Skip to main content

Tag: minnesota

Minnesota takes important steps to drive down emissions

To address urgent climate needs, every state will need to make it possible for their residents to drive less every day. But too many shy away from taking concrete steps to do so, putting all of their efforts into improving fuel efficiency and electric vehicle adoption. The Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) just took a key step in the fight against climate change: setting an ambitious target for reducing driving (measured as vehicle miles traveled, or VMT). 

Riders on a bus in the Twin Cities of Minnesota, June 2020. Photo by Metro Transit.

The Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) recently made a highly anticipated decision to adopt a number of recommendations from the state’s Sustainable Transportation Advisory Council (STAC) made in December 2020, including setting a preliminary statewide goal for a 20 percent VMT reduction statewide and per capita by 2050. For the average Minnesota driver, that will mean traveling about 45 miles less per week in 2050 than today. 

MnDOT’s VMT reduction target is preliminary, and will be finalized after engaging the public and stakeholders through the Statewide Multimodal Transportation Plan process that will occur throughout 2021. MnDOT may also set interim targets, as well as different targets for the Twin Cities region (which already has locally-established targets) compared to the rest of the state.

Minnesota has already had some success reducing emissions from the transportation sector in recent years, particularly compared to some of its peers, but setting VMT reduction goals has been a gap in the state’s efforts. We highlighted the need for VMT reduction targets with our partners at Move Minnesota in our Minnesota case study for our Driving Down Emissions report, as have local advocates and stakeholders, so it is great to see the state step out as a national leader working toward reducing the need to drive. 

This step is a big deal—most states are still heavily focused on improving fuel efficiency standards and electric vehicle adoption with little or no emphasis on how growing VMT is undercutting those efforts. This is shortsighted and leaves valuable strategies that would also create more livable and equitable communities on the table. 

Importantly, MnDOT also plans to develop an approach for estimating the VMT that will result from its program and proposed projects by assessing both induced demand from adding lanes and reduced demand from increasing walking access. MnDOT will also evaluate the accuracy of existing travel demand forecasting methods—an important step, since many traditional forecasting models have a poor track record of accuracy and can prompt premature or unnecessary highway expansions that induce more driving and more emissions. 

Minnesota isn’t the only state taking action this month to reduce emissions by reducing the need to drive. The California State Transportation Agency (CalSTA) recently released a public discussion draft of its plan to reduce VMT. The Climate Action Plan for Transportation Infrastructure (CAPTI), created in response to Governor Gavin Newsom’s executive order, will be finalized later this year. It includes 28 action items with a number of potential strategies aimed at reducing driving, including pricing, using state transportation funds to incentivize land use decisions that reduce the need to drive, and establishing VMT mitigation banks that allow transportation project sponsors to purchase VMT allowances if their project will induce more driving, creating a fund for VMT-reduction projects. 

California’s plan also includes strategies aimed at addressing the transportation system’s entrenched inequities, such as pollutants that disproportionately affect low-income and minority communities. And California has also already developed an approach for estimating the induced driving that will result from its highway projects, which other states can and should adopt. 

We are very excited to see MnDOT take bold steps to address climate change emissions in transportation by addressing the role the transportation system plays in forcing people to drive more and further. They are showing themselves to be leaders and we hope to see many more states follow.

Driving Down Emissions in Minnesota

State and local policymakers have an important role to play in making it possible for people to drive less, which is essential for lowering transportation emissions. With our partners at Move Minnesota we produced a new case study companion to Driving Down Emissions looking at how Minnesota has seen some success reducing transportation emissions, why that progress won’t be sufficient, and how to stop leaving valuable strategies to create more livable and equitable communities on the table. 

Our new report, Driving Down Emissions, identifies strategies that can help make a significant dent in growing transportation emissions while building a more just society simply by allowing Americans to drive less to accomplish daily needs. While national policy changes will be needed to address that goal, many state and local governments continue to create barriers by over-investing in new highway infrastructure and imposing onerous government regulations that make it nearly impossible to build more housing in walkable and transit-accessible places.

There is a lot that other states could learn from Minnesota. The state and its localities have taken a number of valuable steps to make it possible to drive less. Yet Minnesota also faces challenges common to many other states—including an overreliance on future electric vehicles to reduce emissions at the expense of strategies that can be used right now to help people get around outside of a car.  

Read on for a summary of our Minnesota case study, and download the full version here.

The good news: progress reducing transportation emissions, and clear opportunities to do more

Minnesota has had some success reducing emissions from the transportation sector in recent years, particularly compared to some of its peers. The state’s annual transportation emissions peaked in the mid-2000s and then dropped 13 percent between 2005 and 2009. The state achieved this reduction partially by keeping driving per person in check, with annual miles driven per-person declining slightly between 2005 and 2017 (total miles driven annually has risen slightly).  Minnesota has maintained that lower level since in contrast to national transportation emissions which began to climb since the last recession. 

Minnesota also has a solid foundation to do more to make it possible for residents to drive less. The Twin Cities region (home to 65 percent of the state’s population) has made several strategic investments in light rail and bus rapid transit expansion, and has seen ridership increase on those lines in contrast to declining transit ridership elsewhere in the U.S. Outside of the Twin Cities, communities from Alexandria to Biwabik have made real progress making their streets safer for walking and biking, thanks in part to the state’s Complete Streets program and related initiatives.

The City of Minneapolis passed a comprehensive plan in 2018 to allow the addition of more housing in neighborhoods throughout the city while eliminating parking requirements, changes that have the potential to make a significant impact. In most urban areas in the U.S., the supply of affordable housing in walkable, transit-accessible neighborhoods is artificially constrained by government-mandated zoning requirements. Removing those restrictions will allow more housing in the region and make it more affordable to live in the city, mitigating future sprawl and the additional driving it would cause while addressing a continued source of economic and racial discrimination in the region. 

Leaving valuable strategies on the table with an over reliance on electric vehicles

Despite those successes, Minnesota’s progress is just a start, and the state is not currently on track to meet its emissions reductions targets. Like many states, Minnesota has a legacy of prioritizing highway infrastructure that continues to have lasting impacts without further change. Sprawl continues to force more driving—in fact, the counties surrounding the Twin Cities are the main contributor to the state’s overall growth in driving annually.

Unfortunately the Minnesota Department of Transportation’s (MnDOT’s) plans for decarbonizing the transportation sector largely downplay reducing driving as an option. Instead, they rely heavily on ambitious assumptions about future electric vehicle adoption—and even on as-of-yet undeveloped biofuels technology—despite the fact that Minnesota has lagged behind the national average in adoption of electric vehicles. 

This is shortsighted and will lead the state to miss major opportunities. It also won’t address the needs of Minnesotans who can’t afford a car or are otherwise unable to drive, perpetuating existing inequities. Reducing the need to drive in Minnesota is not only doable, it’s what many Minnesotans want. Outreach conducted by MnDOT has shown broad public appetite for more walkable and less car-dependent communities. In fact, “walkable and bikeable communities” and “improved public transit” received the greatest support as a decarbonization strategy in MnDOT’s outreach, along with electric buses and trains. 

It makes no sense to leave any emissions reduction strategy untouched, especially when Minnesota has had success reducing driving in the past. The state should do more of what it knows works.
Read the full case study.

Get to know Minnesota’s new Community Vitality Fellow Marcus Young

As announced earlier this week, Marcus Young, a behavioral artist, will be embedded within the Minnesota Department of Transportation for a year serving as an artist-in-residence in a program created by Smart Growth America. Marcus will be taking a fresh look at the agency’s goals to promote economic vitality, improve safety, support multimodal transportation systems, and create healthier communities.  

Photo of Marcus Young by Ryan Stopera.

With this announcement, the Minnesota Department of Transportation becomes the second statewide agency to host an artist-in-residence, following the launch of Washington State DOT’s similar program last week. Marcus took a few minutes to answer some questions about the upcoming fellowship.

What was it about the MnDOT Community Vitality Fellowship that inspired you to apply? Now that you’ve been selected, what excites you most about the Fellowship?

When I saw the posting I knew this was a very forward-thinking opportunity created by MnDOT and Smart Growth America. A few years back I finished a nine-year tenure as City Artist in St. Paul where we helped define what was possible when artists work alongside government. Having a chance to develop the idea at the state level seemed like a natural next exploration. It’s an opportunity too intriguing not to jump in and see what happens.

This type of creative endeavor comes with a good dose of mystery. I look forward to moving along the borders of known and unknown, grateful for what we already have in Minnesota yet seeking the hidden possibilities for change. Bringing a creative spirit to this everyday context, I hope to engage our desire to live a good life and everyone’s yearning for a more just world.

While you’ll have a lot of time to formulate project ideas once the Fellowship starts, what are your initial thoughts on how you’ll approach the Fellowship?

Beginner’s mind. The concept articulated by Shunryu Suzuki that says the beginner’s mind is full of possibility. I sometimes joke that my nine years at the position in St. Paul was a practice in always being the dumbest person in the room, the one who knew the least. That person, however, has the outsider perspective and maybe the beginner’s mind too. That person can help bridge ideas across a long distance. To go a long distance is a meaningful journey, a powerful lesson. I will come to the Fellowship with as open a mind and heart as possible, open to all possibilities. At the same time, I hope that my more than 20 years as a professional artist in music, theater, and behavioral art ─ things that on the surface may not appear to connect to transportation ─ will serve me well. That is the distance I will enjoy traveling.

Tell us about one of your recent projects that you feel is relevant to the Fellowship.

I created Everyday Poems for City Sidewalk, a work of art that started in 2008 and is ongoing because it’s woven into the city’s infrastructure system. The project takes the $1 million maintenance budget to repair 10 miles of sidewalk each year in St. Paul and, without disturbing the original function of sidewalk repair, has added the function of publishing poetry.

More than 10 years since it premiered, the project has created more than 1,000 installations, with more than 20 percent of city land within a 2-minute walk radius of a poem created by this one project. The city is a book, a very large book. The project created a new platform for the creative voices of local residents. The dream is to pave all the streets in St. Paul with poetry.

In our Arts, Culture, and Transportation Field Scan, we profiled seven roles that artists play in solving transportation challenges, from generating creative solutions to healing wounds and divisions. How would you describe your approach as an artist working on transportation projects and how might your work resonate with or expand beyond those seven roles?

I think my role will be to ask a lot of “what ifs,” and probably most of them won’t be practical. Hopefully, however, getting used to asking playful, creative, even far-fetched questions can itself be helpful. Beyond that I will look for even just one far-fetched “what if” that becomes a “yes, it’s possible.”

What kind of professional or personal experiences do you have in work that might be specific to Minnesota state? What lessons from your work outside of Minnesota do you hope to bring to the residency at MnDOT?

Do you know of Mierle Laderman Ukeles? She has been the artist-in-residence at the New York City Department of Sanitation for more than 40 years. She’s very inspiring, and I think everyone working in this exciting and elusive business of pairing artists with government should know her story and her work. She created the concept of “maintenance art.” To maintain, to keep things alive, to keep us all alive and going, is art. I can think of no more creative act than to inspire, shape, and fulfill our basic, everyday lives beautifully. How can we make the everyday things we do across the state a work of art?

Marcus Young to be Minnesota Department of Transportation’s first Community Vitality Fellow

CONTACT: Ben Stone, bstone@smartgrowthamerica.org / 410.370.3843 and Jessica Oh, jessica.oh@state.mn.us /651-366-4939.

Transportation for America and the Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) are excited to announce MnDOT’s inaugural Community Vitality Fellow, Marcus Young. Young will be embedded within the agency for a year in its Saint Paul headquarters where he will serve as an artist-in-residence, taking a fresh look at the agency’s goals to promote economic vitality, improve safety, support multimodal transportation systems, and create healthier communities.

The Minnesota Department of Transportation joins Smart Growth America’s artist-in-residence program as the second statewide agency to host an artist-in-residence, following the launch of Washington State DOT’s artist-in-residence program last week. 

About the program

Mr. Young will gain a thorough understanding of the inner workings of a state department of transportation, while supporting MnDOT’s efforts to encourage local public-private partnerships that support the aesthetic, environmental, social and cultural values of communities within transportation projects. The project(s) executed during the residency will be developed in close partnership with T4America and MnDOT. The MnDOT Fellow will be tasked with exploring the following:

  • Developing processes and procedures to further evaluate and integrate elements that elevate the unique character of each community within the transportation system.
  • Bringing creative problem solving skills and strategic thinking to design challenges, while providing guidance on potential improvements to how MnDOT plans, builds, operates and maintains its infrastructure using community feedback.
  • Piloting innovative public engagement strategies to further build customer trust as set forth in the MnDOT 2018-2022 Strategic Operating Plan by engaging a wide range of stakeholders, including elected officials, tribal governments, community organizations and transportation partners. 

About Marcus Young

Photo of Marcus Young by Laichee Yang courtesy of Ananya Dance Theatre.

It is not artist Marcus Young’s first foray into government. Young served as the City Artist for the City of St. Paul for nine years where he created Everyday Poems for City Sidewalks, a work of art that has embedded more than 1,000 poems created by city residents into city streets. Young has a background in theater, music and dance and calls himself a “behavioral artist” who wants to approach this role with humility and curiosity. He is a recipient of awards from the McKnight, Bush, and Jerome Foundations, and received his MFA from the University of Minnesota. 

“Working alongside MnDOT, I’ll be searching for obvious and hidden possibilities for change, moving along the borders of known and unknown,” explains Young. “Approaching the context of government with a creative spirit, I hope to engage all Minnesotans’ desire to live a good life and their yearning for a more just world.”

The team at MnDOT is thrilled to welcome Young onto their team, and looks forward to engaging his expertise as an artist embedded in government and interest in equity. “Marcus Young brings an openness, curiosity and deep listening to his approach working within government agencies,” says Jessica Oh, Highway Sponsorship Director with MnDOT’s Office of Land Management. “He is interested in how art can create a more equitable world, both representational and lived, and his artistic practice considers those that are not at the table. We think this is a great fit for the agency.”

“The quality and quantity of artists who applied for the Community Vitality Fellowship blew away our selection committee, and we’re thrilled to have selected Marcus Young to serve as MnDOT’s first ever artist-in-residence,” said Ben Stone, Smart Growth America’s director of arts & culture. “Marcus’ deep history working within government as a City Artist with the City of St Paul, his intellectual curiosity, and his interest in behavioral art and relationship-building make Marcus an ideal fit for the position. I can’t wait to get started working with Marcus and to see all of the creative ideas he develops over the coming year.”

About artists embedded in government

Recognized as a tool for pioneering innovative and creative solutions, artist-in-residence programs have been piloted across the nation in municipal governmental agencies, including the cities of Los Angeles and Seattle, but until 2019, never before at a statewide agency. In Fergus Falls, MN, artists-in-residence have increased cultural programming to support community development. In Lanesboro, MN, the artists-in-residence have used art as a catalyst for deeper community engagement. In Minneapolis, artists-in-residence have used theatre to help the city’s Regulatory Services Department develop more empathetic policies and better relate to their constituents, while St Paul’s artists-in-residence have worked to make community meetings more creative, fun, and productive.

Support for the Fellowship

Smart Growth America, ArtPlace America, the McKnight Foundation, and MnDOT collaborated on creating the Community Vitality Fellowship position. Transportation for America (T4America) will administer both the funds and the overall program, including providing staff and consulting assistance. The State Smart Transportation Initiative (SSTI) will also provide staff support. Both T4America and SSTI are programs of Smart Growth America. MnDOT will supply in-kind contributions consisting of work space for the selected Fellow and staff time for agency workers to collaborate on the groundbreaking new program.

Transportation for America (T4America) is a national nonprofit that supports a transportation system that safely, affordably and conveniently connects people of all means and all abilities to jobs, services and opportunity through multiple modes of travel with minimal impact to communities and the environment. We accomplish this through research, advocacy, technical assistance and thought leadership. T4America is a program of Smart Growth America.

Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) oversees transportation by all modes, including land, water, air, rail, transit, walking and bicycling. The agency is responsible for maintaining, building and operating the state highway system to ensure a safe, accessible, efficient and reliable transportation system that connects people to destinations and markets throughout the state, regionally and around the world.

##

Minnesota Department of Transportation to host a Community Vitality Fellow to advance transportation goals

Minnesota Department of Transportation joins Smart Growth America’s artist-in-residence program, by hosting a Community Vitality Fellow to creatively meet the agency’s goals of promoting economic vitality, improving safety, supporting multimodal transportation systems and creating healthier communities.  

A Community Vitality Fellow will spend a year working with the Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) to help develop new ways to achieve agency goals through a program created by ArtPlace America and Transportation for America, a program of Smart Growth America. MnDOT will be among the first state transportation agencies in the country to participate in the artist-in-residence program by hosting a Community Vitality Fellowship position.

Applications are now open for artists interested in the year-long Fellowship position, which will be located within the St. Paul Office of MnDOT. The call for artists and application can be found here: https://www.smartgrowthamerica.org/program/arts-culture/mndot-air

Learn More & Apply Here

Have questions? Watch a recording of our recent webinar about the program.

Recognized as a tool for pioneering innovative and creative solutions, artist-in-residence programs have been piloted across the nation in municipal governmental agencies, including the cities of Los Angeles and Seattle, but never before at a statewide agency. In Fergus Falls, Minnesota, artists-in-residence have increased cultural programming to support community development. In Lanesboro, MN, the artists-in-residence have used art as a catalyst for deeper community engagement. In Minneapolis, artists-in-residence have used theatre to help the city’s Regulatory Services Department staff develop more empathetic policies and better relate to their constituents, while St Paul’s artists-in-residence have worked to make community meetings more creative, fun, and productive.

Several organizations collaborated on the Community Vitality Fellowship position, including Smart Growth America, ArtPlace America and MnDOT. Transportation for America (T4A) will administer both the funds and the overall program, including providing staff and consulting assistance. The State Smart Transportation Initiative (SSTI) will also provide staff support. Both T4A and SSTI are programs of Smart Growth America. MnDOT will supply in-kind contributions consisting of work space for the selected Fellow and staff time for agency workers to collaborate on the groundbreaking new program.

“Artists can provide fresh approaches and new ways of doing things, interpret complex processes, and provide unique perspectives for existing programs,” said Ben Stone, Smart Growth America’s director of arts & culture. “While a handful of cities have embedded artists in various departments over the years, MnDOT will be the second statewide agency to embark on such a program. We’re excited to be a part of helping Minnesota harness arts and creativity to create better supported and more beloved transportation projects that help accomplish the state’s goals.” Minnesota will join Washington State DOT in joining the artist-in-residence program with Smart Growth America by hosting a Community Vitality Fellow.

Why employ a Community Vitality Fellow?

MnDOT is interested in creative ways of engaging communities and bringing in new partners to help solve problems in the delivery of efficient and dependable transportation systems. Transportation infrastructure that reflects the assets and distinct character of communities will enhance economic vitality and community development efforts across the state.

What will the Community Vitality Fellow do?

The Fellowship will run for one year with rotations through MnDOT’s core divisions to gain knowledge on the agency’s operations, priorities and challenges. The Fellow will then propose process improvements to address MnDOT’s overarching goals while improving community engagement, supporting safe places to walk and bike and enhancing equity in the planning, building, operations and maintenance of transportation infrastructure. The Fellow will develop processes and procedures to further evaluate and integrate elements that elevate the unique character of each community within the transportation system.

Cities across the country have engaged fellowships and artists-in-residences to support their efforts. The Los Angeles Department of Transportation’s artists-in-residence have installed interactive artistic elements to bus shelters, taught storytelling skills to the DOT staff to help them better communicate their projects to the public, and served as a bridge between transportation advocates and DOT staff.

“We are delighted to support the establishment of a Community Vitality Fellowship to the Minnesota Department of Transportation. Embedding artists in state government can transform the way transportation challenges are solved,” said Sarah Calderon, ArtPlace America’s Managing Director. “MnDOT will establish a valuable Fellowship model for how artists can contribute toward the planning, creation and utilization of safe, sustainable and integrated multimodal transportation system and share results with state departments of transportation across the county.”

The Fellow will be based in MnDOT’s headquarters in St Paul, but may also work from one of MnDOT’s district offices in greater Minnesota for part of the Fellowship.

CONTACT: Ben Stone, bstone@smartgrowthamerica.org / 410.370.3843 and Jessica Oh, jessica.oh@state.mn.us /651-366-4939.

Equal Opportunity Employment

Equal opportunity and having a diverse staff are fundamental principles at Transportation for America. Employment and promotional opportunities are based upon individual capabilities and qualifications without regard to race, color, religion, gender, pregnancy, sexual orientation/preference, age, national origin, marital status, citizenship, disability, veteran status, or any other protected characteristic as established under law.

###

Transportation for America is an alliance of elected, business, and civic leaders from communities across the country, united to ensure that states and the federal government step up to invest in smart, homegrown, locally-driven transportation solutions — because these are the investments that hold the key to our future economic prosperity. T4America is a program of Smart Growth America. www.t4america.org

The State Smart Transportation Initiative promotes transportation practices that advance environmental sustainability and equitable economic development, while maintaining high standards of governmental efficiency and transparency. It is jointly operated by the University of Wisconsin and Smart Growth America.

ArtPlace America is a ten-year collaboration among a number of foundations, federal agencies, and financial institutions. We began our work as an organization in 2011, and will finish in 2020. Our mission is to position arts and culture as a core sector of community planning and development.

Minnesota Department of Transportation oversees transportation by all modes, including land, water, air, rail, transit, walking and bicycling. The agency is responsible for maintaining, building and operating the state highway system to ensure a safe, accessible, efficient and reliable transportation system that connects people to destinations and markets throughout the state, regionally and around the world.

One more reason buses are cool (literally)

Just before the end of 2018, Transportation for America traveled to Thermo King’s headquarters in Bloomington, MN to get an up close look at the economic impact of public transportation dollars on Minnesota’s manufacturing jobs. Joined by several state and local leaders, Thermo King shared with the group how their high-quality HVAC systems fit into the public transit supply chain.

That welcome rush of cool air when you step onto a bus in the midst of a summer heatwave? You may be experiencing the comfort of a Thermo King cooling system. Back in 1955, Thermo King developed their first air conditioning unit for passenger buses and have been supplying HVAC systems for buses and rail cars ever since. We visited Thermo King’s headquarters in Bloomington, MN to see where they test and design their products.

We worked with the Minneapolis Regional Chamber to bring together several state leaders including Representative Andrew Carlson, Representative Jon Koznik, and Senator Melissa Wiklund, as well as local leaders like Bloomington City Council Member Tim Busse, and members of Bloomington Chamber of Commerce and East Metro Strong. The discussion focused on how federal, state, and local money invested in public transportation supports and creates jobs in Minnesota and across the country.

Investment in public transit not only supports about 500 jobs at Bloomington’s Thermo King facility, but more than 15,000 manufacturing jobs nationwide. Many of those manufacturers and suppliers rely heavily on a trained and consistent workforce. Without stable funding from state and federal partners, these jobs might be lost. That’s a very real threat given that the Trump administration has repeatedly called for eliminating all federal funding for transit capital improvements. And many state governments are quick to cut transit funding when budgets get tight. The transit supply chain and the effects of those cuts aren’t often well understood.

The bottom line is that when we invest in public transit, we are investing in well-paying jobs in communities across America. From assembling busses in Crookston, MN to producing bus seats in Elkhart, IN, or manufacturing rail tracks in Cleveland, OH the public transit supply chain is vast and relies on tens of thousands of hard-working Americans across the country.

Crookston, MN: Where investment in public transit and hard-working Americans “help buses come alive”

Last week Transportation for America traveled to one of New Flyer of America’s transit bus manufacturing facilities in northern Minnesota to meet with state and local leaders like State Representative Deb Kiel, and get a close look at the economic impact of public transportation dollars on Minnesota manufacturing jobs.

State and local leaders get an inside look at New Flyer of America’s transit bus production line in Crookston, MN. New Flyer proudly flies both the US and Canadian flag as part of NFI Group Inc., a multinational company and North America’s largest bus manufacturer with 31 facilities across the U.S. and Canada.

When Americans think about transit, the first thing that comes to mind might be a bus or train moving people in a coastal, bustling urban area. But the work of manufacturing that bus or railcar—as well as its thousands of component parts— is made possible by the billions in state, local, and federal funds invested in transit each year. And those dollars have effects that ripple out to communities of nearly all sizes across the country.

Last week, we convened state and local leaders like State Representative Deb Kiel, Crookston Mayor Wayne Melbye, staff from U.S. Representative Colin Peterson’s office, and others at New Flyer of America’s transit bus manufacturing facility in Crookston, MN for a discussion about how federal, state, and local money invested in public transportation supports and creates jobs in Minnesota and across the country.


(Left) Jennifer McNeill, New Flyer Vice President of Sales and Marketing talks with Craig Hoiseth, Executive Director at Crookston Housing & Economic Development Authority. (Right) Second from right, Rep. Deb Kiel, and other local leaders hear from New Flyer about the inner workings of the Crookston facility.

Crookston, located in the far northwest corner of the Minnesota, is home to one of New Flyer of America’s four transit bus manufacturing facilities in the U.S. New Flyer of America serves all 25 of the largest transit agencies in North America, and is responsible for about half of the transit buses we see on our roads today.

Each week at the Crookston facility alone, they produce about 20 buses that end up serving communities across the U.S. On the tour we saw technicians in this small, rural community in Minnesota hard at work to build buses destined for cities like Phoenix and San Francisco, painting a compelling picture of just how the supply chain for transit ripples from coast to coast.

New Flyer employs over 1,200 people between its two manufacturing facilities in Minnesota. Like many manufacturers, New Flyer needs a trained and consistent workforce to succeed; both time and money are wasted if you have to retrain a workforce every few years. As Jennifer McNeill, New Flyer Vice President of Sales and Marketing, noted, these are skilled manufacturing jobs, not jobs that can be switched on and off as needed.


(Left) New Flyer employees building out the inside of a bus. (Right) Chairman of Transportation for America, John Robert Smith, speaks to the economic impact of public transportation dollars on manufacturing jobs.

70 percent of New Flyer’s buses are purchased with public dollars, and it’s clear that these Minnesota manufacturing jobs—and others in Alabama, Indiana, Kentucky, New York, Washington, and Wisconsin—are directly reliant on the federal government continuing to make smart investments in transit.

Unfortunately, ongoing transit funding isn’t entirely certain today. The U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) has been slow to award grants from the major federal program that helps communities make new investments in high-quality transit service. But the issue goes beyond discretionary grant programs. Congress has had difficulty passing multi-year transportation funding bills and finding dedicated funding sources for transportation. Before passing the FAST Act in December 2015 (which funds federal transportation investments through 2020), Congress passed 35 short-term extensions, which creates the kind of uncertainty that threatens manufacturing jobs that depend on a stable pipeline of orders and projects.

Federal money invested in public transportation each year leverages local and state funding and supports thousands of high paying manufacturing jobs in communities like Crookston, and in nearly every state across the country. Our recent report on the public transportation supply chain found that 91 percent [396 of 435] of congressional districts host at least one manufacturer.

Without predictable and stable federal and state funding, we may see transit agencies cut projects and be pressured to cancel bus and railcar orders from manufacturers across the country like New Flyer.

Federal investments in transit go far beyond building buses and trains for big cities. The transit supply chain supports high quality, valuable, and sustainable jobs in communities like Crookston all across the country. As members of Congress are considering federal appropriations and future long-term transportation funding bills, they should remember the hard working Americans in communities of all sizes that depend on transit funding.  

Photo courtesy of New Flyer

Irrigate: Turning a huge Twin Cities construction project into an opportunity

Though the new Green Line light rail line would finally connect the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul with rail transit, business owners, local leaders, and advocates raised red flags about construction disrupting the corridor’s businesses as well as immigrant and communities of color. To mitigate these negative effects, Springboard for the Arts and other local organizations created a series of artistic interventions that did more than merely prevent painful disruptions; they helped the corridor thrive during a period of vulnerability.

Irrigate photos courtesy of Springboard for the Arts, shared by Jun-Li.

Relight the Victoria by artist Nick Clausen. Photos courtesy of Springboard for the Arts, shared by Jun-Li.

This feature is part of arts and culture month at T4America, where we’re sharing a handful of stories about how arts and culture are a vital part of building better transportation projects and stronger communities. This feature is adapted from a longer case study featured in T4America’s and ArtPlace America’s upcoming field scan on arts, culture and transportation due to be released next Wednesday, September 27. Sign up for our new Arts & Culture email list to be notified first.

The Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul have long been culturally, economically, and geographically linked, but until 2014 they lacked a meaningful, modern rail connection. The Green Line, originally known as the Central Corridor, was a new light rail line planned to run primarily along University Avenue between Minneapolis and St. Pau The area is home to a large number of immigrants and communities of color, and already has a painful history of disconnection and displacement from the construction of I-94 right through the middle of many of the same neighborhood decades ago.

With a disruptive construction project planned, civic leaders feared that months of negative press, dust, and noise might bankrupt businesses and lead to a black eye for the project before it ever opened.

In response to this concern, Springboard for the Arts, a nationally recognized community and economic development organization based in St. Paul, the Twin Cities Local Initiatives Support Coalition, and the City of St. Paul created Irrigate, a “community development strategy that mobilizes the skills and creativity of local artists to create innovative, meaningful, authentic solutions to local challenges.”

Irrigate photos courtesy of Springboard for the Arts, shared by Jun-Li.

Irrigate photos courtesy of Springboard for the Arts, shared by Jun-Li.

Springboard trained 600 artists from the neighborhoods around the rail line to collaborate with businesses and organizations along University Avenue. A total of 220 artists completed 150 creative placemaking projects over 36 months that were designed bring attention, customers, joy and beauty to the spaces and businesses adjacent to the construction. Irrigate projects included musical and theatrical performances in businesses, artistic installations in construction fencing, dance workshops, interactive musical benches, murals, street theatre and performances, and much more.

Flamenco Christmas on the Green Line: A Processional of Song and Dance by Deborah Elias. Photo by Rudy Arnold.

These projects completely changed the narrative about the long construction project and transformed the coverage. They generated more than 51 million positive earned media impressions, which spread stories about the people, neighborhoods and businesses sharing University Avenue and helped to connect new and old customers to the businesses during construction. As Nancy Homans, Policy Director for the City of St. Paul explained,

While the City of Saint Paul tried feverishly to garner positive coverage for the benefits of transit that the Central Corridor would bring to the community, their positive message was consistently diluted in the media by negative stories about the impact of construction. As Irrigate projects began popping up along the Corridor…the magic of art started a different conversation. Irrigate’s public process engaging artists from the community to support local businesses provided a nimble and creative way to influence the narrative and change community perceptions of the value of community development.

Businesses reported that Irrigate projects helped them maintain visibility and reach new customers, and Springboard felt that the project helped to change the narrative of the corridor, build social capital among neighbors and businesses, and increase the prosperity of small businesses in the corridor. Ultimately, when opening day arrived, the mood was one of celebration, instead of just relief after enduring the collateral damage that would have come from a painful construction process.

Opening day on the Green Line. Flickr photo by Michael Hicks. https://www.flickr.com/photos/mulad/14238058898/

Opening day on the Green Line. Flickr photo by Michael Hicks. https://www.flickr.com/photos/mulad/14238058898/

As with many of their successful projects, Springboard published a toolkit for communities who want guidance on running a similar program during construction. Irrigate has also been featured on ArtPlace’s website, in a documentary video, and in T4A’s Scenic Route Guide.

—

This project is one of the many case studies that will be featured in Transportation for America’s upcoming field scan on arts, culture and transportation, commissioned by ArtPlace America, to be released next Wednesday, September 27. The field scan is intended to examine the ways in which transportation professionals are exploring new creative, collaborative and contextually-specific approaches to engage the community in more inclusive processes for planning and building new transportation projects.

Stay tuned for more about arts and culture during the rest of September.

State legislative stalemate jeopardizing millions in federal transit funding for Minneapolis rail project

Business leaders and suburban mayors in the Twin Cities are pleading with state legislators, urging them not to throw away dedicated federal funding for a long-planned regional transit expansion by dropping the state’s financial commitment. Updated 9/1 with new information at the bottom of the post.

Opening day on the Green Line. Flickr photo by Michael Hicks. /photos/mulad/14238058898/

Opening day on the Green Line. Flickr photo by Michael Hicks. /photos/mulad/14238058898/

One of the major bills Minnesota legislators have been aiming to hammer out in a special session this fall is a capital bonding and transportation package to raise new state funding for transportation. But so far, Gov. Mark Dayton, the DFL-controlled Senate and the House Republican majority have failed to agree on a much larger package of tax cuts, transportation and infrastructure improvements — a package intended to include promised state funding to extend the existing Green Line light rail southwest into Minneapolis’ suburbs toward Eden Prairie.

Though $900 million in federal New Starts transit funds and $750 million in local tax funding have been pledged and $140 million has already been spent, this political stalemate over the state’s $135 million share is threatening to kill the project and send nearly a billion dollars in federal funds back to Washington (and then off to another project elsewhere in the country.)

Republican legislators in the House majority largely oppose spending state funding on the project whatsoever, even opposing a recent compromise to allow additional local funding to cover the state’s gap. This last-gasp effort at saving $900-plus million in federal funding would cover the state’s inaction by tapping a greater share of local funding on top of the $750 million already committed in local taxes.

As the Star Tribune reported last week:

Under the new proposal, which Dayton said his administration and Met Council staff devised just a day earlier, three entities would raise the $145 million state match: the Met Council would contribute $92 million, Hennepin County would contribute $21 million and the Counties Transit Improvement Board (CTIB) would kick in $32 million.

This compromise would allow the project to proceed without state legislative action, though there would still be hurdles to clear: each of these three bodies noted above would have to vote separately to approve their share of the $145 million, and do it quickly. Barring legislative action or successful votes on the compromise plan to increase local funding, the project will run out of funds by the end of September, forcing staff layoffs and the reassignment of private engineering firm employees.

A prominent group of 12 area CEOs that employ more than 100,000 area residents penned a letter to the Star Tribune back in the spring about state funding for transit and the planned regional projects, including the southwest light rail extension.

Wise investments in transit are worth making. Passing a comprehensive transportation bill that includes transit is critical in this session. If the state doesn’t act to provide funding for these projects, these federal dollars will go to a transit project in another state. Failure to act this year also means some of these projects will be in jeopardy. The business community can’t afford to miss out on this investment. Neither can the health of our communities, our region or the state of Minnesota. We hope state lawmakers will take action to ensure the best future for our region.

Minnetonka is one of the southwestern suburban cities the completed light rail line would pass through. Mayor Terry Schneider told the Star Tribune last week in that article above, “We’ve worked on this for five years, and we’ve come to the strong conclusion that it’s the best way for our city, the state and the region to meet the needs of the future. To waste the opportunity now, to squander it for internal bickering, would be a huge disservice to citizens of our state and region.”

9/1 UPDATE: The local jurisdictions reached a deal to cover the state’s unpaid $135 million share for the project to keep it moving ahead — including paying nearly $10 million in delay costs incurred by the state’s inaction during the legislative session. From The Met Council today:

The Southwest LRT Project is officially moving forward, after securing the remaining local funding commitments this week. …These contributions will together fill a $144.5 million funding gap, made up by the remaining necessary state match of $135 million plus $9.5 million in local delay costs caused by the legislature’s inaction in May.

Capital Ideas banner sacramento promoFinding solutions to debates over state funding for transit are the kind of topics we’ll be exploring in depth at Capital Ideas, our conference on state transportation funding and policy.

Check out the agenda, register today and join us in Sacramento this November 16-17. 

Register here

What progress did states make this year on raising new funding or improving policy?

Nearly all state legislatures have adjourned for the year. Here’s our regular look at the progress made in states working to create more transparency, build more public trust in transportation spending, or raise new money.

Though most states have wrapped up their legislative sessions, transportation funding fights still loom large on the agendas for many of the states still in session. And one key issue to watch is the scores of local governments putting forward ballot measures for this November’s election to approve new local funding.

tracking state policy funding featuredOur state policy bill tracker is the best way to keep tabs on the most current information about these states attempting to raise new funding in 2016, states attempting to reform how those dollars are spent and states taking unfortunate steps in the wrong direction on policy — all tracked in three separate searchable, sortable tables of that information.

In addition, our hub for state policy and funding related resources includes all past and current reports, bill trackers, and other state-focused resources.

STATE FUNDING

New Jersey faces perhaps the worst transportation funding crisis in the country with a trust fund that is bankrupt. Transportation funds will be shut off completely on July 1st unless state leaders find new funding.

Legislative leaders are reportedly developing a “tax fairness plan” that would raise new revenue for transportation and cut other state taxes. Negotiating a package that will pass the assembly and senate with bipartisan, veto-proof supermajorities would sidestep Gov. Chris Christie (R), who has not supported any new revenues for transportation. In fact, the governor and transportation commissioner have downplayed the crisis and put the obligation on the legislature to find new revenue.

A tax agreement would likely include income tax deductions and a reduction of the estate tax, resulting in cuts to the general state budget, while a fuel tax or other new revenue would add to the state’s Transportation Trust Fund. Another possible funding source under consideration is adding new tolls on highways that are now free.

The state has the second lowest gas tax in the country and $30 billion in outstanding debt from past transportation projects. As a result, 100% of the dollars collected through the gas tax go to cover debt on past projects. The Transportation Trust Fund will run dry when it reaches a borrowing limit on June 30th.

Democrats are pushing for $2 billion in annual transportation spending; Republicans are looking for $1.6 billion annually, the average amount of state funding each of the last five years. The state’s transportation needs — especially the need for expanded transit service — are growing. The population around rail transit stations in the state is booming.

Illinois Senate President John Cullerton (D-Chicago) proposed a per-mile driving charge (SB 3267) as an alternative to the state’s per-gallon fuel tax. Though after receiving feedback he says he will not move forward with the proposal.

There’s been little visible progress toward any sort of agreement on transportation funding in Minnesota, and other policy and budget issues stand in the way of a bipartisan agreement.  A bill (SF3211) introduced in the senate by Sen. Vicki Jensen (DFL-Owatonna) would direct the state DOT to develop a new, objective process to score and select projects. Moving in this direction could help steer the limited funds to the best projects while also building up public support for additional transportation funding.

The Colorado House passed a bill (HB1420) 39-26 to make budget changes that would allow additional state funds to flow to transportation. The bill faces an uncertain future in the Republican-controlled Senate.

The Oregon Legislature has named a new, special, bicameral, bipartisan study committee to develop a transportation funding package. The committee will begin regularly holding public meetings in May. This is a big improvement in transparency from the closed-door negotiation that resulted in a dead-end transportation funding proposal last year.

LOCAL FUNDING

Sacramento County, California, is moving ahead with a $3.6 billion, 30-year local sales tax. A deal struck by the Sacramento Transportation Authority will split these funds, with 70 percent going toward highways and streets and 30 percent toward transit. The county transit agency had reportedly anticipated as much as half of the new funding. In the first five years, three-quarters of the local road money would be used exclusively for repairing city streets. The proposal will need to be approved by the county board this summer and then supported by two-thirds of county voters in the November election.

We’ll see the results when we are in Sacramento November 16-17 for Transportation for America’s Capital Ideas state policy conference. Which reminds us…

Registration is now open for Capital Ideas, the premier conference on state transportation funding and policy, coming up this November 16-17, 2016, in Sacramento, CA. Sign up today to secure your seat and grab one of the limited number of discounted hotel rooms available.

As Sound Transit, the transit agency for metro Seattle, Washington, finalizes a $50 billion local funding plan to go before voters in November, free parking has become a major point of contention. The plan initially called for thousands of free parking spaces alongside new transit lines, but local leaders are calling for more housing and business development alongside transit stops, instead. Spokane-area voters will decide on a major expansion of transit service and the addition of a new bus rapid transit line at the ballot this November. Voters will consider a 0.1 percent sales tax increase in April 2017 with a second 0.1 increase to follow two years later and both running through 2028.

The county commission in Hillsborough County, Florida (which includes Tampa) voted 4-3 against putting a transportation sales tax measure on the November ballot. The long-debated measure would have raised new funding for highways and transit.

Stay up to date on all progress with state transportation funding and policy issues with our bill tracker.

A look at progress around the country on improving state transportation policy & raising new funding

Scores of state legislatures are still in session or nearing the end of their sessions. With transportation funding and policy on the docket in scores of states, here’s a roundup of the progress being made in states working to create more transparency, build more public trust in transportation spending, and even raise new money.

Many state legislatures are in the crunch time of crossover days and committee deadlines. Many more are already taking the long view and looking ahead to big policy changes later this year or after the next election. Here’s a roundup of the top stories:

tracking state policy funding featuredOur refreshed state policy bill tracker is the best way to keep tabs on the most current information about these states attempting to raise new funding in 2016, states attempting to reform how those dollars are spent and states taking unfortunate steps in the wrong direction on policy — all tracked in three separate searchable, sortable tables of that information.

In addition, our hub for state policy and funding related resources includes all past and current reports, bill trackers, and other state-focused resources.

LOCAL FUNDING

After an up-and-down last few years when it comes to transportation funding, the Georgia state legislature successfully passed a pared-back bill last week that will allow voters in the City of Atlanta to decide the question of raising new funds for expanded transit service throughout the city, in addition to other transportation investments in the city.

A similar bill (SB 313) earlier this year would have allowed all counties served by MARTA to raise sales taxes for transit, but that one stalled due to opposition from outside the city. We wrote about the new alternative compromise package last week after its passage:

The legislation (SB 369) enables three new local funding sources, each dependent on approval through voter referenda. 1) The City of Atlanta can request voter approval for an additional half-cent sales tax through 2057 explicitly for transit, bringing in an estimated $2.5 billion for MARTA transit. 2) Through a separate ballot question the city could ask for another half-cent for road projects. 3) And in Fulton County outside the city, mayors will need to agree to a package of road and transit projects and ask voters to approve up to a ¾-cent sales tax to fund the projects.

The bill passed the House 159-4 on March 16 and passed the Senate last week, on the last day of the session.

While empowering local voters to raise new local funds is a step forward, the Georgia legislature also took a step back last week, passing a bill that requires a successful voter referendum before any county can spend money on fixed-guideway transit projects. Georgia doesn’t require a similar hurdle for highway projects. This bill (SB 420) exempts current MARTA service areas, the Beltline and the Atlanta streetcar, but it would slow down planned bus rapid transit projects in Cobb County in suburban Atlanta.

Support is building in Massachusetts for a proposal introduced by Rep. Chris Walsh (D-Framingham), a START network member, to enable cities and towns to raise local taxes to fund transportation projects with approval through voter referenda. See some of the supportive arguments for Massachusetts’ bill here and here. T4America provided a national perspective and supported the bill at legislative briefing earlier this month at the capitol. Also briefing legislators was Mayor Greg Ballard, former mayor of Indianapolis, a region that recently gained legislative approval to raise local taxes for transit projects. Ballard provided lessons learned from his efforts at the state capitol and preparation for an expected ballot question this fall.

START logo t4 feature webWhat’s the START Network?

We support efforts to produce and pass state legislation to increase transportation funding, advance innovation and policy reform, empower local leaders and ensure accountability and transparency through our State Transportation Advocacy, Research & Training (START) Network of state and local elected officials, advocates and civic leaders. Join the START network today.

STATE FUNDING

Louisiana legislators just ended a special session on the budget without a comprehensive or long-term plan to fully close the state’s structural budget deficit. With more red ink looming in the state’s general budget, efforts to raise new revenue for the transportation fund face long odds.

Looking past the budget deficit, new Gov. John Bel Edwards (D) identified new Baton Rouge-to-New Orleans rail service as a priority, vowing to do “everything he could” to get new trains rolling.

Connecticut’s transportation committee advanced a “lockbox” provision (HJ 1) to dedicate certain revenue only for transportation projects. Republicans warn they will still oppose the measure unless the wording is tightened to prevent any diversion of money from the state’s special transportation fund. Constitutionally dedicating revenue from fuel taxes, vehicle fees, and a portion of the gas tax is seen as a necessary prerequisite to raising these taxes to bring in new money for transportation. While there is bipartisan support, at least in principle, a measure earlier this year failed to reach the necessary supermajority when a bloc of Republican House members said the measure would not go far enough in dedicating transportation dollars.

Gov. Dannel Malloy (D) called for big investments in all modes across the state in the 30-year, Let’s Go CT plan. But adding a new lane in each direction on I-95 across the state, one of the biggest and most expensive projects on the list, is drawing substantial opposition. Opponents note that a new lane will do little to ease traffic or advance the state’s 21st century knowledge economy. The state DOT counters that their plan for new capacity coupled with dynamic management through new electronic tolling would cut down on “induced demand” by making it more expensive, and so less desirable, for new drivers to fill new space on the roads.

A proposal in the Mississippi Senate to raise transportation taxes or issue bonds to fund road projects (SB 2921) was kept alive, but just barely. A procedural move allows negotiations to continue and may allow a last-minute agreement on the issue later in the session.

Minnesota’s legislature is in the fourth week of a short session that must conclude May 23. In that time, legislators will need to find $135 million for the next phase of the Twin Cities’ light rail system — or risk losing $895 million in federal funding and drastically setting back the planned project. Twin Cities local governments are expecting the state to do its part — they’ve already directed $118 million in local funding into the project. Transportation funding was a top issue in last year’s legislative session and members are again looking for a compromise to get more state funding— possibly including new revenue — to roads, bridges, and transit.

STATE REFORM

The Maryland House passed two bills to add objective scoring to the way the state DOT selects projects (HB 1013) and to create a new board to give local oversight over the state transit agency (HB 1010). Both measures are still being revised in the Senate; they must pass both chambers by the time the session ends on April 11th.

MOVING BACKWARD

Tennessee’s bill that would restrict gas tax receipts for any bicycle or pedestrian projects may be losing steam. The bill (HB 1650/SB 1716) was slowly making progress in the House, but this week the House delayed a hearing and the Senate scheduled a hearing for the bill on the last day of the session – a common way to signal the bill will not be passing this year.

FUNDING & POLICY TRACKER

You can access the full list of funding bills being considered and policies we are tracking throughout the country at our tracker here. As always, get in touch if there are bills you are working on that we should have our eyes on.

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.

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 18th deadline.

New T4America report chronicles the prevalence of Minnesota’s structurally deficient bridges

As the Minnesota legislature debates legislation to increase transportation funding, T4America released a new report looking at the prevalence of structurally deficient bridges in the state. This report is a state-level version of “The Fix We’re In For,” a report we’ve issued several times since 2011, with updated 2015 statistics for Minnesota.

Minnesota today has 830 structurally deficient bridges — bridges in urgent need of repair or replacement — representing 6.4 percent of the state’s 12,961 bridges. The average age of these sub-par bridges is 66 years — well over the typical design life of 50 years and nearly double the average age of all Minnesota bridges (35 years old). More than one in ten Minnesota bridges were built before 1948 — which means more than 1,300 bridges are older than the Korean War and creation of Medicare. Minnesota drivers collectively took close to 628 million trips over deficient bridges in 2014. That’s more than 1.7 million trips per day or almost 1,200 trips every minute taken over deficient Minnesota bridges in 2014.

With the Minnesota legislature currently debating bills right now to increase state transportation funding, something that 19 states have successfully undertaken since 2012, it’s a good time to look at the problem and what can be done to address it — especially in light of the uncertainty surrounding federal transportation funding as Congress has repeatedly failed to find stable, long-term funding for the nearly insolvent Highway Trust Fund.

Download the report to see the full summary statistics, data broken up by county, and T4America’s recommendations for Minnesota and states around the country hoping to address their backlog of structurally deficient bridges.

And then there were seven: April update on state transportation funding legislation

A total of seven states have now successfully passed legislation in 2015 to raise new money to invest in transportation, avoid budget shortfalls from declining revenue sources and keep up with growing needs — mostly by voting to raise their state fuel taxes. 

Georgia passed a bill that will raise approximately $900 million annually mostly for state highway projects. The bill changes how the state taxes gas, switching from a sales tax on gas purchases to a 26-cents-per-gallon excise tax, indexed to both the change in the average fuel efficiency of all vehicles registered in the state and to inflation (measured by the Consumer Price Index). That double indexing will ensure the new per-gallon tax doesn’t lose future value due to inflation or improved fuel efficiency. The bill also places fees on other services, including a $5-per-night hotel fee, $300 annually in fees for electric cars and $100 annually in fees for heavy trucks. In light of this switch from a sales tax to per-gallon taxes on gasoline, it’s worth noting that Georgia is one of dozens of states with a constitutional prohibition on spending per-gallon gas tax revenues on public transportation.

Georgia counties and cities also won a modified option to raise funds for local transportation needs via additional sales taxes of up to one percent if approved by the county commission and voter referendum. Before this modification, a local option sales tax referendum could only be held on dates and in regions determined by the legislature.

Also worth noting is the passage of a separate bill that finally removes the onerous requirement that MARTA (Atlanta’s regional transit system) could spend no more than 50 percent of its locally-raised revenue to fund operations — essentially the state telling them what they could or couldn’t do with their locally-raised revenues. At one point during negotiations there was a provision that would have allowed the cities and counties that contribute to MARTA to increase the sales tax dedicated to the system by 0.5 percent via ballot measures, but this provision was removed from the final bill.

In North Carolina, legislators passed a bill to raise the minimum gas tax rate of their variable tax to 36 cents per gallon. The gas tax was previously 37.5 cents per gallon but would have dropped below 30 cents per gallon in July, which would have cost the state an estimated $266 million in funding for transportation over the next year.

Kentucky, with a variable tax rate similar to North Carolina, passed a similar bill. The state established a new gas tax minimum of 26 cents per gallon. The new minimum will prevent an estimated $250 million drop in contributions to their transportation fund for the year.

The House and Senate in Idaho both approved raising their gas tax from 25 cents per gallon to 32 cents along with increases to the state’s vehicle fees. The bill will raise an estimated $94 million for maintenance of the state’s roads and bridges. The bill is sitting on Governor Butch Otter’s desk waiting for his signature.

Those states join Iowa, Utah and South Dakota as the seven states that have successfully raised new funds in 2015. With legislative sessions and active proposals still moving in a handful of states, more could still follow this year.

Louisiana legislators have filed several bills to address the state’s transportation issues. One bill would raise the state fuel tax by 4 cents per gallon with new revenue dedicated to parish governments. Another proposal would temporarily raise the state fuel tax by 4 cents per gallon for the next three years. A separate bill would reform the way the state selects highway projects, improving the potential for return on transportation investments while adding transparency and accountability that could boost the prospects of the plans to raise new revenue.

Nebraska’s legislature has advanced a bill to increase their state gas tax by 6 cents per gallon, but Governor Ricketts said he opposes the increase and has called for a study committee to assess the state’s transportation need instead.

Lastly, for any Minnesota funding proposals to have a chance this year, they must pass out of their committees by April 24th. Check back then for results.

Governors step out in favor of raising transportation revenue

States across the country are facing huge deficits in their own transportation budgets — a problem compounded by the uncertainty over the support they’ve always received from the federal transportation fund, which is now just months away from insolvency. However, over the last month or so, at least nine governors have highlighted plans to raise new state transportation revenues in their State of the State addresses, marking the issue as a top priority.

NEWSLETTER - Governor State of the State on revenueWhile their speeches are notable for their willingness to take a stand on the issue, these governors (and many state legislators) are stepping out on the issue because states face growing needs and static or falling revenues from state as well as federal sources.

As of press time, six Republicans and three Democrats spanning from Washington to Connecticut have come out in support of raising transportation funding at the state level by various mechanisms in the hopes of providing stable and reliable revenue for years to come. And they’re counting on Congress to do their part and come through with reliable federal funding as well.

After looking over the transcripts of all nine speeches, two major themes stood out: the importance to a state’s economic growth and development of a well-run, well-funded transportation system, and the financial and public safety cost of poorly maintained infrastructure.

After campaigning on the issue, returning Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy (D) introduced his plan for a 30-year overhaul of the state’s entire transportation system, including the creation of a “transportation lockbox” to ensure transportation revenues are spent on transportation projects. He has promised to propose specific revenue mechanisms in his February 18th budget address.

“We know that transportation and economic growth are bound together,” Governor Dayton said on January 7th. “States that make long term investments in their infrastructure can have vibrant economies for generations. States that don’t, will struggle. It’s that simple.

Transportation connects us – literally – community to community, state to state, nation to nation. It connects us economic opportunity, and it connects us to another.”

Idaho Governor Butch Otter (R) proposed raising transportation fees to help address the state’s ever increasing number of deficient bridges and poorly maintained highways, suggesting that spending some now will save more in the future. While calling for greater investments for transportation and infrastructure in his speech, he did not address any specific plans to do so, only saying to his fellow legislative colleagues, “I am not going to stand here and tell you how to swallow this elephant.”

“I fully understand the misgivings of some about higher transportation costs. But there is something to be said for the old adage about being ‘penny wise and pound foolish.’ In fact, every dollar we invest now in our roads and bridges will save motorists and taxpayers $6 to $14 later.”

In Iowa, with 35 percent of their annual transportation budget coming from the 19 cents per gallon gas tax, Republican Governor Terry Branstad is concerned about the state’s ability to adequately build and maintain the state’s infrastructure and transportation system with that source. The governor did say before his State of the State address that part of the solution could be allowing local governments to add their own gas tax for local projects and transportation needs. He expressed hope that lawmakers and stakeholders could come to a consensus on a specific solution.

“Over the past few years, rhetoric has trumped results when it comes to action on infrastructure funding for Iowa. A recently completed Battelle study demonstrates the need for us to take a hard look at adequate road funding. The study shows that without action funding available for road and bridge maintenance will fall short of what is needed to remain competitive and most importantly, safe.

Without action, Iowa’s roads and bridges face an uncertain future. Our farmers will find it more difficult to deliver their commodities to market. Business and industry will look elsewhere when considering where to invest and grow. As the study found, sound infrastructure remains a prerequisite for economic development. “

While Democratic Minnesota Mayor Mark Dayton has yet to give his State of the State address, his administration did release the details of his $11 billion transportation funding plan this week. It implements a 6.5 percent gross receipts tax on gasoline, raises the current 1.25 percent base on vehicle registration fees to 1.5 percent, and increases the sales tax by a half cent in the Twin Cities Metro area, specifically for improved transit, bicycle, and pedestrian infrastructure.

“Inadequate transportation clogs our lives with worse traffic congestion, longer commutes, more dangerous travel conditions. Those deficiencies restrict our future economic growth and detract from our quality of life,” said Governor Dayton. “If we continue to avoid these problems, they will only get worse. It’s time to begin to solve them.”

South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley (R) called for a 10-cent gas tax increase, as long as the legislation included cutting the state’s income tax by 30 percent and restructuring the state’s Department of Transportation.

“Deficient roads and highways are an economic issue. That’s why we supported $1 billion in new road funds last year, which was the biggest infrastructure investment in a generation. It’s why we proposed in our Executive Budget dedicating an additional $61 million in auto sales tax funds entirely to roads. But we know that’s not enough. We still have very substantial revenue needs that need to be addressed.”

Republican South Dakota Governor Dennis Daugaard outlined his transportation plan that would raise the vehicle excise tax from three to four percent, and increase the motor fuel tax by two cents this year and an additional two cents every year going forward. His plan would also implement a 10 percent increase in vehicle registration fees for local entities. The plan would allow the state to invest $50.5 million more for roads and bridges, with $39.8 million for the state highway fund, and an additional $10.7 million for local towns and cities.

“Our entire economy – our very wellbeing – depends on road infrastructure,” Governor Daugaard said during his State of the State Address. “And right now, our roads are underfunded.”

Addresses from the governors in Georgia, Michigan, and Washington focused on the need to raise revenue because current conditions represent public safety issues — or could soon without adequate investment.

The Republican governor from Georgia, Nathan Deal, has suggested that his state needs an estimated $1 billion to $1.5 billion more to maintain the state’s roads, highways, and bridges — and even millions more to expand. He offered the legislature three options to raise the funding needed to maintain the state’s infrastructure: a regional one percent sales tax designated for infrastructure projects; a plan that will reprioritize funding and focus on the most essential projects; or a “transportation plan that would address the ongoing needs of maintenance and repair, as well as freight corridor and other transportation improvements.”

“We are currently operating at a rate that requires 50 years to resurface every state road in Georgia. If your road is paved when you graduate high school, by the time it is paved again you will be eligible for Social Security.

If we continue to do nothing, we would continue to have to depend on the federal government, whose transportation funds are also dwindling. If we should choose not to maintain and improve our infrastructure, economic development would stall, companies would be unable to conduct their business efficiently, commuters would waste more time and gas sitting in traffic, and no one would be satisfied.”

Michigan Governor Rick Snyder (R) signed a plan to raise $1.3 billion more a year to mend deteriorating roads and other transportation infrastructure, contingent on Michigan voters increasing the state sales tax to seven percent via a May ballot measure. This bipartisan package of 11 laws would restructure and ultimately raise static per-gallon fuel taxes while exempting fuel from the state’s 6 percent sales tax.

“The key issue is public safety. If you look at it and you look at our bridges, one out of nine is structurally deficient. So, when you drive Michigan and you see plywood underneath the bridge, why is it there? It’s keeping crumbling concrete from falling on your vehicle, that’s unacceptable.

When you talk about our roads and you see those potholes, just think about the issues and concerns you’ve had this personally. When you swerve to miss a pothole, you are a distracted driver. You are putting yourself at risk and other drivers and other people. If you hit that pothole and you blow a tire you’re at risk of a major accident. That is unacceptable.”

Democratic Washington Governor Jay Inslee introduced a cap-and-trade program that would require the largest industrial polluters to pay for every ton of carbon they release, and then direct at least a portion of those funds into transportation. It could raise nearly $1 billion in its first year to pay for transportation projects. California is the only other state to attempt such a funding mechanism.

“Without action, there will be 52 percent cut in the maintenance budget, and 71 bridges will become structurally deficient or functionally obsolete. Without action, commute times will continue to rise, robbing us of time with our families. Without action, our ability to move goods efficiently will be diminished.

[This plan] keeps us safe by fixing our bridges, patching our roads, and cleaning out air and water. It also embraces efficiency, saves time and money, and drives results that the public can trust through real reform. Finally, it’s a plan that delivers a transportation system that truly works as a system. A system that transcends our old divides and rivalries. No more east versus west, urban versus rural or roads versus transit.”

Though some plans are certainly better than others, these nine governors are demonstrating true leadership by bucking the conventional wisdom and supporting new revenue to invest in transportation and infrastructure. More could follow in the weeks ahead as a few more State of the State addresses happen and legislative sessions get underway. Transportation for America is pleased to see these leaders take a stand on raising stable transportation funding, and we hope that Congress follows suit to support their efforts by rescuing the nation’s transportation fund from insolvency this spring.

15 issues to watch in ’15, Part II: Places

It’s a challenge to craft a list of only five states, regions and cities that have important or notable things happening this year. Whether states attempting to raise transportation revenue this year, states changing key policies and continuing to innovate how they choose or build transportation projects, or local communities going to voters to raise money for new projects, there’s no shortage of places worth watching this year. Here are five that rose to the top, but tell us what you think we missed, in your area or elsewhere.

Ed: As the year began, we thought it would be fun to identify 15 people, places and trends worth keeping an eye on the next 12 months. We’re rolling out this list in three posts — read our first post on five policy issues worth watching on Capitol Hill in 2015.

START stacked T4 feature

Places

1. Minnesota

If we released a list this time last year, Minnesota might have appeared on that one as well. Though a broad coalition (Move MN) formed to rally support from the public and lawmakers for raising transportation revenues, the DFL majority in both chambers did not pass a transportation funding package in 2014. DFL Gov. Mark Dayton, running for reelection, seemed hesitant to support raising any taxes, though he routinely acknowledged that Minnesota needed to invest in their aging transportation network. Late in the election, he introduced his 2015 legislative plan to raise revenue: a new 6.5 percent wholesale tax on gasoline, in addition to a variety of other fee increases.

Gov. Dayton won re-election, but the Minnesota House flipped back to a GOP majority, providing a new challenge for his plan in the legislature. Though Move MN built an impressively broad coalition, they weren’t able to secure support from the statewide chamber and a few other key groups that represent Minnesota businesses. Gov. Dayton has already been lobbying those groups in 2015 to support his plan that would raise over $6 billion over the next decade.

Republicans in control of the House have issued their plan that would raise no new taxes but allocate $750 million over the next four years via various internal accounting maneuvers. (Great comparison of the two plans here.) With two legislative chambers split between the parties but a growing public call for something to be done to invest infrastructure, Minnesota will be a critical battleground to watch this year. If Congress fails to find a funding solution to keep the nation’s trust fund from going bankrupt this Spring, Minnesota — and states facing a shortfall — could be hit by a double whammy if they’re not prepared to act on their own.

2. Utah

While there had been some noise over the last year in Utah about the need to raise new transportation revenue, there was no concrete legislation introduced or seriously discussed in 2014. In late 2014, Governor Herbert suggested he was open to raising the gas tax in 2015, which was “a proposition [speaker-elect Greg] Hughes doesn’t see getting very far” in the upcoming legislative session, according to the Deseret News. At the time, Rep. Hughes did suggest that “House Republicans do want to look what he sees as an outdated formula for calculating the state’s 24.5-cent per gallon gas tax.” But just a few weeks ago, news broke that a deal could be closer than previously thought. An article in the Salt Lake Tribune last week broke the news that the state’s GOP caucus endorsed the idea of raising transportation taxes, but also overhauling the funding system — which could mean a revenue source that will rise with inflation.

“We have talked about concepts now for two years,” House Transportation Committee Chairman Johnny Anderson, R-Taylorsville, told a forum of the Utah Highway Users Association. “Know that the work is about to be done” to raise tax for transportation. …Anderson said the House GOP Caucus last month endorsed not only transportation-tax hikes, but also the idea to “dump our antiquated” tax system for one that automatically keeps up with inflation and makes those now escaping gas tax contribute.

The Utah legislature is somewhat unique — their trust of the Utah DOT runs so high that they often appropriate significant general funds to transportation projects. Utah could also prove to be a significant bellwether for other GOP-controlled state legislatures to follow. Utah’s session begins January 28, so we’ll soon find out if this proposition has legs.

3. Illinois

Incoming Illinois Republican Governor Bruce Rauner faces significant challenges, but some of his first moves have a lot of advocates hopeful about positive changes that could come in 2015. Just a few years removed from a governor going to jail and a patronage hiring scandal at state agencies, Illinois is also in one of the worst fiscal messes in the country, brought on by billions in unfunded pensions, decreased tax revenue, and repeated downgrades to the state’s credit rating.

As the Governor and the legislature collaborate on a budget and craft a new capital plan for infrastructure investment, the fiscal crisis facing the state provides an interesting opportunity for Gov. Rauner, who ran as a reformer and a prudent fiscal manager on his business bona fides. With the state billions in debt and confidence in IDOT incredibly low, overhauling the system and moving towards a new system for measuring the performance of the state’s transportation spending could be the only way to restore public trust — essential for raising any new money for transportation.

Possibly hinting at a move in this direction, Gov. Rauner appointed Randy Blankenhorn from the Chicago MPO (CMAP) to head the state DOT, an appointment which could help bring the issue of performance measures into the debate. “There’s always hyperbole and optimism when you have a changing of the guard. But I sincerely believe that we have a chance to right Illinois’ ship with Gov. Rauner and Randy Blankenhorn,” said Peter Skosey with the Metropolitan Planning Council (MPC) and the T4 Advisory Board. As part of his transition team on transportation, Gov. Rauner also brought in MarySue Barrett from MPC, one of the leading advocates in the entire state for a performance-based transportation system.

With these pieces in place, it’s possible that discussing a way to restore credibility and create a new transparent mechanism for distributing any new transportation funds could be central in the debate in Illinois in 2015, which makes this an important state to watch.

4. Indianapolis, Indiana

It was a huge victory when the Indiana legislature and Governor Pence approved a long-sought bill in March 2014 that finally gives metro Indianapolis counties the right to vote on funding a much-expanded public transportation network, with a major emphasis on bus rapid transit. Civic, elected and business leaders had been hard at work since 2009 producing an ambitious and inspiring IndyConnect plan, “the most comprehensive transportation plan — created with the most public input — our region has ever seen,” according to Mayor Greg Ballard in the foreword to our Innovative MPO report. Now the hard part comes as they build public and political will and decide what to include on a November 2016 ballot measure that would raise revenue from changes to local income taxes — a challenging revenue mechanism to say the least.

While transit expansion has more support in the region’s core, local leaders acknowledge they have an uphill battle in some suburban counties more skeptical of the merits of transit. Mayor Ballard and the diverse group of Indy businesses (including a booming healthcare industry) supporting IndyConnect understand how important this measure is for helping Indy be economically competitive in the future. Indy likely won’t be supplanting Chicago as the big city of choice in the Midwest, but there’s a desire among local leaders for Indy to be the city that can attract young families who think Chicago is too expensive; or luring recent college grads back home to Indy. And a strong regional public transit system is lies at the very core of their economic strategy.

Though Indianapolis counties won’t vote on the transportation plan until 2016, some of the most important work will be done in 2015 as they continue their model efforts to build consensus in urban and suburban areas alike on a plan to take to the ballot.

5. Raleigh, North Carolina

After watching the Triangle region’s two other counties approve ballot measure to raise funds for a regional transit system originally envisioned by all three counties, Raleigh could finally be joining the party due to a big shakeup in their county’s Board of Commissioners in 2014.

Durham and Orange counties approved half-cent sales taxes in 2011 and 2012 respectively to fund transit operations, improved bus service and a regional light rail line. Although it contains the biggest city in the region (Raleigh), the Wake County Commissioners hadn’t allowed a question to raise funds for a regional transit system to go to the ballot. In fact, a handful of commissioners actively prevented the issue going forward, often stifling debate at times.

That could all change in 2015, as more than half of the county board was replaced last November. Four new supportive members were elected to the county board, replacing four who had consistently been on the other side of the issue, clearing the way for a potential ballot measure in Wake County.  It’s worth noting that the mayor of Raleigh, Nancy McFarlane, has long been a supporter of a regional plan for transit, and she joined with other mayors and T4America a year ago to meet with USDOT Sec. Foxx on the importance of passenger rail.

Wake County is one of the fastest growing counties in the U.S. and the county’s population is due to double by 2035. Yet this rapidly growing community with a notable high-tech, research, government and major university employment base is one of the few major metro regions that lacks a significant transit system. Just like Indianapolis, they will be crafting their plan and building consensus in 2015 as they shoot for a vote in 2016. Though the issue has support on the county board now, there will be a public debate and votes worth watching in 2015.

Locals encountering help or hindrance from states on their transportation plans

Flickr photo by John Greenfield http://www.flickr.com/photos/24858199@N00/10090187245/

Several places have been in the news lately as they find their ambitious efforts to solve transportation challenges hinging on legislative action this lawmaking season. In some, state legislators are helping out with enabling legislation, but in others they are challenging the concept of local control and threatening needed investment.

The prime case of the latter has been in Nashville, where a handful of Tennessee legislators decided to interfere in a regional Nashville plan to build a first-of-its-kind bus rapid transit system through the region’s core.

An initial measure from a non-Nashville lawmaker would have required a vote of the General Assembly to approve the BRT line, despite the state DOT’s role in planning the line as a member of the Nashville Metropolitan Planning Organization’s board. An amendment to an unrelated bill said flatly: ”No rapid bus project in a metropolitan form of government, such as Nashville, could be built without the permission of the … General Assembly.”

Mayors of Tennessee’s four large cities immediately saw the threat that legislative micromanaging posed to their ability to meet their economic challenges and fired off a letter (pdf) that helped persuade legislators to try a different tack. The House version now simply affirms the status quo that the DOT must approve use of state right-of-way for a transit line and that only the legislature can appropriate state funds.

But new language was added in the Senate’s version that would prohibit any transit system from picking up or dropping off passengers in the middle of state roads as a “safety” measure — exactly what’s planned for The Amp line — regardless of what the Federal Transit Administration or engineers at TDOT have to say about the safety track record of center-running BRT. (Center running BRT is already in use or on the way in Cleveland, OH; Eugene, OR; San Bernardino, CA; Chicago, IL; and a handful of other cities.)

Photo by CTAFlickr photo by John Greenfield /photos/24858199@N00/10090187245/
Current conditions on Ashland in Chicago, and rendering of the new planned center-running BRT for the corridor. Does one of these streets look safer for pedestrians than the other?

In Indiana, meanwhile, the legislature finally granted metro Indianapolis the right to vote on funding a much-expanded bus network, including bus rapid transit. What it won’t include is light rail, as dictated by the new law, which would allow six counties to hold referendums to let voters decide whether to build a transit system using mostly income-tax revenue, according to the Indianapolis Star.

Despite the mode-specific directive, it was a big victory for the business community, who pointed out that the state stands to benefit if growth engine Indianapolis continues to succeed economically. The region is a hotbed of healthcare jobs, and once again, providing a better bus system — something Mayor Greg Ballard and region’s other leaders are committed to doing — means that those employers get access to a bigger pool of workers, and workers of all incomes can reach a greater range of jobs.

Four years after their bus service was completely canceled, Clayton County just south of Atlanta proper is catching a helping hand from the Georgia general assembly. Lawmakers just passed a measure that would allow Clayton County voters to vote on approving a penny sales tax to restore local transit operations — something voters, local leaders and citizens alike strongly support.

When Clayton County lost that bus service, they lost something that employers — especially those at Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson Airport — depended on to get employees to work every day. There are thousands of jobs at that enormous airport right at the edge of Clayton County, and a good transit connection was a boost for jobs and residents to benefit from that economic magnet.

Up in Minnesota, the state is moving a huge comprehensive funding package for transportation across the state — one of many states considering ways to raise their own new revenue for transportation. (See our tracker) A House committee voted 9-6 Friday to pass the comprehensive transportation funding bill (HF 2395). Similar legislation didn’t make it through the House committee in 2013.

Supporting and enabling these efforts is exactly what states should be doing as local cities and regions are trying desperately to make these sorts of investments a reality, usually with their own skin in the game; not obstructing them at every turn.

When a city or region wants to raise a tax via public ballot vote to improve their transportation network, shouldn’t the state leaders proudly support those efforts of a city bootstrapping their way up?

Editors note: We’re in the process of updating it with 2014 information, but you can find similar information to the Minnesota plan over on our State Funding Tracker, which focuses largely on state (i.e., not local) plans to fund transportation.

Smarter transportation case study #6: Managed lanes with peak-period transit discounts in Minneapolis

In Minneapolis, priority lanes and differential pricing have cleared a key interstate during peak hours and allowed more com- muters to utilize public transit.





The Twin Cities Metropolitan Area is using innovative solutions to relieve congestion on major highways in the region, with a particular focus on Interstate 35. The effort, part of a Minnesota Urban Partnership Agreement (UPA), utilizes a suite of intelligent transportation approaches, sometimes known as the 4Ts: Tolling, Transit, Telecommuting/Travel Demand Management and Technology.

The Minnesota UPA involves ITS technologies like real-time traffic and transit information, transit signal priority, and guidance mechanisms for shoulder-running buses. These technologies will significantly reduce travel time for riders.

“Trip time will be about half an hour. We’ll offer six trips in the morning and six trips home in the afternoon,” Bob Gibbons, a spokesman for Metro Transit, told Minnesota Public Radio.

First, the city is converting existing bus-only shoulder lanes and High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) lanes along portions of the Interstate into wider lanes with prices that vary based on occupancy. Cars with only one occupant will have to pay a toll to access the lanes during peak hours, with prices set to ensure free-flowing travel. City officials say this will enable bus speeds to increase to 50 mph from the current bus-only shoulder lane speeds of 35 mph or less.

Second, a portion of the toll revenues from the new lanes will fund significant fare discounts for transit riders taking trips using the new facilities during peak periods. In and around the I-35W corridor, transit services will increase and a bus rapid transit network will be created, utilizing at least 27 newly purchased transit vehicles. There are also plans for six new park-and-ride lots with more than 1,400 additional spaces.

Third, new dynamic message signs and some existing signs will inform travelers about the availability of the lanes for non-bus use, toll rates for when the lanes are available, travel speeds on priced lanes versus on general-purpose lanes and transit alternatives.

The final element of the Minnesota UPA is telecommuting. This locally funded effort will focus on expanding upon the successful Results-Only Work Environment program, in which employers agree to provide employees the flexibility to telecommute or shift their hours to avoid congested commutes. Approximately 75 percent of Best Buy’s 4,500 corporate office employees participate in ROWE. Officials are targeting large employers, including the 20 Fortune 500 companies in the region, for participation, with the goal of reducing 500 daily peak-period trips throughout the corridor.

For More Information: Minnesota Public Radio



The MnPASS or congestion pricing lane on the left will be available at no cost to buses, car pools and to single driver vehicles willing to pay as little as 25 cents or up to $8 a trip depending on traffic levels. Traffic managers adjust the price in order to keep the lane flowing at 50 miles per hour. Photo by Dan Olson, Minnesota Public Radio

—-

Editor’s Note: Our new report on smarter mobility demonstrates how existing and emerging technologies can squeeze more capacity from over-burdened highways, help commuters avoid traffic delays and expand and improve transportation options, all while saving money and creating jobs. Many of these smart transportation solutions are already fueling innovation throughout the country, through both the public and private sector. These 14 case studies from around the U.S. and the world demonstrate the community benefits smart mobility solutions are giving regions, cities, and businesses.

Read the ITS Case Study Series

Wrapping up the Minnesota release of the Blueprint

P1000963 Originally uploaded by Transportation for America

On Monday, June 29th the Minnesota Coalition of Transportation for America welcomed community, city, and state leaders to learn more about the T4 America vision for the next federal transportation bill — and how Minnesotans would benefit from a reformed federal transportation program.

The event, hosted by the McKnight Foundation in Minneapolis, was attended by city officials, state legislators, congressional offices, business leaders, labor groups and advocacy organizations from across the state. The packed room heard from Anne Canby and Mariia Zimmerman, the Washington, D.C. representatives of the T4 America campaign, as they walked through the campaign’s Route to Reform, a detailed blueprint for the transportation bill.

The meeting came on the heels of Chairman Oberstar releasing a draft 775-page transportation bill he hopes to pass before the current federal bill expires in September.  In describing how Oberstar’s bill fits in with the T4 America vision, Anne Canby said that the draft is “on the right track,” and that “Oberstar is full of fire and ready to go. He has filled a vacuum with his leadership.”

Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak, Hennepin County Commissioner Peter McLaughlin and State Representative Frank Hornstein highlighted how Minnesota communities would benefit from sweeping reforms in the transportation bill. In describing the need for new federal transportation policy as proposed by the T4 America campaign, Mayor Rybak indicated that “we shouldn’t strive for less” but that Minneapolis and the State have to be ready for it.  Michael Lander, a developer with many projects around the Twin Cities, also spoke about the need to include land use discussions when planning any transportation project because “transportation has always driven development.” He noted that the T4 America vision is “planning to meet the coming demand” for housing in convenient, walkable locations with access to public transportation.

“The market is changing dramatically, and walkable urbanism is what the market is looking for. …Central to the T4 America reform is planning to meet the coming demand.”
— Michael Lander

In attendance were representatives from Chairman Oberstar’s office, Congressman Ellison and Congresswoman Betty McCollum’s offices.  State legislators, including Rep. Hausman and Rep. Kahn, county commissioners and city staffers from St. Paul and Minneapolis were among the crowd eager to hear about the work being done to create federal transportation policy that would benefit their communities.

It was not a strictly metropolitan affair as the Mayor of Independence and a representative from State Sen. Clark’s office from St. Cloud came to hear about how smaller and more rural communities could also get their transportation needs addressed in the federal bill.

One concern all of the elected officials shared was making sure Minnesota’s roads, highways and bridges were in a state of good repair.  Rep. Hornstein noted that we cannot invest in a “fax machine on the dawn of the internet revolution” indicating that we need to reach what he calls “infrastructure 2.0.”

“Infrastructure 2.0 is what is in this Transportation for America plan.”