The transportation bill extension. The current transportation bill expires at the end of September. Congress needs to pass another temporary extension — the 8th extension of the last bill — to give them the necessary weeks/months to hammer out a plan for a long-term transportation bill. The Senate could mark up a clean, four-month extension of the current bill as early as the end of this week. The House will likely take up the FAA authorization bill first since their last temporary agreement expires in the middle of the month. Indications are coming from both chambers and both parties that passing an extension shouldn’t be a problem, though promises like that may ring hollow in most ears these days.

A long-term transportation bill. As far as a long-term bill goes, you may remember, the House has already released their plan for a transportation bill that would run for the full six years, but would cut funding by 35 percent across the board. The Senate is still working on their plan for a two-year bill that would maintain current funding levels. They’re nearing the finish line on that plan, and they’ve at least announced a plan to mark up a two-year bill in committee sometime next week. If a timetable like that holds, the two-year Senate bill could make it through that chamber before Rep. Mica’s House bill sees action in the House.

The gas tax. After much prognostication, it doesn’t seem that there will be any widespread opposition to extending the gas tax in the House or Senate. The word around town is that a reauthorization of the gas tax will be folded into a “continuing resolution” that will be used to continue funding the government after the end of the month. (It’s unlikely that a proper budget or individual appropriations bills will pass before September 30th, meaning that the “CR” will extend last year’s funding levels, with some cuts, for another few months.)

The month of September will be a busy time with all these elements in play. Be sure to check back here or follow us on twitter to stay in the loop and find out what you can do to take action and weigh in with your members of Congress.

Case closed, right? Not exactly.

A national telephone survey conducted by the Mineta Transportation Institute found that a majority of Americans, or near majority depending on the question, would support higher taxes for transportation infrastructure — so long as those revenues resulted in clear benefits such as cleaner air or better-maintained roads. Show voters where their dollars are actually going, and they’re much more likely to agree to the higher taxes.

Baseline support for a 10 cent gas tax increase — absent reform or benchmarks — is 24 percent, but that grows to 45 percent if the revenues are dedicated to mitigating climate change, and 48 percent, a near majority, if the revenue is spent on reducing local air pollution, according to the Mineta survey. When the funds go toward improved road maintenance, support jumps to 62 percent, but it drops back to 24 percent if it goes toward maintaining and improving the transportation system in general.

Voters everywhere have a history of agreeing to further tax themselves when they see a clear benefit. According to the Center for Transportation Excellence, a nonpartisan research center, 75 percent of local ballot measures on increasing or preserving transportation investment were approved in the November 2010 election. In April of last year, 63 percent of voters in St. Louis County approved a half-cent sales tax increase to restore eliminated bus lines in the Metro transit system and expand the system further.

Raising taxes is never easy, especially in a tough economy. But the Mineta Transportation Institute’s research gives lawmakers a template for making the case.

Ninety-eight percent of mayors identified affordable, reliable transit as crucial to their city’s recovery and growth, according to a survey of 176 mayors unveiled this week by Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed (right) on behalf of the Conference.

Commanding majorities favor an increase in the federal gasoline tax, but only if more funding is allocated to transit, biking and walking, and local governments are given greater discretion over project selection. Eighty-percent said new highway projects should be a low priority, preferring to focus on repairing and maintaining what we have. Federal financing tools like Build America Bonds or the TIFIA programs receive the support of 75 percent of mayors.

The mayors also agree with T4 America that finding new revenue sources for a larger transportation bill without changing any policies is a non-starter. Just 7 percent of respondents said they would support a gas tax increase without a shift in priorities.

The mayors are in good company — 51 percent of voters in last year’s Smart Growth America poll identified “maintaining and repairing roads, highways, freeways and bridges” as their top priority, compared to 16 percent who chose expanding and building new infrastructure.

While the focus of the mayors’ attention is on the needs of metropolitan areas, most if not all of their policy preferences — increased local decision-making to meet local needs, reforms to the program, a broader array of travel options and a focus on fixing what’s already built — certainly apply equally to rural areas as well.

George J. Pierson, President and CEO of survey sponsor Parsons Brinckerhoff, put the results in perspective, noting that U.S. invests about two percent of GDP in infrastructure, compared to five percent in Europe and nine percent in China. He said:

When mayors in the United States speak to their need to improve the quality of roads and transit systems in their cities, they are responding to a public need in a way that will arm their cities for success in global competition.

You can read more about the survey at Streetsblog or the U.S. Conference of Mayors website.

Photo: U.S. Conference of Mayors

Did you know, for example, that the original tax on gasoline was imposed to help reduce the federal budget deficit during the Hoover administration, and wasn’t dedicated to highways until creation of the interstate highway program in 1956 — and that that exclusive dedication only lasted until 1973? And did you know that the “interstate” highways are used far more for local travel than for long-distance travel? According to the report, two of every three miles driven are on urban segments of the system.

These are just two of the interesting findings in “Do Roads Pay for Themselves? Setting the Record Straight on Transportation Funding,” from the U.S. Public Interest Research Group. Since World War II, the authors calculate, the amount of money spent on roads has exceeded the amount raised through gasoline taxes by $600 billion, “representing a massive transfer of general government funds to highways.” Only about half the cost of road construction and maintenance is covered by gas taxes today, the report says, and this will only get worse as cars become more fuel efficient and gas tax receipts plateau.

The point, made here again as it has been by the U.S. General Accounting Office and many others elsewhere, is that every form of transportation is subsidized. Given that fact, and because no one mode of travel meets every person’s needs in every community, the authors conclude: “America should invest in transportation projects that bring the greatest net benefits to the greatest number of people, regardless of how they are paid for.”

Although 11 of 18 members of the president’s debt commission voted to move their deficit-reduction package to Congress for an up or down vote, the plan fell short of the necessary 14-vote super majority.

Most notable to transportation advocates, of course, was the proposal to phase in a gas tax increase of 15 cents per gallon, coupled with reforms to the federal program and a long-term reauthorization of the transportation law. As we pointed out in our statement earlier this week, current gas tax receipts are not keeping pace with what we need to invest in our roads, bridges and transit systems to keep them functioning. We were also careful to note that merely throwing money at them won’t solve our problems: We have to fix the current program so that it holds transportation agencies accountable for spending our money effectively — something that the debt commission proposal suggested with its call for “reforms.”

“Though it ultimately didn’t pass the commission, it is notable that a plan to raise the gas tax and reform the transportation program got bipartisan and majority support from the debt commission,” said T4 America director James Corless Friday.

“This should be an encouraging starting point for a new bill in 2011. It should spur a bipartisan effort to tackle the hard questions of not only finding a way to pay for what we need, but updating a program with origins in the 1950s for the 21st century. We have to prioritize rebuilding and repairing our existing infrastructure while ensuring that any new construction increases travel options for all Americans.”

Even though the debt commission plan fell short, nearly everyone thinks some of the ideas in it will be pursued come January. Here’s hoping that a smart, updated commitment to transportation investment is among them.

First, the graphic:

Though we can’t see the rest of the questions or the context, it affirms a few things we already know about Americans’ attitudes about transportation — as evidenced in our own 2010 national poll — and how to fund what we need.

While Americans are actually voting in favor of taxing themselves to improve transportation in state and local ballot measures at a rate of about 70 percent, they often know exactly what they’re going to get in those cases: a new bridge, an expanded transit system, a system of repaired roads, or the like. But the federal program is much fuzzier in most people’s minds. The current system is broken and unaccountable, and putting more money into a broken system is like trying to bring more water up from a well using a bucket with a hole in it.

As James Corless wrote in an Infrastructurist guest post yesterday, “Some of the old guard transportation insiders in D.C. would be thrilled with doubling the overall size of our transportation program and pouring more money into the same broken system, but Americans know better. They want more accountability, safer streets, and more transportation options so seniors can maintain their independence and low wage workers can get to jobs.”

It’s also interesting that the sentence to the left of the poll summarizes it as “Americans would rather use tolls than taxes to build more roads,” when it could have just as easily been “Americans are OK with building no new roads if it means raising the gas tax or instituting tolls to pay for them.”

Maybe the poll asks the wrong question?

We’re not in favor of a moratorium on any new roads whatsoever, but this survey clearly reinforces the fact that Americans in urban and rural areas have moved beyond the idea that the solution to every transportation problem can and should be a new road.

We cooperated on a poll in 2009 with the National Association of Realtors, showing that Americans don’t think expanding roads and highways are the best use of scarce transportation dollars:

“As the federal government makes its plans for transportation funding in 2009, which ONE of the following should be the top priority?”

And as our 2010 poll showed, more than four-in-five voters (82 percent) say that “the United States would benefit from an expanded and improved transportation system, such as rail and buses” and a solid majority (56 percent) “strongly agree” with that statement. Fully 79 percent of rural voters agree as well, despite much lower use of public transportation compared to Americans in urban areas.

If you saw this graphic and your curiosity was piqued, perhaps it’s worth going back and poking through our national poll for a fuller picture.

A new study conducted by SubsidyScope, an initiative of the Pew Charitable Trusts, reveals that not only are roads and highways not self-sustaining, but the amount covered by gas taxes has been declining — leaving an increasing amount of their massive cost to be subsidized. Pew projections – using Federal Highway Administration numbers – show user fees contributing a slim majority of the revenue to the Highway Trust Fund, with the difference made up through bonds and General Fund dollars. Public transportation does, as the critics assert, operate “at a loss,” but so do roadways (see chart below, courtesy of Subsidyscope).

The researchers wrote: “In 2007, 51 percent of the nation’s $193 billion set aside for highway construction and maintenance was generated through user fees — down from 10 years earlier when user fees made up 61 percent of total spending on roads. The rest came from other sources, including revenue generated by income, sales and property taxes, as well as bond issues.” Forty-years ago, they noted, user-fees generated 71 percent of highway revenues.

Of the 18.4 cent federal gasoline tax, 2.86 cents – about 15 percent – is directed toward mass transit projects, and an additional 0.1 cent toward environmental clean-up, according to the report. That leaves more than 80 percent strictly for highways. Even if we spent 100 percent of gas tax revenues on highways, only 65 percent of their total cost would be covered. There would still be a need for significant outside revenue – in other words, subsidies. Does that mean highways are “government waste?” Or are transportation dollars an investment to provide access to jobs and movement of goods?

One reason for the decline of the user-fee’s contribution is that the gas tax has not kept pace with inflation. Today, there is limited political appetite for a gas tax increase. Americans are also driving cleaner cars than they used to, due in large part of federal action on fuel economy. Less gas purchased means lower gas tax revenues.

So, to the critics who seem to be against all subsidies — unless they’re going to cover highway projects: let’s drop the claim that highways “pay for themselves” and have a debate rooted in fact rather than myth.

The Court’s ruling late last week upheld a lower court decision declaring the state’s $3.6 billion raid of public transit funds illegal and ordered that the money be returned to local transit providers.

Two months ago, Transportation for America released “Stranded at the Station: The Impact of the Financial Crisis in Public Transportation,” illustrating the painful cuts transit systems have sustained at the state and local level. The cuts plateaued as unemployment reached 10 percent and Americans were demanding more transportation options, not less.

It is no secret that California has fallen hard as a result of the recession, but the severity of the cuts to public transportation in California was vastly disproportionate to the rest of the country. The reason for this was no mystery: the State was raiding dedicated transit funds every year in order to alleviate other budgetary shortfalls since 2007.

More than two dozen transit providers throughout the state enacted some combination of fee hikes and service reductions, according to our map of transit cutbacks. BART in the San Francisco Bay Area increased its base fare by 17 percent, and many transit systems in Southern California raised fares as much as 20 percent. The County Connection in suburban Contra Costa reduced its bus lines by 23 percent, and rural areas were hit hard as well. The California Transit Association, or CTA, an affiliation of local transit providers, logged 38 agencies facing cuts of some kind in their own version of our transit cuts map.

Last week’s state Supreme Court’s decision helps explain how things got this bad.

Since 2007, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has successfully diverted $3.6 billion from the state’s transit fund to deficit reduction, prompting a lawsuit from the CTA to get the money back. The CTA argued that the raided funds came from gas tax revenues specifically designated for public transit. By refusing to review a lower-court decision in favor of the association, the high court effectively ruled Schwarzenegger’s raid illegal, ending the seizure of desperately-needed transit funds.

This is a huge victory and vindication for local transit providers. Randy Rentschler, director of the Bay Area Metropolitan Transportation Commission, told the San Francisco Chronicle, “everyone knows that the state’s in a budget crisis, but that crisis also exists in local governments in part because the state has taken transit money away from local entities.”

The case has broader implications for public transportation as well.

In tough budget years, Governor Schwarzenegger and the legislature are constantly looking for places to trim and local governments are an easy target. But money saved is not money earned, as local cuts tend to bite the state later through increased demand for social services and counties being unable to meet the basic needs of their citizens. The decision will hopefully lead to more caution.

Most importantly, California can no longer rob Peter to pay Paul.

But at this point, it remains unclear how much of the original $3.6 billion will be returned to the transit fund, and ultimately, to local providers to preserve vital service for riders. That money is desperately needed, not only because of the millions of Californians who rely on public transportation for their day-to-day mobility, but also because many communities are on the cusp of becoming success stories. Transportation for America’s “Stranded” report profiles how efforts in Sacramento, Orange and Contra Counties have already improved quality of life and relieved congestion, highlighting the need to keep up the support.

• Protecting our climate and gaining more energy independence begins, and doesn’t end, with the climate bill making its way through Congress. (Reuters)

• The speed of spending federal stimulus dollars remains a contentious issue. (USA Today)

• Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman James Oberstar looks to make his mark with the next transportation bill. (Congressional Quarterly)

• Vice President Joe Biden says states need to forge ahead on building rail. (Reuters)

• The Christian Science Monitor argues for a gas tax increase.

• Blogger Ryan Avent calls out noted anti-transit advocate Randal O’Toole. (Streetsblog)