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Unflooding the zone: What do the Trump administration’s latest actions signal for transportation?

Federal funding recipients across the country are dealing with uncertainty, delays, and outright cuts to obligated funding. Our updated analysis of disbursements at risk finds that over $20 billion for projects currently underway across the country might be eliminated, according to new memos introduced by Secretary Duffy’s DOT. But don’t feel overwhelmed. We’ve got the information you need.

*THE LATEST: USDOT is expected to move forward with transportation funding freezes as soon as this week*

It’s been a frenetic start to President Trump’s second term in office, and transportation funding and policy has already played a much more significant role than it did during his first. While we covered much of this in our last blog on the impact of the new administration’s Executive Orders, let’s recap all that has occurred to bring you up to speed. 

Three things you need to know:

  1. A sweeping rollback of electrification, climate resilience, and equity-focused infrastructure policies – The Trump administration’s executive orders have set out to dismantle DEI and equity-related initiatives, environmental justice efforts, and climate programs established during previous administrations. This includes firing staff and removing resources, freezing funds from key infrastructure programs like the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) Program, and even halting technical assistance programs like the USDOT Reconnecting Communities Institute. Over $20 billion in project funding is at risk.

  2. Funding freeze confusion continues unabated despite rescissions – The broad and haphazard language in President Trump’s executive orders and memos from the OMB has led to widespread uncertainty among federal agencies, states, and grant recipients. Despite a temporary restraining order from a federal judge, the administration has continued to push its policy objectives, and we expect their funding freezes to continue without judicial authorization or legal justification.

  3. Time is running out for billions of dollars in project funding – USDOT Secretary Sean Duffy’s two recent memos outline a dramatic shift in how Trump’s USDOT will prioritize funding, with plans to eliminate programs related “in any way” to “climate change, ‘greenhouse gas’ emissions, racial equity, gender identity, “diversity, equity, and inclusion” goals, environmental justice, or the Justice 40 Initiative.” Other policy objectives to prioritize families, user-pay models, and benefit-cost analysis remain ill-defined and murky. Crucially, USDOT’s new memos set a timeline for the elimination of all agency policies, funding agreements, and programs by February 18, 2025.

For the full timeline and impact of President Trump’s executive orders, take a look at our Trump Transportation Timeline found at the end of this post>>

Why is this serious? How much is at stake?

Despite the two standing court orders to halt the funding freeze, the Trump administration’s federal agencies are still refusing to disburse funding for obligated awards. Violating a judge’s order is clearly illegal, but that has not stopped the administration as of yet.

The Trump administration and USDOT are ignoring a temporary restraining order from a federal judge and continuing to assert their authority to pause disbursements and new obligations at their discretion. 

Instead of evaluating actual waste, of which there is a great deal in the transportation sector, staff are systematically evaluating individual grants, not according to their performance and ability to move the nation toward its measures of success, but if keywords in their titles and descriptions might trigger reviewers.

As the administration’s intentions to undo progress on policies, programs, and projects come into focus, we took a look at the billions of dollars in funding at stake in congressional districts across the country. 

Our analysis has found that more than $20 billion could be at risk, based on what “references or relates in any way”  to concepts anathema to the new administration. 

The administration is indicating that they could take this action even if a grant agreement (which is basically a contract) has been signed and even where a project sponsor has spent money assuming they would be reimbursed under that grant agreement.

What kind of projects would fit the bill? 

Who knows? While all of the administration’s actions have been dramatic, none has been clear or specific. It could mean all projects funded under the “Carbon Reduction Program,” including road work in Indiana and modernized lighting in Arizona, have funding halted. It could mean an end to rural transit operating assistance for tribal communities in Idaho. It could mean senior transit projects focused on equitably serving their communities get cut. It could mean that states that voted for President Trump lose out on nearly $7 billion in owed funding disbursements that were approved on a bipartisan basis. It could mean projects under the National Highway Performance Program that have an element of something that USDOT finds offensive.

In addition to spending analysis by state, we also mapped congressional-level spending data based on our analysis of funding that could be at risk of cancellation due to new memos implementing President Trump's executive orders. Explore this map and see how funding could be affected across the country.

What you can do: 

Congress’ constitutional power to make decisions over funding is at stake. The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, though flawed, passed on a bipartisan basis and is distributing benefits across the country that may be undone by the new administration. 

  • Ask your state and local officials what they plan to do without certain streams of federal funding. Share the data about the project and program funding at risk with them. We split funding information down to the state, county, and congressional district levels in our analysis of funding at risk.
  • Make sure your Congressional delegation is aware of the risk to your project and ask what they can do.  If you meet with them in person or by phone, that is better than a letter. If you want to also write a letter, see below. 

Can’t find your district? Funding might be coming to your community through statewide awards, which are labeled as a congressional district ending in 90.

Make your representative aware of the risk to the project in your community.
Send a letter to your representatives

 

Trump Transportation Timeline

What’s in USDOT Secretary Duffy’s day-one memos?

1) The “Woke Rescission” Memo

  • Orders, in accordance with the EOs outlined above, “to identify and eliminate all orders, directives, rules, regulations, notices, guidance documents, funding agreements, programs, and policy statements, or portions thereof, which were authorized, adopted, or approved between noon on January 20, 2021 and noon on January 20, 2025, and which reference or relate in any way to climate change, "greenhouse gas" emissions, racial equity, gender identity, "diversity, equity, and inclusion" goals, environmental justice, or the Justice 40 Initiative.”
  • Within 10 days, all DOT Operating Administrations (such as FHWA, FTA, NHTSA, FRA, etc.) and the Office of the Secretary of Transportation (OST) must identify and develop a report on all DOT “orders, directives, rules, regulations, notices, guidance documents, funding agreements, programs, and policy statements” relevant to the EOs.
  • Within 10 days of the report (20 days after the January 29 memo), all operating agencies and the OST shall “initiate all lawful actions necessary to rescind, cancel, revoke, and terminate all DOT orders, directives, rules, regulations, notices, guidance documents, funding agreements, programs, policy statements, or portions thereof, which are subject to the relevant executive orders and which are not required by clear and express statutory language.

Considering the Trump administration’s current broad interpretation of its legal authority to control funding obligations, we found that billions in federal funding for existing projects could be at risk based on their relationship with the previous administration's priorities under the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. Nearly $7 billion for existing projects would be at risk in states that voted for President Trump in the 2024 elections.

2) Lowering Costs Through Smarter Policies, Not Political Ideologies Memo

This new policy memo updates standards for policies, programs, and activities to “maintain reliance on rigorous economic analysis and positive cost-benefit calculations,” setting forth the following policy principles:

  • USDOT grantmaking, lending, policymaking, and rulemaking shall be “based on sound economic principles and analysis supported by rigorous cost-benefit requirements and data-driven decisions.”
  • Grants, loans, policies, and rules must have benefits that outweigh costs. While the EPA updates estimates of the social cost of carbon, the methods used to estimate the value of changes in greenhouse gas emissions from agency actions are reverted to guidance issued in 2003.
  • Focus on minimizing costs and maximizing benefits to families and communities.
  • Asserts that DOT-supported programs or activities (including grants and loans) shall not be used to further local political objectives or projects that “are purely local in nature and unrelated to a proper Federal interest.” [“Local in nature” or a “proper Federal interest” is undefined.)
  • USDOT should support projects and goals that:
    • Utilize user-pay models. [This is not defined but could refer to anything from congestion pricing, road tolling, to having EVs pay into the Highway Trust Fund. This was mentioned in the Mandate for Leadership’s Department of Transportation section. However, President Trump has voiced opposition to congestion pricing.
    • Direct funding to local opportunity zones.
    • Mitigate impacts on families and family-specific difficulties, and give preference to communities with “marriage and birth rates higher than the national average, (including in administering the Federal Transit Administration’s Capital Investment Grant program).
    • Recipients of DOT support or assistance are prohibited from imposing vaccine and mask mandates. [It is unclear if this applies to past, existing, or future mandates. All 50 states and the District of Columbia have one form of vaccine mandate or another, particularly for public school students. In terms of mask mandates, there are no statewide mandates currently.]
    • Require local compliance and cooperation with Federal immigration enforcement and “other goals and objectives” specified by the President and Secretary.
    • Finally, this memo directs USDOT to update all Notices of Funding Opportunities, grant agreements, loan agreements, and program documents, etc. to comply with this memo. [Updating open funding opportunities at the beginning of a new administration is common.] 

What's happened so far and, when?

January 20, 2025: 

January 21, 2025:

  • OMB released a new memo, M-25-11, to “clarify” the scope of EO 14154: Unleashing American Energy. However, the memo references a section in the EO that was unclear about which specific programs or policies the administration meant to cut.
  • This memo effectively paused all new obligations to existing, appropriated programs, including the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) Program, the Charging and Fueling Infrastructure (CFI), and even technical assistance provided under the Thriving Communities Program and Reconnecting Communities Institute was halted.
  • This has led to uncertainty among existing federal funding recipients and announced discretionary grant awardees. As a result, some states, such as Alabama and Oklahoma, have paused work on the NEVI program.

January 27, 2025:

  • Late in the evening, OMB circulated the M-25-13 memo to all agencies, calling for a pause in all federal disbursements, profoundly confusing federal employees, Members of Congress, and recipients of federal funds and services from the federal government.

January 28, 2025:

  • OMB sent agencies an expansive spreadsheet in a PDF to grade every federal assistance listing (including defunct ones), requiring unspecified employees in the federal bureaucracy to justify the work conducted under specific programs and ensure they were not advancing equity, climate mitigation, or anything amongst a list of policies the Trump administration objects to.
  • Harvard’s Environmental & Energy Law Program wrote a great summary of the legal mechanisms available to the administration and the risks different kinds of program funds may face due to the memo.

January 29, 2025:

  • Amidst significant confusion about the implications, objections from Congress’s majority, and one looming court-ordered pause out of two parallel legal cases (in the federal courts of the District of Columbia and Rhode Island), the Trump administration’s OMB pulled the funding rescission memo.
  • However, comments from White House Press Secretary Leavitt and other actions from the administration demonstrated that they would continue to pursue the end goals of the memo through agency actions.
  • These actions included a stop-work order for the Road to Zero Coalition, which funds safety efforts from seat belt use and truck safety to police enforcement and safety education. It was launched under the Obama Administration and continued through the first Trump Administration and the Biden Administration.
  • USDOT Memos: Following Secretary Sean Duffy’s confirmation to lead USDOT, the agency released two policy memos with potentially far-reaching implications for projects underway today and how the agency will approach projects during the administration.

January 31, 2025:

  • The Rhode Island federal judges overseeing a suit brought forward by 22 states and DC issued a temporary restraining order to force an end to the administration’s funding freeze.
  • However, agency-issued stop orders were not lifted and new ones were put in place.

February 3, 2025: 

  • The Department of Justice responds to the Rhode Island Judge’s Temporary Restraining Order and asserts that the executive branch has the authority to continue implementing the Executive Orders outlined above. The Trump administration continues to direct agencies to halt disbursements and the obligation of funding that goes against the administration’s new policy objectives.

What might happen next?

Based on the memos and timelines set forth by inaugural executive orders, the following dates may be of importance going forward.

February 6, 2025:

  • New unelected and unappointed political operatives in USDOT are expected to begin identifying specific programs, policies, and projects for elimination following the memos issued by Sec. Duffy on his first day in office.

February 8, 2025:

  • USDOT will submit a written report identifying all policies, funding agreements, programs, etc., that conflict with the President’s broad executive orders. This deadline was set by the “Woke Rescission” memo.
  • Within 10 days of the submission of this report, the USDOT will initiate all lawful actions necessary to rescind, cancel, revoke, and terminate all USDOT funding agreements, policies, guidances, etc, out of line with Trump administration policies and executive orders.
  • Considering the administration’s interpretation of what is lawful, it is unclear to what extent active projects with obligated funding and authorized programs are at risk.

February 18, 2025:

  • February 18 marks the deadline for the elimination of USDOT funding agreements, policies, guidances, etc., that are out of line with Trump administration policies and executive orders, per the “Woke Rescission” memo.

April 20, 2025:

  • This date marks 90 days of the temporary freeze initially announced on January 20. This date was not referenced in OMB memo M-25-13 or in policy memos released by USDOT. There is no indication that this would be the end of any planned pause for funding disbursement or obligation.

Confused about the chaos? Make Congress and the administration clarify the transportation funding freeze

Bird's eye view of construction on a wide road in Los Angeles.

The federal government owes communities upwards of $125.6 billion dollars in federal contract obligations from the infrastructure law but President Trump is threatening to renege on the government’s legally binding commitments. Here’s how much they owe for transportation.

UPDATE 1/29/25 1:15 p.m. ET – The OMB guidance is being rescinded but calls and emails with questions should absolutely continue. See update in red below.

Contact your federal representatives, the administration and the press to ask for clarification on your project’s status, and tell them about the impact.

How much transportation money is being threatened in your community and state?  Check out this spreadsheet of all infrastructure law funding currently at risk.

The promised “Golden Age” of travel is already in need of some roadside assistance. 

The funding freeze affecting all IIJA funding could leave construction projects looking half-finished like this for the foreseeable future.

Amidst a wave of day-one actions by the new administration, President Trump signed the Unleashing American Energy executive order on January 20, 2025, targeting the previous administration’s top priorities. While the rhetoric was focused on stopping spending on diversity and inclusion, and climate and electric vehicles programs, the language was unclear and indiscriminately paused all spending for all programs under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and Inflation Reduction Act. This set the administration up to violate binding, legal contracts paying for everything from train tracks to traffic lights. 

Nearly everyone was shocked and confused, including groups like AASHTO which represents state departments of transportation.

The next day, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) released guidance (M-25-11) attempting to walk back the scope of the previous day’s order. While still leaving things muddied, the administration was able to articulate its intended action to officials: there would be a halt on new obligations for a group of electric vehicle and community-focused programs, but legally required disbursements to obligated projects would continue.

On Monday of this week, in apparent disregard of the events of the previous week, the OMB issued a new memo (M-25-13) issuing an undefined “temporary pause”  on “all activities related to obligation or disbursement of all federal financial assistance,” expanding the scope of the Unleashing American Energy executive order from the previous administration’s signature programs to nearly every single federally funded project and program in the country. A slew of new documents circulated by the admin has done little to illuminate the administration’s intentions, with documents calling for individual agency staff to figure out if individual programs, including those that are defunct, happen to conflict with the new administration’s priorities. 

While a federal judge put a temporary pause on this funding freeze before it was to go into effect late Tuesday, it is not clear if the Trump administration will pause. Therefore, with all federal funding frozen, everything from federally subsidized lunches to efforts that fight avian flu is in limbo. Admittedly, transportation projects are nowhere near as urgent, but that is our field and where we will focus. 

UPDATE 1/29/25 1:15 p.m. ET

The New York Times is reporting that the OMB guidance to freeze all federal spending has been rescinded. “In a memo dated Wednesday and distributed to federal agencies, Matthew J. Vaeth, acting director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, states that OMB memorandum M-25-13 ‘is rescinded.’” This marks the second time in a week that guidance affecting vast swaths of transportation spending has been issued and then rescinded or clarified. They backed off last week but then went broader and bigger with the now-rescinded OMB guidance. But the story does not end here. The original Executive Order required that all spending be reviewed to see if it supports issues the Trump administration opposes, like climate change, DEI and a transition from fossil fuels. Will your project or priority be rejected on that basis, and who is making that decision and by when? You should absolutely continue to call and email your Senators and Representatives, your USDOT contacts and others in the administration as well as the media to clarify where your projects stand.

[End update]

Federal transportation funding is always flowing to all levels of government. Everything on a spectrum from small grant programs (like Safe Streets and Roads for All grants), to the Federal Highway Administration’s largest formula program to states (the National Highway Performance Program) are affected without sufficient clarification about the impacts on active projects.

Assume this pause will directly affect projects in your community. To get answers on what this might mean for your project and how long this pause will last, we strongly encourage you to let people know about the impact a pause or cancellation of your project will have.

  • Reach out to your contact at USDOT (or elsewhere in the administration) and ask them to clarify if your project is stopped and for how long. Let them know the impact of even a pause. Knowing that there is an upcoming deadline before furloughs or events that have to be canceled might help them to make decisions more quickly.
  • Contact your federal representatives in the House and the Senate to let them know about your project and get their help to speed a determination about your project and get the funds flowing again. Ask them to clarify the status of your project and explain why it is or is not moving forward. If your member of Congress attended an event or put out a press release announcing your grant, suggest they take a similar action to explain the status of the project under this order.
  • Make sure your state, county, and local elected officials know about your project and the impact this order will have. They may be able to help you get answers. (Plus, they may be trying to get a handle on everything within their jurisdiction that is impacted and identify ways to help.) Here’s an online tool that may help you find your local and state-level officials.
  • Call reporters to let them know about your project so that they can get a sense of the impact to your regions. Ask them the same questions you are asking USDOT and your elected leaders—does this order affect our project and why? See if they can write about this and help you get information about what’s happening.

This order could have immense implications for states’ economies and local-level priorities. In 2022, federal funding made up over a third of states’ revenues. On the other hand, it is clear that this action was not thought out. The last 7 days have been chaotic, and we can be sure that the next 7 days will be too.

Don’t make any assumptions about where things are heading. Rather than issuing declarations and statements, involve those who made these decisions and those who have oversight powers over the administration in these questions and challenges. They need to own this mess and figure it out.

Fill their phone lines and inboxes up with so many “do you all know what this means?” questions that they’ll think twice about doing this kind of thing again. 

Click the image below to view a spreadsheet of all IIJA funding currently at risk.

Show me the money: Financial breakdown of the infrastructure law

graphic showing comparison data between fast act and infrastrucure bill

A month has passed since the $1.2 trillion infrastructure deal was signed into law and set the direction for the federal transportation program for the next five years. With this mammoth infusion of unexpected cash (which is already flowing out the door), there is much to unpack as to exactly how much money there is for the surface transportation program and how it can be used.

To big fanfare, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act was signed into law on November 15, 2021 by President Biden. The President and the press have touted how this law will invest $550 billions in supplemental appropriations  into transportation and other infrastructure needs of the United States.  But rather than just how much more the pie was supersized, most states, regions, and local governments want to know more details about the size of all the bill’s various pie pieces. T4America has you covered, dissecting the infrastructure law and following the money for the surface transportation program. 

FHWA also released their full apportionment tables on Dec. 15, which show the full official breakdown of where the money is going and what sources it’s coming from. Find those tables here.

promo graphic for a guide to the IIJA

This post is part of T4America’s suite of materials explaining the 2021 $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), which governs all federal transportation policy and funding through 2026. What do you need to know about the new infrastructure law? We know that federal transportation policy can be intimidating and confusing. Our hub for the new law will walk you through it, from the basics all the way to more complex details.

1) Where this money is going—the big picture

As the following chart shows, 54 percent ($643 billion) of the infrastructure law’s funding goes toward reauthorizing the surface transportation program through 2026. The rest of the bill’s $1.2 trillion price tag goes toward other various non surface-transportation infrastructure. This $643 billion part of the deal has been reported as reauthorization plus additional above-and-beyond funds for various programs (even by us!), but the easiest way to understand this is that this is a massive five-year authorization that’s nearly twice the size of the FAST Act that it replaces. (The next biggest question is how much of the $643 billion comes from the gas-tax-funded trust fund, and how much comes from general tax dollars, which we get into in #2 below.)

Of this $643 billion, two-thirds of the money ($432 billion) is flowing to conventional highway programs.

Just to put this scale of spending in perspective, if the FAST Act (the just-ended five-year transportation law) had just been extended instead, that would have only been about $299 billion for these three basic areas of funding over five years. So compared to the previous five-year law, the new infrastructure bill brings a:

  • 90 percent increase in highway program funding (from $226 up to $432 billion);
  • 79 percent increase in public transportation funding (from $61 billion up to $109 billion); and
  • 750 percent increase in railroad infrastructure funding (from $12 billion up to $102 billion)

While the bill has added some new programs (some of which we cover here), the primary way to understand the amount of money is that it will go down as roughly double what we spent over the previous five years.

2) Where is this money coming from? 

Taking a closer look at that nearly $432 billion for highways, $110+ billion in supplemental funding (for predominantly highway competitive grant programs) is sourced from general funds from the US Treasury, i.e, paid for with tax dollars from every American and not just gas taxes In a notable change from historic practice, these supplemental funds will be appropriated in advance of other priorities in the annual budget process. (Typically,  funding for programs that are not funded with gas tax dollars are fought over year after year in appropriations, though the starting point may be the “authorized” amount in the current five-year authorization.)  This is different from a couple of discretionary programs, such as the Healthy Streets program, which authorizes expenditures, but did not identify funding for the program. These types of programs will face potential cuts before competitive highway programs ever do, for example.

This supplemental funding from all taxpayers is layered on about $312 billion sourced from the gas-tax-funded Highway Trust Fund (HTF). 87 percent (about $271 billion) of those trust fund dollars is directed to formula programs and will be spent at the discretion of states and metro areas (within the contours of the policy Congress wrote.) The administration has almost no ability to shape how those dollars get spent with future administrative actions or rulemakings. In fact, this money is already flowing directly into the coffers of state departments of transportation. The rest of the $312B in trust fund dollars (~$39B) are being directed to discretionary programs, such as competitive grants and research administered by USDOT.

When it comes to the federal transit program, the infrastructure law sets aside $109 billion, of which nearly $70 billion is from the also gas-tax-funded Mass Transit Account within the HTF, and an additional $39 billion in general tax funds over the next five years (which will also be appropriated each year in advance of other budget needs.)

Lastly, the federal rail program sets aside $102 billion over five years to be annually appropriated in advance of other budget needs, from the general fund from the US Treasury. None of the rail funding comes from the Highway Trust Fund.

As far as how these “advance” appropriations are going to work out in practice, no one is really sure what to expect in reality over the next five years as Congress could change several times over during the 2021 infrastructure law’s lifespan. In theory, these programs provided with appropriations in advance (like transit and passenger rail) should be safer than other programs that are wholly discretionary and left up to future appropriators to decide funding each year, but it’s a real possibility that a new Congress could certainly find a way to undo some of the advance funding for programs that they deem unworthy. This will be an issue that we will be keeping a close eye on in the years ahead.

3) What makes the infrastructure law’s funding historic?

The infrastructure law comes with its flaws in policy, but there are still opportunities to maximize the potential of this unprecedented influx of transportation investment. As noted in the first graphic above, these are huge increases in funding over what states and metro areas and transit agencies would have expected to see in just another year of the FAST Act. 

 The vast majority of that highway money will be allocated to the states using complex formulas that ensure an equitable distribution of funding tied to average gas tax receipts and previous state allocations. Based on what T4America knows on the apportionment formula, the following chart highlights how the total highway funding for formula programs can be sliced and diced to the states. Of all the states, Texas, California, and Florida account for a quarter of the apportionment of the federal highway program. It will be incumbent on USDOT and advocates to hold all of the states accountable for how their federal dollars are used.

Federal transportation funding opportunities 101

There are ample opportunities for the infrastructure law to support good projects and better outcomes. These five in-depth, detailed guides explain the available federal programs for funding public transportation, passenger rail, Complete Streets and active transportation, and EV infrastructure.

Image by Picture of Money via Flickr

We boiled down the funding opportunities within the federal transportation program, with a focus on how much flexibility there is for transit, intercity rail, Complete Streets and EV infrastructure. These more sophisticated guides are especially helpful for very engaged advocates or agencies who are looking for in-depth specifics about funding and program eligibilities.

There are currently five funding guides:

The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (the IIJA, or 2021 infrastructure bill) is the law of the land, guiding all federal transportation policy and funding decisions through at least late 2026. On top of the infrastructure law’s $102 billion in competitive or discretionary grant programs, the established formula funding programs also have considerable but typically untapped flexibility for funding projects across the transportation infrastructure spectrum, such as the main source of highway funding going instead to certain transit projects.

View our guide to understanding the IIJA

More background:

In addition to the approved IIJA, the (stalled) 2021 budget reconciliation bill, the Build Back Better Act (BBBA), would bring additional major investment in sustainable and equitable transportation. While that bill is on hold for now, record investment is still on the way through the IIJA. 1

While the bulk of the new IIJA funding will just advance the status quo, these bills, taken together, do better acknowledge the importance of climate change, equity, safety, and connecting communities.

It’s time for infrastructure that works for rural America

Erwin's downtown with multiple historic buildings and American flags

Rural Americans need and deserve reliable and convenient transportation options, but current policies are failing them. Today we’re releasing six recommendations to help the administration make things right, combined with stories of success from rural America showing a better approach.

Erwin's downtown with multiple historic buildings and American flags
Downtown Erwin, TN. Source: Andrew.Tobin via Flickr

Time and time again, federal policymakers have operated under the assumption that living in a rural area inevitably means spending a lot of time driving long distances to accomplish daily needs—and that rural residents have great enthusiasm for this. But this belief is out of touch with the reality of rural life, where more than 1 million households don’t have access to a car, and for the most part, life is still arranged around small downtowns or town centers. 

In addition, the folks who do drive are driving farther than they ever have before to accomplish the same things as yesterday—amounting to a great deal of cost, time, and inconvenience. New research from Transportation for America and Third Way released today finds that households in both rural and urban areas are driving significantly farther per trip as of 2017 than they were in 2001 to accomplish their commutes and daily tasks.

Yet households in lower-density suburban areas actually travel farther on average than households located near rural town centers. Our seven short stories in the back of this report show that many small towns are offering their residents the resources they need to achieve a high quality of life and travel conveniently and safely to jobs, school, stores, and more. Unfortunately, these towns’ efforts are undercut by federal policy that treats rural places as “drive-through” country, hollows out the most economically productive places in rural America, moves destinations farther apart, and consistently fails to prioritize rural needs.

A better approach: Six recommendations

Congress’s bipartisan infrastructure bill preserves many of these obstacles, but there are still plenty of opportunities ahead in how we implement that bill to make it easier for rural communities to revitalize their downtowns (bringing necessities together at one stop) and provide better transportation options. After this bill is finalized, federal decision-makers shouldn’t tune out for five years until the next big transportation bill, like they usually do—they should put in the work now to make this transportation policy work for rural communities.

1. Invest heavily in transit in rural America

Like every other part of the country, rural America includes residents who for a variety of reasons can’t drive, even if they have the financial means to access a reliable vehicle. Rural areas in particular have a higher share of their population aged 65 and over, who take fewer trips on average than their urban counterparts. Investing in transit can combat isolation and ensure that all people are able to access the resources they need. Rural transit is different too, and we need an approach tailored to their specific needs, rather than just a smaller “urban” transit program for rural areas.

2. Prioritize projects that improve access and reduce trip length

Good infrastructure should get people where they need to go, but our current approach focuses too heavily on speed as a proxy for success. Instead of incentivizing new projects that improve speed by default, it’s time to prioritize access—connecting more people to work, goods, and services in areas closer to where they live. You can be sure that some of the noted growth in trip length in rural areas is due to the consolidation or closure of destinations like hospitals, major employers, or the like.

3. Prioritize safety for everyone in developed areas like town centers

For rural areas, where town main streets often also function as state highways, current federal standards aren’t cutting it. Roadway design emphasizes speed and directly contributes to dangerous conditions for people walking or traveling without a car. As demonstrated by our case study of Hillsboro, VA, prioritizing safety over speed can make all the difference between a thriving economic hub and an abandoned downtown.

4. Prioritize maintaining rural highways over expanding them

Current policy incentivizes new highway investments that draw development away from small town centers, instead of prioritizing the repair of road and bridge connections that small town residents need. If a bridge in a rural county is closed due to lack of repairs, the detours can be incredibly inconvenient.

5. Connect rural areas by making a sizeable investment in better broadband access

We’re focused on transportation, but bad broadband access comes with significant transportation impacts, requiring long trips in some cases to accomplish work and activities that could otherwise be done online. While 97 percent of Americans in urban areas have access to high-speed fixed service, that number falls to 65 percent in rural areas, and barely 60 percent have access on Tribal lands, limiting economic opportunity and mobility.

6. Recalibrate federal agency policies and grant programs to better support rural town centers

Many rural communities depend heavily on grant programs from the US Department of Agriculture and other agencies to support their economic development, but a recent New York Times article highlighted how these grant programs can ultimately work to the detriment of small towns. These programs should be structured to encourage and incentivize investment in the historic town centers where their impacts are amplified.

In addition to these simple but powerful recommendations, we also profile a handful of communities that are attempting to do things differently, including stories from Paris, TX, Burlington, NC, Oxford, MS, Erwin, TN, and more.

Read the full report.

They said “no new money for transportation” was a bad message. They were wrong.

Two years ago, Transportation for America bucked advocacy convention by refusing to talk about funding, discussing only the outcomes of funding instead. We even said that we do not support any new funding for transportation if the underlying policy doesn’t change. Our surprising strategy has yielded results. 

The U.S. Capitol in February 2021. Photo by Ted Eytan in the Greater and Lesser Washington Flickr pool (Creative Commons).

If insanity is trying the same thing over and over and expecting different results, the converse must also be good advice: If at first you don’t succeed, try something different.

Over the last 12 years, Transportation for America (T4America) has conducted well-respected work advancing incremental reform in national transportation policy, but falling far short of transformational. In those years, T4America took a more traditional approach, advocating for more transportation funding because a piece of a larger pie of new funding could be dedicated to the things we have underinvested in—transit, biking, walking, intercity passenger rail, and smarter land-use planning. 

We believed (as most still do) that a “rising tide lifts all boats” approach is how you get invited to the table. Through this strategy, we made important progress by getting more money dedicated to alternative forms of transportation. However, with another transportation authorization approaching, we knew it was time for a different, bold, approach. 

Bucking convention, two years ago we shifted our strategy and message away from advocating for funding. Transportation policy is complex and our past platforms reflected that. This time, we sought to coalesce around two to three simple, easy-to-understand ideas that could transform the transportation system. 

In June 2019, we convened a group of partners representing communities large and small and a variety of organizations to identify three goals and associated outcomes that, together, would take the federal transportation program in a new direction. We tasked the advisory group to identify outcomes that were easy to understand, achievable and ambitious. 

We unveiled these principles in September 2019 and made a splash, especially with our announced break from the traditional approach of advocating for more funding, introduced earlier in 2019 in a widely-circulated Washington Post op-ed from T4America director Beth Osborne. The op-ed made serious waves by landing at the start of Infrastructure Week’s usual and predictable calls for more money. 

We stood out in a major way from most of the transportation advocacy community in DC, whether trade groups or nonprofits, because we were no longer willing to support more money for a broken program—even if our priorities got a little piece of the pie. These principles, re-released earlier this month, have been so potent precisely because they are indeed easy to understand, achievable and ambitious. 

The principles and outcomes are designed to rebuild crumbling infrastructure, reduce climate emissions, save lives, and equitably improve access to opportunity. They are:

  • Prioritize maintenance: Cut the road, bridge and transit maintenance backlog in half by dedicating formula highway funds to maintenance.
  • Design for safety over speed: A serious effort to reduce deaths on our roadways requires slower speeds on local and arterial roads. The federal program should require designs and approaches that put safety first.
  • Connect people to jobs and services: Don’t focus on speed. Instead determine how well the transportation system connects people to jobs and services, and prioritize the projects that will improve those connections.

And no more money for a program that will not deliver these results.

Many thought our strategy (especially opposing new funding until our priorities were addressed) would get us excused from the table, but it actually got us invited to draft a better approach. In June 2020, a little over a year after T4America started the effort, the House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee drafted a reauthorization proposal, the INVEST in America Act, that reflects all three principles and significantly better outcomes for decisions involving transit, highways, and balanced intercity passenger rail. Some key elements:

  • A destination access performance measure was included in the INVEST Act. This followed bipartisan legislation (the COMMUTE Act) introduced in both chambers of Congress creating a pilot program to promote access (which was included in the Senate authorization). The INVEST Act also establishes grant programs in the bill focusing transportation funding on getting people access to jobs and necessities like groceries and medical care instead of increasing vehicle speed.
  • The bill prioritizes “Complete and Context Sensitive Design” across federal spending and requires states and metro areas to consider and design for the safety of all users, including pedestrians, bicyclists, public transit users, children, older individuals, individuals with disabilities, motorists, and freight vehicles.
  • While the initial version of the INVEST Act made progress on prioritizing repair and maintenance, it had some loopholes. Working with leaders Rep. Chuy García of Illinois (the Future of Transportation Caucus co-chair) and Rep. Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin, a bipartisan amendment  was passed to strengthen the language—and not a single member of the committee opposed it.
  • Transformative climate legislation, the GREEN Streets Act, was introduced in both chambers, and would require a vehicle miles traveled performance measure. A greenhouse gas performance measure and programs to fund electrification infrastructure were then included in the INVEST Act.  

This five-year transportation bill subsequently passed the House. The bill isn’t perfect, but it is a huge improvement over the current program. We are proud to have changed the debate and established a new standard for what national transportation policy can look like.

By taking a bold position on the long-term problems with our nation’s approach to transportation and the immediate need for change, T4America has also influenced other policy-making this spring to a degree that is far beyond the scale of the organization. For example: 

  • After we led the effort to organize support for providing public transit with emergency financial relief during the public health crisis, Congress provided an un prescedented $69.5 billion in emergency operating support ($25 billion in the CARES Act, an additional $14 billion in the Coronavirus Response and Relief Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2021 (CRRSAA), and $30.5 billion in the American Rescue Plan). 
  • The House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis legislative action plan incorporated T4America principles throughout, featured our reports, included dozens of our recommendations, and proposed language throughout the transportation section that emphasizes traffic reduction strategies that center equitable outcomes, rather than limiting itself to the inadequate strategy of electrifying the vehicle fleet.
  • Because of direct T4America engagement and pressure, the CDC revised its first COVID transportation guidance to be more transit friendly after initially releasing guidance that ignored the health impacts of discouraging transit ridership and encouraging more people to drive alone.
  • We released a policy proposal in partnership with Third Way to undo the damage in communities of color caused by urban renewal projects. T4America successfully worked to include Capital Instruction Grant’s to remove urban renewal projects in Sen. Schumer’s Economic Justice Act.

We now have a leader at USDOT singing from our hymnal. We expect a stronger Senate bill. The debate has shifted. We’re in position to win big in 2021 with your help if we continue to stand for change and not agree to bad bills just because it throws a little more money our way.

Washington State leads in transportation improvements—one ballot measure could end all that

This November, Washington residents will vote on a ballot measure that would slash available funding for transit agencies as well as road maintenance and safety projects by limiting annual vehicle registration fees to $30 and reducing vehicle taxes.  

As gas tax and other transportation revenue failed to grow the way it used to in the 1990s and 2000s, states started filling those gaps by raising new state funds for transportation. Voters across the country, in places across the political spectrum, have supported increasing taxes to raise funds for transportation projects. In 2015, Washington passed legislation to increase the fuel tax by 11.9¢ per gallon and increase other vehicle fees, raising billions for transportation projects, including $1 billion for transit, pedestrian, and bike projects—and also gave locals more flexibility to raise transit funds through other mechanisms.

In Washington State, a ballot measure this November could change much of that. Initiative 976 seeks to limit annual license fees for vehicles at $30; base vehicle taxes on the Kelley Blue Book value rather than 85 percent of the automaker’s retail price; and repeal transit agencies’ ability to levy motor vehicle excise taxes, according to Ballotpedia. 

This cut to current and future funding would be disastrous all across the state. But perhaps the place most at risk—and the biggest example of a region taking control of its own destiny—is the Puget Sound area of greater Seattle, where voters passed Sound Transit 3 (ST3), a $53.8 billion investment to expand light rail to Everett, Issaquah and Tacoma and Seattle neighborhoods of Ballard and West Seattle, improve bus rapid transit lines, and increase capacity on existing rail lines. 

As the state’s economic engine, the Puget Sound region is choked by traffic that once threatened to hamper its growth and livability. ST3, in combination with local transit investments in Seattle and Snohomish County, put the region on track to develop a robust transit system that gives people an opportunity to avoid crippling congestion. 

I-976 puts this all at risk, as a large portion of the revenue needed to implement ST3 comes from a voter-approved 0.8 percent increase on license fees. I-976 would cut Sound Transit funding for light rail expansion, bus rapid transit and commuter rail in King, Pierce and Snohomish counties by at least $20 billion through 2041, according to Sound Transit spokesman Geoff Patrick. This cut consists of $6.9 billion in lower license fee revenue and $13 billion in higher borrowing costs in part to replace those funds.

Meanwhile, in Spokane, cuts from I-976 would reduce state funding for the Central City Line bus rapid transit project by $11 .7 million, slowing the project considerably.

While clearly anti-transit, I-976 is different than the anti-transit campaign that failed recently in Phoenix. The Phoenix effort aspired to ban all future light rail construction and was supported by funding from the Koch Brothers. In Washington, there’s no news indicating support from the Koch Brothers, and I-976 would cut far more than just transit. For example, communities in central Washington would see street maintenance funding cut substantially, with over $22.5 million cut for a maintenance and safety road project in Wenatchee.

The Seattle Times said it best in its editorial board’s resounding opposition to the ballot initiative: 

Nothing about I-976 is a good idea, in terms of responsible governance or prudent money management. [Tim Eyman, the political activist who sponsored the ballot initiative] asks voters to buy a falsity that there’s some miraculous way to fund our state’s backlog of bridge, road and transit needs. Because the courts cannot end this toxic nonsense quickly enough, voters must reject I-976 themselves.

Washington voters will have a choice on November 5: Pay less in car taxes to spend more time commuting on crumbling roads and bridges and non-existent transit services, or continue to spend money on improving quality of life through smarter transportation investments. 

Fight for your ride: An advocate’s guide for expanding and improving transit

In their search for a second HQ site, Amazon’s essential requirement for high-quality transit was, in the words of Laura Bliss at The Atlantic, “a come to Jesus moment for cities where high-quality service has long been an afterthought.” In many regions, the public transportation service just isn’t up to the task, offering infrequent, slow service and poor access to job centers or critical destinations—turning away potential riders and punishing those who must rely on transit.

But long before Amazon’s kick in the pants last year, scores of community leaders, business leaders, local elected officials, and grassroots advocates have been looking for ways to change the status quo. Many are eager to improve their local transit systems to speed up commutes, expand access to jobs and opportunities, attract and retain businesses and talent, and grow their economies.

This Transportation for America guidebook, Fight For Your Ride: An advocate’s guide for improving & expanding transit, offers local advocates and transit champions practical advice for making real improvements to public transit. Drawing examples from successful campaigns and reform efforts in small, medium, and large cities across the country, the guide illuminates effective ways to speed up transit, expand its reach, and improve service for riders. It offers tactical lessons on building a coalition, developing an effective message, and organizing a campaign for better transit in your community.

Download your copy now >>

Transportation for America’s guiding principles for an infrastructure plan

As we continue to await either broad principles or specifics of the Trump’s administration much-anticipated infrastructure plan, T4America has released these four simple guiding principles to inform and evaluate any such future plan.

It’s past time to elevate the national conversation about infrastructure beyond just the breadth and cost of it. We need an examination of exactly which projects we are investing in and why. Whether the $50 billion we currently spend each year or the $1 trillion originally suggested by the administration, we need to do more than just pour money into the same old system for planning and building transportation projects.

America’s current federal transportation program does not bring us the returns we deserve for the sums we invest. There’s far too little accountability for accomplishing anything measurable and tangible with the billions we spend.

We urgently need a new way of doing business.

To get us there and truly realize the benefits of robust federal transportation infrastructure investments, we need a renewed focus on fixing our existing system first and foremost, on investing new dollars in only the smartest projects, and on creating new mechanisms to measure what we get in return for our money.

In lieu of any substantive details offered by the administration, Transportation for America offers its own set of guiding principles to help inform or evaluate any standalone infrastructure bill, aimed at influencing the national dialogue and encouraging members of Congress and White House officials to talk plainly and honestly about a smart approach to infrastructure planning and funding. They are:

1 – Provide real funding

We need real federal funding, not just new ways to borrow money or sell off existing assets, to rebuild our transportation systems. Historically, economic development and opportunity have depended on federal investments in transportation that connect communities and allow businesses to bring goods to market. Direct federal investment funded the construction of our highways, bridges, and transit systems, creating economic opportunities. Today, deteriorating transportation infrastructure—the result of years of reduced federal investment—is a roadblock to continued economic growth. Real funding, invested according to the principles outlined here, will rebuild the nation’s transportation infrastructure and restore economic opportunity.

2 – Fix the existing system first

We must immediately fix the transportation system we have and fund needed repairs to aging infrastructure. If we have a house with a leaky roof, it’s only prudent to fix the roof before building a new addition. Our transportation systems are no different.

Congress should dedicate federal transportation formula dollars to maintenance to make sure the system is returned to a state of good repair, is resilient, and works for all users; before funding new projects that bring years of additional maintenance costs. The application of federal performance measures to both the state and metro area programs would help prioritize needs and ensure that the greatest of them are addressed first.

3 – Build smart new projects

At a time when transportation resources are scarce, it is critical that funds go only to the best new projects. Competition, local control, and objective evaluation can ensure that federal funds flow to the projects that deliver the greatest benefit to communities. When communities are given the opportunity to compete for federal funds, they work harder to put forward projects that maximize return on investment, provide creative solutions, and involve a diverse range of stakeholders. Congress should direct new federal transportation dollars through competitive processes, such as the TIGER and transit Capital Investment Grant programs, which are accessible directly to city, county, regional, and state governments. Merely adding new funding into existing and outdated formula funding programs will not deliver the transformative projects that deliver long-term economic growth.

4 – Measure success

Investments in transportation are not an end in and of themselves. They are a means to foster economic development and improve all Americans’ access to jobs and opportunity. Agencies should be held accountable by evaluating how well their investments help achieve their regions’ goals. Newly available data and tools allow agencies to measure—better than ever before—how well transportation networks connect people to jobs and other necessities. The federal government should harness these tools so that state departments of transportation and metropolitan planning organizations can ensure that federally funded investments are effectively connecting people to economic opportunity.

Download these principles as a sharable one-page PDF here or by clicking below:

Summary of the FY2017 USDOT appropriations bill

As introduced on May 1, 2017

Early on May 1, Congressional leaders revealed a $1.163 trillion appropriations bill to fund the entire government for the remainder of fiscal year (FY) 2017. Somehow Congress has employed budget maneuvers that allow this appropriations bill to incorporate higher funding levels, without comparable funding cuts, and yet adhere to the budget cap of $1.07 trillion, which Congress agreed to in 2015. For example, tens of billions are allocated for either Overseas Contingency Operations or Global War on Terror, which does not count against the statutory budget caps. The bill also includes $8.2 billion in emergency and disaster funding.

The House Rules Committee is scheduled to consider the omnibus package on Tuesday, May 2, with the Senate to follow. Congress is expected to pass the bill within the week and before the current continuing resolution (CR) expires on May 5.

The appropriations bill has been held up for a number of weeks over a disagreement over funding a border wall, healthcare payments, and non-funding related policy riders. Recent concessions in the Administration’s demands allowed the bill to move forward. The full text of the bill can be found here. Summaries of the appropriations bill can be found on the Senate Appropriations Committee page here and the House Appropriations Committee page here.

Funding

The FY2017 omnibus appropriations package includes funding for all remaining 11 appropriations bills, (Military Construction and Veterans Affairs appropriations passed in the fall 2016), including the Transportation, Housing, and Urban Development (THUD) appropriations bill. Overall, transportation programs are mostly funded at levels consistent with the FAST Act authorized amounts. The bill provides $57.651 in discretionary spending, which is a $350 million increase from FY2016. Of this, $18.5 billion in discretionary spending is for USDOT.

Funding for both the federal-aid highways program and transit formula grants are consistent with FAST Act authorized levels. The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) is funded at $1.85 billion, an increase of $173 million above FY2016 level. The bill also provides $3 million for the National Surface Transportation and Innovative Finance Bureau that was created under the FAST Act to consolidate the administration of several USDOT programs.

TIGER

The FY2017 appropriations bill provides $500 million for the TIGER discretionary grant program, also known as National Infrastructure Investment grants. This is equal to what the program received in FY2016 appropriations and is equal to the amount that T4America, along with over 160 organizations, asked legislators to support the program at.

This round of funding must be obligated by September 30, 2020.

New Starts, Small Starts, Core Capacity (Capital Investment Grant Program)

Within the amount appropriated for the Federal Transit Administration, $2.4 billion is allocated to the Capital Investment Grant (CIG) program, which is slightly above the FAST Act level of $2.3 billion.

The FY2017 appropriations bill encourages the Administration to continue the CIG program by distinguishing funding between projects that have Full Funding Grant Agreements (FFGAs) with USDOT and those projects that have yet to sign an FFGA. By setting aside funding for projects that are in the pipeline to receive federal funding, Congress demonstrated a show of support for those local communities that have in many cases have raised revenues for projects and have gone through years of planning with USDOT.

Within the New Starts program, $1.5 billion is allocated for all current FFGA projects and $285 million is set aside for projects that are in line to receive FFGAs. For the Core Capacity program, $100 million is available for projects with signed agreements and $232 million is available for projects anticipated to enter into an FFGA in FY2017. The Small Starts program is funded at $408 million.

Even though this funding has been appropriated, each project must still obtain a signed grant agreement with USDOT before the funds may be released to that project. In addition, the bill allows FTA to allocate more than $100 million per project under the core capacity, small starts, and expedited delivery programs.

The FY2017 appropriations bill directs the Secretary of Transportation to administer the CIG program funding as directed in the tables below:

 


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Amtrak, CRISI, State of Good Repair, and REG

The FY2017 bill provides $1.167 billion for the National Network, a slight increase over the FAST Act authorized amount, and $328 million for the Northeast Corridor (NEC), which is a decrease from the $474 million authorized amount in the FAST Act.

The Consolidated Rail Infrastructure and Safety Improvements (CRISI) grant program is funded at $68 million, a decrease from the $190 million authorized under the FAST Act. Of this funding, at least 25 percent will go to projects in rural areas and $10 million will support the initiation or restoration of intercity passenger rail. Up to 1 percent of the funds may be used for project management and oversight. The federal match is 80 percent and the program can fund rail safety technology, including PTC, capital projects, grade crossings, rail line relocation and improvement, short-line capital project, and planning for regional and corridor plans; among others.

The Federal-State Partnership for State of Good Repair grants program is funded at $25 million and similar to CRISI, up to 1 percent of the funds may be used for project management and oversight. The FY2017 appropriations bill also directs FRA to consider the needs of the entire rail network when determining grant awards. This program aims to reduce the state of good repair backlog for publicly owned or Amtrak-owned infrastructure, equipment, and facilities. In addition to projects that target brining existing infrastructure into a state of good repair, activities that are eligible for funding also include projects that replace existing assets with those that increase capacity and service levels.

The Restoration and Enhancement Grants (REG) program is funded at $5 million, which is less than the $20 million authorized under the FAST Act. As with the CRISI program, up to 1 percent of funds may be used for project management and oversight of the grants. This program is intended to support the operation of new or expanded service. It can provide grants to six lines to support operating costs for three years on a tiered structure – up to 80 percent operating costs in year one, 60 percent in year two, and 40 percent in year three.

The bill also provides $98 million in rail grants to support the implementation of Positive Train Control (PTC), a decrease from the $199 million authorized in the FAST Act. Within 120 days of enactment of the bill, Amtrak is also required to compile a report comparing actual food and beverage savings for FY2016 with projections.

Analysis

By keeping transportation funding in line with the FAST Act authorized amounts and by doing so without devastating cuts to housing programs, T4America expects this bill will pass with wide bi-partisan support. Congress began negotiating the appropriations bills that collectively make up this omnibus package back in 2016, before the election in November and under a different political climate. Through all of the transitions since then and amidst pressure from the new Administration to make drastic funding changes, Congress engaged with a number of stakeholders and maintained funding for the programs that communities need. If Congress continues along this path, there may be broad support for FY2018 appropriations and the infrastructure package. However, it is not clear the extent to which Congress has additional budget maneuvers available to them to continue to spend so freely.

Copy this tactic: Community Transit defends program by using unexpected voices

Last week, I visited with T4A’s members and partners in the Puget Sound region. In the time of “skinny budgets” and tenuous federal support for transit, it was encouraging to hear from local elected officials, advocates and transit agencies on how they’re progressing despite federal (and in their case state) uncertainty.

On the federal level, this region will be among the hardest hit if Congress declines to fund the capital improvement program, with more than $2 billion in federal New Starts investments at risk. These projects include:

  • $1.17 billion for the Lynnwood Link Extension
  • up to $720 million for the Federal Way Link Extension
  • $75 million for the Seattle Streetcar Center City Connector
  • $75 million for Tacoma Link Expansion
  • $43 million for Swift II BRT in Everett
  • $61 million for Madison Street Corridor Bus Rapid Transit in Seattle

These numbers don’t include the threats to passenger rail service or to TIGER.

Rather than throw their hands up in frustration, Community Transit, a T4America member, is using this as an opportunity to tell the story about the economic and job benefits of their Swift bus rapid transit line. We are seeing more and more transit agencies talk not just about the direct benefits they provide to their community, but also the upstream jobs that are created…whether the buses they buy are manufactured in Everett, Washington or St. Cloud, Minnesota.

Community Transit’s Swift Green Line Infographic

Copy this tactic: Including suppliers and engaging your entire supply chain gives you the ability to reach other decision-makers that you may not otherwise have access to. It builds your advocate tent and adds unexpected voices to your issue.

For example, when Community Transit gives this powerful piece of information to one of their members of Congress, Rick Larsen, a Democrat…he can advocate to Tom Emmer, the Republican Member of Congress from St. Cloud. Additionally, their bus manufacturer can advocate to Rep. Emmer directly. This is just one way to show leaders how transportation is truly a bipartisan issue.

T4America continues to find stories like these to use in our work and highlight what’s working. If you have similar stories that you’d like to share with us, please send them our way. We want to know!

Launching a new leadership training academy on transportation for civic leaders in the state of Ohio

We’re launching another leadership academy program, this time aimed at training and equipping civic leaders across the state of Ohio to spearhead a fresh approach to transportation that will foster sustainable economic growth and boost the economy in metro areas and the state.

The Healthline in Cleveland is one of the best bus rapid transit lines in the country, yet there’s little planning happening to replicate it elsewhere in the city or other cities in the state.

In cooperation with the Greater Ohio Policy Center, T4America is launching a new leadership academy program to help civic leaders across the state understand the importance of transportation and train these leaders to make change in their cities and regions, and we’re looking for applicants.

Ohio could benefit from a fresh approach to transportation. In a state where many of its cities struggle with either slow or negative population growth, the last generation’s economic development strategies are no longer delivering results.

Repair needs are mounting but municipal budgets struggle to keep up as the tax base decentralizes or population shrinks. While many in Ohio’s cities recognize the importance of public transportation, the state budget offers a pittance to transit service, pushing the full burden onto strained local budgets.

New job centers — especially for low-skill and high-opportunity jobs in logistics and manufacturing — are growing in suburban or exurban locations. Job growth is a boost to those locations, but these jobs are inaccessible to workers who don’t have a car or other reliable transportation. Employers lose out on part of the employer pool and even struggle to fill open positions at these sites.

A fresh approach to transportation can go a long way in addressing these challenges Ohio’s cities face, and it’ll be Ohioans who lead the way.

This Ohio academy program will show local leaders the best practices and emerging ideas that have been successfully employed in peer cities across the country. It will train participants to be effective champions for change in their cities and help a new generation of local leaders understand how transportation decisions and choices affect the quality of life and prosperity in their regions. We will show how expanding access to jobs and restoring walkable communities will be the keys to economic success in Ohio’s cities.

Each workshop will feature real-life lessons from other regions of the country and hands-on activities and exercises to understand critical concepts like low-cost, high impact changes such as rerouting and realigning transit service to better match travel patterns and provide better service to more riders, partnerships with employers to extend the reach of transit service and expand access to jobs, and how to make transit a central part of community and neighborhood development, to name just a few.

The academy will bring community leaders from across the state together for a yearlong series of six, one-day workshops. The program will strengthen connections between peers across the state, foster the leadership skills of a new cohort of transportation advocates, and reinforce the impactful work already under way in Ohio’s major metros.

The academy is aimed at local elected, business, and civic leaders. The program is best matched for individuals who do not work day-to-day in transportation, but have close ties to transportation or related fields, such as real estate, economic development, or workforce development. The program is open to individuals from across Ohio.

To request more information and an application, please complete this brief form.

Crucial transportation and transit-related ballot measures coming up in 2016

Throughout 2016, ballot measures and referenda that will raise new revenue for transportation at the local or state level will be decided during elections across the country. As in years past, we’ll be keeping a close eye on several of the most notable questions in the 2016 edition of Transportation Vote.

We’ll be profiling a few at length on the blog over the next few months and keeping all the relevant information organized in a table: https://t4america.org/maps-tools/state-policy-funding/2016-votes

Transpo Vote 2016

Two years ago in 2014, a handful of states moved to create “lockboxes” for transportation funds and several others raised new funding. At the local level, cities and counties from Atlanta to Seattle approved important ballot measures to raise new funding to either preserve or massively expand public transportation service.  The voters in a growing list of states and localities will be deciding similar questions this November, and we’ll be keeping a close eye. Stay tuned for more, and bookmark Transportation Vote 2016.

Transportation-related ballot measures tend to do well with voters — whether statewide or exclusively local measures — passing at around twice the rate of all other ballot measures. And transit or multimodal measures always do well, passing about 71 percent of the time since 2009.

As soon as election day is over, the focus will shift to 2017 and especially the state legislative sessions beginning around the beginning of the year. If you want to know more about state legislation related to transportation revenue, you need to join us in Sacramento for Capital Ideas II. There’s still time to register and make travel plans to meet us there. Don’t miss your opportunity to be a part of this terrific event that will help equip you to make things happen in 2017 and beyond.

Capital Ideas banner sacramento promo

Note: We don’t track 100 percent of all transit-related measures — for an overview of all transit-related ballot measures, turn to the Center for Transportation Excellence, the authority on tracking such data. Questions about measures or know of a significant one we should be following that doesn’t appear here? Reach out to Dan Levine on our staff.

President Obama releases robust final budget; summary included

Today, the White House released President Obama’s fiscal year 2017 (FY17) budget proposal, the final of his presidency. This budget adheres to the $1.07 trillion spending cap that resulted from the bipartisan two-year budget deal agreed to last November. The President’s budget proposal either falls in line with or exceeds FAST Act funding levels, increases transit and rail funding, and funds TIGER (the FAST Act does not authorize the program), among other programs. The budget also calls for the creation of a 21st Century Regions program, a clean communities competitive grant program and funds the President’s 21st Century Clean Transportation Plan.

Speaker Ryan (R-WI) has asked congressman to maintain the funding levels agreed to last November, though there are signals that some may seek additional cuts.

Read a more detailed analysis here.

The 1 thing you need to know about President Obama’s clean transportation plan

On February 4, the White House released President Obama’s 21st Century Clean Transportation System plan to be included in his FY2017 budget proposal expected out on February 9. The President asserts that his budget proposal will strengthen the nation’s transportation fund through one-time revenues from business tax reform and a $10 per barrel fee on oil, and make large investments in transit and improve funding for local and regional governments.

“This is a new vision. We’re realistic about near-term prospects in Congress, but we think this can change the debate,” one senior administration official said.

The announcement comes two months after the passage of the 5 year surface transportation bill known as the FAST Act. However, Congressional leaders have not expressed willingness to consider the proposal.

House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA) made this point clear. “President Obama’s proposed $10 per barrel tax on oil is dead on arrival in the House.”

What the plan proposes

The plan includes a wide range of innovative solutions. It would refocus federal investments to reduce congestion, reform the existing transportation formula programs, and invest in competitive programs, including the popular Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) program. It would also increase investments in mass transit funding by $20 billion annually, provide $2 billion for an autonomous and low-emission vehicle pilot, and add $10 billion per year to reform local and regional transportation programs. The latter would include new discretionary grant programs for regions that lower emissions and better link land use decisions with transportation investments.

To pay for these investments, revenues from a $10 per barrel fee paid by oil companies would be phased in over 5 years. During the development of the FAST Act, Congress was unwilling to even hold a floor vote on increasing transportation user-fees, which hasn’t been raised in over 23 years.

Day 1 Wrap Up: Congressional Conference Committee Action

This morning the conference committee for the surface transportation authorization bill met for the first time. The first order of business was appointing Representative Bill Shuster (R-PA) – chair of the House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee – as the conference chair and Senator Jim Inhofe (R-OK) – chair of the Senate Environment & Public Works Committee -as the vice-chair.

Possibly the most revealing item covered during this first official meeting was an early statement from Chairman Shuster (R-PA) that the conference plans to work diligently through the Thanksgiving recess that starts this Thursday, November 19th, to meet a self-imposed deadline of Monday, November 30. The proposed timeline will allow the House and Senate to vote on final passage for the conference agreement before MAP-21 expires on Friday, December 4th (MAP-21 expires this Friday, November 20th, but the House has already passed a bill to extend the authorization to December 4 and the Senate is expected to follow suit today or tomorrow).

There are still a few sticking points that need to be resolved and came up today during each conferee’s opportunity to speak today. Many hold differing positions on the low funding levels for this authorization as well as the non-transportation generated revenue used to pay for the bill. Those in the Northeast took issue with a House provision to remove transit funding dedicated to high-growth states in the northeast and place it in a national competitive bus and bus facilities program. And others, while not objecting to including passenger rail authorization in the surface authorization for the first time ever as expected by this bill, wanted to include greater reform at Amtrak.
We do not expect any further public meetings until the Members of Congress return on November 30, at which time the conference is expected to have finalized this bill. This means that much of the work on the conference report will happen out of view and behind closed doors. If interested, we advise that you contact your member over the Thanksgiving recess and visit them in person if you can about items of importance for you and your community.
Senate Conference Members
Environment & Public Works Committee
Republicans
Jim Inhofe (R-OK)
John Barrasso (R-WY)
Deb Fischer (R-NE) – also a Commerce Committee member
Democrats
Barbara Boxer (D-CA)
Commerce Committee
Republicans
John Thune (R-SD) – also a Finance Committee member
Democrats
Bill Nelson (D-FL) – also a Finance Committee member
Banking Committee
Democrats
Sherrod Brown (D-OH) – also a Finance Committee member
Finance Committee
Republicans
Orrin Hatch (R-UT)
John Cornyn (R-TX)
Democrats
Ron Wyden (D-OR)
Chuck Schumer (D-NY)
Other Conferees
Republicans
Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK)
Democrats
Dick Durbin (D-IL) – Democratic Whip
House Conference Members 
Transportation & Infrastructure Committee
Republicans
Bill Shuster (R-PA)
Reps. John J. Duncan, Jr. (R-TN)
Sam Graves (R-MO)
Candice Miller (R-MI)
Rick Crawford (R-AR)
Lou Barletta (R-PA)
Blake Farenthold (R-TX)
Bob Gibbs (R-OH)
Jeff Denham (R-CA)
Reid Ribble (R-WI)
Scott Perry (R-PA)
Rob Woodall (R-GA)
John Katko (R-NY)
Brian Babin (R-TX)
Cresent Hardy (R-NV)
Garret Graves (R-LA)
John Mica (R-FL)
Barbara Comstock (R-VA)
 
Democrats 
Peter DeFazio (D-OR)
Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC)
Jerrold Nadler (D-NY)
Corrine Brown (D-FL)
Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX)
Elijah Cummings (D-MD)
Rick Larsen (D-WA)
Michael Capuano (D-MA)
Grace Napolitano (D-CA)
Daniel Lipinski (D-IL)
Steve Cohen (D-TN)
Albio Sires (D-NJ)
Donna Edwards (D-MD)
 
Ways & Means Committee
Republicans
Kevin Brady (R-TX)
Dave Reichert (R-WA)
Democrats
Sander Levin (D-MI)
Energy & Commerce Committee
Republicans
Fred Upton (R-MI)
Markwayne Mullin (R-OK)
Democrats
Frank Palone (D-NJ)
Financial Services Committee
Republicans
Jeb Hensarling (R-TX)
Randy Neugebauer (R-TX)
Democrats
Maxine Waters (D-CA)
Other Committees
Republicans
Mac Thornberry (R-TX)
Mike Rogers (R-AL)
Bob Goodlatte (R-VA)
Tom Marino (R-PA)
Darin LaHood (R-IL)
Glenn Thomson (R-PA)
Will Hurd (R-TX)
Lamar Smith (R-TX)
Democrats
Loretta Sanchez (D-CA)
Zoe Lofgren (D-CA)
Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ)
Gerry Connolly (D-VA)

Where did the additional billions in new revenue come from for the House transportation bill?

In the early morning hours on Thursday during negotiations over the House transportation bill, Rep. Neugebauer presented a fairly surprising amendment that tapped billions from a to-date unmentioned Federal Reserve surplus account to help cover the cost of the bill.

Details are still a little uncertain about exactly how much money will eventually be transferred from this account — House leadership could hang on to some of the money for some other need and choose to only fund three years of their transportation bill — we’ll be keeping a close eye on how that develops. But we do know that the House now has as much as $85 billion in new general fund revenues to cover the gap between what the gas tax brings in and current levels of transportation spending.

From his speech, even Rep. Neugebauer (R-TX) agrees with our assertion that we shouldn’t be filling the trust fund with non-transportation revenue sources (i.e., general taxpayer funds). So what was the reasoning for tapping this Federal Reserve fund in this amendment? One reason was to eliminate one of the Senate’s funding sources that many did not like. Here’s the speech that Rep. Neugebauer gave on the floor in the early morning hours of Thursday when most of us were all fast asleep.

First, I don’t think it’s good policy to fund transportation from other sectors of the economy.

This amendment does seek to address two major issues in the budget offsets sent over from the Senate: the Federal Reserve dividend reduction and the ‘G-fee’ increase. Moving forward with the Federal Reserve dividend reduction without studying it could have a devastating consequence for the supervision of the financial sector and the stability of the Federal Reserve system. The cost that banks, especially community banks, could face as a result of the dividend reduction would be passed on to hard working consumers. At a time when many Americans continue to struggle from the unintended consequences of Dodd-Frank it would dangerous and irresponsible to move forward with the Senate version.

Second, this amendment addresses what I see as a further entrenchment of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. This is particularly timely because just this week we learned that Freddie and Fannie may need to tap the Treasury once again and saddle the taxpayers with the bill. This amendment further protects the taxpayers. Allowing Congress to continue to raise g-fees will make comprehensive housing financial reform impossible.

Our amendment addresses both problems by liquidating and dissolving the Federal Reserve Capital Surplus Account. The Federal Reserve Capital Surplus Account currently has about $29 billion in capital surplus. This Account is made up of the earnings that the Federal Reserve has retained from investing member banks money. Let me say that again. The Surplus Account is made up of the earning that the Federal Reserve has made from investing member banks money. The Federal Reserve continues to hold this account in surplus at a time that our nation has over $18.5 trillion in debt.

This is not a perfect policy but it’s better than the alternative. This preserves the budget neutrality of the transportation bill and counters irresponsible proposals sent over to us by the Senate. Further, it protects consumers from the potential for cost increases while reforming the Surplus Account to meet the needs of the current fiscal crisis. When the Surplus Account was created no one could have imagined the debt and deficits that we are facing. It is appropriate to liquidate this account to meet these days’ realities.

“Moving forward, I hope that this body will ensure that transportation funding comes from transportation users and not completely unrelated sectors of the economy.

Updated – Ten things to know about the House transportation bill

Updated 11/5/2015 5 p.m. EST. We wrote this post in preparation for consideration of this bill on the House floor. But after the House finished consideration of the bill on Thursday (11/5), we updated this post to reflect the changes made (or not made) over the last few days. Look for the updated notes in the blue boxes with each item below and read our full statement on the bill here. -Ed.

The House Transportation and Infrastructure (T&I) Committee debated and approved their multi-year transportation reauthorization proposal last week. Next step is consideration on the House floor and then, if approved, conferenced (merged through negotiations) with the Senate, which passed their multi-year DRIVE Act back in July. Here are ten things you need to know about what’s in (or not in) the House bill which is expected to be considered on the House floor early next week.

ten-things-house-bill-strr

1) The House will likely tap the same non-transportation revenue sources as the Senate did to pay the tab

Though the House has yet to officially pass a plan to pay for their bill (unlike the Senate), we expect them to closely emulate the Senate plan to cobble together about $45 billion from numerous future funding sources to fully cover the cost of the first three years of their bill. Though as many as 10 years would be needed to realize some of the new revenues to cover the next three years of spending, it would instantly transfer billions from the general fund to the transportation fund, increasing the deficit, a practice that Senator Bob Corker (R-TN) called “generational theft.” We’ve already tapped general taxpayer dollars to the tune of $73 billion over the last few years to keep the nation’s transportation trust fund solvent.

One factor possibly complicating this plan is that the House and Senate just reached a separate budget agreement (to keep the government operating) that also requires selling oil from the country’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve — a mechanism that comprised the second largest stream of funding for the Senate’s bill. If that expected $9 billion in revenue for the DRIVE Act is no more, how will the House fill this gap?

For a detailed rundown of the Senate’s funding plan the House is expected to emulate, read our ten things post on the Drive Act.

Updated: The House did indeed use the Senate funding sources as their starting point, but there was a fairly stunning development late on Wednesday night when an amendment was proposed that taps billions from a Federal Reserve surplus account; an amount that could be sufficient to fund the bill for a full six years. It may be one way to allow other contentious payfors from the Senate to be removed — the dividend rate change for banks among them — but it could also nearly double the amount of money available. We’ll be watching this closely as more news develops.

2) Enshrines three more years of policy into law than we can pay for

The Senate bill — and we expect the House bill to follow suit as covered above — authorizes the surface transportation program for six full years but includes a funding plan that can only cover the first three years of the bill. The bill would use $46 billion in future offsets to cover its three-year length, leaving a future Congress to find another $50 billion or so to pay for the last three years. We’d be the first to say that we urgently need the certainty and stability that a multi-year bill provides to states and local communities as they plan transportation investments, but this is unprecedented and it’s incredibly shortsighted to lock our country’s transportation policy in stone for six years when we aren’t willing to pay for it. Especially when we’re enshrining transportation policy into law for the next six years, which simply doesn’t do enough to meet the needs of local communities of all sizes. Which leads us to…

Updated: Per the point above, it’s unclear just how much funding is going to be available. Enough funding for the first three years will be transferred, but the new funding sources tapped via amendment on Wednesday will provide far more funding and could be enough for the full six years of the House bill. Leadership will have decisions to make about what to do with the additional funding.

3) Misses a golden opportunity to provide more funding to local communities

The House bill is a major missed opportunity for giving cities, towns and local communities of all sizes greater access and control over federal transportation dollars. An amendment from Representatives Davis (R-IL) and Titus (D-NV), with broad bipartisan support, would direct more flexible funding to towns and cities and increase transparency in how projects are selected, but it was not included by the committee. Representatives Davis and Titus will be offering this amendment on the floor and we are going to need your help to make sure it gets into the bill.

Just like the Senate, the House bill does slightly increase the share of the bill’s most flexible funds that go to local communities by five percent (up to 55 percent of just one of many core highway programs), but that improvement only happens incrementally over the six years of the bill. This means that the full increase comes in the later years of the bill that likely won’t be paid for anytime soon — see #2 above. The House bill does lower to $10 million the minimum cost of projects that can apply for low-cost TIFIA loans, making it easier for local communities to access this smart federal financing program, but far more must be done to ensure that towns and cities both big and small have the resources and control they need to stay to invest in the infrastructure they need to be economically competitive.

Updated: The Davis-Titus amendment was not allowed to be brought to the floor by the House Rules Committee, despite the significant bipartisan support — among the most for any amendment offered. This means that there was no airing of the argument on the House floor and no chance for even debating the merits of giving local communities more control or authority over transportation dollars. This was a major point of contention raised in our final statement on the bill.

4) Includes a freight program to help states and metro areas address goods movement issues, but needlessly limits innovative multimodal projects

Similar to the DRIVE Act, the House bill encourages crafting a multimodal freight plan but only about 10 percent of the new roughly $725 million per year discretionary freight grant program can be spent on multimodal projects. This means that the House is dictating from Washington exactly how states and metro areas should solve their freight challenges, robbing them of the flexibility to invest in whatever option can best keep freight moving.

This flies in the face of past statements from this same committee, which stated clearly in a report three years ago that our freight issues are multimodal and require multimodal solutions. “Moving goods and people effectively depends on all modes of transportation,” said Chairman Shuster in that report. “Because bottlenecks at any point in the transportation system can seriously impede freight mobility and drive up the cost of the goods,” Rep. John Duncan added, “improving the efficient and safe flow of freight across all modes of transportation directly impacts the health of the economy.” The committee’s recommendation was to “ensure robust public investment in all modes of transportation on which freight movement relies.” The committee should take its own advice.

Updated: This was unchanged.

5) Small changes to transit funding with sizable implications

While the bill largely preserves the historical share of funding overall intended for transit, it makes two changes that will have significant impacts on communities planning new or expanded transit service to meet the burgeoning demand for housing and jobs near public transportation.

First, while highway projects will continue to have 80 percent of their costs covered by federal highway funds, the committee lowered the share paid on transit capital projects to 50 percent. While many big transit projects already match more than half of the cost locally, especially in more prosperous metro areas, poorer and smaller communities will both be punished. Federal Small Starts transit capital funds often cover well over 50 percent of the cost for new bus lines or bus rapid transit service in smaller communities, which will be disproportionately impacted by this change.

Secondly, the House bill eliminates the flexibility for a state or metro area to use a portion of the flexible federal funds that they control outright as the local contribution or match for transit projects, taking away more of the flexibility and control from local communities that this committee professes to value. Representatives Lipinski and Nadler spoke up during committee and are working to fix these before the bill is finalized on the House floor.

One piece of good news is that the small grant program to help support smart development around transit to help boost ridership and the bottom line will continue to be funded at $10 million per year for 6 years.

Updated: An amendment from Rep. Nadler and several others to fix this was approved and incorporated into the bill, though it doesn’t quite return things to standard practice of today. Under the House bill as passed, states or metros will be able to shift their CMAQ funds to transit projects and use that as part of their local contribution to a project. This can raise the effective federal contribution to these projects over 50 percent, though the match rate will stay at the new lower 50 percent rate. We’ll have some more information on this soon.

6) A once sizable loan program (TIFIA) slashed by 80 percent; no support for transit-oriented development projects

The TIFIA low-cost financing program — where federal loans are paid back from local revenues often generated from the projects themselves — is cut significantly from $1 billion down to $200 million per year. Congress had just massively increased this program in the current MAP-21 law in order to stretch our limited federal dollars as far as possible and leverage other revenue sources. And with so much more loan money available after that 2012 increase, Congress directed USDOT to award dollars in a first-come, first-serve basis instead of by competition based on the merits of the projects. Now the House proposes to cut the program by 80 percent while still preventing USDOT from judging projects on need, performance or return on investment.

Secondly, Representative Edwards (D-MD) and Barbara Comstock (R-VA) were urged to withdraw their amendment to allow transit-oriented development projects to be eligible for receiving these low-cost TIFIA loans — a common sense proposal that would net more riders and revenue for the operating agencies and cost the federal government zero dollars.

Updated: This amendment was yet another rejected by the Rules Committee, which barred it from receiving a vote or debate on the House floor. This amendment had zero cost and allowed these projects only to apply for funding. TIFIA — one of the points of pride for the architects of MAP-21 — remains slashed by 80 percent (down to $200 million) in the final bill.

7) New performance measure on condition and access for disadvantaged urban areas

Thanks to the efforts of Representative Andre Carson (D-IN), the House bill does include a new performance measure intended to “assess the conditions, accessibility, and reliability of roads in economically distressed urban communities.” While we’d like for this section to include a more holistic measure for access — as in access to jobs or opportunity by any mode of travel as a better and broader indicator than relying on simply road condition — we’re happy to see the amendment’s inclusion. This signals that the House is open to conversations on adding new or improved performance measures to the bill. That’s a positive development.

Updated: No change made to this amendment. However, a similar amendment from Reps. Ellison, Grijalva, Waters and Huffman would have expanded on this idea and “established performance measures for accessibility for low-income and minority populations and people with disabilities; cumulative increase in residents’ connection to jobs; and the variety of transportation choices available to users, such as public transportation, bike and pedestrian pathways, and roads and highways,” per our amendment tracker. This second amendment was rejected by the Rules Committee.

8) Better planning to alleviate income-draining commutes and connect more people to jobs

An amendment from Representatives Albio Sires (D-NJ) and Ryan Costello (R-PA) was included to expand transportation options for commuters — with a focus on low-income communities — by leveraging the resources of employers and the private sector. Larger metropolitan areas would be required to develop regional goals to reduce vehicle miles traveled during peak commuting hours and improve transportation connections between areas with lots of jobs and areas where low-income households are concentrated. They would be required to identify existing public transportation services and employer-based commuter programs that support better access to jobs and identify proposed projects and programs that could reduce congestion and help connect more people to jobs.  This is modeled after the successful Commuter Trip Reduction program in Washington State, which we profiled indirectly in this case study on a vanpooling program there.

Updated: No changes made.

9) The TIGER competitive grant program for smart state and local projects? Where is it?

Following yesterday’s announcement of another successful round of TIGER competitive grant awards and the proud press releases flying out of representatives’ offices from both parties, one might ask why TIGER isn’t included in the House bill. With leaders in the House speaking regularly of the need to get a better return on investment for our limited dollars, leverage other funding sources, and encourage more local innovation, they’d be smart to formally authorize TIGER — a grant program which can help realize those goals. Neither the House or Senate bills do this, and the communities that rely on this program — one of the few ways they can directly receive funding for their projects — will have to wonder each year if Congress’ appropriators will keep the program going.

Updated: TIGER is still M.I.A. in the final House bill. The bill has no increased competitive funds for innovative multimodal projects, save for the slight amount of the new freight program available for multimodal freight projects. The House bill continues the status quo of awarding funds and largely stays away from any shift to awarding funds based on benefits, merits or possible return on investment.

10) Where did the TAP program go?

The Transportation Alternatives Program that states and local communities use to help make walking and biking safer and more convenient was folded into another program (the Surface Transportation Program) and capped at $819 million per year over the life of the bill. This program already makes up just two percent of the total highway budget, and it will be even less if this bill is approved as is. While the policy was not changed in any damaging way, capping these funds (in a bill where all other programs increase in funding with inflation over the life of the bill) more or less guarantees that TAP will be capped in any future House and Senate conference agreement.

Updated: TAP was unchanged, though there were several amendments rejected that would have further reduced its funding or allowed states and metros to flex its funding away to other programs. But in a bill where almost all other programs grew at least slightly, TAP’s size is capped over the life of the bill, which results in an actual decrease in funds due to inflation — “compound dis-interest.” With possibly six years of funding now procured by the House, we could be looking at no net increase in funds for biking and walking for six more years instead of just three.

House Committee passes a multi-year surface transportation bill

On October 23rd, the US House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee passed out of committee a long-term surface authorization. The bill, the Surface Transportation Reauthorization and Reform Act (HR 3763), authorizes the federal surface transportation program for six years, and recommends flat line funding plus inflation over the life of the bill.

Transportation for America (T4A) published a summary of the bill (pre-mark-up) for members, click HERE to download it.

Ultimately, the big-four agreement – a bipartisan agreement determining which amendments would be allowed, accepted or rejected that exists between the Chairmen and Ranking Members of the full- and subcommittees – proved to hold firm during yesterday’s nearly six-hour meeting.

Of the 160 plus amendments offered during the mark-up by members of the committee, the Chairman agreed to only three:

  • adding tourism to state and MPO planning scopes,
  • exempting weight limits for emergency vehicles, and
  • including a performance metric on urban highway state of good repair.

Only two received votes and both failed by large margins. In return for assurances by Chairman Shuster (R-PA) that the Members’ concerns would be taken care of before the bill reaches the House floor, nearly all Members offered and withdrew their amendments.

Of importance, Representatives Davis (R-IL) and Titus (D-NV) offered an amendment to increase the amount of funding directed to metro regions by $9 billion over the life of the bill and improve the transparency and project selection process for regions under 200,000 in population. Download the Davis-Titus summary memo HERE.

Though Rep. Davis (R-IL) had the votes yesterday to pass this amendment, he offered and withdrew the amendment after it gained the largest number of bipartisan statements of support during the markup (those came from Reps. Davis, Titus, Frankel (D-FL), Edwards (D-MD), Rouzer (R-NC)).  Chairman Shuster signaled that he is open to working with the bipartisan group to make improvements to this area of the bill as it moves forward in the process.

There were also a number of non-controversial amendments included in the manager’s amendment prior to the start of the meeting. Notable amendments include:

  • Sires (D-NJ) and Costello (R-PA) – amends the planning section to encourage MPOS to develop congestion management plans that develop strategies and projects that improve transportation access during peak hour travel and would include employers and representatives of low-income households.
  • Curbelo (R-FL) and Titus (D-NV) – amends the safe streets language to encourage reporting on the development and implementation of safe streets at the state level.

Despite a number of statements of support from various organizations, T4A finds that this bill doesn’t meet the forward-looking federal policies needed to strengthen the economic and social prosperity of our nation’s communities. We will continue to work to ensure the House STRR Act and the Senate DRIVE Act move in our direction and I thank you for your support.