Transportation a Key Point of Compromise for Senate Jobs Bill
February 25, 2010By Transportation for America
Bipartisan passage accompanies strong vote for transportation reform
WASHINGTON D.C. – Following the bipartisan passage of the jobs bill in the Senate this morning, James Corless, campaign director of Transportation for America, released the following statement:
“Today’s bipartisan passage by the Senate of a $15B jobs bill came with a clear indication of the significance of transportation for the American public. Central to the Senate compromise was the caveat put forth by Senator Voinovich (R-OH) that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) submits a comprehensive transportation bill by year’s end, recognizing the long-term economic significance of prioritizing our national transportation program.
“While this bill extends the existing transportation bill through 2010, it does not offer financial support for longer term infrastructure projects. We therefore stand ready to support Chairman Boxer (D-CA), and Senator Voinovich’s (R-OH) leadership in creating a bi-partisan long-term, transformational transportation bill in the near future as it will serve as a strong indicator that the American public can expect Congress and the Administration to viably reshape our transportation infrastructure.
“If given the opportunity to move ahead with additional job creation measures, Congress can work to save and create thousands of jobs in 2010 by increasing funding levels for public transportation, including operating assistance for struggling systems, as well as investing in a robust package of pedestrian, bicycle, livable community and transportation technology projects as we have proposed. These investments would put people back to work immediately and improve access and safety for those still looking for ways to get to their jobs.
“In order to encourage long-term economic stability and ensure that additional jobs are not lost, Congress needs to address our nation’s outdated transportation program and finalize a fully transformational transportation bill.”
T4 jobs proposal would create nearly half a million jobs, according to Economic Policy Institute
February 17, 2010By Sean Barry
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| Photo: Dan Burden |
The Economic Policy Institute ran the numbers on Transportation for America’s jobs proposal and concluded that our plan for increased transportation spending would create 480,000 jobs.
The Senate’s first jobs bill currently has no money for transportation, other than a transfer of general fund dollars to cover the looming gap in the Highway Trust Fund while extending the transportation bill (SAFETEA-LU) until the end of the year. (Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is said to be planning several separate bills, one of which may focus on transportation).
Our proposed package for Congress directs $34.3 billion toward a mix of public transportation, highways and bicycle and pedestrian projects, closely resembling EPI’s own plan. Our proposal contains roughly $16 billion for transit, $8.1 billion for the Surface Transportation Program (highways), $9.8 billion for competitive grants (like the TIGER grants announced today) and $1.5 billion for Active Transportation such as bike and pedestrian facilities to make walking and biking safer and more attractive.
(View the full detailed T4 America proposal here.)
According to EPI’s analysis, the Transportation for America proposal is especially strong at job creation for low-wage earners and Americans without a college degree. The plan is also effective at creating jobs for African-Americans and Hispanic workers, two demographic groups that have borne a disproportionate share of the economic downturn’s effects.
Ethan Pollack, a policy analyst for EPI, characterizes T4 America’s approach as “a well-tailored package of transportation investments” that can “help put people back to work.” The EPI numbers do not account for the increased consumer spending that will result from these newly employed Americans.
As the U.S. Senate continues to piece together its job-creation legislation, we encourage members to strongly consider substantial investment in infrastructure repair and money to keep transit systems running. Jobs legislation continues to create an opening for increased accountability and benchmarks for federal transportation policy, laying the foundation for more jobs and greater prosperity down the road.
For information about EPI’s report and to obtain a complete copy, click here: http://www.epi.org/publications/entry/ib271/
TEN study: minority and women-owned businesses got small slice of stimulus
January 13, 2010By Sean Barry
Although unemployment turned out worse than some forecasters anticipated, there has been some consensus among economists that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act passed earlier this year prevented even higher job losses while channeling much-needed relief to states.
With a 1/3 of the money out the door already, the stimulus was able to work, in part, because the money was spent relatively quickly. But spending money quickly often relies on formulas and methods that are outdated, or — as evidenced in a report last month by the Transportation Equity Network (TEN) and Good Jobs First — inequitable. Minority-owned businesses have received only 10.2 percent of stimulus funds toward federal contracts, while women-owned businesses received 5.9 percent.
There were similar shortcomings at the state level. The head of the California Hispanic Chamber of Commerce has said he was “not aware of a single one of our members who’s received a contract related to the stimulus package.” In Colorado, the Denver Post reported that the state Department of Transportation failed to meet its minority hiring target of 7.5 percent.
These numbers have been noticed in Washington. The Congressional Black Caucus is pushing Democratic leaders to make sure the in-progress jobs bill provides real relief to many of their majority-minority districts, and President Obama has pressed governors to step up their efforts as well. If and when the Senate takes up job-creation legislation similar to the House version passed in December, it will provide an opening to learn from the stimulus and ensure everyone takes part in America’s economic recovery.
SGA analysis reveals transportation projects create the most jobs at the lowest cost
January 5, 2010By Sean Barry
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| Seattle Streetcar Lake Union Park Originally uploaded by paulkimo90 |
A new analysis of federal stimulus spending confirms what many of us have suspected for months: investment in public transportation gets more people to work, faster, in just about every sense.
The report’s analysis, co-authored by Smart Growth America, the Center for Neighborhood Technology and U.S. PIRG, reveals that during the first ten months of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), investments in public transportation produced twice the jobs per billion dollars as did highway projects.
This is a critical lesson as the Senate takes up a jobs-creation measure passed by the House late last month, based almost entirely on the previous ARRA formula. If the Senate jobs bill were to instead invest equally in public transportation and highways (rather than the uneven split of ARRA), an additional 71,415 job months would be created, equivalent to year-round employment for nearly 6,000 additional workers. And this could be done without spending a dime more than the House.
It is imperative that Senators utilize this opportunity. As Smart Growth America President Geoff Anderson put it: “If we are serious about creating jobs and bringing about the economic recovery our nation desperately needs, members of the Senate will insist on investing a greater percentage of the transportation funds in public transportation.”
Why do public transportation projects put more people to work dollar-for-dollar? First, public transportation projects invest more in labor than in land acquisition. Second, the projects tend to be more complex, resulting in greater employment diversity in both job numbers and required skills.
Public transportation has also proven itself to be just as “shovel-ready” as roads. Compared to highway infrastructure projects, public transportation projects are spending money at roughly the same rate nationwide.
In addition, every job saved or created for America’s bus drivers, rail operators and station agents is valuable in and of itself. But we often forget public transport does not just provide work, it also gets people to work. Millions of Americas rely on buses and subways each day for employment and essential services, especially during tough times. Investing in public transportation is an investment in their lives and livelihood too.
Read the report for yourself here, or read the full press release.
House Jobs Measure Provides Needed Boost for Infrastructure
December 17, 2009By Transportation for America
Changes Needed In Senate to Get Biggest Bang for the Buck
The transportation spending priorities in the jobs bill, set for a vote in the House of Representatives today, will provide much needed short-term funding for our roads, bridges and transit systems that will put Americans to work across the country. These “stopgap” provisions will save and create jobs, and give states and localities the opportunity to start bringing their crumbling transportation systems back into a state of good repair.
Riders of public transportation systems all over the U.S. will benefit in particular from the provision allowing large transit systems to use 10 percent of the $6.15 billion in formula funding for operations, a critical provision during this crisis in transit funding. This emergency operating assistance will save jobs and prevent debilitating fare increases and services cuts that make it more difficult for working people to get where they need to go.
But to get the biggest bang for the buck in job creation and increase accountability for transportation funding, the Senate can make meaningful changes that will focus investments in a smarter more responsible way towards projects that create the most jobs, fastest and build for the long-term health of our economy.
In adjusting the jobs bill the Senate should:
- Include language to ensure the $27.5 billion allocated to the traditional highway program goes towards projects that restore our transportation networks to a state of good repair. The American Society of Civil Engineers has estimated current road repair needs at $94 billion per year. These “fix-it-first” projects are ready to go faster than other projects and create 16 percent more jobs than new highway construction. Unfortunately, the current draft fails to include language ensuring highway money is prioritized to fix crumbling roads and bridges.
- Include funding for Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) and the Department of Transportation’s High Speed Rail and TIGER programs to create good green jobs modernizing our transportation system and provide significant long-term benefits for the nation. The merit-based investments in the TIGER program increase accountability of spending and ensure we are funding projects that would create the most jobs and deliver the biggest benefits. The $1.5 billion TIGER grants available in the ARRA attracted $57 billion in applications, leaving more than $55 billion unfunded.
- Include workforce development provisions to target new transportation construction jobs to the people who need them most. This can be done by dedicating one percent of all funding for apprenticeship and construction careers programs in the transportation sector and by targeting 30 percent of all construction work hours to local, lower-income workers.
This jobs bill will provide needed funding for transportation projects to stem the tide of continuing job losses. But short-term measures, based on an outmoded, 1950s-era transportation program, simply are not sufficient to meet the economic challenges of the 21st century.
We applaud the House leadership for addressing the short-term needs for job creation while keeping a focus on taking up the successor legislation to the expired SAFETEA-LU law in earnest in this Congress. We look forward to supporting Congress and the Administration in bring about a bold new vision for our transportation program that supports long-term economic growth and creates a safer, cleaner, smarter system for everyone.
House passes short extension of transportation bill, moves to jobs bill
December 16, 2009By Stephen Lee Davis
A few hours ago, the House passed a $636 billion defense spending bill that included a two-month extension of the federal transportation law. Don’t count on two months as the final length of an extension though — House members are hedging their bets.
Later today, the House will vote on a separate $174 billion jobs bill. Tucked inside that bill is a longer extension of the 2005 transportation bill that would extend SAFETEA-LU all the way to the end of September 2010.
With the health care logjam preventing the Senate from considering any other meaningful or controversial legislation, House leaders know the chances of the Senate acting on their jobs bill before January are virtually nil. But the Senate is expected to approve the defense spending bill that includes the two-month extension before Christmas. We assume House members hope the Senate will come back from recess and pass the jobs bill with the longer extension early in 2010.
Along with the nine-month extension of SAFETEA-LU, the jobs bill also provides $36.7 billion to states for transportation investments. Elana Schor had an early breakdown on Streetsblog Capitol Hill, but read on below the jump for some details about the money included for transportation.
For the most part, the balance of funding is the same as the economic recovery act (ARRA) from February, with a few notable exceptions. There are no competitive TIGER grants or additional money for high speed rail in this version, but it does include the flexibility to use 10 percent of transit funds on operating assistance to preserve service and jobs.
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President Obama’s jobs speech and plan for infrastructure spending
December 8, 2009By Stephen Lee Davis
President Obama delivered a speech just a few minutes ago at the Brookings Institution here in Washington, D.C., on his plan for creating jobs and putting America back to work. We’ll add some details later and a link to the full speech, but here is the excerpt on infrastructure spending:
Second, we’re proposing a boost in investment in the nation’s infrastructure beyond what was included in the Recovery Act, to continue modernizing our transportation and communications networks. These are needed public works that engage private sector companies, spurring hiring across the country. Already, more than 10,000 of these projects have been funded through the Recovery Act. And by design, Recovery Act work on roads, bridges, water systems, Superfund sites, broadband networks, and clean energy projects will all be ramping up in the months ahead. It was planned this way for two reasons: so the impact would be felt over a two year period; and, more importantly, because we wanted to do this right. The potential for abuse in a program of this magnitude, while operating at such a fast pace, was enormous. So I asked Vice President Biden and others to make sure – to the extent humanly possible – that the investments were sound, the projects worthy, and the execution efficient. What this means is that we’re going to see even more work – and workers – on Recovery projects in the next six months than we saw in the last six months.
Even so, there are many more worthy projects than there were dollars to fund them. I recognize that by their nature these projects often take time, and will therefore create jobs over time. But the need for jobs will also last beyond next year and the benefits of these investments will last years beyond that. So adding to this initiative to rebuild America’s infrastructure is the right thing to do.
The White House Press Secretary also circulated a document ahead of the speech with details on President Obama’s plan. It outlined three key areas for stimulating job growth; small business, infrastructure, and clean energy and efficiency. Here’s the second point in full detail:
Investing in America’s Roads, Bridges and Infrastructure
Additional investment in highways, transit, rail, aviation and water. The President is calling for new investments in a wide range of infrastructure, designed to get out the door as quickly as possible while continuing a sustained effort at creating jobs and improving America’s productivity.
Support for merit-based infrastructure investment that leverages federal dollars. The Administration supports financing infrastructure investments in new ways, allowing projects to be selected on merit and leveraging money with a combination of grants and loans as was done through the Recovery Act’s TIGER program.
Creating jobs through transportation investments — but what kind of investments?
December 3, 2009By Stephen Lee Davis
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| Photo by Dan Burden, Walkable.org |
With the signs pointing toward a jobless recovery — America’s economy rebounding slightly, but unemployment remaining high — pressure is mounting on President Obama and Congress to take measurable steps to put people back to work.
Amidst today’s White House jobs summit, congressional Democrats have been working on ideas for a potential jobs bill in the House and Senate to put Americans to work with targeted investments. One potential component of a jobs bill receiving significant attention is investment in transportation infrastructure — a part of the economic recovery act from the beginning of this year that has clearly had an impact on the economy and created jobs.
Supplemented by numbers from the American Public Transportation Association and the American Association of State Highway Transportation Officials, Chairman James Oberstar and Rep. Peter DeFazio held a press conference and sent a letter to President Obama yesterday noting the thousands of transportation projects in states that can get underway quickly. Reports from AASHTO and APTA identify $48 billion in highway projects and $15 billion in transit projects that can be started quickly, creating jobs and investing in our transportation system.
With consensus beginning to form around including ample funding for ready-to-go transportation projects in any potential jobs bill, the debate has shifted. What projects will get funded, and what might the criteria be for choosing? Will the stimulus debate’s ubiquitous “shovel-ready” term once again be the only criteria? Could this bill, like the stimulus, allow states to bypass urgent repair needs in favor of new projects?
With almost every state facing an enormous backlog of desperately-needed repair projects, Transportation for America is pushing to make sure any spending boost is targeted at ready-to-go projects that can bring our transportation system into a state of good repair, rather than directing funds toward new projects we cannot afford to maintain. T4 America campaign director James Corless said in a statement yesterday:
We applaud the chairmen for pointing out that the rehabilitation of our over-taxed highway and transit systems is as imperative as it is effective at putting people to work on a timely basis. Among infrastructure-related investments, such ‘state-of-good-repair’ projects will create more jobs, faster than other investments. As we have argued since before the first stimulus, it makes perfect sense to restore our existing infrastructure as we prepare to lay the groundwork for a more transformational vision.
Creating jobs through a burst of transportation spending is a smart plan, but it should not detract from passing a full, six-year transportation bill that can get us on the path to a 21st Century transportation system. Corless went on to note:
However, we are deeply concerned that a two-year continuation will once again provide an excuse for some members of Congress to defer this country’s desperate need to create a new, long-term plan for investing in the infrastructure we need to remain competitive in a rapidly evolving, global economy. As we noted in a letter to Congressional leaders this week:
Any short-term jobs package for transportation should be limited to no more than one year, providing a strong boost to the American economy in 2010, while making sure this Congress finishes its work on a longer-term transformational transportation authorization bill that can bring our nation’s transportation policy and programs into the 21st Century.
Before Thanksgiving, we sent a letter to Congressional leaders with three principles that should guide transportation spending in any potential jobs bill. Any plan to create jobs through transportation spending should:
- Create the greatest number of jobs in the quickest time possible by prioritizing rehabilitation and operation of existing infrastructure and target new workforce development opportunities for people most in need of employment. (i.e., “Fix-it-first.”)
- Chart a new 21st century direction in transportation policy.
- Be limited to no more than a year and not replace the long term authorization of the transportation bill.
As Matt Lewis from the Center for Public Integrity noted from US PIRG on Twitter yesterday, “House leaders stressed ’state of good repair’ #transpo projects but said $ would flow thru existing formulas. Tough 2 do both?”
Letter to Speaker Pelosi with principles for transportation spending
December 2, 2009By Stephen Lee Davis
In light of discussions in Congress about a potential bill focused specifically on creating jobs, and President Obama convening a jobs summit this week in Washington, Transportation for America recently sent this letter to Speaker Nancy Pelosi that outlined 3 principles that should guide any potential infrastructure and transportation spending. If we’re going to fund infrastructure investments to put people back to work, it’s imperative that we get the most out of our precious dollars — and stay on track for passing the long-term transportation bill we so desperately need to get America moving again.
Any plan to create jobs through transportation spending should:
- Create the greatest number of jobs in the quickest time possible by prioritizing rehabilitation and operation of existing infrastructure and target new workforce development opportunities for people most in need of employment. (i.e., “Fix-it-first.”)
- Chart a new 21st century direction in transportation policy.
- Be limited to no more than a year and not replace the long term authorization of the transportation bill.
Click through the jump to read the full letter to the Speaker of the House from Transportation for America and several of our key partners.
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- Transit grants out the federal door, but what about the cuts?
March 8, 2010 - Transit riders in Atlanta face massive cuts, “wholesale restructuring” of service
March 5, 2010 - Opposition to Senate extension results in looming shutdown of federal transportation programs
February 26, 2010 - T4 jobs proposal would create nearly half a million jobs, according to Economic Policy Institute
February 17, 2010 - Obama’s 2011 budget gives a lift to livability and transportation
February 2, 2010
- Transit grants out the federal door, but what about the cuts?
The United States of Transit Cutbacks
Driving is down and transit ridership is at record highs. Yet transit agencies across the country are considering layoffs, service cuts and fare hikes. Find out more and learn what you can do to help at t4america.org/transitcuts
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