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Rail barons return: How two freight railroads are trying to derail the infrastructure law’s historic investment in passenger rail

mosaic of mobile residents cheering on the 2016 inspection train

Two freight railroads have been waging a bad-faith effort to kill the incredibly popular, fully funded, multi-state effort to restore long-awaited passenger rail service along the Gulf Coast, in part because the precedent could stall the infrastructure law’s historic investment in the country’s passenger rail network which would give millions more Americans access to regular rail service.

We’ll start this story with a video. Take a minute and watch this short video of a day of freight trains passing through “busy” Mobile, AL:

Freight companies Norfolk Southern (NS) and CSX are hoping that no one looks too closely or counts how many freight trains are actually passing through Mobile each day. Why? Because they are trying to convince the federal Surface Transportation Board that Amtrak adding just two passenger trains per day between New Orleans and Mobile would “unreasonably impair” their (uh, “bustling”?) freight operations here. They’re trying to make the case that adding just two passenger trains per day will require an astonishing $440 million in upgrades to their existing rail infrastructure. (That’s after previously telling local officials privately in MS and AL that they only needed $140-160 million.)

So Amtrak pulled out of negotiations and petitioned the Surface Transportation Board to arbitrate the conflict.

At least on the surface, this fight would appear to be about the long-running effort to bring back new and improved passenger rail service along the Gulf Coast which was wiped out by Hurricane Katrina nearly 17 years ago. $66 million has already been committed by the states and the federal government to upgrade the corridor’s infrastructure and get these trains rolling. Stations are being renovated. Almost every hurdle has been cleared to give residents a valuable new connection and boost tourism and economic development along the entire corridor from Mobile to New Orleans.

Residents have been clamoring to see these trains return for nearly 17 years. Thousands turned out to see the Amtrak inspection train in 2016 all along the Gulf Coast:

The people of Bay St. Louis are a little excited about getting passenger rail service back. #YallAboard pic.twitter.com/OsRUkIZv6P
— Transportation for America (@T4America) February 18, 2016

But the freight railroads are standing in the way of those residents, trying to either delay the project to death, or take advantage of the federal government and taxpayers with far more public money than they should receive for the necessary upgrades.

What’s the fight all about here?

CSX and Norfolk Southern are fighting two meager trains per day here because they know that the precedent set by stopping this new service will make future passenger expansions elsewhere—the kind promised by the infrastructure law—more difficult.

Although freight railroads are required by federal law to share their tracks with passenger railroads—this was the deal struck to consolidate the old passenger companies, create Amtrak, and turn the trackage over to freight companies—freight railroads have to work together with Amtrak to invest in rail infrastructure and balance their operations. But CSX and NS have been negotiating in incredibly bad faith all along the way, producing wildly fluctuating numbers (from $140 million up to $2.3 billion depending on which day you ask them) about the level of investment required to add just two short passenger trains per day. Federal law says that freight railroads can only seek the infrastructure improvements required to facilitate passenger service. (Otherwise, they’d be fleecing American taxpayers, taking public money for their own private gain.)

figure showing freight RR estimates of costs

T4America chair John Robert Smith, a former Amtrak board chair and Mayor of Meridian, MS, testified before the STB this week about the level of misbehavior from the freight companies. It’s worth excerpting heavily:

I take no pleasure in telling you that throughout the effort to restore passenger rail, CSX railroad has been neither transparent nor completely honest in dealing with the SRC, Amtrak and the Federal Railroad Administration as you heard from the FRA earlier today. CSX withheld even the most basic information about their operations from all involved, even from the FRA. …CSX grossly inflated infrastructure costs providing no supporting documentation or transparency in the development of these costs. As lack of facts and misrepresentation failed them, CSX has resorted to intimidation and fear to ports and shippers alike, as we have seen demonstrated today. I believe this has all been an effort by CSX to kill any additional passenger rail service along the Gulf by torturous delay.
Death by delay must not become the order of the day, for to do so would extinguish any aspiration for expanded passenger rail connecting our country and its people.

What’s at stake with this decision?

The Surface Transportation Board is an independent federal agency that regulates some surface transportation modes including freight rail. When private interests bump up against the public in decisions like this, the STB hears and decides the disputes, like a private arbitrator.

If the freight railroads lose this decision, which is looking increasingly likely, one reason will be the diverse coalition of public, private, and political support lining up behind the popular Gulf Coast project and making persuasive arguments to the STB.

Senator Roger Wicker (R-MS) has been this project’s biggest champion from day one. He teamed up with Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) to include rail policy and funding in a long-term federal transportation law for the first time in 2015’s FAST Act. He has since appropriated money to support the Southern Rail Commission which has done the legwork to get all three states on board with matching state funds to operate the new rail line. Other political leaders from all three states have been instrumental. The local business community is ecstatic. Residents lined up by the thousands to see the inspection train roll through in 2016. Rep. Peter DeFazio, who chairs the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee in the House, also provided testimony during this week’s public hearing.

But perhaps most notably, the USDOT and Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) itself have gotten heavily involved. Their own filing urged the STB to rule against the railroads because CSX and NS are asking the STB “for an unduly restrictive interpretation…that lowers the bar for demonstrating ‘unreasonable impairment’ [of freight service] below what Congress required.” FRA Administrator Amit Bose testified this week about the importance of the STB continuing to require freight railroads to follow federal law and provide Amtrak the use of their track for passenger service.

“The outcome of this proceeding will be pivotal to the future development of inner-city passenger rail in this country. The Gulf Coast has been without passenger rail service for nearly two decades and in this case, service delayed is service denied,” said Administrator Bose.

Other than CSX and NS, the Port of Mobile has been opposed to this project, supposedly on the grounds that it would impact their operations—concerns which have been repeatedly proven false as the train won’t even enter port property. Alabama Senator Richard Shelby may think he’s only carrying the water for the unhappy Port of Mobile, but his letter to the FRA on the port’s behalf asking them to rule in favor of the freight railroads lays out what the freight railroads are truly concerned about and what’s at stake with this decision. (bold ours)

“In sum, a decision by the Board to mandate Amtrak service in this case will have significant consequences for the national rail network and supply chain, as well as set a precedent for expansion of Amtrak service. We urge you to uphold the Board’s long-standing commitment to an efficient and reliable rail network.”

A collection of monied status quo interests do not want residents of the Gulf Coast to say “Y’all Aboard!” They definitely do not want to see a precedent that would clear the way for the bipartisan plan to pump $102 billion into passenger rail service across the country. They absolutely do not want to see more groups like the Southern Rail Commission on the Gulf Coast created and encouraged to cast a vision, tap into latent demand from residents for new transportation options, and build public/private and political support for new service on other corridors across the country, which was one of the IIJA’s best provisions on passenger rail. From our explainer about the rail provisions in the infrastructure law:

It creates a new program that incentivizes up to ten interstate rail compacts—like the Southern Rail Commission at the center of Gulf Coast expansion—that are vital for developing and realizing a regional and national rail network. Interstate rail compacts are made up of contiguous states that want to establish a vision for and seek investments for intercity passenger rail in their region. …The bill allows for these ten commissions to apply for up to $1 million annually to operate their respective commissions.

What’s next?

The Surface Transportation Board is likely to reach a final decision in March or April. Stay tuned.

Their decision will have far reaching consequences.

As Mayor John Robert Smith closed his testimony to the STB earlier this week, “send a strong message that it is time that passenger rail became an important part of America’s future. That it is time to reconnect our cities of the Gulf with passenger rail and the economic opportunities that it brings.”

Federal grant brings Gulf Coast passenger rail ever closer to fruition

Gulf Coast passenger rail is closer than ever to returning. With state and federal funds already secured to make capital investments required to bring new and drastically improved passenger rail service back between New Orleans and Mobile, AL, a second vital federal grant to help operate the new service completes the other biggest part of the funding puzzle.

Just before the end of August, Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao announced a $4.36 million grant to fund operating expenses for the first year of passenger rail service along the new line, leveraging $1.4 million already committed by the states of Louisiana and Mississippi.

This award follows a much more significant $33 million federal grant to complete major infrastructure and capital improvements necessary for restoring (and radically improving) the service wiped out by Hurricane Katrina back in 2005. We wrote about that bigger award earlier this summer:

With this week’s announcement of a $33 million federal grant, communities across the coast can make the capital improvements necessary for running passenger trains throughout the corridor owned by CSX. The grant will be matched with commitments from the state of Mississippi, the Mississippi Department of Transportation, Amtrak, and private partners, and is paired with priority investments from the state of Louisiana. When it does start up, this new service will be like an iPhone compared to a 2000s-era flip phone. Cities along the route can expect business friendly service on four trains a day, running in daytime hours and on time, with food, drink and hospitality designed to reflect the unique culture of the region.

Thanks to this historic award, the thousands of residents who turned up in force to show their support for passenger rail could be less than 24 months from being able to finally hear “Y’all Aboard!!”

This project has made it this close to finish line due to the hard work of the Southern Rail Commission, a tri-state compact created by Congress with members appointed by the governors of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama to support Southeast rail initiatives, with Transportation for America supporting them every step of the way. Just as vital has been the continued vocal support of many of their state and congressional leaders, including Governors John Bel Edwards (LA) and Phil Bryant (MS), and Senators Roger Wicker, Cindy Hyde-Smith, and the late Thad Cochran.

And perhaps most important has been the residents of the Gulf Coast who have let their elected leaders know at every turn that they’re clamoring to see passenger rail return to their cities and region, giving those leaders confidence in expecting strong ridership.

For now, because the project lacks a full financial commitment from Alabama, the new service isn’t fully funded to reach downtown Mobile—the most convenient point for travelers to disembark. As the SRC wrote in their press release, that’s where the last remaining question marks lie, and Alabama still has some work to do:

The SRC hopes the state of Alabama will support passenger rail restoration by providing matching funds for the next grant cycle so service can be extended to downtown Mobile. Wiley Blankenship, SRC Commissioner from Mobile, AL noted, “Alabama’s Southern Rail Commissioners welcome this positive affirmation for the restoration of passenger rail service between New Orleans and my home of Mobile. I look forward to working with my fellow commissioners and Alabama state leadership to provide the necessary support to leverage additional federal operating funds to make Gulf Coast rail a reality.”

They’ve got the funding in hand and they’ve got all of their influential decision-makers on board. Amtrak and the local partners are committed to having trains rolling down America’s beautiful Gulf Coast in the summer of 2021.

It’s been a long road to this point, but the residents of the Gulf Coast who have long been dreaming of once again seeing trains connecting the hearts of their towns and cities to one another will get to see that dream become reality.

A major obstacle cleared for bringing new passenger rail service to the Deep South

Almost 14 years since Hurricane Katrina wiped it out, passenger rail service along the Gulf Coast is closer than ever to returning after a vital federal grant was awarded to help fund the capital investments required to bring new and drastically improved passenger rail service back between New Orleans and Mobile, AL, and Transportation for America played a major role.

Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS) addresses the enormous crowd in Gulfport on the second stop of the Gulf Coast inspection train in 2016. Photo by Steve Davis / T4America

“We’ve got the top brass, we’ve got the local leaders, and we’re gonna make this work for Mississippi and for the taxpayers,” Mississippi Senator Roger Wicker told a crowd of a thousand or more fired-up Gulfport residents over three years ago in front of the city’s historic train depot in the middle of town. And Senator Wicker has kept his promise.

That crowd—and more than a dozen just like it in communities from New Orleans to Jacksonville—turned out in massive numbers in February 2016 to see an Amtrak passenger train roll through for the first time since Katrina darkened those shores in August 2005. They also showed up to send a clear and powerful message to their elected leaders. As I wrote back in 2016 from the train, “Rich people, poor people, black people, white people, young people, old people — all asking their elected leaders for the same thing: We want passenger rail back on the Gulf Coast.”

With this week’s announcement of a $33 million federal grant, communities across the coast can make the capital improvements necessary for running passenger trains throughout the corridor owned by CSX. The grant will be matched with commitments from the state of Mississippi, the Mississippi Department of Transportation, Amtrak, and private partners, and is paired with priority investments from the state of Louisiana. When it does start up, this new service will be like an iPhone compared to a 2000s-era flip phone. Cities along the route can expect business friendly service on four trains a day, running in daytime hours and on time, with food, drink and hospitality designed to reflect the unique culture of the region.

Thanks to this historic award, the thousands of residents who turned up in force to show their support for passenger rail could be less than 24 months from being able to finally hear “Y’all Aboard!!”

A bipartisan coalition of local leaders, mayors, business people, governors, and their representatives in Congress are close to creating what would be the first new long-distance passenger rail service in the U.S. in more than half a century—and it’s in the Deep South. How did this happen, and what should it mean for other similar corridors across the country?

New passenger rail service in the Deep South — how did it happen?

It never would have happened without the day-in, day-out work of the Southern Rail Commission, a Congressionally established tri-state rail compact—the only one of its kind—with members appointed by the governors of Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi. Essentially inactive and idle a decade ago, the SRC was reconstituted and has been the driving force, bringing together local mayors along the line, building support amongst business leaders in the region, and garnering the support of their governors and elected leaders in Congress.¹

With the SRC driving the project forward with the public and within the states, they needed a champion in Congress, and they found one in Senator Roger Wicker, who has done everything possible to keep his promise made in Gulfport that day in 2016. With the help of Senator Cory Booker, the Senators drafted a provision (included in the FAST Act) that created the Gulf Coast Working Group to study the restoration of passenger rail service. Later that year, those Senators, with incredible support from the late Mississippi Senator Thad Cochran, ensured that the omnibus budget bill provided the funding to start the working group. And Senators Cochran, Richard Shelby (AL), and Cindy Hyde-Smith (MS) were also instrumental in appropriating funding for the new federal programs to make capital and operations grants to help expand passenger rail service.

“Everyone needed to see a train again”

For 11 years after Katrina, even after a mammoth five-month rebuilding effort along the CSX-owned freight rail line to restore freight service, no passenger trains ran east of New Orleans. With even the vague memory of the previous subpar and regularly delayed passenger service receding into distant memory for many residents, everyone needed to see a train again.

So back in 2016, the SRC partnered with Amtrak to run a special inspection train from New Orleans to Jacksonville, Florida. While there were some technical necessities for this trip—Amtrak inspected the tracks and stations to determine what physical needs there were along the line—the most important function was filling that train with elected, civic and other local leaders from the Gulf Coast and providing a visible sign for residents to rally around.

I was on that train, and I will never forget the moment we rolled into Bay St. Louis, MS for the first stop after departing New Orleans. Conversations halted immediately on the train as we were taken aback by the overwhelming sights and sounds of Bay St. Louis. Schools were closed, bands were playing, costumes were donned, and it seemed like the entire city had turned out to see the first passenger train in 11 years.

John Sharp, writing for AL.com, summed things up well, describing the arrival of that train as an incredibly cathartic moment for a city that was devastated by Hurricane Katrina and had fought for years to bounce back. Bay St. Louis wasn’t an outlier, though. That scene was repeated in town after town, whether in Mississippi’s second largest city of Gulfport, or tiny little Atmore, AL:

It was an incredible sight to see, and it had a palpable, powerful effect on the elected officials and VIPs from Washington on board. None of them will be able to go back to work in their government offices without thinking of the faces of the people they saw on this trip and how excited they were about the prospect of seeing this vital connection restored.

That’s precisely what happened, and the evidence can be found in the state money that Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards and Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant (with the full backing and support of the Mississippi DOT and commissioner Dick Hall) committed to the project before they had a dime of federal money in hand.

Watch our short video chronicling the two-day Gulf Coast inspection train in 2016.

What’s the next step to get trains running again?

With this $33 million federal grant from the Consolidated Rail and Infrastructure Safety Improvements program (CRISI) in hand, work should begin quickly on the capital upgrades to rails, ties, stations, and the other infrastructure required to run reliable passenger trains in the corridor. Amtrak and the SRC are committed to bringing back new, reliable, regular, daytime passenger service within 24 months from now—service that will be far better than what was eliminated in 2005.

Amtrak will also begin negotiations with CSX for use of the right-of-way which CSX must allow by federal law. T4America and SRC are anticipating productive negotiations with the private railroad, but a landmark Supreme Court decision just last week upholds last year’s decision to allow the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) and Amtrak to set on-time performance standards, a crucial measure to increase the reliability of passenger rail service; a decision that will also strengthen their position in negotiations.

“This ruling opens the door to fixing one of the main issues with our passenger rail system,” said John Spain, Chairman of the Southern Rail Commission. “Increasing on-time performance will increase the reliability of and trust in the system, and now Amtrak can finally take steps to do this.

This story shouldn’t end on the Gulf Coast

While Transportation for America is delighted to see the progress toward returning passenger rail service to the Gulf Coast, new trains running between beautiful Gulf Coast cities should be the blueprint for other corridors to do the same all across the country.

“All of this should also send a powerful message to Congress and to Amtrak’s board that this country absolutely needs a thriving system of long-distance and shorter-corridor passenger rail service that works together to form a national network,” said T4America chair Mayor John Robert Smith, former board chairman of Amtrak, who was also responsible for building the first new multi-modal station in the south during his long tenure as Mayor of Meridian, MS.

There’s already movement afoot to start new service between the twin economic centers of Baton Rouge and New Orleans in Louisiana, and along the I-20 corridor between Meridian, MS and Shreveport, LA. This comes in addition to longstanding conversations to protect and expand service in the Midwest, the Mountain West, the Pacific Northwest, and across the country.

I spent three days on this train interviewing and chatting with local elected officials from communities all along the coast who explained to me how it was essential to their economic development and quality-of-life efforts to bring passenger rail service back.

One of my favorite characters I met was Mayor Knox Ross, the mayor of Pelahatchie, MS and an SRC Commissioner. A few days after the trip, he came up to Washington to share his story with the Senate Commerce Committee and explain how this passenger rail connection would be a powerful economic development tool for these Gulf Coast cities, small and large:

“We invested in the national interstate system years ago and saw tremendous economic development, but now we’re having to put more money than ever into it with diminishing returns as we add lanes. Every modest investment in passenger trains across this country can create large economic development opportunities in all these cities. …We saw an amazing outpouring of support in every city. …They just want an opportunity. Every city turned out. They’re looking for a hand up and saw Amtrak service as that opportunity.”

We’re proud to celebrate this monumental event for the Gulf Coast and will continue counting down the days until those thousands of people we met there can hop a train and travel the Gulf Coast with a reliable new mode of travel.

“Y’all Aboard!”

All photos by Stephen Lee Davis / Transportation for America

A massive show of support in Gulf Coast communities for passenger rail

A massive show of support yesterday from the people of the Gulf Coast welcomed the first passenger rail train east of New Orleans since Katrina, with thousands of residents in scores of communities from New Orleans to Atmore, Alabama turning out to send a clear message to their elected leaders that they want passenger rail service back.

Atmore, Alabama

This week’s Gulf Coast inspection train, run by Amtrak in partnership with the Southern Rail Commission (SRC), is touring a potential route and examining the CSX tracks. It’s the product of years of work by local residents and elected leaders at almost all levels to restore the passenger rail service wiped out by Katrina over ten years ago. Read our first post for the backstory. Note: Transportation for America serves in an official capacity as policy advisors for SRC. -Ed.

#YallAboard

Although everyone involved with this trip had heard there were festivities planned in each stop along the way, no one seemed to be ready for what awaited us in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi. People in conversation on the train stopped cold as they heard a band playing and a crowd cheering before the doors even opened on the train. Elected officials were clearly overwhelmed by the show of support as they stepped off the train to take a champagne toast to the first passenger train to stop in the city since Katrina.

The people of Bay St. Louis are a little excited about getting passenger rail service back. #YallAboard pic.twitter.com/OsRUkIZv6P

— Transport. 4 America (@T4America) February 18, 2016

Administrator Sara Feinberg of the Federal Railroad Administration was clearly taken aback as she stepped off the train, shaking hands with excited residents lining the train platform and pulling out her phone to take pictures of her own. Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development Secretary Shawn Wilson posed for pictures with smiling and yelling residents like he was a rock star.

Shawn Wilson, Secretary of the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development, takes photos of the crowd in Bay St. Louis, MS.

As John Sharp wrote in AL.com after riding from New Orleans to Mobile, it felt like a cathartic moment for this city that was devastated by Hurricane Katrina and has fought for years to bounce back. Schools were closed yesterday morning, costumes were donned, signs were made, songs were played, and the small community of Bay St. Louis made a powerful, moving display of support for restoring passenger rail to the city, bringing tourists to their beautiful city and giving residents a new option for getting back and forth along the coast to wherever they’d like to go.

Rich people, poor people, black people, white people, young people, old people — all asking their elected leaders for the same thing: We want passenger rail back on the Gulf Coast.

Gulf Coast rail trip gulfport people

This moving scene was repeated again and again at each stop in Gulfport, Biloxi, and Pascagoula, Mississippi, and Mobile and Atmore, Alabama. In Gulfport, the second biggest city in the state, the crowd was so huge squeezed between the depot and a parking garage, you could hardly see a spot without people.

Gulf Coast rail trip gulfport crowd

Giant American flags were hung from fire department ladder trucks in almost every city. And not once did we leave the train without being accompanied by a band — including the historic Excelsior Band in Mobile. There was visible support even in communities along the way without a stop, like Ocean Springs, Mississippi, where children lined the fence by the tracks and waved at every crossing.

It was an incredible sight to see, and it had a palpable, powerful effect on the elected officials and VIPs from Washington on board. None of them will be able to go back to work in their government offices without thinking of the faces of the people they saw on this trip and how excited they were about the prospect of seeing this vital connection restored.

Pascagoula, Mississippi

We’ll have more later on from some of the mayors and other local leaders we’ve talked to this week. Each one we spoke to zeroed in on the economic potential of having this connection restored. All spoke eloquently about how passenger rail is a piece of the puzzle for staying competitive and helping move their people. And elected leaders from the cities, states and Congress all spoke passionately about how they’re working to make this service happen in a way that’s a good deal for taxpayers. We’ll get to their inspiring speeches too.

But it would be a mistake to start a look back on the trip anywhere other than with the amazing and inspiring people of the Gulf Coast who turned up yesterday — in the middle of a workday no less — to show their support for what their elected leaders are working hard to accomplish for them. They don’t appear to care a lick about the political or philosophical debate over transportation modes or funding that dominates conversations in Washington.

They just want to have another way to get where they want to go.

Y’all aboard.

Continue following along with the trip on Twitter with #YallAboard and @t4america

Update: Find links to all of our posts and photos from the trip as well as a short video we produced on the trip here in this short recap post.

Gulf Coast Rail Trip Atmore tribal girls

Atmore, Alabama

Bay St. Louis, Mississippi

Bay St. Louis, Mississippi

Pascagoula, Mississippi

Mobile, Alabama

How many states will try to do something different in 2016?

With Congress finally wrapping up their five-year transportation bill in late 2015, the spotlight will burn even brighter on states in 2016. With 40 state legislatures now in session and six more set to begin in the coming weeks, how many states will raise new funding? How many states will attempt to improve how they spend their transportation dollars? How many will take unfortunate steps backwards?

As we highlighted in our most recent report that contained 12 recommendations for bringing state transportation policy out of the stone age, these state legislators will face the most critical of choices: continue pumping scarce dollars into a complex and opaque system designed to spend funds based more on politics than needs, or find a new approach that will boost state and local economies and restore taxpayer confidence in a broken system.

Here’s a short roundup of some of the states and bills that we’ll be watching.

Increases in funding on the horizon?

Louisiana’s new governor, John Bel Edwards (D), and a new legislature have highlighted transportation as a priority issue. Edwards’ transition team recommended a big ramp up in spending for transportation projects — and especially on rail, transit, freight and other key, non-highway projects that have long been neglected. The transition team also recommended that — to make those projects possible — the state will need to move ahead on staffing and setting up the new office of multimodal commerce created by the legislature in 2014 as a way to reform the Department of Transportation and Development and broaden the state’s transportation focus. A special legislative session on the state budget begins in mid-February. Transportation is unlikely to be included in this session, but legislators will be laying the groundwork for raising new funding in a later session or next year.

Following years of unsuccessful efforts, Missouri’s legislature is again looking for ways to raise new state revenue for transportation. A voter initiative in 2014 was defeated in part because it would have taxed metropolitan areas most heavily but not given cities the autonomy to spend these funds on their most pressing transportation needs. To get support for new funding — several bills have been introduced already this year — legislators will likely need to reform the way funds are distributed and spent, but few reforms have been offered.

A special transportation finance panel called by Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy (D) recommended multiple sources of financing to fund the state’s long list of repair needs and planned projects. But it called for the state to first implement several reforms, including setting aside fuel tax and toll revenues exclusively for transportation projects and for enabling new local or regional funding options to allow alternative funding for local priorities.

Colorado’s legislature is fielding a slew of calls for new ways to get more money to transportation projects. Gov. John Hickenlooper (D) has called for a tax swap that would allow the state to spend existing revenue on transportation projects. Some transportation advocates have called for general obligation bonds, shifting money now used for road repair to pay for new projects, or a statewide ballot measure to increase revenue for transportation.

After months of publicly calling for state legislators to boost state transportation funding and barnstorming the state to make his case, Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam (R) has pushed the issue off the agenda until 2017. The call for new revenue got a chilly reception with state legislators, including leaders in Haslam’s own party. Fortunately, as we highlight in our report from two weeks ago, Tennessee’s DOT is already a leader in finding cost-effective solutions and saving state money by right-sizing their projects — keys to building trust and ensuring voters that any new money down the road will be well-spent.

New local funding

Local communities want and need to put their own skin in the game, and states should enable them to do so. Far too many states restrict the ability for locals to tax themselves to raise their own funds for transportation, but scores of other states are looking for ways to enable local communities to raise their own dollars for their most pressing needs.

A bill was introduced in Massachusetts by START Network member Rep. Chris Walsh (D-Framingham) to allow cities and towns to impose a payroll, sales, property, or vehicle excise tax to fund local transportation projects, including repair and new construction of streets, bridges, transit, and pedestrian or bike infrastructure. A bill in Wisconsin allows counties or municipalities to impose a temporary, 0.5-percent sales tax to raise money exclusively for street and highway repair. Both bills would require the new taxes to be approved by the local government and a voter referendum.

A 2013 transportation funding bill in Virginia added extra fuel and sales taxes for the state’s most populous urban regions of Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads to help them meet the large, complicated transportation demands. Two bills introduced this year add a new floor to the local supplemental tax equal to the amount that would have been charged in February 2013, already in place for the statewide wholesale rate, and increase the wholesale rate for the Hampton Roads region from 2.1-percent to 5.3-percent.

Measuring performance

Last month, Virginia Department of Transportation released its first list of projects scored and ranked to receive funding in the Statewide Transportation Improvement Program. This program is the result of a dogged focus by legislative leaders and the administration of Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) to reform the state’s transportation program. START members and other local leaders have had positive feedback thus far for the new system intended to increase transparency and public understanding of transportation investments by objectively screening and scoring transportation projects based on their anticipated benefits.

Massachusetts is in the midst of implementing a similar program that was created as part of the 2013 transportation funding package.

Moving backward

While legislators in many states are looking for ways to meet diverse transportation needs, some legislators are leading efforts to entrench systems that fund highways only. A bill passed out of Colorado’s Senate Transportation committee would eliminate $15 million in state money directed to transit from a 2009 funding bill. A bill in Tennessee would limit state transportation funds, including those distributed to cities and counties, exclusively for highways and bridges.

Providing a roadmap for starting passenger rail service between New Orleans and Baton Rouge

New Orleans and Baton Rouge are the two biggest cities in Louisiana, but they lack a passenger rail connection. On Monday, The Southern Rail Commission (SRC) released a gubernatorial briefing book, authored by Transportation for America’s Beth Osborne, that provides the Louisiana governor and legislature with a how-to guide for starting daily passenger rail service between the two cities.

A rendering of the proposed station in Gonzales

Click to download

This briefing book was produced in cooperation with the Center for Planning Excellence.

The idea of connecting Louisiana’s two busiest cities with intercity passenger rail has long been a popular one with residents, local leaders and the business community in both cities. But no matter how popular, starting that service won’t happen without strong leadership from the governor and legislature. This route has been researched in the past, including feasibility studies in 2014 and 2009. But with this report, the SRC and local stakeholders wanted to provide a clear, step-by-step guide to how a new governor could lead the effort to bring passenger rail to southern Louisiana in just a few years time.

The proposed passenger rail service would start with two round trip trains per day along an 80-mile corridor with more than 2.2 million people and nearly 1 million jobs and could serve 210,000 riders per year. But to get to those two roundtrips per day, the report lays out and explains five basic steps needed.

Past efforts to plan potential service were done in full cooperation with Amtrak and the railroads that own the tracks for proposed service. Unfortunately, Governor Bobby Jindal withdrew his support after Amtrak and the railroads had already put staff time and resources toward the plan. To help convince these other partners that the state is serious this time, the Louisiana leadership will have to start with what is normally step two: securing the funding for capital and operations.

Normally, once a state knows what kind of service they want to start and have determined the cost of any capital improvements and operating support needed, the leaders from that state would designate funds for that project. But considering this recent history in Louisiana, it is unlikely that Amtrak or the other freight railroads the state will have to partner with would be willing to commit any time or resource until they have evidence that the state is fully committed. The report discusses ways to raise funding at the state or local level as well as federal programs that can used to support passenger rail service.

The proposed route with seven stops

From there, an operating agreement must be negotiated with the host railroads, Canadian National Railway and Kansas City Southern. This step is easier and more certain to be successful if the operator of the service is Amtrak, due to a special authority granted to Amtrak by Congress to operate on any freight rail line in the country, so long as they pay the incremental cost of that service and it does not significantly harm freight service. With other operators, the freight railroad could refuse to permit access to their line or charge the operator more than they would charge Amtrak.

With money in hand and partners on board, the state could begin needed capital improvements, such as building stations — seven stops are proposed — and finally the rail operator would begin hiring and training workers to prepare for service.

With the strong support of the Louisiana governor and the state legislature, this service could be available to Louisianans in just a few years. The Southern Rail Commission is hopeful that the next Louisiana governor sees the strong economic potential of a new passenger rail line connecting millions of residents and jobs to one another. With seven parishes, a state, a railway authority and freight railroads involved, the strong leadership of a central figure like a governor is essential to making it happen. In fact, all other instances of newly created intercity passenger rail service have had strong leadership from a governor.

We partnered with the Southern Rail Commission and the Center for Planning Excellence to produce this SRC report. Can we help you with something similar? That’s a service we provide. Get in touch.

Insightful, in-depth article details efforts to restore & expand passenger rail service in the deep South

A terrific in-depth article examines T4America’s partnership with a group of southern leaders pushing to restore and expand passenger rail service through the Gulf Coast states — something that mayors and other civic leaders in towns small and large are clamoring for.

Flickr photo by Kurt Haubrich /photos/kphaubrich/8417825227/

AL.com wrote a terrific, in-depth overview of the partnership between T4America and the Southern Rail Commission to restore the Gulf Coast passenger rail service lost after Hurricane Katrina and also expand other daily, reliable passenger rail service through Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. The 2,500-word piece is filled with details on our joint efforts to secure funding and build a strong local coalition, and how the looming reauthorization of federal passenger rail law could support or hinder those efforts:

The eyes of passenger rail supporters will be fixed on the U.S. Senate on June 24, when its version of a passenger rail reauthorization bill surfaces. A House version, approved earlier this year, requires the Federal Railroad Administration to conduct a study into what kind of service can be restored east of New Orleans, what markets could be served, how much it costs and how it could be financed.

The House version of the Passenger Rail Reform and Investment Act of 2015 calls for a working group to evaluate restoring service between New Orleans and Orlando. A similar group is expected to be included in the Senate version.

There’s strong support to bring back the passenger service lost after Katrina, and scores of local communities throughout the three states also see the economic development possibilities presented by restored or expanded service:

Bob Campbell, mayor of DeFuniak Springs, Fla. – about a two-hour drive east from Mobile, or 75 minutes south of Dothan – wants his city to benefit as well. He said his community’s downtown revival would be enhanced with the presence of passenger rail.

Campbell said there would be interest from Louisiana residents who want easy access to a Florida beach. Conversely, he said that Florida panhandle residents would utilize the train for trips to the casinos in Mississippi.

A train depot, which currently serves as a museum, could be restored into a train station with little cost, Campbell said.

“It wouldn’t take much at all to bring it up-to-date,” he said.

Our board chair John Robert Smith recently toured two northeastern Amtrak services with a group from the Southern Rail Commission to learn a few lessons about how those lines have spurred growth and development in the communities they connect. This in-depth AL.com story is a great follow-up to that trip, laying out exactly what’s happening down south, so don’t miss it.

Louisiana legislature makes a paradigm shift to better prioritize transportation dollars and restore public confidence

Louisiana passed a bill through the state House and Senate by unanimous votes last week that will make the process for spending transportation dollars more transparent and accountable to the public — a smart first step to increase public support for raising any new transportation funding.

At least 20 states have successfully raised new funding at the state level for transportation since 2012, a trend we’ve been tracking closely here at T4America. But all states are different, and in some states, raising new state funds for transportation can be a tough sell, especially if a skeptical public doesn’t have any faith in the process for spending the money already available.

Louisiana featured bridge construction Louisiana is taking some first steps to fix that process while also trying to raise new money. A recent bill to raise the state sales tax by one cent to fund major projects fell short in the House, though a few other bills to raise gas and general sales taxes to fund transportation projects are still active this session. As our Capital Ideas report from earlier this year noted, it can be challenging to develop public support for new transportation funding when voters have no certainty that those funds will be put to the best possible use.

One emerging strategy to restore public trust and confidence in an opaque and mysterious process is adopting the use of performance measures, which can demonstrate to the public what they’re going to get for their tax dollars.

The first step in a shift toward using performance measures is to establish what your goals are. And this just-approved Louisiana bill sponsored by Rep. Walt Leger, HB 742 (bill text), starts by laying out clear, understandable criteria in plain language “to prescribe the process by which the [Louisiana] Department of Transportation and Development (DOTD) shall select and prioritize certain construction projects.”

From the bill text:

The legislature declares it to be in the public interest that a prioritization process for construction be utilized to develop a Highway Priority Program that accomplishes the following:

Brings the state highway system into a good state of repair and optimizes the usage and efficiency of existing transportation facilities.

Improves safety for motorized and nonmotorized highway users and communities.

Supports resiliency in the transportation system, including safe evacuation of populations when necessitated by catastrophic events such as hurricanes and floods.

Increases accessibility for people, goods, and services.

Fosters diverse economic development and job growth, international and domestic commerce, and tourism.

Fosters multimodalism, promotes a variety of transportation and travel options, and encourages intermodal connectivity.

Encourages innovation and the use of technology.

Protects the environment, reduces emissions, and improves public health and quality of life.

That straightforward list goes beyond what’s currently being developed as part of MAP-21 and the typical measures of success used elsewhere.

This legislation is a marked improvement on the current state statutes governing how the Louisiana DOTD chooses transportation projects, which has been described as open-ended, unaccountable and a total mystery to the public. This bill represents one of the more ambitious overhauls of a state’s decision-making processes and an important first step toward improving the transparency and accountability of distributing transportation funds, setting Louisiana on a path of ensuring every transportation dollar provides the greatest benefit.

The bill has cleared both House and Senate is is currently waiting for Gov. Bobby Jindal’s signature. The Louisiana DOTD supported the bill, and starting in 2017, the department is expected to be utilizing the new project selection process.

The next logical step for Louisiana and other states creating goals like these above is to follow it up by creating measurable data points to serve as yardsticks. That way, the public can see this straightforward list of priorities, examine what the tangible, measurable (i.e., quantifiable) goals are, and then evaluate whether or not the state is spending their transportation dollars on the projects that can help them meet those goals.

T4America congratulates State Rep. Walt Leger, the chief sponsor of this bill, for constructing and pushing it through the legislature on unanimous votes. Rep. Leger is a member of T4America’s State Advocacy Network (START), created to support efforts to successfully pass state legislation to raise transportation funding while improving accountability for spending it.

If you’d like to find out more about START, visit this page and get in touch.

As many states close out their legislative sessions, the latest intel on state transportation funding

As we near the midpoint of the year and some state legislatures wrap up their sessions or approach recess, it’s a good time to take a look at where a few states stand on their efforts to raise new transportation funding.

In the only state to raise new money since our last update, Nebraska’s legislature passed and then overrode Republican Gov. Pete Ricketts’ veto (30-16) of a 6-cents-per-gallon gas tax increase, to be phased in over the next four years. The additional tax will annually bring in $25 million for state roads and $51 million to be distributed to cities and counties when fully implemented.

Follow state transportation funding updates for every state as they happen with T4America’s state funding tracker.

A handful of states have been searching for ways to improve transparency and accountability as a first step to raising new funding. In Louisiana, the House and Senate unanimously passed a bill in May that reforms the way the state DOT prioritizes and selects highway projects in an effort to provide greater transparency to the process. This strong piece of legislation was introduced and advanced by a member of T4A’s state advocacy network (START), House Speaker Pro Tempore Walt Leger.

(We hope to go into more detail soon on this trend of states either reforming their project selection process or expanding the use of performance measures, so stay tuned for that. -Ed.)

Additional bills that would raise gas and general sales taxes to fund transportation projects have cleared committee, though a bill to raise the state sales tax by one cent to fund major projects just fell short of the two-thirds majority it needed to pass the House last week.

Some other states are still active in their legislative sessions with transportation funding proposals on the docket, while a handful of others have failed to pass a package during this session.

California’s Senate is considering a bill that would hike the state gas tax by 10-cents-per-gallon (and the diesel tax by 12-cents-per-gallon), increase the vehicle tax to 1 percent of the value of the vehicle, increase registration fees by $35, and add a new $100 annual fee on electric vehicles.

Projections show the bill would bring in more than $4 billion annually. The bill has been cleared out of multiple senate committees. It requires a two-thirds supermajority to pass.

Just a year after Texas voters overwhelmingly approved a separate measure to set aside a portion of oil and gas royalties explicitly for highways, legislators in Texas have reached a deal that will direct a greater share of future state sales tax revenue to transportation. Specifically, $2.5 billion of the state sales tax revenue will be reserved for transportation, so long as overall sales tax receipts are at least $28 billion (approximately the collections this year). Additionally, 35% of revenue growth from taxes on vehicle sales and rentals will be set aside for transportation beginning in 2020, netting $250 million to $350 million annually.

The House and Senate have both passed the bill, and now it will need approval from Texas voters in November.

In Delaware, Gov. Markell is urging legislators to pass a $25 million annual increase in transportation funding through increased vehicle fees.

Minnesota’s legislature adjourned without reaching an agreement on how to increase funding for transportation and passed a status-quo budget instead. But with a special legislative session looming, there’s a possibility that legislators will have another opportunity to reach an agreement on new funding.

Similarly, Missouri failed to pass a transportation funding measure. The legislature had debated a 2-cent-per-gallon gas tax increase, but adjourned without passing the measure. According to that state’s DOT, legislators must come up with new state funding in their next session or the state will not have adequate money to match federal transportation dollars, leaving federal money on the table.

In Oregon, legislative negotiations over new transportation funding seem to have ground to a halt.

But Oregon is on the leading edge of testing a new mechanism for funding transportation that could serve as a model for the rest of the country, shifting away from a per-gallon tax to a tax on miles traveled. This month the state started enrolling 5,000 drivers into its new (voluntary for now) road usage charge program called OReGO. The new road usage charge program officially began Tuesday.

Michigan ballot measure to raise transportation & education funds goes down by a large margin

A Michigan bill that would have raised new money and overhauled how the state pays for transportation was defeated by huge margin Tuesday with 80 percent of voters rejecting the complicated proposal.

The bill would have eliminated the state’s fuel sales tax and raised the tax on wholesale gasoline sales to 41.7 cents per gallon (or 14.9 percent of a gallon of fuel’s base value, whichever is higher). This maneuver would have ensured that the entirety of the wholesale gas tax would have gone to transportation, compared to the current gas sales which does not.

To compensate for the loss of gasoline sales tax revenues currently going to municipalities and schools, the bill increased the sales tax on everything else statewide from six to seven percent and allocated the additional revenues to schools, local municipalities, and a tax break for low-income families.

The proposal would have also increased vehicle registration fees, commercial truck registration fees and would have instated a fee on electric vehicles.

While certainly disappointing to the supporters in Michigan, it reinforces the same lesson we’ve shared here regularly: transportation-related ballot measures have the best chance of passage when they are simple, specific and transparent about the money that will be raised and exactly where and how it will be spent. Voters have proven over and over again that they’ll support transportation ballot measures — if they meet some of those basic qualifications. Michigan’s measure surely suffered from the complexity and from the combination of education and transportation funding together into one proposal.

Some of the states still in play in 2015

Though there have been no new statewide funding packages passed since our last update here, other states are trying to bring transparency to the process of selecting transportation projects. Texas’s HB 20 tasks the TxDOT with creating “a performance-based planning and programming process” that would evaluate which transportation projects receive state money. Similarly, Louisiana’s HB 742 would require the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development to rank projects according to a series of measures that highlight which projects are most vital to the state.

Also in Louisiana, the House’s tax committee approved two funding bills. The first would raise the state’s sales tax by one cent, with the proceeds going towards 16 designated transportation projects. The second bill would increase the gas tax ten cents, from 20 cents per gallon to 30.

The Missouri Senate gave initial approval to a 1.5-cents-per-gallon gas tax increase (3.5 cents per gallon for diesel). The state’s gas tax has been 17.3 cents per gallon since 1992. The bill stills needs one more vote in the Senate before going to the House. There are only two weeks left in the state’s legislative session and it is unclear whether they will vote on the bill before then.

In Minnesota, where we recently documented the state’s prevalence of structurally deficient bridges, both the House and the Senate have passed transportation-funding bills, but the two differ greatly. The Senate proposal raises new funds via a gas tax increase and a Twin Cities regional sales tax increase. The House’s version mostly shifts dollars around or borrows funds for transportation. The issue has been pushed aside as legislators must also hash out a state budget before the May 18^th deadline.

Saving a transit system and turning the tide for the future of a mid-sized city

Last month, the citizens of Baton Rouge, LA, voted to raise their taxes to preserve and expand their struggling bus system. The landmark measure will nearly double transit funding — saving the system from meltdown while laying the groundwork for dramatically improved service.

To pass it, churches, faith-based groups and local organizers teamed up with businesses and institutions. As we’ve seen in similar local measures, they won by explaining exactly what taxpayer money would buy, building a diverse coalition and getting out the vote.

This in-depth story is part of our Transportation Vote 2012 coverage. Communities across the country are preparing to vote on the people, plans and projects that will set the tone for transportation progress in the months and years to come. These are the places that will provide the energy, innovation and inspiration for the next national vision for transportation. Transportation Vote 2012 will help educate voters, advocates and candidates and keep abreast of transportation-related issues as they unfold.

A crisis point

Even before the prolonged fiscal crisis hitting governments everywhere, Baton Rouge’s Capital Area Transit System (CATS) struggled to do more with less. Over the last few years, service had degraded to the point that the wait for a bus exceeded 75 minutes and average rides were over two hours long. The system was saved repeatedly only by last-ditch city budget shuffles, creative grants and even private donations.

The biggest recent blow came when Louisiana State University backed out of the CATS system after years of student complaints and contracted with a new (more expensive) private operator. That meant a loss of $2.4 million from the CATS annual budget.

In 2010, a parish-wide tax to support the transit system failed at the ballot box, in part because large parts of the parish (same as counties in other states) don’t use or have access to the service. When projections came in that the transit agency would be so far in the red they’d have to shut down in summer 2011, it became painfully clear that something major needed to be done.

After cobbling together grants and funding to make it through 2011, the mayor appointed a Blue Ribbon Commission to make recommendations not only to save the service, but to create something much better. But the first job was to save the system, as Rev. Raymond Jetson, the chair of that commission, told the Baton Rouge Advocate: “Before there can be a robust transit system, before you can do novel things like light rail between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, and before you can have street cars from downtown to LSU, you have to have a backbone to the system,” he said. “And that backbone is a quality bus system.”

The commission learned that Baton Rouge was the largest city of its size in the country to have a transit system without a dedicated revenue source, subsisting on annual local government appropriations.

But before putting a funding measure to voters, the commission recommended significant reforms to the composition of the transit board and an end to the ability of the Metro Council to veto the board’s decisions. “Governance reform and long term accountability … helped separate it from the previous failed measures,” said Broderick Bagert of Together Baton Rouge, a broad, multi-racial, faith-based coalition of institutions backing the measure.

Photo courtesy of Frank McMains, www.frankmcmains.com

So how did they do it?

Coalition building

The first step was to build the core coalition that would push this measure to victory.

Enter Together Baton Rouge, a relatively new organization of churches, faith-based groups, social workers, and university students and groups. Together Baton Rouge led the way as the grassroots behind the measure, coordinating call banks, get-out-the-vote rallies, more than 120 educational “transit academies” and door-to-door canvassing of tens of thousands of homes by hundreds of volunteers. (Note that LSU students chose to get actively involved even though CATS was no longer the provider of their transit service on campus.)

They began with three informational meetings with 300-400 people each, where “community members told other community members why things were bad and what the new plan was,” said Bagert.

“We asked two questions on the sign-in card: ‘Do you want to be part of a voter outreach campaign?’ and, ‘Are you part of an organization and would you be willing to organize one of these sessions?’ We built a strong base of people that wanted to help do outreach and educate their fellow community members.”

Photo courtesy of Together Baton Rouge

In part because of the groundwork of the Blue Ribbon Commission and other partnerships, the Baton Rouge Area Chamber got on board along with other business groups. Hotels and hospitals, whose leaders realized how much of their workforce depended on CATS each day, joined in.

Colletta Barrett, vice president of missions for Our Lady of the Lake hospital system told the Advocate that 10 percent of OLOL’s staff, or 400 people, use CATS.

It is imperative, she said, that a transit system is available to move people from North Baton Rouge to the medical corridor in the southern part of the parish.“It’s unacceptable that it takes an hour and 45 minutes to get to this side of town,” she said. “We have told our employees that we have an individual social responsibility to take care of each other.”

And:

Ralph Ney, hotel general manager for Embassy Suites [hotel], said about 15 percent of his workforce uses CATS to get to work, which sometimes results in his employees being late.

“It’s difficult to hire and maintain employees who don’t have transportation,” said Ney, who was a member of the Blue Ribbon Commission. “It’s evolved to where a lot of our employees don’t even take the bus because they can’t get to work on time, so they’re riding bikes or catching rides.”

A key part of the coalition was the Center for Planning Excellence (CPEX), a T4 America partner and non-profit that helps Louisiana communities with planning issues and addressing complex problems with effective, forward-thinking, implementable solutions. They became involved through their CONNECT initiative to build a diverse coalition across the New Orleans to Baton Rouge super region to advocate for smarter housing and transportation investments. The CONNECT initiative concluded that one of the critical pieces for regional connectivity is a viable, robust transit system serving the metro area. This was also strongly recommended in the new comprehensive plan for Baton Rouge, called FutureBR.

CPEX worked with many of the former members of the Blue Ribbon Commission to create the Baton Rouge Transit Coalition, a diverse set of partners who provided information, resources and conducted educational outreach to the Baton Rouge community. They hosted numerous outreach meetings, advocated for the changes to CATS governance in the state house, created a website that became a clearinghouse for facts and research during the campaign, and worked closely with the Baton Rouge Area Chamber to solicit support from the business community — in addition to being a strong part of the grassroots effort led primarily by Together Baton Rouge.

In the end, the boosters of the transit measure had built a coalition that had strong grassroots, wide reach, and a diverse range of interests. Without the participation of any one of the core coalition members — Together Baton Rouge’s grassroots and trusted community members, CPEX and their coalition of transit boosters and others, and the area Chamber and the business community — the effort would not have had the same success.

Trusted messengers — and message

Broderick Bagert of Together Baton Rouge summed up this strategy simply: “We let the community leaders be out front leading the way. Not professionals, not paid staff, not elected officials, not transit officials.”

“One of the strengths of this effort was that the plan was created by community leaders and many of the important people were already behind the plan,” said Rachel DiResto of CPEX. “It certainly took some effort to get new folks on board, but the important pillars were already on board. We didn’t need to convince them.”

For the message, especially in the key districts with heavy transit usage and service, the campaign kept it very basic. “Save our system.” They noted that Baton Rouge was the only city of its size without a decent transit system, and talked about the people who depend on it each day: Perhaps the nurse who cares for your mother at the hospital, or your neighbor or friend. The campaign steered clear of some of the typical statistics in transit campaigns about reducing traffic congestion, gas prices or environmental impacts.

The above story about the hospital and hotel workers shows how the advocates built a larger, inclusive narrative and a vision for the community’s future. The events were filled with personal stories and made the impact of the system (and the potential impacts of not having it or having it improved) clear to everyone, regardless of who they were, where they lived, or whether or not they rode CATS.

Success wasn’t due to being the smartest person in the room armed with the most data and facts. It was about making the impacts real and relatable through powerful stories helping people realize the bonds and impacts of community.

“Outreach, outreach, outreach”

To deliver that message, Together Baton Rouge and the coalition held an insanely ambitious number of community outreach sessions they called “transit academies” or “civic academies” in churches, community centers and other venues. In the four-month campaign leading up to the April 21 vote, they hosted 120 of these sessions.

“Anywhere anyone wanted to hear more, we did a presentation,” said DiResto of CPEX. “And it paid off with more people who hadn’t been active voters showing up at the polls for a special election.”

Photo courtesy of Together Baton Rouge

These meetings were largely targeted to areas and precincts where support and heavy turnout would be needed to shift the outcome of the vote. “The diversity of those meetings was a huge plus,” DiResto said. “People who would never ride CATS were sitting in the same meetings with those who ride it every day. And their stories really impacted the former.”

The Advocate told one such story, about Fred Skelton, a 70-year-old Baton Rouge homeowner who had never ridden a CATS bus before. But during one community meeting he said he would be “first in line at his voting precinct to support” the 10-year, 10.6-mill property tax. The reason, he said, is because before his mother died, she used to stay at a nursing home where he’d visit her. When he visited, he said, he remembered frequently seeing groups of employees waiting for the bus.

“Those people who were waiting for the bus are the people who were taking care of my mother,” he said. “If we shut down the transit system, who will take care of those people?”

Strategic precinct targeting

Resources are always limited in a campaign, and therefore best deployed where they can make the most impact. The overall strategy — change minds of people on the fence, increase support from typically opposed groups, or focus primarily on the base — determines where resources should be targeted.

One of the biggest differences between this successful measure and the recent failed measure in 2010 was the use of more strategic targeting of resources in key precincts. Though the campaign did deploy some resources in suburban areas with small amounts of service, mostly to blunt opposition, the brunt of their efforts focused on getting out the vote in their strongest precincts.

Canvassing team. Photo courtesy of Together Baton Rouge

“We did detailed analysis of the electorate,” said Bagert of Together Baton Rouge. “We referred to the recent failed measure for background, which helped analyze the lay of the land. We focused our direct energy on turning out the strongest [most supportive] precincts, leaving out voters that had no voting history in the last 4 years. We tried to get 10 percent of the 2008 presidential election voters to vote for the measure.”

As a result of this strategy, the campaign was well poised to bounce back and succeed when The Advocate threw a curveball late in the game and editorialized against the transit tax, which likely cost the campaign a significant amount of support in precincts with already low support or people and groups that were undecided.

Making the benefits tangible and measurable

Whether it is the federal program or a local ballot measure, voters need to know what our dollars are really “buying” at the end of the day. Are they going to fix our bridges? How will they better connect workers with jobs, make their lives eaier, save them money?

On this count, the coalition in Baton Rouge did an admirable job of making this crystal clear — backed in large part by the commission recommendations that had large buy-in from day one. In every meeting they offered a list of promised CATS improvements:

CATS promises the following changes if the tax passes:

Decreased average wait times for buses from 75 minutes to 15 minutes.

Eight new express and limited stop lines, serving the airport, universities, mall and other areas.

GPS tracking on the entire fleet, with exact arrival times accessible on cellphones.

New shelters, benches and signage at bus stops.

Expanded service to high-demand areas and increased routes, from 19 to 37.

Three new transfer centers operating in a grid system to replace the outdated route system that leads all buses back to Florida Boulevard.

A foundation for Bus Rapid Transit, a system in which buses get their own right-of-way lanes.

The ambitiousness of the promised changes was part of the success. Given the (somewhat unfair) perception that CATS was a poorly governed money drain, simply offering up a plan to pour money into CATS and hope for the best was not going to fly. People had to be inspired to believe that things actually would get better.

Similar specificity and transparency, including a long-range map of projects, helped win 67 percent of the vote for Measure R in Los Angeles. Supporters in Atlanta hope that a pre-approved list of transit and road projects will help convince voters to support a regional sales tax this July. The Baton Rouge formula – specific improvements, accountability reforms and relentless grassroots engagement – could offer a path to similar success.

Wrapping it up

The transit ballot measure was approved on April 21 in Baton Rouge, 54 percent to 46 percent and the municipality of Baker, 58 percent to 42 percent. In Zachary, a more suburban area with little service, it was rejected, 79 percent to 21 percent. Early returns showed the measure losing with only 40 percent support, but “then the precincts we had worked came in and voted in historic levels, supporting the measure at around 90 percent in those key precincts,” according to Bagert. “The key was really getting strong vote in supportive precincts.”

The story isn’t over, however.

The governance reforms for CATS, including changing the Metro Council’s veto power, are still passing through the state legislature. (The council’s veto power over changes in fares, routes, schedules and other operations was cited by the Blue Ribbon Commission as a key factor crippling the transit system.) The board nominating process will also change so that 13 different groups that have a stake in transit system (hospitals, businesses, etc.) can nominate members to the board.

Though some groups that were opposed are considering some legal challenges to the tax itself, the Baton Rouge story shows us a great success story of how a community rallied around their important transit system, fought to save it and improve it, and built a winning campaign to do exactly that.

Advice for others

Facing a ballot measure in your area? Planning one? Here are four last smart pieces of advice to take with you from Rachel DiResto from the Center for Planning Excellence.

Bring core partners to the table early and find your champions who have to be willing to speak well to various audiences and who are willing to expend time and energy for your cause;
Frequent communication with other partners is critical to maximize resources and not duplicate efforts;
Focus on the voter outcome – grassroots advocacy is essential – target those folks who are supportive and mobilize them to show up to vote instead of spending all of your energy combatting those opposed.
Frequent outreach to different sectors – know your message for various audiences

The election day team for Mid City. Photo courtesy of Together Baton Rouge

Excited? Encouraged? Learn something that you didn’t know before? Let us know in the comments.

Our sincere thanks go out to Broderick Bagert of Together Baton Rouge and Rachel DiResto and Lacy Strohschein of the Center for Planning Excellence for their time and information for the behind-the-scenes story of their success. And also to Rebekah Allen of the Advocate, whose solid reporting on the issue for the last few years was invaluable for understanding and background, as well as the source of valuable quotes.

Follow all Transportation Vote 2012 coverage here.