One member of the influential Senate Committee drafting the transportation bill introduced legislation aimed at making repair and maintenance of existing infrastructure a higher priority.

The Preservation and Renewal of Federal-Aid Highways Act, introduced by Maryland Senator Ben Cardin, would require the Secretary of Transportation to establish “state of good repair standards” for highways receiving federal funding and set repair guidelines for states.

The bill would also require states to use an “asset management process” to develop their own targets for highway preservation and renewal and would consolidate several existing federal programs into a System Preservation and Renewal Program fund. (Asset management is just a fancy way of describing a program designed to keep tabs on the condition of roads and bridges to ensure repairs are made in the most timely and cost-effective fashion. -Ed.)

Cardin’s office cited the American Society of Civil Engineers’ 2009 grade of “D-” for the nation’s highways as an impetus for the legislation.

“Investing in our nation’s highways and infrastructure has been one the best federal investments we have ever made,” Cardin said in a statement released earlier today. “Our nation’s highways are critical to growing our economy, and repairing and maintaining their quality is required to ensure the lasting efficiency and safety of our nation’s highways and bridges.”

Clear priorities for repair and maintenance are long overdue. A truly reformed federal program combines preserving what we already have while laying the groundwork for a 21st century transportation system with an array of options and real accountability. Cardin’s measure is an essential step toward fixing and restoring trust in the current program.

Cardin’s approach also saves money, a key selling-point when disputes over domestic spending color much of the debate in Washington. For every $1 spent on road repair today, we save between $6 and $14 that would have been spent if we had allowed the same road to deteriorate into poor condition. The Obama administration’s broad outline for a transportation bill also included strong state-of-good repair standards.

Click to enlarge this graphic on the benefits of repairing — and the cost of neglecting — infrastructure.

WASHINGTON, DC, February 14, 2011 — President Obama today unveiled a fiscal 2012 budget proposal that calls for investing $128 billion in transportation infrastructure as a first installment on a long-awaited six-year investment plan totaling $556 billion. James Corless, director of Transportation for America, issued this statement in response:

“The President’s proposed budget delivers on his recent promises to ensure we have the 21^st century infrastructure necessary to support a revitalized American economy. While we believe the President is right to pursue a front-loaded investment in this budget that will boost employment in everything from construction to manufacturing, we are most excited by the bold proposals to ensure that the money is spent wisely and accountably.

“The Administration’s visionary reforms recognize where we are at this moment in history: Having built the world’s best highway and bridge network, we have to focus on preserving those aging assets while we build the missing pieces of a modern system that allows people and goods to get where they’re going cheaply, conveniently and safely. The Administration is right then, to propose a “fix it first” policy that will ensure that transportation agencies stop siphoning off money intended to rehabilitate bridges and highways. Equally smart are proposals to reward innovation through competitive grants that emphasize greater efficiency, broader and more affordable options and reduced dependency on foreign oil.

“These and other proposed reforms are precisely in line with recent polls, including one released today by the Rockefeller Foundation, showing that the American people believe strongly that providing a modern, safe infrastructure is a primary role of our government, and that they consider it to be – more than any other issue — above partisan divisions. The Administration proposals also deliver on voters’ desire for greater accountability for maintaining what we’ve already built, and for giving local communities greater flexibility and more say in how they solve their transportation issues and build for the future.

“At the same time, the poll underscores the degree to which current House proposals – which would eliminate support for communities that want better public transportation and safer streets — are at odds with the desires of a majority of Americans. The task now is for the President and Congress to engage in the bipartisan problem-solving Americans expect in order to find ways to pay for the jobs-sustaining infrastructure they deserve.”

You’ve probably heard that Americans are looking to save money and fuel by leaving their cars behind in order to walk, bike and use public transportation in historic numbers. What you might not know about is one of the most important byproducts of this shift in travel demand and decline in miles driven — much safer roads, and far fewer highway deaths.

A new release from the Federal Highway Administration shows that in 2008, a total of 37,313 people died in vehicles crashes, a nine percent decrease from the previous year and the lowest overall level in nearly 50 years. That means that almost 4,000 fewer people died in car crashes last year than in 2007 — something that comes as a rare piece of good news in a tough economic environment.

Though certain states may be making concerted efforts to ramp up safety, no one can deny that the continued drop in driving, which is due to both the economic crisis and fluctuating gas prices, has a profound effect on the safety of our roads.

While these numbers are certainly something to celebrate, they should give us no reason to think that we don’t have much more work to do. One hundred Americans still died each day on our roads last year, and our existing set of local, state and federal policies are doing little to help improve that. That’s like a small commercial airliner full of passengers crashing each day. And it’s hard to imagine that we wouldn’t be shocked into action were that the case with airline travel.

That’s why Transportation for America is pushing Congress and the Obama administration to develop a comprehensive plan for designing safe, complete streets for all users, holding states accountable for reducing fatalities and injuries, and directing targeted efforts to vulnerable groups like seniors and people in rural areas.

Help us out by joining with others to send a message to Congress urging that they support the complete streets bills to make our roads safe, hospitable and accessible for everyone who needs to use them.

As President Obama and Congress prepare to take up the renewal of the nation’s transportation investment bill, it’s important to note that that the while legislation may be written here in the nation’s capitol, the decisions made and the policies implemented will truly affect those far outside Washington D.C. For this reason, it’s essential to understand what kind of options Americans want, what changes they’d like to see, and what vision they have for the future of our transportation program.

As a poll released last week by Transportation for American and the National Association of Realtors demonstrates, Americans are ready for major, transformative change — and a majority believe that completing the second half of our transportation system, and repairing our roads and bridges, should take precedence over building new highways. The poll, which was conducted by Hart Research Associates, involved conversations with 1,005 adults living in the U.S. from January 5-7.

The answers to a few key questions from the poll, which are shown after the jump, are particularly revealing.

• Given that the U.S. population will increase by one-hundred million people by 2050, which of the following transportation approaches do you prefer to accommodate this growth?

• I’m going to mention types of transportation, and I’d like you to tell me which one or two you think are not getting enough attention and emphasis from the federal government.

• Many communities experience traffic congestion. I’m going to read you two statements about traffic congestion and I’d like you to tell me which of these is closer to your view: A) Some people say that we need to build more roads and expand existing roads to help reduce traffic congestion. B) Some people say that we need to improve public transportation, including trains and buses, and make it easier to walk and bike to help reduce traffic congestion. Which of these is closer to your view?

The message here is simple: Americans are ready to lead our transportation system in a new direction with investments that create healthier, stronger communities, protect our climate while reducing dependence on oil, and give people in every town and city affordable, efficient options. The only question is, are our transportation officials and elected leaders ready to follow their advice?

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We now have what appear to be the final numbers for transportation infrastructure in the stimulus. While the totals for transit and highway spending were both in the same ballpark as what they were in the original House and Senate bills, the sum for high-speed has drastically increased from the numbers in the first two versions. Here’s a rundown:

• $27.5 billion for highways and bridges
  
• $8.4 billion for transit
  
• $8 billion for high-speed rail
• $1.3 billion for Amtrak

Although it’s too early to know exactly how things played out behind the scenes, the Associated Press reports that President Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid helped push up the funding for high-speed rail.

In an excellent article in this week’s New York Times, writer David Leonhardt reminds us that we can’t simply face these challenges by throwing billions of dollars at new highway construction projects without a coherent set of goals or a system for measuring gains. We need to look at what we’re getting with the money we already spend — and then ask ourselves why the results aren’t better.

A lack of adequate financing is part of the problem, without doubt. But the bigger problem has been an utter lack of seriousness in deciding how that money gets spent. And as long as we’re going to stimulate the economy by spending money on roads, bridges and the like, we may as well do it right.

It’s hard to exaggerate how scattershot the current system is. Government agencies usually don’t even have to do a rigorous analysis of a project or how it would affect traffic and the environment, relative to its cost and to the alternatives — before deciding whether to proceed. In one recent survey of local officials, almost 80 percent said they had based their decisions largely on politics, while fewer than 20 percent cited a project’s potential benefits.

Without accountability at the state, local, or federal level, rigorous data collection to prove results, or coherent national goals that articulate the purpose of our investments, it comes as little surprise that Americans are faced with endless traffic jams, overburdened mass transit systems, and rising costs of transportation.

As Rob Puentes, a transportation expert at Washington D.C. think tank The Brookings Institution, makes clear, the system is broken in part because we don’t think about what benefits our transportation program brings; we just “send a blank check and kind of hope for the best.”