infrastructure plan Archives - Transportation For America

Biden’s infrastructure plan is out. Here are our thoughts

Early this morning, the Biden administration released the American Jobs Plan, President Biden’s infrastructure proposal. There’s a lot to be excited about, including massively increased funding for transit and passenger rail—but as we wrote last week, how we target the funding matters as much as how much we spend. Here’s our take on the proposal.

The White House, September 2019. Photo by dconvertini on Flickr’s Creative Commons.

All of the funding included in President Biden’s proposal is meant to sit on top of existing federal programs and the upcoming surface reauthorization, not replace that policy-making process, according to a White House briefing our director Beth Osborne was invited to attend earlier today.

More money for public transit and rail combined than highways

We have never seen this much money for public transportation and passenger rail included in a presidential infrastructure proposal. President Biden’s plan includes $85 billion to “modernize transit agencies,” meaning both maintaining existing transit infrastructure and expanding service to bring “bus, bus rapid transit, and rail service to communities and neighborhoods across the country.”

This is huge: investing in public transportation is critical to increasing equitable and affordable access to jobs and services post-pandemic, reducing our carbon emissions (especially since transportation is the largest source of U.S. emissions), and powering our economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet there’s no mention of recurring federal operating support for transit—something public transportation needs in order to provide frequent, convenient, and desirable transit service.

In addition to public transit, Biden proposes $80 billion for Amtrak to address the repair backlog, modernize the Northeast Corridor and other rail routes, make new connections between cities by rail, and update existing grant and loan programs. The U.S. hasn’t made a substantial, long-term commitment to passenger rail in almost a century, making this funding critically important to building the passenger rail network the U.S. needs to improve access and reduce carbon emissions.

There’s no specific mention of preserving Amtrak’s long-distance routes—something the rail corporation has fought to dismantle in recent years. However, the proposal does call for improving existing corridors and connecting new city pairs. Amtrak’s long-distance network provides critical connections to rural America and for people unable to traverse the country by car or by air, and is even more essential post-pandemic with the continued loss of essential air service and multiple long-distance bus companies cutting routes and even shutting down permanently.

Road repair is discussed as a priority but the devil is in the detail

Biden’s plan includes $115 billion to “fix it better” for our bridges, highways, roads, and “main streets.” This funding will include formula and competitive funding. We love the mention of fix it first (one of T4America’s three principles for transportation policy), but one of the stated goals of this funding—in addition to improving air quality and limiting emissions—is to “reduce congestion” and “modernize,” which usually means the same thing.

“Reducing congestion” is a fool’s errand. As we found in our report the Congestion Con, widening and building new highways only makes traffic worse. If “fix it better” means widening highways at the same time we repair them, the Biden plan will only induce more people to drive—making congestion even worse than what it was before, and putting our carbon emissions on an irreversible upwards trajectory.

To truly focus on repair, the actual legislative language would require serious policy changes to ensure that this money isn’t diverted to road expansion. Our 2019 report Repair Priorities found that states spend a significant portion of highway formula funding to build new roads, creating costly new maintenance liabilities in the form of new roads and lane-miles—even though they are allowed (welcome, even!) to spend that money on maintenance. Why? Because there’s no requirement that they do so.

Billions for repairing damage caused by urban highways but not enough focus on preserving housing affordability

The construction of the Interstate Highway System in many cases led to the intentional demolition and dividing of many communities of color across the country. It’s long-past time for federal funding to repair the health, financial, physical, and emotional damage wrought on families in these neighborhoods—which is why we released a comprehensive policy package to this effect a few months ago with our partners at Third Way.

President Biden proposes $20 billion “for a new program that will reconnect neighborhoods cut off by historic investments and ensure new projects increase opportunity, advance racial equity and environmental justice, and promote affordable access.” While the broader plan has very interesting proposals on providing more affordable housing, this specific proposal is missing any discussion or policy to ensure that removing highways or building connections between them doesn’t make adjacent housing unaffordable—a huge reason why many communities suffering the burden of these highways actually want them to stay. A place based approach will be needed connected to any such project.

Biden’s $20 billion for urban highways includes funding for research on “advanced pavements that recycle carbon dioxide.” While recycling carbon dioxide is a good goal, it barely touches on the health issues that our highway system places disproprotionately on neighborhoods of color. The air pollution generated by urban highways has caused massive and devastating health consequences for communities living near them. That pollution comes from vehicles, pavement (that emits on hot days), tires and more. We need better pavement but also less pavement.

Also, if the $115 billion for highways funds expansions, then we could be further dividing and displacing people (usually people of color) at the same time we’re fixing past damage caused by these projects in the past. We need to do better going forward, not create new assets that continue to create the same damage.

$20 billion for “safety” but nothing explicitly prioritizing safety over speed

Biden’s $115 billion for “modernizing” roads includes $20 billion to “improve road safety for all users, including increases to existing safety programs and a new Safe Streets for All program to fund state and local ‘vision zero’ plans and other improvements to reduce crashes and fatalities, especially for cyclists and pedestrians.”

This is really important. We hope to see a program like this paired with specific requirements like those in the House of Representatives’ surface transportation reauthorization proposal, passed last summer. That includes Complete Streets and context-sensitive designs when repairing or constructing roads surrounded by development—meaning roads that aren’t highways and have homes and businesses along them.

With the number of people killed while walking or using mobility-assistive devices skyrocketing—increasing by 45 percent over the past decade, as we found in our new report, Dangerous by Design—we accept nothing less than design standards that ensure that safety is prioritized over vehicle speed. Because street design that ensures high speed driving over all else is to blame for the skyrocketing number of people killed on our roadways.

Details matter and more to come

This just scratches the surface of the proposal. We have failed to mention so many other exciting proposals. For example, there is $174 billion dedicated to stoking a domestic electric vehicle industry, placing 500,000 electric vehicle chargers, and replacing gas cars and buses with clean electric vehicles. There are proposals for more affordable housing, eliminating exclusionary zoning and harmful land use policies, broadband deployment and more. We will review those provisions too in conjunction with our parent organization, Smart Growth America, soon.

Right now, suffice it to say that there is a lot to be excited about in this infrastructure proposal. There are billions for public transit and passenger rail (more than what’s allocated for highways), a focus on repairing existing highways and making them safer, and funding dedicated to repairing the damage wrought on Black and brown communities by urban highways.

Now we need to watch for the details to ensure that the funding proposed goes to the exciting goals cited and to ensure that these billions will not just be pumped into existing federal transportation programs not designed to achieve these outcomes.

The inside scoop on Repair Priorities 2019

After the release of Repair Priorities 2019, we hosted a webinar in partnership with Taxpayers for Common Sense to talk about the findings and recommendations of our new report. During the webinar we heard from our own Director of Transportation for America, Beth Osborne, and Steve Ellis, Executive Vice President of Taxpayers for Common Sense, about why we need reevaluate our federal transportation policy (which governs how we spend money) before dumping more money into the same broken system.

We were also joined by two speakers from state DOTs working to prioritize repair with available funding. Jack Moran, Deputy Chief of Performance and Asset Management for the Massachusetts DOT, talked through the nitty-gritty of how MassDOT has set up a state transportation program that puts repair needs first and demonstrates accountability to the public. Dick Hall, Chairman of the Mississippi Transportation Commission, spoke about why and how Mississippi DOT has made a recent dramatic shift away from road expansion toward repair, including making a difficult decision to halt expansion projects already in the pipeline.

Watch the recorded webinar below and download your copy of Repair Priorities 2019.

Other related resources:

Forget the infrastructure plan — we don’t need it.
In a pointed opinion piece published by the Washington Post, Transportation for America Director Beth Osborne made the case for focusing on federal policy reform instead of a one-time infusion of more funding into a yet-to-be-defined infrastructure plan.

How to build a better state DOT
Smart Growth America took a long look at how current practices and policies at state departments of transportation (DOTs) lead to the construction of huge, expensive road projects (i.e. highways) as a ‘solution’ to almost every transportation problem and how they can do better. Governing Magazine also published a piece on the work with state DOTs that includes interviews with Beth Osborne and Washington State DOT Secretary Roger Millar.

In the Washington Post: Let’s skip the infrastructure spending spree

A new opinion piece in the Washington Post takes a contrarian view of all the talk about money during Infrastructure Week. Let’s skip the infrastructure plan and focus on policy, because without good policy more spending could actually do more harm than good.

Yesterday, Repair Priorities 2019 showed how America desperately needs to change federal transportation policy that allows states to neglect their repair needs in favor of costly road expansions.

Today, a new piece in the Washington Post from Transportation for America Director Beth Osborne makes that clear with some pointed language:

At best, this infrastructure plan would throw more money into the same flawed system. At worst, Congress and the president would be signing a blank check with no sense of what the money is intended to accomplish, no clear system for accountability, no requirements for states to actually repair our “crumbling roads and bridges” and no guarantees that any of us would have an easier time getting from A to B when all that money has been spent.

What we need from Congress is an update to federal transportation policy for the next six years, which governs how we spend some $61 billion annually on highways and transit programs. And we need lawmakers to find more than $13 billion a year to cover shrinking gas-tax revenue.

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Agencies competing for limited federal funds to expand transit must prove they can also cover long-term maintenance and operations, something no road project ever has to do. When state highway departments can’t cover their commitments because they’ve prioritized expansion over repair, they’ll just ask for more money.

After all, there will always be another Infrastructure Week.

While decision makers are focused on infrastructure this week, so are we. Read the full op-ed and then share Beth’s message with your networks on Twitter and/or Facebook to help us spread the word!

Repair Priorities 2019 is here — and it shows that more money won’t fix our infrastructure problems

It’s infrastructure Week again and politicians are back at it, bemoaning our “crumbling roads and bridges” and insisting we must spend more to fix the problem. But we’ve got some cold water to throw on this pity party: Despite more transportation spending over the last decade, the percentage of the roads nationwide in “poor condition” increased from 14 to 20 percent.

That’s the headline from our new report—Repair Priorities 2019—which finds that states are neglecting repair and routine maintenance in favor of costly expansions and widenings. Even when given more flexibility by Congress to spend money as they see fit, states, on average, spent as much money expanding their road networks ($21.3 billion) as they did repairing their existing roads ($21.4 billion) each year.

In short, our infrastructure issues are more of a policy problem than a money problem.

As T4America Director Beth Osborne said in our release today, “While a handful of states are doing an admirable job putting their money where their mouth is by devoting the bulk of their federal dollars to repair, many other states are spending vastly more on expanding their roads or building new ones—creating new liabilities in the process—even as their existing system falls into disrepair.”

Download Repair Priorities for a state-by-state look at how states are spending their money and what it will take to fix the system. Then join us for awebinar on Wednesday May 15 at 3 p.m. ET/12 p.m. PT to hear from two state DOT officials about the findings.

Putting the (money) cart before the horse

Two trillion is the hottest number in Washington right now—it’s how much money politicians want to pump into a yet-to-be-fleshed-out infrastructure plan. Although they haven’t yet articulated what all that extra spending will actually achieve or how this money will be spent more responsibly than the hundreds of billions we spent over the last decade, they already know the price tag.

We need to #BuildForTomorrow, they say. We have a question: Build WHAT for tomorrow?

The scope of our vision and ambition should determine how much money we need to spend on infrastructure. And that vision should then be supported with thoughtful policy—not a blank check—that will make sure we achieve our goals.

Getting back on track

So what might thoughtful policy look like? For starters, we should give taxpayers an idea of what they’re paying for with clear, measurable outcomes—do we want to cut the number of roads in poor condition in half over the next six years? Reduce traffic fatalities by 60 percent? Decrease emissions by 70 percent? Define the vision and set some measurable goals first.

We could require states to use available federal funding—billions of dollars they’re given automatically every year—to fix the system before expanding it. We could establish a competitive funding program for new road capacity that requires a higher standard for asset management—just like we do for transit. We could require more frequent and diligent reporting so that taxpayers can hold their officials accountable.

What do all these ideas have in common? They’re about policy not money. Whether it’s a stand-alone infrastructure bill or our existing federal transportation program, policy is the key to fixing America’s infrastructure problem. It’s about time the policy makers took that to heart.

Download Repair Priorities 2019

New report chronicles how the nation’s road conditions have worsened as many states prioritize expansion instead of repair

Report comes as the White House and congressional leaders continue discussing a $2 trillion infrastructure package that could exacerbate the problem

WASHINGTON, DC — Repair Priorities 2019, a new report released today by Transportation for America and Taxpayers for Common Sense, shows that, despite more spending, the percentage of the roads nationwide in “poor condition” increased from 14 percent to 20 percent and 37 states saw the percentage of their roads in poor condition increase from 2009-2017.

This is happening because states are neglecting basic repair in favor of expanding their roads. Given increasing spending flexibility by Congress over the last two long-term transportation reauthorizations, states spent nearly as much money expanding their road networks as they did repairing their existing roads ($120 billion spent building new lane-miles from 2009 to 2014).

“Whether during debate over an infrastructure bill or the long-term reauthorization looming next year, the rhetoric I hear over and over again from Capitol Hill and the White House about the need to invest more money in transportation is all about ‘repairing our crumbling roads and bridges.’ But our spending priorities rarely match this oft-repeated rhetoric,” said Beth Osborne, director of Transportation for America.

“A look at the numbers from the Federal Highway Administration in Repair Priorities makes it clear that we can scarcely afford to maintain the roads we have, let alone the new roads we keep adding to the system. While a handful of states are doing an admirable job putting their money where their mouth is by devoting the bulk of their federal dollars to repair, many other states are spending vastly more on expanding their roads or building new ones— creating new liabilities in the process—even as their existing system falls into disrepair.”

“Lawmakers and officials like a good ribbon cutting at a new road, but repair is too often treated like flossing teeth: A tedious, sometimes painful extra step that’s all too easily skipped. Except that it’s critical and saves taxpayers cash and pain down the road,” said Steve Ellis, executive vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense. “Instead of sending blank checks to the states, federal taxpayers deserve to have some assurances that their tax dollars will be spent effectively and efficiently on the highest priority projects, which in most cases is taking care of what we already have.”

It’s unclear if we could even afford to maintain all the roads that we’ve built, even if we devoted all available capital dollars toward repair. Repair Priorities estimates that we would need to spend more than $231 billion per year just to keep our existing road network in acceptable repair and bring the backlog of roads in poor condition into good repair over a six-year period (the typical length of a federal transportation reauthorization). By comparison, all highway capital expenditures across all government units in 2015 totaled just $105.4 billion, only a portion of which goes to repair.

The latest available data shows states have made some improvement in their spending since the first edition of Repair Priorities in 2011, but states are still spending just as much on road expansion as road repair. States spent $21.4 billion on average on road repair annually between 2009-2014 and $21.3 billion annually on road expansion.

When states devote money to expanding their roads, it doesn’t just redirect funds away from repair and maintenance; it also continually expands our overall annual spending need. We built enough new lane miles from 2009-2017 to criss-cross the width of America 83 times, requiring an additional $5 billion per year just to keep those new roads in good condition. That’s more than Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Arkansas receive combined in federal highway apportionments every single year.

So what will it take to fix the system? Transportation for America and Taxpayers for Common Sense provide four concrete recommendations for Congress to consider in any infrastructure package they consider, including the upcoming 2020 federal transportation bill. Congress should: guarantee measurable outcomes for American taxpayers with any new funding, require that states repair their existing systems before expanding, require project sponsors to demonstrate that they can afford to maintain new roadway capacity projects, and track progress and require that FHWA publish results.

Repair Priorities 2019 provides a national snapshot and state-by-state evaluation of current roadway pavement conditions, spending trends, and unmet needs. It also recommends crucial actions federal policymakers should take in the next transportation reauthorization bill to get the nation’s roads—and spending priorities—back on track.

The full report and state-by-state findings are available at https://t4america.org/maps-tools/repair-priorities

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Transportation for America, a program of Smart Growth America, is an alliance of elected, business, and civic leaders from communities across the country, united to ensure that states and the federal government step up to invest in smart, homegrown, locally-driven transportation solutions. These are the investments that hold the key to our future economic prosperity.

Smart Growth America envisions a country where no matter where you live, or who you are, you can enjoy living in a place that is healthy, prosperous, and resilient. We empower communities through technical assistance, advocacy, and thought leadership to realize our vision of livable places, healthy people, and shared prosperity.

Taxpayers for Common Sense is an independent, nonpartisan voice for taxpayers working to ensure that taxpayer dollars are spent responsibly and that government operates within its means.

Is repair actually a priority?

While politicians are focused on how much more funding we should give to infrastructure, our upcoming report sheds light on how states are using existing funding for repair vs. new roads and how policy can get the nation back on track.

Earlier this week, President Trump, House Speaker Pelosi, and Senate Minority Leader Schumer met to discuss funding levels for a yet undefined infrastructure plan.

We don’t know what the plan will fund or build, what problems it’s trying to solve, or how we will measure its success—if at all—but politicians have somehow already settled on a $2 trillion price tag.

This is the standard practice on Capitol Hill when it comes to infrastructure, and we believe it’s time for a change.

Much of the rhetoric around this mythical infrastructure plan has focused on “repairing our crumbling roads and bridges.” But if past decisions are the best predictor of future behavior then much of any extra transportation spending will likely be squandered on building and expanding roads rather than repairing them—as we show in our forthcoming report, Repair Priorities 2019.

Repair Priorities 2019 will be released during Infrastructure Week on Tuesday, May 14. Join us for a webinar on Wednesday, May 15 at 3 p.m. ET for a closer look at the findings.

Despite the growing maintenance backlog, states have continued to spend a significant portion of funding to build new roads. Repair Priorities 2019 provides a national snapshot and state-by-state evaluation of current roadway pavement conditions, spending trends, and unmet needs. It also recommends crucial actions federal policymakers should take in the next transportation reauthorization bill to get the nation’s roads—and spending priorities—back on track.

As we have said repeatedly, when it comes to infrastructure we don’t have funding problem, we have a policy problem. But policy makers are still putting the cart before the horse, jumping straight to how much of our money they need before telling us why or what we’re going to get for it in the end. Repair Priorities will help make the case for policy change using the government’s own data.

Register for the webinar on Wednesday, May 15 at 3 p.m. ET.

Rep. Bill Shuster’s infrastructure proposal scores 50 percent

On Monday, July 23, the Chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, Bill Shuster, released his proposal to reform transportation investment. While there are some novel ideas in the proposal, it ultimately scores a 50 percent based on our four guiding principles for infrastructure investment.

Local governments and millions of Americans are counting on the federal government to be a partner in rebuilding our transportation infrastructure. In November 2017, Transportation for America released a set of four simple principles to inform and evaluate any potential plans for federal infrastructure investment. The Chairman’s proposal is a serious one, and should be commended for being the first proposal with real funding in more than a decade, advancing the national conversation about our infrastructure. However, on the policy, it fails to meet our four principles.

How the proposal measures up to our principles

Provide real funding
We need real federal funding, not just new ways to borrow money or sell off public assets to support transportation investments.

The Chairman’s proposal addresses our infrastructure funding deficit through new short term revenue sources and a Highway Trust Fund Commission. While the proposal ultimately eliminates the gas tax, the proposed short-term fixes would include new/steeper taxes on bikes and transit (which we have concerns about). The gas tax would be replaced by a new revenue source (such as a mileage-based fee/road user charge) identified by the Commission. While we believe this proposal generally holds the promise of providing real funding. and we look forward to working together to advance this shared goal.

Fix the existing system first
We must immediately fix the system we have and fund needed repairs to aging infrastructure.

The Chairman’s proposal does not prioritize maintenance over other investment. The proposal creates a vehicle miles traveled tax pilot with a goal to “steadily reduce the state of good repair backlog in surface transportation.” This is a commendable goal, however it cannot be achieved by a funding source. Addressing the state of good repair backlog requires policy makers to set this as a priority and to dedicate available funding for this purpose. This proposal, like the current program, fails to do that.

Build smart new projects
Our current approach, largely driven by formula funding, is necessary to ensure baseline investments, but funding that flows automatically for specified purposes does not encourage innovation or flexible action.

The Chairman’s proposal holds the promise of meeting this principle. Through three proposed programs—national infrastructure investments grants, incentive grants, and projects of national significance—the proposal increases the amount of funding distributed through competition. Competition is an effective way to identify the projects that bring the greatest benefits for the investment.

Measure success
Infrastructure investments are a means to foster economic development and improve access to jobs and opportunity for all Americans.

Unfortunately, the Chairman’s proposal fails to ensure that communities measure the success of their investments or connects what they measure to their investment decisions. Congress started a performance measures framework in MAP-21; however, those measures miss major community priorities (like improving access to work) and fail to connect results to funding and thus lack real accountability.

Our four principles cannot be considered independently of each other. Well crafted programs that are underfunded miss the mark. More money spent ineffectively is certainly not the point. Bringing our infrastructure up to a state of good repair requires both real funding and refocusing the program on maintenance (as opposed to expanding out the highway system).

While Chairman Shuster is the first to propose real funding in quite some time and we thank him for providing real leadership, we can not just spend our way to our goals without other reforms. The proposal therefore scores only a 50 percent, far from a passing grade in the classroom or for something as long-lasting as infrastructure.

We appreciate the chairman’s thoughtfulness and determination and we look forward to working together to ensure that future proposals ultimately spend taxpayer money wisely.

The TIGER program is no more….in name

A rendering of the Multimodal Corridor Enhancement Project (MCORE) in Urbana and Champagne, Illinois is a complex street safety enhancement project that involved two city governments, the local transit agency, the University of Illinois, and the state. It wouldn’t have been possible without a TIGER grant.

Today, the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) released the FY 2018 Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) for the program formerly known as Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER). The NOFO declares that USDOT has rebranded TIGER as the Better Utilizing Investments to Leverage Development or “BUILD” program. The criteria for funding under BUILD and TIGER are essentially the same—with one big caveat. Under BUILD, USDOT is putting a new emphasis on securing and committing new, non-federal revenue for projects requesting funding.

USDOT defines new revenue as “revenue that is not included in current and projected funding levels and results from specific actions taken to increase transportation infrastructure investment.” And any local or state revenue authorized before January 1, 2015 is not considered new revenue and cannot be applied as matching funding for BUILD projects.

Examples of “new revenue” according to USDOT are asset recycling, tolling, tax-increment financing, or sales or gas tax increases. Under this definition, bonds do not qualify as a new revenue source.

If this sounds familiar that is because it is! The criteria for funding consideration under BUILD is a lot like the requirement that the Trump administration included in their proposed infrastructure package earlier this year. As T4America’s analysis of the infrastructure package revealed, this criteria penalizes states and localities who have already raised more local revenue for transportation projects. Why are we penalizing states and cities who acted first?

Since 2012, 31 states have raised new transportation revenues and 12 of those states raised revenue before 2015—mostly by raising or otherwise modifying their gas taxes. Beyond states, many localities like Clayton County, GA and Alameda County, CA raised local funding before 2015 through ballot measures. Even if the taxes or other funding tools are producing new revenue today, if it happened before 2015, the Trump administration doesn’t care. Many of those cities (and the 12 states) would have to raise even more new funding to meet this criteria.

Asking localities to simply kick in more money would do little to guarantee better projects—it’ll just occupy more of the local funding that states or cities could invest elsewhere or spend on long-term maintenance. And the feds shouldn’t be pointing fingers about raising more money. Unlike these states and cities, the federal government hasn’t raised the gas tax (the largest source of federal transportation dollars) since 1993.

Rural communities get shortchanged by BUILD

This is especially problematic for rural communities who already have a difficult time raising new revenue. Many of the sources of new revenue suggested by U.S. DOT—asset recycling, tolling, tax-increment financing—are not feasible in rural areas because there is little to no private demand to finance infrastructure in rural areas because it’s not profitable.

The administration has talked a big game about the need to improve infrastructure in rural areas and this NOFO is on message, saying that’s a priority for this year’s BUILD program. But this new criteria actively makes it harder for rural areas to be competitive for funding because they will struggle to raise new revenue.

With this big change, the BUILD program has already built something: another obstacle to rural communities getting the transportation funding they need.

Background on TIGER

The FY 18 omnibus package enacted into law last month tripled the size of the Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) program from $500 million to $1.5 billion. The omnibus rejected the president’s proposal to eliminate the TIGER program. This NOFO makes available the $1.5 billion from the omnibus and requires applications to be submitted to USDOT by July 19, 2018.

The TIGER program was one of the only ways that local communities could apply for and directly receive federal dollars for their most needed transportation projects. TIGER enabled the development of complete streets and walkable communities, expanded intermodal access to our nation’s ports, improved our public transit network, made our highway and railway systems more efficient, and helped to strengthen our passenger ferry network. TIGER routinely had requests for three to four times more in funding than was available—making it a very competitive program—and raised $3.6 in additional funding for every dollar appropriated through TIGER. In short, TIGER has been a widely successful and popular program.

T4America members recently got the inside scoop on this next round of TIGER/BUILD via an exclusive webinar with USDOT.

Not yet a member? T4America regularly offers members more in-depth summaries of USDOT actions like this NOFO. In the days ahead, we will be helping members to make their applications more competitive.

Learn more about T4America membership here.

Senate Democrats’ infrastructure plan provides more funding, but as with the president’s plan, it fails to prioritize repair & maintenance

Upon the release of the Senate Democratic Jobs & Infrastructure Plan, T4A Director Kevin F. Thompson released the following statement:

“We strongly support the Senate Democrats call to increase funding for investments in vital infrastructure, addressing our maintenance backlog and funding transportation alternatives. But many of these programs signal the approach Congress should be, but isn’t, taking with the rest of their proposal: prioritize repair with formula dollars and select expansion projects on a competitive basis.

“It seems that both parties on Capitol Hill are missing an important point on infrastructure. We need to focus much more on what we are funding rather than how much we are spending. Both the President’s infrastructure plan and the Democrats’ plan are silent on how to address the quality of projects chosen and how to overcome the flaws in our current transportation program that produced such a massive national backlog in deferred maintenance and repairs in the first place.

“In contrast with the President’s plan, the Democrats’ plan does provide distinct funding for various categories of infrastructure investment rather than forcing them to cannibalize each other for funding. It encourages more competition rather than indiscriminately doling out the spoils of a finite funding package.

“But neither plan provides any new long-term source of transportation funding or prioritizes new federal dollars toward our backlogs of neglected maintenance. We cannot repair our ‘crumbling’ transportation infrastructure unless we raise new, real money for transportation, and then ensure that money is directed first to fixing our existing networks.

“The Senate Democrats propose funding these increases by making changes to the tax code. Regardless of the merits of tax reform, real, long-term, dedicated funding is necessary. If infrastructure investment is truly a priority, Congress needs to pay for it with new, long-term, stable revenue for transportation that’s derived from the users of the system. If Congress is unwilling to do so, then we should admit that infrastructure investment is not a priority.

“While we appreciate that the Democrats’ plan proposes new transit grants for critical asset repair and a new program for repairing bridges, these programs will fail to accomplish their goals if, at the same time, we fund programs that encourage building new over improving stewardship of existing infrastructure.

“We cannot simply pour new money into the same existing highway and transit formula programs that brought us to this moment. This is more than just an issue of money — if Congress is going to raise new money for transportation, we need to spend it in a new way. Absent any real reform, we’ll merely be empowering states and metro areas to build new things that they can’t afford to maintain over the long-term.”

Eight things to know about the president’s budget and infrastructure plan

After promising the release of an infrastructure plan since the early days of his administration over a year ago, President Trump finally released his long-awaited plan for infrastructure investment. Since he did it on the same day he released his budget request for the next fiscal year, it’s worth considering them together and asking: what do these proposals mean for infrastructure?

Here are eight things worth knowing about both the president’s infrastructure plan and his budget for 2019. Read T4America’s full statement on both proposals here.

1) “One cannot claim to be investing in infrastructure on the one hand while cutting it with the other.”

By only including a modest $200 billion in federal investment over ten years, the president’s so-called $1.5 trillion infrastructure plan isn’t a real plan—it’s a hopeful call for local communities, states, and the private sector to invest $1.3 trillion of their own money in infrastructure while the federal government largely sits on the sidelines. Look even deeper and you’ll discover that the $200 billion in federal investment isn’t actually new money overall—it’s mostly sourced from cuts to other programs, including key transportation programs. The president calls for large investments in infrastructure on the one hand while proposing to cut infrastructure programs in the budget with the other hand. Considered together, the infrastructure plan is like getting a bonus from the boss after their new budget just slashed your salary.

2) If the goal is to repair “crumbling” infrastructure, why not require it?

If our infrastructure is “crumbling,” why advance an infrastructure plan that doesn’t do anything to require that states or cities prioritize repair and maintenance with the new funding? Why give out new money that states can spend on costly new infrastructure with decades of built-in maintenance costs when we can’t afford to maintain what we’ve already built? A proposal meant to address America’s crumbling infrastructure almost never mentions maintenance or repair anywhere within it.

“One of the reasons there’s a break in trust between the taxpayer and the federal government is that there’s only so many times you can come before the taxpayer and say, ‘our nation’s roads and bridges are crumbling, please give us more money to fix it,’ and then not dedicate it to fixing it,” noted T4A senior policy advisor Beth Osborne on CBC News on Monday evening. We’ve made this point routinely over the years: Why do we keep spending hefty sums on new roads and new lanes while repair backlogs get ignored?

Little accountability, no performance measures: In addition, though this proposal claims to be outcomes-based, there is almost no mention of actual goals. It proposes to invest new money, but to accomplish what exactly? It includes no requirements to measure how these billions will lead to improved roads, bridges or transit systems, better connect people to jobs and opportunity, or move people and goods more efficiently. There are no requirements to measure performance or hold anyone accountable for accomplishing specific goals with the money.

3) Ends federal support for building or improving public transportation

Just like the president’s first budget proposal released a year ago, this one also calls for an immediate halt to federally supported transit projects by eliminating 100 percent of funding for transit projects in development that don’t already have signed funding agreements with the federal government. This pulls the rug out from under at least 41 cities—many of whom have already raised new transportation revenues from voters at the ballot box—that were fully expecting the federal government to share around 50 percent of the cost. While transit projects could still theoretically compete for funding from the plan’s “incentives” program, they would have to compete against transportation, water, waste, power, and broadband projects for a smaller pool of funding.

Seattle is one of many cities that have raised new transportation revenues for transit at the ballot box with the full expectation of a federal contribution to help complete their projects.

4) Roadway projects will be free of new requirements to create value that would be imposed on transit projects

Value capture is a creative way to finance transit projects by “capturing” some of the increased land value that transit provides and using those anticipated revenues on the front end to pay a share of the costs. It can help fund transit improvements, but it’s not a solution that works everywhere, in part because many states don’t allow it and/or most transit agencies have zero control over land use. This infrastructure proposal treats transit projects differently than all other modes by requiring the use of this financing mechanism. New roads? They won’t even need to create a dime of new value to win funding from new incentive or grant programs, much less capture any of that value to pay for their costs. Like Alabama’s $5.3 billion, 52-mile bypass, known as the Northern Beltline, to be constructed north of Birmingham. At $102 million per mile, the project will be one of the country’s most expensive roadway projects, yet it and projects like it would be exempt from these requirements to create any value to pay a share of the costs.

This top-down requirement would put a burden on new transit projects that is not placed on any other new transportation investment and would essentially halt the development of dozens of smart transit projects across the country. It would also jeopardize funding for capital improvements for more than 400 rural transit providers where value capture is rarely feasible.

5) Cities and states already raising new transportation funding will have to do even more

The federal government hasn’t raised the gas tax since 1993. Since just 2012, 31 states have raised new transportation revenues — mostly by raising or otherwise modifying their fuel taxes. Yet the largest program ($100 billion) in this proposal flips the script and puts the onus on these same local and state taxpayers by changing the federal match on new projects from 80 percent to 20 percent. Asking localities to simply kick in more money would do little to guarantee better projects or even less reliance on federal funding—it’ll just occupy more of the local funding that states or cities could invest elsewhere or spend on long-term maintenance, and could just incentivize huge tolling projects, others with some sort of repayment mechanism, or the sale of public assets.

It either devalues or ignores outright local dollars already raised: This proposal penalizes cities like Indianapolis, Seattle, Raleigh, Albuquerque, Los Angeles, Atlanta and scores of others that have already done the hard work of securing new local funding for transportation. How? Though localities are required to come up with 80 percent of a project’s cost, the plan ignores any funds raised more than three years ago—even if it’s a tax producing new revenue today. And for new funds raised within the last three years, there’s a sliding scale for how much those dollars are worth. The specific percentages aren’t detailed in the plan, but for example, $1.00 raised at the ballot box two years ago might only be worth 0.50¢ toward the 80 percent local share required by this plan. Many of those cities (and the 31 states) would have to raise yet more new funding to qualify.

6) It eliminates TIGER, one of the few competitive programs that exist today

The proposal completely eliminates the fiercely competitive TIGER program. This $500 million grant program is one of the few ways that local communities of almost any size can directly receive federal dollars for their priority transportation projects and one of the most fiscally responsible transportation programs. TIGER projects brought 3.5 other dollars to the table for each federal dollar awarded through the first five rounds. And the competition for funds is in stark contrast to the majority of all federal transportation dollars that are awarded via formulas to ensure that all states or metro areas get a share, regardless of how they’re going to spend those dollars. Unlike the old system of congressional earmarks, the projects vying for funding compete against each other on their merits to ensure that each dollar is spent in the most effective way possible. There’s a reason that TIGER remains so popular with local communities even though around 95 percent of applicants lose in every round—it’s one of the only ways to fund the multimodal projects that are difficult to advance through conventional, narrowly-focused federal programs.

7) Money is set aside for rural areas, but governors will still control it

The plan sets aside $50 billion for rural areas, allocated directly to governors and awarded at their discretion to the projects that they choose. Each governor’s share will be determined via a formula that considers only lane miles and population while purporting to build transportation, water, waste, power, and broadband infrastructure. Is lane-miles an adequate metric for the full range of needs that our rural areas have? Block-granting money to states does not guarantee that local communities will get funding to invest in their highest priority infrastructure projects. Incentivizing cities and towns through competition is proven to be more effective in producing long-term results.

Without this money set aside, rural areas (and smaller cities) would have few chances to successfully win funding from the plan’s $100 billion incentives program. As Aarian Marshall wrote in Wired today, it “would favor applicants that can ‘secure and commit’ continuing funds for their project, including future money for operation, maintenance, and rehab. The ventures, in other words, that can pick up most of the tab. That’s a problem for cities that don’t have steady funding streams, or that find themselves in any of the 42 states that restrict locales’ rights to tax their citizens.” And these smaller areas will never be attractive places for the private investment that this plan assumes will materialize to make up that $1.3 trillion funding gap.

8) Makes long-term cuts to overall transportation funding

Buried in the document is a tiny yet significant detail about scaling down overall transportation spending by as much as $21 billion each year by the end of the decade due to the declining value of the gas tax. So in addition to making cuts to core transportation programs and providing no new revenue for transportation in the infrastructure proposal, the budget actually proposes to reduce transportation investment overall year by year, putting the screws to the cities, towns, and transit properties that depend upon formula funding to operate and maintain existing transportation programs or to make critical capital improvements.

Considered with the president’s FY19 budget request, this infrastructure plan will result in a net reduction in transportation spending and investment. It does not require that we first repair the myriad of assets already in a state of disrepair. It punishes communities that have already stepped up to address their own infrastructure challenges. It leaves rural areas without any guarantees and it hollows out the core funding for transportation that has carried the program for more than a generation. We strongly urge Congress to start over and craft a plan that provides real funding, fixes our current infrastructure inventory, funds smart, locally-driven and supported projects, and requires performance measures that enable taxpayers to understand what benefits they will receive for their investments.

“One cannot claim to invest in infrastructure while also cutting it”—T4 statement on President Trump’s infrastructure proposal and 2019 budget request

Upon the release of the president’s infrastructure plan and his budget request for FY19, T4America Director Kevin F. Thompson offered the following statement:

“One cannot claim to be investing in infrastructure on the one hand while cutting it with the other. The president’s infrastructure plan is merely a shell game, ‘investing’ money that his budget proposes to cut from other vital transportation and infrastructure programs. Taken together, they provide zero new dollars to invest in our country’s pressing infrastructure needs.”

“This proposal makes no progress on the four simple priorities we believe are essential for success. It provides no new money, does nothing to prioritize the smartest projects, and eliminates the programs that are most responsive to local needs. The president’s plan also fails to include any requirements to prioritize repair, even though he stated a clear preference for repair in his remarks this morning.

“The budget signals to local elected officials and taxpayers that they are on their own if they are to invest in transit, penalizing the communities that have already taken the initiative to raise local funding for new or improved transit service. The infrastructure plan gives blank checks out to governors to spend on projects with the greatest political sway—hardly the kind of accountability that taxpayers are clamoring for.

“We’re eager to work with Congress as they begin drafting their own infrastructure plan and setting the budget for the rest of this year and the next, and we hope they’ll follow our four simple principles and advance a national transportation program that invests more real dollars, rewards innovation and local revenue, funds only the smartest new projects, and provides states and localities with a trustworthy federal partner in their efforts.”

President Trump talks infrastructure in State of the Union, but with few specifics

As expected, President Trump used his first State of the Union Address Tuesday night as an opportunity to discuss infrastructure. The speech was light on specifics, though the Washington Post and other outlets continue to report that the White House is preparing a full plan to be released in a few weeks.

In his address, the president urged Congress to “produce a bill that generates at least $1.5 trillion for the new infrastructure investment we need” and said “every federal dollar” should be leveraged by funds from local governments and the private sector. Other than these few remarks, there were few details offered in the speech itself.

We agree with the president that it’s high time to repair and invest in our infrastructure.

This goal cannot be achieved without presidential leadership, and we appreciate the president’s stated commitment to this issue, beginning as a candidate and continuing through today. We look forward to seeing the details of a plan and are ready to work with the administration and Congress to develop an infrastructure plan that 1) provides real funding, 2) fixes our existing infrastructure, 3) funds smart, new projects, and 4) measures success.

Repairing the country’s roads, bridges, and transit systems while investing in new projects to strengthen the country’s global competitiveness does require a real commitment from the federal government. Gutting existing federal funds from other programs (such as transit, as Trump representatives have proposed) will undercut that effort during a time of mounting needs and increasing competition for waning federal funds. Only real funding will be able to fulfill the diverse infrastructure needs we have nationwide.

Yet over the past year, this administration has repeatedly proposed cutting federal funding for transportation projects, while hoping that private capital or dramatically increased local funding can make up the yawning gap. Picking projects only from communities that can come to the federal government with a huge chunk of their own money, or those that have high tolls to repay financing costs, does nothing to guarantee that we’re selecting the best projects to deliver long-term economic growth. The needs of smaller, rural, and poorer communities in particular will go unmet in this scenario as these communities won’t be able to compete against larger cities.

Further, a true effort to rebuild will ensure that repairing deficient bridges, deteriorating roads, and aging railways gets priority for funding. We cannot simply dole more money out to states in a big block and hope that they spend the money well—taxpayers deserve better. Any infrastructure plan should include clear goals and metrics for determining whether our investments are meeting our national goals.

Finally, the president spoke of the need to speed up the permitting and approval process for transportation projects. There are indeed many ways we can and should improve the process for new projects to both save money and time. However, it is important to remember that the approval process is not a trivial review or bureaucratic exercise. It’s the process by which we protect private property rights and ensure that communities are not divided or harmed unnecessarily. We could certainly build projects much faster if we simply seized people’s property and laid highways over neighborhoods. China and Russia can build much faster by taking that approach, but it’s not the American way. Speed of project delivery is not more important than building cost-effective projects that build strong communities.

To be successful, we urge the president to propose real funding targeted specifically to rebuild crumbling infrastructure in all communities across the country—large and small, rich or poor.

We look forward to seeing such a proposal from the administration in the coming weeks. In the meantime, though written as a preview of the speech, this post highlighting eight key questions about the president’s plan is still a relevant guide to evaluating what you hear from Washington when it comes to infrastructure.

Eight questions to ask about infrastructure during tonight’s State of the Union

The rapidly disappearing infrastructure promises of 2017

The House-approved tax reform legislation is the most recent evidence that neither the administration nor Congress seems to be very serious about supporting and encouraging infrastructure investment.

On the campaign trail, in his inaugural address and in numerous press conferences and events throughout 2017, President Trump and members of his administration have been promising a much-needed investment in infrastructure. “Crumbling infrastructure will be replaced with new roads, bridges, tunnels, airports, and railways gleaming across our very, very beautiful land,” the President recently said in a statement. After nearly a year of waiting for an infrastructure plan that was always just right around the corner, as we were frequently told, the Trump administration has only managed to release a few broad principles. Numerous congressional leaders have joined the chorus, yet nothing has been accomplished.

In the total absence of a specific infrastructure plan from the administration, we can only look for clues. The most obvious is the President’s budget proposal for 2018 — the priorities of which stand in stark contrast to his stated commitment to rebuilding the nation’s infrastructure, luring more private sector involvement into infrastructure planning and spending, or the early promises to make a $1 trillion investment in infrastructure.

Under the president’s budget for next year:

Overall infrastructure spending would go down. The President’s budget proposal for next year recommends funding the highway and transit formula programs at levels prescribed by the 2015 FAST Act, but capping the Highway Trust Fund in 2019 and 2020 at FY2018 levels, effectively cutting about $2.4 billion in transportation funding already authorized by Congress.

Funding for new transit construction would be slashed…and eventually eliminated. The President’s budget reduces and eventually eliminates another $2.4 billion in annual funding that helps states and cities of all sizes build or expand public transportation systems. Some of these projects already have signed funding agreements from the federal government, matched by local and state dollars committed by voters at ballot boxes.

The only funding that communities can currently tap directly would disappear. The budget also eliminates the $500 million competitive TIGER (Transportation Investments Generating Economic Recovery) program — the only multimodal transportation investment program directly available to local governments. At a time when we should be awarding more dollars to the best possible projects, this budget dumps one of the only programs intended to do so.

Promises have already been scaled back, and are shrinking as we speak. The President’s budget suggests that his infrastructure initiative will have $200 billion in direct federal spending over ten years, far less than the $1 trillion program previously promised by the administration. And after nearly a year, the administration has only offered vague principles for such a package.

The administration has suggested that the massive gap between their original $1 trillion figure and the $200 billion, ten-year plan be filled by increasing and encouraging more private investment in our infrastructure. Yet the House Tax Cuts and Jobs Act — the House’s tax reform proposal, which passed last week with the President’s thumbs up —eliminated private activity bonds, a specific financing mechanism that encourages greater private investment in infrastructure.

Private activity bonds are tax-exempt bonds that fund infrastructure projects with a “private” use of at least 10 percent, and they’ve been used on a wide range of infrastructure projects around the country, including roads, highways, housing, hospitals and airports. Most notably, these bonds have also been instrumental in several public-private partnerships (P3s), including the Purple Line light rail project in Maryland and the Rapid Bridge Replacement Project in Pennsylvania. Encouraging more P3s has been one of the core pillars of the administration’s approach to supporting infrastructure investment.

But to save just $39 billion over ten years, the House did away with these tax-exempt bonds, hindering the ability of state and local governments and private entities to obtain financing and build more complicated infrastructure projects like toll roads and transit and rail stations. This is after the administration’s 2018 budget proposal — harmful in so many other ways — proposed expanding the number of infrastructure projects that could tap private activity bonds as one of their few infrastructure investment proposals. The administration even stated that they “support the expansion of PAB eligibility.”

As we wait for a substantial infrastructure plan from the administration, which will almost certainly not be released until 2018, if at all, last week Transportation for America released its own set of guiding principles to help inform or evaluate any standalone infrastructure bill.

Our four principles place a new emphasis on measuring progress and success, rather than just focusing on how much it all costs. We want real funding for infrastructure, not just ways to borrow money or sell off public assets as a means to pay for projects. We want a real commitment to prioritize fixing our aging infrastructure before building expensive new liabilities. We want new projects to be selected competitively with more local control, spurred by innovation and creativity. And yes, we want to ensure greater accountability so taxpayers understand the benefits they are actually receiving for their billions of dollars.

As Congress works on a tax plan and a 2018 budget, let’s keep infrastructure funding in the forefront and stop advancing short-sighted plans that undermine or circumvent our ability to connect communities, create jobs and secure our economic future.

Download the full one page principles document here.

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: