A House committee majority went ahead with their plan to punish everyone who rides public transportation, as well as jeopardizing thousands of jobs in the public transit, construction and manufacturing industries.

In doing this, House leadership and this committee ignored broad, bipartisan opposition from across the country — from governors, state transportation officials, health professionals, business organizations, and from across the political spectrum — as well as thousands of messages from voters in their districts. (Including many of you who sent messages or made phone calls last week.)

With this incredible turn of events, this House transportation bill has passed the tipping point, and unfortunately demands our full opposition. Will you help us defeat it? Let your representative know that this full transportation bill must not pass the House!

Tell your representatives to vote “NO” on H.R. 7, the American Energy and Infrastructure Jobs Act.

This bill:

• Eliminates all dedicated funding for public transportation, leaving millions of riders already faced with service cuts and fare increases out in the cold.
• Fails to do enough to create jobs and put Americans back to work, also threatening millions of current transit, construction and manufacturing jobs.
• Ends the tiny amount of funding that helps make dangerous streets and roads safer for children, as well as others on foot or bike.
• Does not go far enough ensure that we fix our bridges and roads.

House leaders are preparing to move this bill to the floor very soon. It could be debated by House members as early as this week, and our representatives need to hear from their voters.

Join us and send a message to your representative and tell them to vote “NO” on H.R. 7.

We desperately need a new federal transportation bill, but this proposal being advanced by the House is not it. Leaders in the House need to come up with a better bill – one that helps build the 21st Century transportation system America needs.

“For more than three years, our coalition has worked hard for an updated federal transportation program that meets our needs in the 21st century; that creates jobs and lays the foundation for a rejuvenated economy; that balances the need to keep our highway system strong while augmenting it with other options. We still remain urgently committed to that goal.

“It is with deep disappointment, therefore, that we in the Transportation for America coalition find ourselves compelled to oppose the American Energy and Infrastructure Jobs Act as advanced by House leadership. While we commend Chairman Mica (R-FL) for doing what he can to move a long-term transportation bill forward, the full legislation that is now heading to the floor of the House has significant fatal flaws. The bill:

• Unfairly punishes current and would-be users of public transportation by ending all dedicated funding for public transportation, threatening to degrade further the service and state of repair of our transit systems;
• Leaves Americans with fewer transportation options rather than more, and deeper dependence on oil rather than less;
• Undermines safety and public health and takes resources away from non-motorized forms of transportation;
• Does not go far enough to ensure the state of good repair of our bridges, highways, railways and other systems;
• And undercuts citizens’ ability to raise environmental, health and other concerns about the impact of transportation projects.

“It is our hope that House leaders will hear our concerns, as well as those of the many others across the political spectrum who are as disappointed as we are, and bring forth a dramatically different and improved bill that can create jobs and spur the economy. The time is now for passage of a transportation bill we can all agree on.”

The Ways and Means Committee, which is responsible for writing the funding portion of the bill, approved their financing plan along almost party lines this morning, 20-17. (Two GOP reps voted against the bill.)

This plan attacks three decades of successful investments in mass transit by ending the historic guarantee for dedicated funding for public transportation — originally started under President Ronald Reagan almost 30 years ago — placing every public transportation system in immediate peril and leaving millions of riders already faced with service cuts and fare increases out in the cold.

The proposal would take away the 2.86 cents out of the total 18.4 cent motor fuel tax currently directed into the transit account of the Highway Trust Fund and redirect that 2.86 cents into highway spending. Transit would no longer have a guaranteed and protected funding source, instead becoming subject to yearly appropriations fights and the need to find offsets for funding — all while highway spending continues to be guaranteed with protected funds for half a decade at a time.

In just 12 hours after hearing the initial news, we gathered signatures from more than 600 groups, notable individuals and elected officials.

More than 75 national organizations signed the letter — including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, AARP, the American Public Transportation Association, the National Rural Assembly, American Society of Civil Engineers, LOCUS (real estate developers), National Association of Counties— and a huge list of other individuals and state & local groups, including the governors of Oregon and Washington, several state DOTs, state and local Chambers of Commerce, and hundreds of state and local organizations nationwide.

Unfortunately, the committee chose to ignore this broad opposition — including opposition from other groups like the conservative Club for Growth and the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) — and went ahead with their short-sighted plan.

The markup wasn’t quite as contentious as yesterday’s in the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, though it was about 16 hours shorter. Rep. Earl Blumenauer, with several years of experience on the transportation committee under his belt, took it as his job to educate his fellow members on this finance-focused committee about transportation — many of whom may not have ever taken up the transportation financing portion before due to how rarely it comes up.

Rep. Blumenauer noted that for 30 years, having a Trust Fund in place — a mechanism with some degree of certainty — has been crucial for transit agencies’ “ability to make multiple year commitments that allow them to operate with some degree of certainty.” (For more specific comments, check this Streetsblog Capitol Hill summary of the markup.)

This Ways and Means bill now moves to the House floor, along with the more substantial portion marked up yesterday by the transportation committee. That floor process could begin as early as late next week, but more likely the week of the 13th.

This morning we sent this letter (below) to the Ways and Means Committee and the entire House of Representatives in strong opposition to this House leadership plan to end a 30-year precedent of providing dedicated funding for public transportation from the federal fuel tax.

In less than 12 hours, we gathered signatures from more than 600 groups, notable individuals and elected officials. More than 75 national organizations — including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, AARP, the American Public Transportation Association, the National Rural Assembly, American Society of Civil Engineers, LOCUS (real estate developers), National Association of Counties— and a huge list of other individuals and state & local groups, including the governors of Oregon and Washington, several state DOTs, state and local Chambers of Commerce, and hundreds of state and local organizations nationwide.

Read the full letter here, where you can see the full list of all groups that signed.

Although Ways and Means markup is about to begin this morning, there’s still time to contact your House rep and let them know that you stand against this raid on transit funding.

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Dear Chairman Camp and Ranking Member Levin:

For the past thirty years, Congress has provided dedicated funding for highway and transit programs through an excise tax on gasoline dedicated to the Highway Trust Fund. This funding structure has successfully provided highway and transit programs with secure, dedicated revenues and budgetary firewalls dating back to the Reagan administration. The success of this approach is without question: The Trust Fund has been critical to our nation’s ability to build an efficient and multimodal transportation system. With record transit ridership, now is not the time to eliminate guaranteed funding for our nation’s public transportation systems, which saved Americans close to $19 billion in congestion costs in 2009. For the first time in thirty years, the pending legislation H.R. 3864, the American Energy and Infrastructure Jobs Financing Act, removes the certainty of a continued revenue source for our transit systems as well as the Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Program.

Specifically, we are deeply concerned about the provision in H.R. 3864 that would terminate funding from the excise tax on gasoline and replace it with the Alternative Transportation Account. In place of gasoline tax revenues, the legislation would provide a one-time $40 billion transfer of General Fund revenues to the Alternative Transportation Account. Not only is this level of funding insufficient to fully fund the proposed authorized levels for the Alternative Transportation Account, but it would subject transit and CMAQ funding to the annual appropriations process. This change will make it impossible for public transit systems across the country to plan for the future. It will also make it impossible for the FTA to honor grant agreements.

In addition, this legislation does not make clear how the $40 billion in General Fund revenues will be offset in the U.S. budget. As a result of this funding gap, we are concerned that the $40 billion general revenue transfer may not occur leaving transit programs out in the cold.

We strongly encourage the Committee to reject H.R. 3864 and work to continue to fund highway and transit programs through dedicated funding.

Stop the House’s unprecedented assault on public transportation. There are just a few hours left before their vote Friday morning.

Send an urgent message to your representative today.

Will we be stuck waiting for the bus, or just tossed underneath it?

A key House Committee is threatening to kill three decades of successful investments in mass transit — originally started under President Ronald Reagan — by ending the guarantee for dedicated funding for public transportation, leaving millions of riders already faced with service cuts and fare increases out in the cold.

In a stunning development late last night, House leadership and the Ways and Means committee made a shocking attack on transit that would have huge impacts for the millions of people who depend on public transportation each day.

They proposed putting every public transportation system in immediate peril by eliminating guaranteed funding for the Mass Transit Account and forcing transit to go begging before Congress for general funds each year — all while highway spending continues to be guaranteed with protected funds for half a decade at a time.

Get involved. Can you take just a moment and tell your representative that this short-sighted idea is intolerable for their voters?

This incredible move would roll back 30+ years of bipartisan federal transportation policy and reverse a decision made by President Reagan in the 1980’s to fund our nation’s transit system out of a small share of gas tax revenues. This change would mean no more guarantee of funding each year and no long-term stability for public transportation. States, cities, communities and their transit systems could lose billions.

We released a statement earlier today decrying this unprecedented attack on transit.

“We are deeply concerned that if this measure passes, Americans who use public transportation, or who would like that option in the future, will be thrown under the bus,” said James Corless, director of Transportation for America. “This couldn’t come at a worse time for people who need an affordable, reliable way to get to work, or for employers who need workers.” Corless noted the demand for transit has been rising as the economy slowly recovers and people are using public transportation to get to jobs and to avoid volatile gas prices. Over the course of the five-year transportation program, America’s population will continue to age rapidly, and a growing number of seniors will be looking to transit services maintain their independence.

It’s not just us, though. Even the association of state DOT heads submitted a letter to the committee urging them to reconsider their ill-advised plan.

The Mass Transit Account has been in existence since 1982 and AASHTO has continuously supported this account as a critical component of the Highway Trust Fund. AASHTO has long supported the principle that 20 percent of the gas tax revenues that have been put in place since 1982 be allocated to a dedicated mass transit account. We believe that the two complementary accounts need to be maintained in order to support a well-funded, multimodal transportation system.

We respectfully request that the current Highway Trust Fund structure with its two accounts and respective revenue allocations be retained.

Transit is unquestionably a critical component of our nation’s transportation system, and one that millions of people (or voters, if you’re reading, committee members) depend on each day to get around. More people on transit means less congestion, less pollution, and fewer cars on the road.

Tell your representative that this unprecedented attack on transit won’t stand.

Reversing policy begun under President Ronald Reagan, House Ways and Means Committee – at the direction of House leadership — could move Friday to end guaranteed funding for public transportation, and leave even today’s inadequate funding levels in doubt.

The proposal to bar public transit from receiving funds from the federal motor fuels tax is part of a bill coming before the House Ways and Means Committee Friday morning. That bill sets the revenue levels for the five-year surface transportation bill making its way through the House Transportation and Infrastructure committee today.

“We are deeply concerned that if this measure passes, Americans who use public transportation, or who would like that option in the future, will be thrown under the bus,” said James Corless, director of Transportation for America. “This couldn’t come at a worse time for people who need an affordable, reliable way to get to work, or for employers who need workers.” Corless noted the demand for transit has been rising as the economy slowly recovers and people are using public transportation to get to jobs and to avoid volatile gas prices. Over the course of the five-year transportation program, America’s population will continue to age rapidly, and a growing number of seniors will be looking to transit services maintain their independence.

Since Ronald Reagan was president, Congress has supported dedicated funding for both highways and transit. For the last 30 years, transit riders and the services they use have been able to depend on guaranteed funding from a mass transit trust fund replenished by a share of federal gasoline taxes. As congestion rose in urban areas, and rural areas saw their share of car-less, low-income families rise, bipartisan support grew for providing transit as a dependable relief valve. Removing the guaranteed funding would mean that transit would have to compete each year for general fund revenues that are in line for deep cuts in coming years.

“American workers and their employers already are dealing with deep uncertainties in these times of fiscal crisis,” said John Robert Smith, co-chair of Transportation for America and President of Reconnecting America. “As local tax revenues have dropped, transit service is being cut, fares raised, and maintenance is being deferred. Seniors in rural areas are waiting hours for a ride to the doctor, veterans have very few transportation options to get them to VA centers, and workers in cities don’t know when the next bus is coming. Putting these services in jeopardy would be a cruel blow to these Americans.”

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A new academic study looking at the numbers of pedestrians killed while wearing headphones ignores the overwhelming majority of pedestrian deaths, providing a healthy dose of blaming the victim while turning a blind eye to the actual problem.

At first glance, the numbers sound incredible. “The number of headphone-wearing pedestrians seriously injured or killed near roadways and railways has tripled in six years…” Wow, they’ve tripled? That must be a lot, right?

When you examine the numbers closely, though, it’s clear that this study is examining a share of pedestrian fatalities so small as to be almost statistically insignificant when compared to the problem of pedestrian deaths writ large.

The study has been highly successful at winning credulous news coverage and shifting blame to the victims, but by focusing on a tiny sliver of fatalities it does more to obscure the true causes than explain what is happening.

“Oh, they’re all wearing headphones now. That’s why pedestrians are getting killed.”

Let’s stop for a minute and acknowledge that being distracted is never a good idea, whether driving or walking. Especially if you’re navigating busy streets, you need all available senses at your disposal to make sure you arrive at your destination safely. That means not texting and keeping your eyes on the road while driving, and making sure that you can hear and see when walking.

From 2000-2009 47,700 people were killed while walking in the U.S. This University of Maryland study found 116 deaths in 8 years where headphones were said to be involved, or about 0.3% of all pedestrian deaths during the study period.

Spending our time focused intently on this tiny aspect of pedestrian deaths is like coming across a person who’s been stabbed in the chest, and worrying about finding the band-aid you need to patch the scrape on his elbow.

Which further proves just how loony the headline is in this story. (“Study: You are more likely to die walking with headphones”) This study doesn’t prove that you’re more likely to die while walking and wearing headphones, it just shows that those deaths have been increasing.

You want to know how you are more likely to die while walking? By walking along or trying to cross a busy arterial, state highway or other bigger/busier road eligible to receive federal funding, where fully two-thirds of all pedestrian fatalities from 2000-2009 took place.

Are headphones the primary problem living and walking along here?

The primary reasons for the other 35,885 or so pedestrian deaths in the last 10 years hasn’t changed with the rise of smartphones, iPods and ubiquitous white earbuds. That song remains the same: millions of people live on or near streets and roads that aren’t safe for walking; streets without sidewalks, streets without safe crossings, streets that force far too many people to brave unsafe conditions on foot simply to get from A to B.

Are we concerned about making these roads safer? Are we studying smart solutions and ways to use federal funds to retrofit these dangerous corridors to make them safer for everyone — an appropriate decision, since federal funds and design guidelines helped create many of these dangerous corridors in the first place.

Nope, we’re studying what may (or may not have) contributed to the death of 0.3% of all people killed while walking in the last 8 years. And using the numbers for even more ammunition in the never ending quest to blame the victim

Admittedly, with problems so big that any solution will be complex and layered, there’s a tendency to look for a simpler explanation and try to find a more manageable problem that we can solve. Just like coming across a person with the sucking chest wound and having no medical experience under our belt, sometimes we’re just overwhelmed by the magnitude of the problem. So we focus on the elbow scrape we can fix that just needs a band-aid.

But this problem demands and deserves our immediate attention. Instead of spending our time concerned with why the 0.3% were killed, how about we stop and have a serious look at the larger, and much more serious problem of the 99.7%?

Every year we don’t, another 4,000-plus people die preventable deaths.

The Senate Commerce Committee this morning passed a bill to create and implement goals and objectives for the overall transportation bill, update our federal freight transportation policy, and an amendment to help ensure that federal dollars help build streets that are safe for all users.

As a refresher, there are four committees that share most of the responsibility for the bill in the Senate, with the Commerce Committee covering safety and freight, as well as a few other components. Today’s bills (including others not mentioned) represent the majority of this committee’s contribution to the overall Senate transportation bill.

Many components of Senator Lautenberg’s FREIGHT Act, which we’ve been supporting since its introduction in 2010, were passed out of committee as a part of S. 1950 today. It would create a coordinated national policy for freight and ports across the country.

The FREIGHT Act was combined with a separate bill about performance goals and objectives to become the Surface Transportation and Freight Policy Act. These two proposals both had language on measuring performance – one focused on the freight system and the other on the entire surface transportation network.. The combined bill melds performance goals and objectives from both bills to see if we’re really spending money wisely across our whole system, not just freight.

This bill will establish national policy objectives and goals for the transportation system. It explicitly covers key indicators such as congestion, road condition, reducing environmental impacts, improving the reliability of freight movement, increasing access to transit, and reducing traffic fatalities across all modes. It directs the Secretary to create a national strategic plan for surface transportation and freight and examine all transportation programs for their consistency with these goals and objectives, evaluating and reporting on that every two years.

There’s also a multimodal grant program for freight infrastructure projects focused on bottlenecks, areas of congestion and other key freight needs. The projects are selected by criteria that support many of the same goals and objectives listed above.

The FREIGHT Act was passed out of committee on a party line vote. Republican Senators had asked for more time to review the legislation and raised concerns about the potential impact on the Highway Trust Fund. However, EPW Chairman Barbara Boxer, a member of the Commerce Committee, spoke up in support of Senator Lautenberg’s amendment and assured the Committee that the program wouldn’t impact the trust fund. “I support what Senator Lautenberg is doing with this,” she told her fellow Committee members.

Senator Begich introduced an amendment to “ensure that the design of Federal surface transportation projects provides for the safe and adequate accommodation…of all users of the transportation network,” which passed on a unanimous voice vote after it was amended.

Under this bill, USDOT will work with states to develop standards to ensure that any surface transportation project built with federal funds provides safe and adequate accommodation for all users. Senator Thune offered an amendment to this that would give states discretion as to what is safe and adequate. States have the option of developing their own standards which would then apply instead of the federal standards. This will help states have been leading the way on policies to improve street design.

The Commerce Committee could take up other key provisions in 2012 related to intercity passenger rail, the TIGER program and an Infrastructure Bank, but this morning’s provisions are now done and will join MAP-21 and the pending Banking Committee markup in awaiting floor action in the Senate.

Related: read our full statement on today’s Commerce Committee action

In a carbon copy replay of exactly what happened last year, a big change will go into effect on the first day of January that could have big ramifications for anybody who takes advantage of the federal tax benefits to help consumers pay for their commutes.

If Congress does nothing by the end of the year, if you take transit to get to work each day you could be paying more out of your own pocket when the tax benefit for transit is cut in half. If that wasn’t enough, drivers will keep enjoying the same great parking benefit ($230) – nearly double what transit commuters will be eligible to receive. We don’t think that’s fair, and Congress needs to hear about it.

So if you spend more than $120 a month on your commute in a vanpool, train or bus, the federal government will be sending a message loud and clear: they’d like you to start driving to work, where you can get $230 for parking deducted from your paycheck tax free.

The transit benefit and the parking benefit were once at different levels, but a provision in the stimulus raised the transit benefit so that everyone could enjoy the tax relief for their commute, no matter how they choose to get to work. When it was due to expire last year at this time, Congress extended it last December after thousands of people — including many of you — wrote and called Congress.

Transportation is the second largest household expense for many households. The millions of Americans who depend on transit to get to work each day shouldn’t have to pay more, and certainly not for something that also saves us energy, reduces congestion and emissions, and uses less oil. Americans need more low-cost transportation options.

Tell Congress to keep things fair by extending the transit benefit and keeping it equal with the parking benefit.

Note: we’ve received a few emails and comments asking about why we’re not pushing for other changes, like lowering the parking benefit to the current level of the transit benefit instead — as well as ideas about including a much more flexible parking cash-out program so people who work for a company with a parking fringe benefit can “cash-out” that money to pay for a transit ride instead. It’s not that we don’t necessarily support those other ideas, but it’s not likely that any of them would make any progress in these last few weeks of the year. The best immediate plan is to ensure that the transit benefit isn’t slashed in half.

Quite a few in Congress have discussed ways to improve the commuting benefits in the long-term transportation bill. Rep. Blumenauer introduced a bill to implement the parking cash-out and equalize the benefit levels, which Streetsblog covered back in May. A more comprehensive and balanced program of commuter benefits is definitely something that we, along with some of our key partners like the Association for Commuter Transportation, are working hard to improve in the reauthorization.

But for now, let your Senators and Representative know that cutting the transit benefit in half come January isn’t a good idea.

Click to learn more or download the full report, which includes data for all 102 metropolitan areas over 500,000 people.

On the heels of the sudden closure of a major commuting bridge in Louisville, KY, a new report shows that more than 18,000 of the nation’s busiest bridges, clustered in the nation’s metro areas, are rated as “structurally deficient,” according to this new report from Transportation for America.

In Los Angeles, for example, an average 396 drivers cross a deficient bridge every second, the study found. The Fix We’re In For: The State of Our Nation’s Busiest Bridges, ranks 102 metro areas in three population categories based on the percentage of deficient bridges.

The report found that Pittsburgh, PA had the highest percentage of deficient bridges (30.4 percent) for a metro area with a population of over 2 million (and overall). Oklahoma City, OK (19.8 percent) topped the chart for metro areas between 1-2 million, as did Tulsa, OK (27.5 percent) for metro areas between 500,000-1 million.

At the other end of the spectrum, the metro areas that had the smallest percentage of deficient bridges are: Orlando, FL (0.60 percent) for the largest metro areas; Las Vegas (0.20 percent) for mid-sized metro areas; and Fort Myers, FL (0.30 percent) for smaller metro areas.

“There are more deficient bridges in our metropolitan areas than there are McDonald’s restaurants in the entire country,” said James Corless, director of Transportation for America, 18,239 versus roughly 14,000 McDonald’s. “These metropolitan-area bridges are most costly and difficult to fix, but they also are the most urgent, because they carry such a large share of the nation’s people and goods.”

Nearly 70,000 bridges nationwide are rated “structurally deficient” and are in need of substantial repair or replacement, according to federal data. Metropolitan-area bridges carry 75 percent of the trips that are made on structurally deficient bridges, he noted.

The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) estimates that the backlog of potentially dangerous bridges would cost $70.9 billion to eliminate, while the federal outlay for bridges amounts to slightly more than $5 billion per year.

“The recent shutdown of the Sherman-Minton Bridge between Kentucky and Indiana was yet another reminder of the urgent need to repair our nation’s bridges,” Corless said. “A sincere initiative to fix these bridges would put thousands of people to work while ensuring that these critical links continue to carry people safely to work and that goods can make it to market, now and well into the future.”

Congress has repeatedly declared the condition and safety of America’s bridges to be of national significance. However, the current federal program falls short of the need, even as it allows states to shift funds from maintenance toward new construction, whether or not they can show progress toward rehabilitating deficient bridges.

Some states have worked hard to address the problem and have seen their backlog of deficient bridges shrink in number. However, two problems continue to persist: Existing federal programs offer no real incentives or assurances that aging bridges will actually get fixed; and the current level of investment is nowhere near what is needed to keep up with our rapidly growing backlog of aging bridges.

Last month, President Obama introduced his jobs bill before the Brent Spence bridge in Cincinnati, OH, just weeks after engineers shutdown the Sherman-Minton Bridge due to cracks in the bridge supports, and also identified potential faults in the nearby Kennedy Bridge. Since then, the President has regularly highlighted the poor state of our nation’s bridges and the need to pass a jobs bill that will put construction workers and engineers back to work repairing our bridges and highways.

“The poor condition of our bridges is a problem that is not going away,” said Andy Herrmann, president-elect of the American Society of Civil Engineers, “Most of the nation’s bridges were designed to last 50 years, and today, roughly a third are already 50 years or older.”

In order to prevent future catastrophes on our nation’s roads and bridges, the report recommends that Congress should:

• Provide states with increased resources to repair and rebuild. States need federal support to back their efforts to prioritize repair and maintenance.
• Ensure that funds sent to states for bridge repair are used only for that purpose, unless a state can show it has addressed its repair needs.
• Require that new or rehabilitated be built so that they are safe for everyone who uses them, whether they are in vehicles, on foot or bicycle, or using public transit.