olds and nearly 69 percent of adults in America are overweight or obese.

According to the film series, when it comes to obesity and its related diseases, such as diabetes, heart disease and cancer, evidence shows that “your zip code may matter more than your genetic code.” Furthermore, the nation’s most vulnerable groups – such as children, low-income households, communities of color – typically bear the greatest burden of these negative health impacts.

But it’s not all bad news. Because the choices we make about what kind of transportation systems to build can have the power to improve the public’s health when they make it easier for families to safely walk, bike or conveniently reach public transportation. According to the Weight of the Nation series, a “great way to increase your physical activity is to find active ways to get to work, to school, to the store, or to any other place you go.”

At the very moment that Congress is debating whether or not to preserve programs like Safe Routes to School and others designed to help communities provide more travel options and make walking and biking safer, consider the potential benefits if we make those things a priority:

Active commuting that incorporates cycling and walking is associated with an 11 percent reduction in cardiovascular risk [2];
Teenagers who bike or walk to school watch less TV and are less likely to smoke than their peers who are driven to school, in addition to getting more overall physical activity daily [3];
Public transit users spend roughly eight more minutes walking each day than drivers [4].

By providing more safe transportation options that can be accessed by all users – across ages, incomes and abilities – we improve the community’s health and all-around quality of life. Considering the incredible levels of obesity in America highlighted by the films, why wouldn’t we prioritize the very strategies that can reduce the obesity rate and increase opportunities to incorporate physical activity into our daily lives, — whether that’s trails for runners, bike lanes for commuters or sidewalks for a stroll to the store?

America needs major infrastructure investment in the coming years and HBO’s powerful Weight of the Nation series helps reinforce why the decisions we will make about those transportation investments must consider the impact on health for our families today and for the kids of future generations. The anticipated reauthorization of the federal surface transportation bill provides us with an ideal and timely opportunity to support – not harm – the nation’s health.

In the 49th minute of Part 4, “Challenges,” Nashville Mayor Karl Dean talks about investing in a cleaner, safer, more walkable city.

[1] United States Census Bureau. Americans Spend More Than 100 Hours Commuting to Work Each Year, Census Bureau Reports. Newsroom 2005.
[2] Hamer, M., and Y. Chida. 2007. Active commuting and cardiovascular risk: A meta-analytic review. Preventive Medicine, 46, 9-13.
[3] Landsberg, B., et al. 2008. Associations between active commuting to school, fat mass, and lifestyle factors in adolescents: the Kiel Obesity Prevention Study (KOPS). European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 62, 739-47.
[4] Edwards, R. 2008. Public Transit, Obesity, and Medical Costs: Assessing the Magnitudes. Preventative Medicine, 46(1): 14-21. January 2008.

Saving a transit system and turning the tide for the future of a mid-sized city

Last month, the citizens of Baton Rouge, LA, voted to raise their taxes to preserve and expand their struggling bus system. The landmark measure will nearly double transit funding — saving the system from meltdown while laying the groundwork for dramatically improved service.

To pass it, churches, faith-based groups and local organizers teamed up with businesses and institutions. As we’ve seen in similar local measures, they won by explaining exactly what taxpayer money would buy, building a diverse coalition and getting out the vote.

This in-depth story is part of our Transportation Vote 2012 coverage. Communities across the country are preparing to vote on the people, plans and projects that will set the tone for transportation progress in the months and years to come. These are the places that will provide the energy, innovation and inspiration for the next national vision for transportation. Transportation Vote 2012 will help educate voters, advocates and candidates and keep abreast of transportation-related issues as they unfold.

A crisis point

Even before the prolonged fiscal crisis hitting governments everywhere, Baton Rouge’s Capital Area Transit System (CATS) struggled to do more with less. Over the last few years, service had degraded to the point that the wait for a bus exceeded 75 minutes and average rides were over two hours long. The system was saved repeatedly only by last-ditch city budget shuffles, creative grants and even private donations.

The biggest recent blow came when Louisiana State University backed out of the CATS system after years of student complaints and contracted with a new (more expensive) private operator. That meant a loss of $2.4 million from the CATS annual budget.

In 2010, a parish-wide tax to support the transit system failed at the ballot box, in part because large parts of the parish (same as counties in other states) don’t use or have access to the service. When projections came in that the transit agency would be so far in the red they’d have to shut down in summer 2011, it became painfully clear that something major needed to be done.

After cobbling together grants and funding to make it through 2011, the mayor appointed a Blue Ribbon Commission to make recommendations not only to save the service, but to create something much better. But the first job was to save the system, as Rev. Raymond Jetson, the chair of that commission, told the Baton Rouge Advocate: “Before there can be a robust transit system, before you can do novel things like light rail between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, and before you can have street cars from downtown to LSU, you have to have a backbone to the system,” he said. “And that backbone is a quality bus system.”

The commission learned that Baton Rouge was the largest city of its size in the country to have a transit system without a dedicated revenue source, subsisting on annual local government appropriations.

But before putting a funding measure to voters, the commission recommended significant reforms to the composition of the transit board and an end to the ability of the Metro Council to veto the board’s decisions. “Governance reform and long term accountability … helped separate it from the previous failed measures,” said Broderick Bagert of Together Baton Rouge, a broad, multi-racial, faith-based coalition of institutions backing the measure.

Photo courtesy of Frank McMains, www.frankmcmains.com

So how did they do it?

Coalition building

The first step was to build the core coalition that would push this measure to victory.

Enter Together Baton Rouge, a relatively new organization of churches, faith-based groups, social workers, and university students and groups. Together Baton Rouge led the way as the grassroots behind the measure, coordinating call banks, get-out-the-vote rallies, more than 120 educational “transit academies” and door-to-door canvassing of tens of thousands of homes by hundreds of volunteers. (Note that LSU students chose to get actively involved even though CATS was no longer the provider of their transit service on campus.)

They began with three informational meetings with 300-400 people each, where “community members told other community members why things were bad and what the new plan was,” said Bagert.

“We asked two questions on the sign-in card: ‘Do you want to be part of a voter outreach campaign?’ and, ‘Are you part of an organization and would you be willing to organize one of these sessions?’ We built a strong base of people that wanted to help do outreach and educate their fellow community members.”

Photo courtesy of Together Baton Rouge

In part because of the groundwork of the Blue Ribbon Commission and other partnerships, the Baton Rouge Area Chamber got on board along with other business groups. Hotels and hospitals, whose leaders realized how much of their workforce depended on CATS each day, joined in.

Colletta Barrett, vice president of missions for Our Lady of the Lake hospital system told the Advocate that 10 percent of OLOL’s staff, or 400 people, use CATS.

It is imperative, she said, that a transit system is available to move people from North Baton Rouge to the medical corridor in the southern part of the parish.“It’s unacceptable that it takes an hour and 45 minutes to get to this side of town,” she said. “We have told our employees that we have an individual social responsibility to take care of each other.”

And:

Ralph Ney, hotel general manager for Embassy Suites [hotel], said about 15 percent of his workforce uses CATS to get to work, which sometimes results in his employees being late.

“It’s difficult to hire and maintain employees who don’t have transportation,” said Ney, who was a member of the Blue Ribbon Commission. “It’s evolved to where a lot of our employees don’t even take the bus because they can’t get to work on time, so they’re riding bikes or catching rides.”

A key part of the coalition was the Center for Planning Excellence (CPEX), a T4 America partner and non-profit that helps Louisiana communities with planning issues and addressing complex problems with effective, forward-thinking, implementable solutions. They became involved through their CONNECT initiative to build a diverse coalition across the New Orleans to Baton Rouge super region to advocate for smarter housing and transportation investments. The CONNECT initiative concluded that one of the critical pieces for regional connectivity is a viable, robust transit system serving the metro area. This was also strongly recommended in the new comprehensive plan for Baton Rouge, called FutureBR.

CPEX worked with many of the former members of the Blue Ribbon Commission to create the Baton Rouge Transit Coalition, a diverse set of partners who provided information, resources and conducted educational outreach to the Baton Rouge community. They hosted numerous outreach meetings, advocated for the changes to CATS governance in the state house, created a website that became a clearinghouse for facts and research during the campaign, and worked closely with the Baton Rouge Area Chamber to solicit support from the business community — in addition to being a strong part of the grassroots effort led primarily by Together Baton Rouge.

In the end, the boosters of the transit measure had built a coalition that had strong grassroots, wide reach, and a diverse range of interests. Without the participation of any one of the core coalition members — Together Baton Rouge’s grassroots and trusted community members, CPEX and their coalition of transit boosters and others, and the area Chamber and the business community — the effort would not have had the same success.

Trusted messengers — and message

Broderick Bagert of Together Baton Rouge summed up this strategy simply: “We let the community leaders be out front leading the way. Not professionals, not paid staff, not elected officials, not transit officials.”

“One of the strengths of this effort was that the plan was created by community leaders and many of the important people were already behind the plan,” said Rachel DiResto of CPEX. “It certainly took some effort to get new folks on board, but the important pillars were already on board. We didn’t need to convince them.”

For the message, especially in the key districts with heavy transit usage and service, the campaign kept it very basic. “Save our system.” They noted that Baton Rouge was the only city of its size without a decent transit system, and talked about the people who depend on it each day: Perhaps the nurse who cares for your mother at the hospital, or your neighbor or friend. The campaign steered clear of some of the typical statistics in transit campaigns about reducing traffic congestion, gas prices or environmental impacts.

The above story about the hospital and hotel workers shows how the advocates built a larger, inclusive narrative and a vision for the community’s future. The events were filled with personal stories and made the impact of the system (and the potential impacts of not having it or having it improved) clear to everyone, regardless of who they were, where they lived, or whether or not they rode CATS.

Success wasn’t due to being the smartest person in the room armed with the most data and facts. It was about making the impacts real and relatable through powerful stories helping people realize the bonds and impacts of community.

“Outreach, outreach, outreach”

To deliver that message, Together Baton Rouge and the coalition held an insanely ambitious number of community outreach sessions they called “transit academies” or “civic academies” in churches, community centers and other venues. In the four-month campaign leading up to the April 21 vote, they hosted 120 of these sessions.

“Anywhere anyone wanted to hear more, we did a presentation,” said DiResto of CPEX. “And it paid off with more people who hadn’t been active voters showing up at the polls for a special election.”

Photo courtesy of Together Baton Rouge

These meetings were largely targeted to areas and precincts where support and heavy turnout would be needed to shift the outcome of the vote. “The diversity of those meetings was a huge plus,” DiResto said. “People who would never ride CATS were sitting in the same meetings with those who ride it every day. And their stories really impacted the former.”

The Advocate told one such story, about Fred Skelton, a 70-year-old Baton Rouge homeowner who had never ridden a CATS bus before. But during one community meeting he said he would be “first in line at his voting precinct to support” the 10-year, 10.6-mill property tax. The reason, he said, is because before his mother died, she used to stay at a nursing home where he’d visit her. When he visited, he said, he remembered frequently seeing groups of employees waiting for the bus.

“Those people who were waiting for the bus are the people who were taking care of my mother,” he said. “If we shut down the transit system, who will take care of those people?”

Strategic precinct targeting

Resources are always limited in a campaign, and therefore best deployed where they can make the most impact. The overall strategy — change minds of people on the fence, increase support from typically opposed groups, or focus primarily on the base — determines where resources should be targeted.

One of the biggest differences between this successful measure and the recent failed measure in 2010 was the use of more strategic targeting of resources in key precincts. Though the campaign did deploy some resources in suburban areas with small amounts of service, mostly to blunt opposition, the brunt of their efforts focused on getting out the vote in their strongest precincts.

Canvassing team. Photo courtesy of Together Baton Rouge

“We did detailed analysis of the electorate,” said Bagert of Together Baton Rouge. “We referred to the recent failed measure for background, which helped analyze the lay of the land. We focused our direct energy on turning out the strongest [most supportive] precincts, leaving out voters that had no voting history in the last 4 years. We tried to get 10 percent of the 2008 presidential election voters to vote for the measure.”

As a result of this strategy, the campaign was well poised to bounce back and succeed when The Advocate threw a curveball late in the game and editorialized against the transit tax, which likely cost the campaign a significant amount of support in precincts with already low support or people and groups that were undecided.

Making the benefits tangible and measurable

Whether it is the federal program or a local ballot measure, voters need to know what our dollars are really “buying” at the end of the day. Are they going to fix our bridges? How will they better connect workers with jobs, make their lives eaier, save them money?

On this count, the coalition in Baton Rouge did an admirable job of making this crystal clear — backed in large part by the commission recommendations that had large buy-in from day one. In every meeting they offered a list of promised CATS improvements:

CATS promises the following changes if the tax passes:

Decreased average wait times for buses from 75 minutes to 15 minutes.

Eight new express and limited stop lines, serving the airport, universities, mall and other areas.

GPS tracking on the entire fleet, with exact arrival times accessible on cellphones.

New shelters, benches and signage at bus stops.

Expanded service to high-demand areas and increased routes, from 19 to 37.

Three new transfer centers operating in a grid system to replace the outdated route system that leads all buses back to Florida Boulevard.

A foundation for Bus Rapid Transit, a system in which buses get their own right-of-way lanes.

The ambitiousness of the promised changes was part of the success. Given the (somewhat unfair) perception that CATS was a poorly governed money drain, simply offering up a plan to pour money into CATS and hope for the best was not going to fly. People had to be inspired to believe that things actually would get better.

Similar specificity and transparency, including a long-range map of projects, helped win 67 percent of the vote for Measure R in Los Angeles. Supporters in Atlanta hope that a pre-approved list of transit and road projects will help convince voters to support a regional sales tax this July. The Baton Rouge formula – specific improvements, accountability reforms and relentless grassroots engagement – could offer a path to similar success.

Wrapping it up

The transit ballot measure was approved on April 21 in Baton Rouge, 54 percent to 46 percent and the municipality of Baker, 58 percent to 42 percent. In Zachary, a more suburban area with little service, it was rejected, 79 percent to 21 percent. Early returns showed the measure losing with only 40 percent support, but “then the precincts we had worked came in and voted in historic levels, supporting the measure at around 90 percent in those key precincts,” according to Bagert. “The key was really getting strong vote in supportive precincts.”

The story isn’t over, however.

The governance reforms for CATS, including changing the Metro Council’s veto power, are still passing through the state legislature. (The council’s veto power over changes in fares, routes, schedules and other operations was cited by the Blue Ribbon Commission as a key factor crippling the transit system.) The board nominating process will also change so that 13 different groups that have a stake in transit system (hospitals, businesses, etc.) can nominate members to the board.

Though some groups that were opposed are considering some legal challenges to the tax itself, the Baton Rouge story shows us a great success story of how a community rallied around their important transit system, fought to save it and improve it, and built a winning campaign to do exactly that.

Advice for others

Facing a ballot measure in your area? Planning one? Here are four last smart pieces of advice to take with you from Rachel DiResto from the Center for Planning Excellence.

Bring core partners to the table early and find your champions who have to be willing to speak well to various audiences and who are willing to expend time and energy for your cause;
Frequent communication with other partners is critical to maximize resources and not duplicate efforts;
Focus on the voter outcome – grassroots advocacy is essential – target those folks who are supportive and mobilize them to show up to vote instead of spending all of your energy combatting those opposed.
Frequent outreach to different sectors – know your message for various audiences

The election day team for Mid City. Photo courtesy of Together Baton Rouge

Excited? Encouraged? Learn something that you didn’t know before? Let us know in the comments.

Our sincere thanks go out to Broderick Bagert of Together Baton Rouge and Rachel DiResto and Lacy Strohschein of the Center for Planning Excellence for their time and information for the behind-the-scenes story of their success. And also to Rebekah Allen of the Advocate, whose solid reporting on the issue for the last few years was invaluable for understanding and background, as well as the source of valuable quotes.

Follow all Transportation Vote 2012 coverage here.