“From the perspective of infrastructure investments, the President’s proposal is both ambitious and pragmatic. He called for immediate investments in the kind of transportation projects that create near-term jobs while providing long-term benefits to Americans and the economy. But he also laid the foundation for a national infrastructure bank that will help to leverage private investment and provide stable funding in the future. His plan would expand the successful TIGER program, which has made carefully targeted investments in those projects that compete best in sparking economic development, connecting people to jobs and daily needs, improving safety and affordability, and strengthening energy and economic security.

“The President was right to call on Congress again to break the gridlock and increase investment in infrastructure. To get America back on track, we need to set clear priorities to avoid misspending our precious dollars. Those priorities should include holding states and localities accountable for executing smart investment strategies, rebuilding our decaying infrastructure, and expanding the network to provide more convenient, safe and affordable travel options for all Americans. The alternative is lingering unemployment, gridlocked cities, stranded rural residents, hampered freight delivery and continued over-reliance on contested oil supplies.”

Washington, D.C.’s new streetcars were built in Europe, because frankly, most of the expertise on building transit vehicles has been concentrated in countries other than the United States for the last few decades. But now, at least one American company has entered the market and written their own success story.

Streetcars are coming back to the United States in a big way, and United Streetcar, a company based in Portland, is taking advantage by producing Streetcars here in the United States, hiring American workers and boosting the local economy. (Ed note: we profiled United Streetcar in this 2009 post)

It’s a good reminder that our federal transportation priorities and spending have real implications for jobs and the economy here in the U.S. More money for streetcars in the transportation bill not only means better transit options for more people in our cities and communities — it also means more money flowing to companies like United Streetcar; companies that are creating jobs for Oregon residents with trickle-down effects to hundreds of other vendors and suppliers.

More money for transit means more success stories like United Streetcar.

Watch the DOT video below, and read the original post on Secretary LaHood’s blog.

“Make it in America: The Apollo Clean Transportation Manufacturing Action Plan” calls for sustained investments to harness transit and clean vehicle building here in the U.S., investments that would result in 3.7 million jobs in the next six years. Of those new jobs, 600,000 alone would be in the manufacturing sector.

There is unanimity in this country — between business and labor, President Obama and many of his critics — that now is a smart time to invest in infrastructure. Interest rates are low, materials and labor are cheaper and a 17 percent unemployment rate in the construction industry has left millions of Americans in search of work. Apollo presents a path forward to seize this moment and put those people to work building a stronger 21st century economy.

Specifically, Apollo calls for $30 billion in public transit investment and $10 billion for intercity rail, along with a national freight plan to better move our nation’s goods. Apollo also supports efforts to increase the number of transit vehicles and parts made domestically, through adjustments in tax policy, enhanced transparency and research and development investment.

Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio, a supporter of Apollo’s plan who participated in today’s conference call announcing the report, said “it’s clear that we’re at a critical moment. Clearly we risk middle class jobs and a strong national defense without a manufacturing strategy.”

Brown says he plans to introduce a bill aimed at bolstering domestic manufacturing through, among other measures, strengthening Buy America provisions that require a percentage of parts to be made domestically, and making those provisions more transparent.

Leo Gerard, president of United Steel Workers, echoed the Senator’s sentiments, saying he saw a “triple bottom line” to Apollo’s investments: good jobs for working families, a stronger U.S. economy and less carbon in the air as more Americans use public transit.

“It’s those industrial jobs, it’s those manufacturing jobs that will help rebuild the middle class,” Gerard said during today’s call.

United Streetcar, which sold the first modern streetcar to Portland, Oregon, is already acting on Apollo’s vision. The company’s supply chain includes 200 vendors in 20 states, employs union iron-workers and commands a growing customer base.

“We’ve done it with the streetcar, we can do it with any other product as well,” said Chandra Brown, President of United Streetcar.

You can learn more about Apollo Alliance’s report here. The link includes the complete proposal, an executive summary and additional information.

TEN outlined how a significant shift in federal transportation funds from highways to public transit — without spending more money overall — would impact 20 metropolitan areas in the United States. Each city surveyed would gain thousands of jobs from such a shift, an important indicator when nearly 1 out of every ten Americans is out of work. TEN’s proposal would not add a penny to deficit because it simply shifts existing revenues into broader transportation options.

The Washington Post noted that the DC region alone would add 23,000 jobs alone under TEN’s plan.

TEN also surveyed the job-creation potential of Transportation for America’s reauthorization proposal. They found that adopting our approach would result in 1.3 million new transit sector jobs over five years, nearly 800,000 jobs than would be expected under a continuation of current federal policy.

On the Huffington Post, TEN  Executive Director Laura Barrett expanded on both studies and discussed how President Obama’s $50 billion down payment for transit would go a long way toward putting Americans back to work.

Kaid Benfield and Justin Horner, both of the Natural Resources Defense Council, cited the study and its importance. While conceding that we cannot fully know how many jobs would be created, Horner noted that “these results simply confirm the general direction of what many many others have laid out: for job creation, transit’s simply the superior investment.”

Coverage of the study in some areas noted the need for improvement. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch pointed out that the St. Louis area ranked last out of all 20 metro areas surveyed, although a half-cent sales tax increase approved by voters in April will help somewhat.

News outlets in Atlanta, Los Angeles Chicago, Honolulu, Buffalo and Toledo also picked up the report, and Streetsblog weighed in too. You can view the whole report here.

The economy is showing some signs of growth, but that’s little encouragement for the millions of Americans without a job – the unemployment rate nationwide is still a notch below 10 percent. It is difficult to see how America’s economy can grow and recover without sustained job creation.

EPI ran the numbers and found that T4 America’s proposed $500 billion transportation bill would support 400,000 more jobs than would be created by continuing SAFETEA-LU, the existing transportation law, at that same $500 billion level. The T4 America proposal would support more than 7.2 million jobs.

T4 America’s proposal is an effective and swift job creator because it calls for investment in some of the more labor-intensive areas of transportation, such as repair and maintenance of existing infrastructure and public transportation, all reliable job creators. Many highway expansion projects take longer to move because they require permits and spend a larger percentage of funds on land acquisition rather than labor. As a result, many of these projects also end up employing less people.

Adopting T4’s plan would give a leg up to the Americans hardest hit by the economic downturn, especially low-wage workers and Americans who did not go to college. In fact, 80 percent of the new jobs created would be filled by Americans without a four-year degree. And the proposal is also a good deal for the working men and women of organized labor – 15 percent of the jobs created would be union jobs, compared to just 12 percent of the jobs in the overall economy.

And these are not just jobs for jobs sake – T4’s plan puts people to work building the transportation system we need for the 21st century, an all-of-the-above approach that rebuilds and maintains roads and bridges, expands travel options, implements real accountability for how we spend precious taxpayer dollars and ensures America’s small towns and rural areas take part in our economic recovery as well.

We need strong infrastructure to achieve steady growth and opportunity in the decades to come.

The ability of T4 America’s proposal to create good-paying jobs and promote economic growth has won our coalition broad support. Sam Williams, president of the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce, a T4 partner, praised the proposal as “an important and timely message for Congress” and “critical to economic development not only in metro Atlanta but across the country.” Teamsters General President Jim Hoffa says the kind of investment in clean transportation advocated by T4 America “will create millions of good paying quality jobs and put our nation on a path to a lasting economic recovery.”

You can read the full report here, or check out T4 America’s release and fact sheet.

As America continues to reel from sustained, high unemployment, a new analysis by the Economic Policy Institute shows that, with a smart investment strategy, authorization of a proposed $500 billion transportation measure could support more than 7.2 million jobs.

EPI examined the jobs impact of two investment scenarios: a continuation of current transportation law, known as SAFETEA-LU, and a package of investments proposed by Transportation for America that emphasized maintenance and retrofits of existing infrastructure and completing the transportation network with adequate public transportation, in addition to highway capacity. The analysts found that, given an investment of $500 billion under either scenario, the T4America proposal would yield 400,000 more jobs over the six-year life of the law, for a total of more than 7.2 million jobs.

“The T4America proposal creates more jobs in large part because it calls for investments in more labor-intensive sectors of the economy, including repair and maintenance of the existing transportation system and public transportation,” said Ethan Pollack, the principle author of the study.

The analysis also found that the T4America investment strategy would especially benefit those hardest hit by the recession, including low-wage workers and Americans without a college degree. About 80 percent of the new jobs created would be filled by Americans without a four-year degree. The proposal also would create jobs at a higher level of unionization (15 percent) than the overall economy (12 percent).

“This study shows why America needs a new direction in our transportation policy,” said Teamsters General President Jim Hoffa. “Cleaner and smarter transportation investments will create millions of good paying quality jobs and put our nation on a path to a lasting economic recovery.”

The EPI study echoes the 2009 findings of the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts. That study showed that public transportation generates 31 percent more jobs than new construction of roads and bridges, and repair work on roads and bridges generates 16 percent more jobs than new road and bridge construction. While the T4America package includes ample funds for new highway capacity, the emphasis on maintaining existing infrastructure and on completing the transportation network with adequate transit produces more jobs than a continuation of current policy.

The T4America strategy would support more than 761,000 manufacturing jobs, helping to expand or revitalize a range of industries associated with transit vehicles and other technologies. Another study released today by Duke University and the Apollo Alliance found that the rail industry is poised for particularly strong growth. The study examined the U.S. manufacture of rail vehicles in intercity passenger, high speed, regional, metro, light rail and streetcars. It finds that the U.S. rail supply chain includes at least 247 manufacturing locations in 35 states. More robust investment in rail would especially benefit New York (with 31 rail manufacturing facilities), Illinois (23), Pennsylvania (26), California (22) and Ohio (13).

“Transportation for America has an important message for the nation: The right kind of transportation investment creates jobs,” said Sam Williams, president of the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce, a T4America coalition member. “The vision of complete transportation networks, connected cities and viable transit options is critical to economic development not only in metro Atlanta but across the country. This is an important and timely message for Congress.”

Central to the T4America proposal is an emphasis on repairing existing infrastructure and expanding public transportation options in order to reduce our dependence on foreign oil, provide well-maintained roads and bridges, convenient public transportation and safe places to walk and bicycle, boost our economy and keep Americans active and healthy.

UPDATED: Read this analysis and summary from T4 America on the HIRE Act’s ramifications for transportation.

President Obama signed the HIRE Act this morning in the Rose Garden at the White House, and T4 America was fortunate enough to have been invited to the event.

I was especially pleased to be joined by Patricia Griffin from PolicyLink. Patricia and her organization have been strong partners with the Transportation for America campaign. Increasing access to transit and helping people reach employment, groceries and other essential daily needs are equity issues as much as they are economic issues.

We need groups like these on our side.

While this bill doesn’t contain the amount of money for transportation infrastructure like the stimulus had last year, it does have a few important provisions for transportation.

It extends the transportation bill to the end of 2010, which will spare Congress (and transportation workers across the country) the headache (and uncertainty) of the continual short-term extensions that have been standard operating procedure until now. As we saw a few weeks ago when Sen. Bunning singlehandedly held up the last extension of the transportation bill before it expired, causing a shutdown at DOT, the furlough of workers, and the suspension of crucial reimbursement checks to states, providing this little bit of certainty will at least avoid a repeat of that scenario. The bill also extends the special rule permitting urbanized areas to flex funding to transit operations, which is critical to restore and retain transit jobs and maintain services at a time when transit systems nationwide are hemorrhaging jobs, reducing service and increasing fares.

The bill also restores $19.5 billion in interest back to the highway trust fund to keep it from going bankrupt before the end of the year. With more fuel-efficient cars on the road and Americans driving less the last few years, the amount of money the federal government gets from gas taxes hasn’t been able to keep up with the authorized amounts of spending in the transportation bill.

It’s a short-term fix to a much larger issue of how we fund transportation, and doesn’t address what those billions are buying us. We need long-term solutions and answers to both of those issues.

The President’s remarks about the economy and job creation were resonant. He addressed the importance of infrastructure, in terms of both short-term job growth and longer term prosperity, noting that “this jobs bill will maintain crucial investments in our roads and our bridges as we head into the spring and summer months, when construction jobs are picking up.”

In addition to President Obama, other participants included Majority Leader Harry Reid, Majority Whip Richard Durbin, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chair Barbara Boxer, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman, Jim Oberstar.

Senator Boxer’s committee is currently developing their version of the transportation bill and we are eager to work with the Senator and her staff on shared priorities and new ideas. Senator Boxer is a passionate defender of the environment who understands that the status quo is no longer acceptable. And her home state of California has been hit hard by deep cuts in transit where people need it most.

The bill President Obama signed today helps stabilize our transportation program and enables us to focus our full attention on a long-term transformational bill that prepares us for the 21st Century. This is our chance to get the changes we have spent months fighting for — increasing access to public transportation and quality jobs for all people, rebuilding broken roads and crumbling bridges and setting benchmarks that help us measure success.

Today felt like a sign of good things to come.

Photos by Quentin Kelly and Patricia Griffin.

As the national transportation program faces fiscal uncertainty today following Sen. Jim Bunning’s (R-KY) refusal to extend legislation to fund transportation and other national programs on Friday, James Corless, campaign director of Transportation for America, released the following statement:

“The problem is not simply that one Senator was able to thwart a crucial, timely vote. That lone Senator was able to shut down our nation’s transportation program only because Congress has left this essential underpinning of our economy on life-support for far too long. The highway trust fund we created to build the interstates in the 1950s simply is not up to the job of building and maintaining the system we need for the 21st century. This is not a backburner issue, even if Congress has been treating it as one.

“While we lurch, from extension to extension, with our transportation program teetering on the brink of insolvency, the rest of the world is not standing still. China is building a $500 billion rail network. Canada, whose hockey team just beat us for the gold medal, is beating us in building efficient urban transportation networks, even as our public transportation systems are being forced to slash service in the face of Congressional inaction.

“American jobs – millions of them — are relying on the authorization of our transportation program. Americans everywhere depend on an efficient, safe and accessible network of roads and transit systems to get to work each day. If we are going to right this economy permanently, Congress must quickly address our nation’s outdated transportation program and ensure stable funding levels for public transportation, including operating assistance for struggling systems, for the repair and maintenance of our highways and bridges, and a robust investment in projects that will make our communities sustainable for the long haul.”

James Corless is the Campaign Director of Transportation for America.

The Obama Department of Transportation today broke historic ground in unveiling projects chosen in a first-ever program to award federal dollars on a competitive basis to innovative projects that address economic, environmental and travel issues at once.

The 51 projects announced under the TIGER grant program, funded by $1.5 billion included in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), meet a broad array of challenges, including:

• Bridge replacements in Oklahoma, Michigan, Wisconsin, Kentucky and Indiana that can support multiple modes of travel;
• Port and freight-rail projects to spur economic growth in Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Virginia, Hawaii, Pennsylvania and Ohio;
• Modern streetcar construction to support vibrant urban corridors in Tucson, Dallas, Portland and New Orleans and light rail in Detroit;
• Innovative highway funding and operations in Texas, North Carolina, Colorado, South Carolina and Arkansas;
• Bicycle and pedestrian networks in Philadelphia, Indianapolis, and a complete streets project in Dubuque, IA;
• The long-awaited rebirth of New York’s former Penn Station as Moynihan Station.

“These are the kinds of projects that will create good paying jobs, spur local economic development, revive our city centers and create regional integrated transportation solutions,” said John Robert Smith, the co-chair of T4 America and former Mayor of Meridian, Mississippi. “Today’s announcement clearly shows the administration’s commitment to supporting livability initiatives in metropolitan regions, smaller communities and rural areas alike.”

A complete list of recipients can be found on the US DOT press release.

Project applications had to show multiple benefits, with priority give to these criteria: 1) that projects improve the condition of existing facilities and systems, 2) contribute to the economic competitiveness of the U.S. over the medium- to long-term, 3) improve the quality of living and working environments for people, 4) improve energy efficiency, reduce dependence on foreign oil, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and benefit the environment, and 5) improve public safety.

Secretary LaHood spoke from Kansas City, showcasing the city’s Green Impact Zone, an area of high unemployment and concentrated poverty that is being revitalized with green buildings, clean transportation options including public transportation and bicycle and pedestrian projects.

DOT Secretary Ray LaHood noted that the program was extraordinarily sought-after, garnering 1,400 applications totaling nearly $60 billion for the $1.5 billion pot. “The sheer popularity of this ground-breaking approach is testament to how many states and localities are struggling to build innovative projects that simply don’t happen under the pre-existing program,” Mayor Smith said.

“We hope this is a glimpse of what the next transportation authorization could look like,” Smith added. “Congress needs to build on this success and authorize the surface transportation program along similar lines to support innovation and integrated transportation solutions in communities of all sizes.”

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/

And click here to tell your Senators that they must include money for keeping our vital transit systems running with any jobs package.