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Tag: Oregon

Uber and Lyft fight local control over city streets in Oregon

A bill in the Oregon state house would preempt local control over transportation network companies (TNCs) like Uber and Lyft. While cities have historically had the ability to manage vehicles on their streets to address congestion, improve access, ensure safety, and raise revenues, aggressive lobbying from TNCs has resulted in a number of states preempting local control. Such state bills should be carefully crafted to preserve city authority over the safe and efficient operation of their streets.

Over the past few years new mobility providers such as Uber and Lyft have led a massive lobbying push in nearly every state to pass state-level regulation, often in an effort to preempt local control over this burgeoning industry. Transportation network companies (TNCs)—and other new mobility companies—have shown they prefer a single, relaxed regulatory environment and oppose what they call a “patchwork” of local regulation. In reality, state laws preempting local authority remove control from the local officials who are best able to manage transportation on the ground.

This was one of the many concerns that Transportation for America shared with local officials and other advocates around the federal AV START bill, an effort to preempt both state and local control over automated vehicle regulations. The TNC and auto manufacturing industries—which are both pursuing AV technology—supported the bill that was crafted largely without input from locals who have historically been responsible for managing their streets.

Local governments can most effectively respond to concerns such as noise, congestion, or safety on a community’s streets. They need to be able to manage new mobility on their roads in the same way they manage all other vehicles, commercial and non-commercial, in order to ensure safe and equitable transportation system that serves everyone. Preemption strips local governments of this authority and leaves them without the tools necessary to protect the public and to address the problems that have and will surely continue to arise.

State preemption is a “solution” in search of a problem

As a result of the rapid proliferation of state laws affecting TNCs, only six states currently do not have statewide, comprehensive state laws over TNCs. In one of those six states, Oregon, the legislature is poised to hold an important hearing next Monday (March 18) on industry supported legislation which could have an enormous impact on the ability of cities like Portland and Eugene to manage their transportation systems.

The following are important issues that legislators in Oregon and around the country should consider when debating legislation that will preempt local authority.

Revenue

Cities have historically had important powers to raise revenue through mechanisms such as fees for parking or individual taxi trips. The rise of TNCs has already impacted the demand for parking and taxi trips but also presents cities with an opportunity to raise new revenue necessary to ensure that the transportation system works for all users, including TNCs. However, state laws preempting local TNC regulations have eliminated cities’ ability to raise revenue from TNC trips.

For example, Chicago, IL enacted a 15-cent fee on TNC trips, with revenue dedicated to improving the city’s public transit system. Chicago argued that TNC trips create additional congestion and divert riders, and revenue, from the transit system and therefore should help pay for improving the system—a claim that is supported by research. Similar fees have been proposed in Philadelphia and other cities. However, when transit advocates in Cleveland proposed a fee on TNC trips to fund that city’s transit system, they found that a preempting state law prevented the city from creating such a fee.

Congestion

A growing body of research points to the proliferation of TNCs as increasing congestion in already crowded cities. To manage congestion, cities currently have a broad set of tools they can use to manage street congestion. For example, most cities regulate where commercial loading and unloading can occur to manage traffic flow and protect people. Many cities also regulate where taxis can pick up and drop off passengers, often around major transportation hubs or destinations. Several cities are considering new tools like congestion pricing as an additional way to manage traffic. State law preempting such regulations for TNCs handcuffs local officials and limits their ability to manage a significant (and growing) cause of congestion.

Safety

Under city-controlled taxi regulations, cities can track for-hire drivers and ensure that only safe drivers are picking up riders. Preempting state law would remove this local power.

For instance, Austin, TX, set a requirement that TNC drivers be subject to a fingerprint-based background check. But the state preempted this power (after heavy lobbying from Uber and Lyft that were unhappy with the regulations), and removed the ability of the city to set these safety requirements over drivers.

State preemption could even remove local governments’ power to enforce basic traffic laws necessary to ensure safety on city streets.

State should tread carefully & preserve local control

While there may be a place for state law in setting some basic ground rules for TNCs and other mobility services, such laws should be carefully crafted to preserve a city’s ability to manage their streets as they see fit. (There is currently another proposed bill in Oregon that would set a floor on regulation while still allowing cities to regulate beyond that state-imposed baseline.) The same thing can be said about regulations on automated vehicles and other new mobility services—locals need a complete toolbox to be able to manage their streets; preemption laws put a lock on that toolbox.

After all, Portland, OR may have very different needs than Bend, OR; local officials are best positioned to address those needs. While TNCs offer an important transportation option, they are just one of many options that cities are managing and should be treated as such by preserving city authority to regulate.

Stories You May Have Missed – Week of February 23rd

Stories You May Have Missed

As a valued member, Transportation for America is dedicated to providing you pertinent information. This includes news articles to inform your work. Check out a list of stories you may have missed last week.

  • The math in Trump’s infrastructure plan is off by 98 percent according to a recent study from economists at the University of Pennsylvania. (Washington Post)
  • “Experts Doubt Trump’s Infrastructure Plan Will Boost Economy.” (NY Times)
  • “America’s three infrastructure problems.” (Vox)
  • “The White House is touting a pilot vehicle mileage tax program in Oregon as a reasonable means to fund infrastructure investment.” (The Hill)
  • Lawmakers are concerned at the lack of progress in installing positive train control (PTC) on the nation’s major freight and passenger rail. (The Hill)
  • “Lawmakers Commence Fiscal 2018 Funding Bill Negotiations.” (Transport Topics)

Engaging east Portland to plan a more inclusive bus rapid transit line

When roughly 14 miles of a bus rapid transit line was proposed along Division Street in East Portland, the effort was greeted with interest in an often-neglected area of the city, but also concern about the possibilities of displacement and development poorly engaged with the unique local culture. To address those concerns, community members throughout the Jade and Division Midway districts were engaged through arts and culture projects to recalibrate the plan to better serve community needs.

This feature is part of arts and culture month at T4America and Smart Growth America, 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 that will be featured in Transportation for America’s and ArtPlace America’s upcoming field scan on arts, culture and transportation due to be released later this month.

When we consider the role of art in transportation, most people probably first think about artistic contributions to the physical environment like creative streetscaping, transit stations, or other parts of the built environment. But art can be just as vital to the process of planning & building transportation projects.

In Portland, Oregon, arts-based engagement is helping to build dialogue between local agencies and the community to ensure that a new planned bus rapid transit (BRT) line serves the residents of ethnically diverse, low-income districts in the eastern part of the city. The Asian Pacific American Network of Oregon (APANO) and the Division-Midway Alliance (DMA), two nonprofits located respectively in the Jade and Midway Division districts along Division street in Portland, have been empowering residents, businesses, and students to actively shape the evolving BRT project through arts and culture.

Home to many immigrant and refugee families that give this area a distinct ethnic and cultural diversity, the Jade and Division Midway districts have historically lacked strong, safe, transportation infrastructure. However, in recent years citizens have also witnessed development that has led to displacement throughout many communities in Portland. So Jade and Division Midway community members met the BRT proposal with curiosity but also scrutiny.

As stated in the Jade Midway District Arts Plan:

The BRT project will impact local businesses, and a city-wide housing emergency is driving housing costs up. Housing complexes in the district have changed private owners and renters experienced rent increases. Our work remains to address these challenges to continue to root the community in place.

Creative tactics, spearheaded by APANO and DMA, have created a platform for the community to advocate, express, and communicate their desires related to this new transportation proposal to ensure that the final project best serves their needs, reflect what makes their community unique, and is embraced by the people it serves.

For example, neighborhood artist Solomon Starr and local youth used hip hop to document the experiences of southeast Portland community members taking mass transit, while artist Tamara Lynne engaged community members who live, work, and travel along the proposed transit route through interactive performance.

To further build local capacity to do more of this kind of creative engagement with the community, these organizations built a Placemaking Steering Committee comprised of eight civic, nonprofit, and government members to guide creative placemaking plans in the district, and ultimately strengthen coalitions. APANO also launched a creative placemaking project grant program that is funding projects in the district led by cultural workers. These cultural workers then participate in a cohort known as the Resident Artist Collaborative, in which they receive training to help engage the community in the production of new artworks.

By building public awareness and political pressure through arts and cultural projects, APANO and the Division Midway Alliance helped to pause construction of the BRT planning process until the Portland Bureau of Transportation, TriMet, Metro, and others made formal community benefits agreements and agreed to mitigation measures to ensure that this vital new transit service would serve the community’s needs.

This project is just 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. 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.

Passing Oregon’s transportation package was just the beginning of the hard work

Governor Kate Brown is conducting signing ceremonies in communities throughout Oregon this week to celebrate the passage of Oregon’s transportation package. While the governor, legislature, and stakeholders are enjoying this victory lap on a big legislative effort, the hard work of implementing the bill is yet to come.

“The transportation package is truly a roadmap to Oregon’s future. Let’s keep Oregon moving forward.” Gov. Kate Brown speaking at a signing ceremony earlier this week.

HB 2017 represents a big investment in transportation for Oregon – $5.3 billion over 10 years, with over $1 billion in state dollars dedicated to transit. But there are many questions remaining about how that funding will be spent.

Over the 10-year timeframe the package dedicates almost $800 million for a variety of earmarks; however, most earmarks are not cost-specific, shifting numerous critical decisions to later dates. Instead, each region receives a determined amount of funding for multiple projects.

This lack of specificity could be a curse or a blessing. Oregon’s DOT and the Oregon Transportation Commission (OTC) could interpret the lack of specificity as flexibility to spend designated dollars more effectively, like scoping projects to maximize return on investment. But to do so, they’ll need to apply “practical solutions” effectively.

The bill more than triples state funding for public transit. This will require the OTC to develop and finalize rules in less than a year for rationally distributing over $100 million each year in new funding to a wide variety of transit agencies — urban and rural, large and small. How will the OTC and local transit agencies quickly develop a process to demonstrate accountability and transparency in distributing and using that funding effectively?

A big challenge for implementers of this bill is that it’s not big enough to address everything. While the bill includes substantial new funding for repair, many roads and bridges in the state will continue to deteriorate. The freeway bottlenecks addressed in the bill are only a small subset of those in the Portland region, and may become clogged again due to induced demand in a few years. Will the public understand the limits of the package the legislature passed, even as they see their taxes increase?

The bill requires study and possible implementation of congestion pricing on major freeways in Portland. ODOT is already hiring for new positions to tackle this challenge. Congestion pricing (also called value pricing) has the potential to address many of Oregon’s congestion challenges in a fundamental way, but that doesn’t necessarily make it any easier. While shown to be highly effective in several cases, value pricing is politically difficult and a new technical challenge for Oregon.

Passing the bill was a huge success, but that was just part of what’s needed.

If Oregon’s leaders don’t construct a strong framework for accountability and measuring performance, it’ll be like making a great pass but then kicking the ball back into their own goal. Oregon’s work on this transportation bill is far from done, and those involved in passing the bill have much work to do to deliver on its promise to Oregonians.

Oregon’s legislature just approved a transportation package that goes big for transit

The Oregon Legislature just passed a transportation package that makes historic investments in transit while also advancing congestion pricing and putting funding toward safe routes to school infrastructure, electric vehicle purchase incentives and fixing roads and bridges.

As local stakeholders, the governor, and legislators worked over the last year and a half to develop legislation to invest in Oregon’s transportation system, a common refrain emerged: “Go big, or go home!” The idea being that if legislators were going to take a tough vote to increase taxes, they might was well make it a significant enough increase to make a substantial difference for the state’s commuters, traveling public and shippers. The Oregon House passed HB 2017 yesterday (Wednesday), and the Senate approved the legislation late today, which the governor is expected to sign. If Governor Kate Brown signs the bill, Oregon will become the sixth state to raise new transportation funds in 2017, and the 30th since 2012.

Oregon puts some skin in the transit operations game

Now virtually at the finish line, the overall package isn’t as big as initially proposed, but it has gone big for transit. The legislation introduces a new statewide transit-dedicated 0.1% employee payroll tax expected to generate $103 million annually. This represents over a 200 percent increase in state funding for transit — truly a game-changer that will increase transit service in rural and urban areas across the state.

Change from 2014 state funding per capita for transit, compared to potential funding with new transit funding. Via bettertransitoregon.org

A committee created by the legislative leadership to develop the initial funding package toured the state last year and heard about the importance of transit from every community they visited, large and small, rural and urban. However, like many other states, Oregon has a very strict constitutional restriction on motor-vehicle user-fees like gas taxes, registration fees and title fees. Funds from these sources can only go to infrastructure within the road right-of-way, and definitely not to transit operations.

This wasn’t Oregon’s first recent attempt to raise new funds for transportation. An employee payroll tax to fund transit had originally been proposed in the failed 2015 “Gang-of-8” package. While there were concerns about the regressiveness of this funding source, and a more progressive income tax was floated as an alternative, ultimately, the payroll tax stuck. To mitigate the regressive payroll tax, transit agencies will be required to submit public transportation improvement plans explaining how they will improve service and/or reduce fares for low-income riders.

As part of the effort to win this component of the package, the Oregon Transit Association compiled stories about the value of transit and how additional funding could effectively be spent to improve the lives of Oregonians. The Better Transit Oregon website outlines, for example, improvements like seven new bus lines and increased service on 20 other transit lines in the Portland region, and enhancing service that Kayak Public Transit provides between Pendleton, Hermiston, La Grande and Walla Walla in eastern Oregon. Overall, the funding could provide a 37 percent increase in service hours statewide.

Many ways to skin a cat

The joint legislative committee tasked with producing the package recognized from the start that this package had to be multimodal. While there was a focus on freeway projects that would address three bottlenecks in the Portland region, many committee members quickly recognized that these freeway projects were certainly not silver bullets and possibly wouldn’t help much at all in the long term.

Senator Brian Boquist from a rural part of the Willamette Valley regularly told his colleagues and the media that, “We cannot build our way out of congestion,” and “We cannot tax our way out of congestion,” to advance tolling and congestion pricing as critical strategies to address Oregon’s congestion challenges. The legislation directs ODOT to study, and, if feasible, implement congestion pricing on the two major north-south freeways in the Portland region, I-5 and I-205.

Ironically, as the size of the package shrank due to pressure from trucking and automotive stakeholders, the funding available for the freeway projects shrank, but congestion pricing stayed in the bill along with smaller investments like $10-15 million annually for safe routes to school infrastructure, a $12 million annual program for electric vehicle purchase incentives and the aforementioned transit funding. Overall the package shrank from $8 billion over 10 years to $5.3 billion.

Recognizing the need for accountability and transparency – but coming up short

Legislators recognized the need for improved transparency and accountability but lacked the political will to fully address the issue in any meaningful way.

While the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) is known for its emphasis on state of repair, and certain data-driven programs like All Roads Transportation Safety and Connect Oregon, it has stumbled significantly, particularly with more expensive projects like the failed Columbia River Crossing and the over-budget Pioneer Mountain Eddyville highway project.

A working group was specifically charged with developing policies to address accountability and transparency. T4A had worked with Representative Reardon to put forward HB 2532 modeled on Virginia’s “Smart Scale” concept as way to identify projects that maximize return on investment. It proposed to do this by giving each project a return-on-investment (ROI) score and only selecting for funding those that scored the best. In the end, the workgroup opted for “the Nevada model” which involves cost-benefit analysis of projects, a different tool aimed at the same task of evaluating project ROI.

Unfortunately, the committee didn’t make a strong commitment to this new approach, exempting all the earmarked projects in the bill, and only including modernization projects that cost more than $15 million. To put this in perspective, the draft 2018-22 State Transportation Improvement Plan (STIP) includes no projects that that clearly would be subject to the new analysis.

This means Oregon won’t be able to use this system to meaningfully compare proposed projects — including nearly $800 million in earmarks in the package — to report on, let alone prioritize, those that maximize return on investment. To make matters worse, the Connect Oregon program — renowned for its data-driven merit-based project selection process similar to the federal TIGER program — is now completely consumed by earmarks for the next two biennia.

The bill does give the governor-appointed and legislatively-confirmed members of the Oregon Transportation Commission (OTC) greater capacity and authority to oversee ODOT. OTC will be granted independent staff and the power to hire and fire the ODOT director in consultation with the governor. These changes create the some hope for administrative change to improve ODOT’s accountability, transparency and ability to make data-driven decisions that maximize return on investment toward achieving Oregon’s goals.

Oregon’s attempt to raise new state funding for transportation is coming down to the wire

The Oregon legislature has just two weeks left to vote on a transportation package that — in addition to funding highway maintenance and expansion — takes steps to significantly fund transit, safe routes to school and implements forward thinking strategies like congestion pricing and active transportation management.

Flickr photo by Oregon DOT. https://www.flickr.com/photos/oregondot/15035881385

Update: 7/6/17: A deal was struck by legislators and approved in the Oregon House and Senate this week. More details here in this newer post.

The Co-Chairs and Co-Vice Chairs of Oregon’s Joint Committee on Transportation Preservation and Modernization Committee (JTPM) have been negotiating the details of HB 2017 while a constitutionally mandated end-of-session ‘sine die’ on July 10 looms. This committee was formed last year to develop a transportation package for the 2017 legislative session, and has conducted a tour of state to gather input and convened many meetings to develop and flesh out the details of the package over the course of this past year.

The package has too many moving parts to describe in this post, but here are five notable elements to Oregon’s proposal:

1) Five diverse sources of revenue

To raise new transportation funds, the proposal includes traditional mechanisms like gas tax and registration fee increases, and not-so-traditional ones like an excise tax on bicycle sales, employee payroll taxes and congestion pricing. These sources are so diverse in part because of a strong interest from legislators in seeing different user groups have ‘skin in the game,’ and because Oregon’s constitution prohibits any motor vehicle-related user fees from being used on transit, off-road paths, or non-highway freight infrastructure. Add in new tolls and there are actually six sources of revenue contained in the legislation.

2) It includes significant funding for transit operations

The state of Oregon pays only about 3 percent of the cost of operating the numerous transit systems in the state while nationally, states cover about 24 percent of transit operations. A new 0.1 percent statewide payroll tax on employees would significantly change that, dedicating 85 percent of the projected $107 million it would raise toward transit operations annually. This would bolster transit service in small towns and large cities across the state, improving access to jobs and other services, and making the state a valuable partner in running the multimodal transportation networks that are vital to the state’s prosperity.

3) Freeway widening is not the only congestion solution offered

Like other recent state transportation funding packages, Oregon’s includes funding for freeway expansion — including freeway projects intended to address three specific bottlenecks in the Portland region. But an earlier presentation outlining the proposal also acknowledges the limitations of this approach, noting that we “cannot tax our way out of congestion” and “cannot build our way out of congestion relief.” The bill calls upon the Oregon Transportation Commission (OTC) to implement — where possible — pre-construction tolling, congestion pricing, “zip lanes” (we take this to mean high occupancy toll (HOT) lanes) and active traffic management. While the benefits of freeway widening are often lost to induced demand, congestion pricing can more effectively address congestion if coupled with investments in other traffic-reducing travel options like transit.

4) A “Regional Increment”

The biggest congestion challenges in Oregon are in the Portland metropolitan region. While business interests around the state are concerned about congestion in Portland since they move their goods through this port city and economic hub, it’s still a tough sell for the rest of the state to pay for big freeway projects in Portland. To solve this politically and financially, the package levies an additional “regional increment” on the Portland region with higher gas taxes, registration fees and title fees, and dedicates that funding to projects in the Portland region. This helps Portland fund its big projects and holds together political support from rural, more tax-averse parts of the state.

5) Significant discussion on accountability

We’ve written before about Oregon Department of Transportation’s (ODOT) effort to regain public trust.

“While the agency is respected for innovative programs like ConnectOregon’s competitive grants and a strong commitment to fix-it-first principles, it has stumbled occasionally as well, including the failure to win support for the problematic Columbia River Crossing mega-project, massive cost overruns on a rural highway project in the landslide-prone coastal mountains, and ill-timed miscalculation of carbon emissions estimates related to failed 2015 transportation investment legislation.”

Legislators are anxious to show the public that they can improve transparency and accountability in this bill. The proposal calls for giving the Oregon Transportation Commission greater power and capacity to oversee the Oregon Department of Transportation. It also calls for cost/benefit analysis of future projects and communicating construction progress on an improved website.

We expect new amendments to be released this week as the legislature races to complete its work before the deadline.

Oregon’s Transportation Package – 5 Things to Know

The Oregon legislature has just introduced a transportation package that – in addition to funding highway maintenance and expansion – takes steps to significantly fund transit, safe routes to school and implements forward thinking strategies like congestion pricing and active transportation management.

Oregon’s Joint Committee on Transportation Preservation and Modernization Committee (JTPM) held an informational hearing on HB 2017 on Wednesday evening. The JTPM was formed last year with the expressed purpose of developing a transportation package for the 2017 legislative session, and has conducted a tour of state to gather input and convened many meetings to develop and flesh out the details of the package over the course of this past year.

The package has too many moving parts to describe in this post, but here are five notable elements to Oregon’s proposal:

1) Five sources of revenue
The proposal includes traditional sources like gas tax and registration fee increases, and not-so-traditional sources like a bike excise tax, employee payroll tax and congestion pricing. These sources are so diverse in part because of a strong interest from legislators in seeing different user groups have ‘skin in the game,’ and because Oregon’s constitutional restriction prevents motor-vehicle user fees from being used on transit, off-road paths, or non-highway freight infrastructure. Add in tolls and you get to six sources of revenue!

2) Significant funding for transit operations
The state of Oregon only supports 3% of transit operations in the state while nationally, states cover about 24% of transit operations funding. The 0.1% statewide payroll tax on employees would significantly change that, dedicating 85% of about $107 million to transit operations annually. This would bolster transit service in small towns and large cities across the state improving access to jobs and other services.

3) Freeway widening is not the only congestion solution offered
Like other recent state transportation funding packages, Oregon’s includes funding for freeway expansion – namely freeway projects addressing 3 bottlenecks in the Portland region. But an earlier presentation outlining the proposal acknowledges that we “cannot tax our way out of congestion” and “cannot build our way out of congestion relief.” The bill calls upon the Oregon Transportation Commission (OTC) to implement – where possible – pre-construction tolling, congestion pricing, “zip lanes” (we take this to mean high occupancy toll (HOT) lanes) and active traffic management. While the benefits of freeway widening are often lost to induced demand, congestion pricing can more effectively address congestion if coupled with investments in other traffic-reducing travel options like transit.

4) A “Regional Increment”
The main congestion challenges in Oregon are in the Portland metropolitan region. While business interests around the state are concerned about congestion in Portland since they move their goods through this port city and economic hub, it’s still a tough sell for the rest of the state to pay for big freeway projects in Portland. To solve this politically and financially, the package levies an additional “regional increment” on the Portland region with higher gas taxes, registration fees and title fees, and dedicates that funding to projects in the Portland region. This helps Portland fund its big projects and holds together political support from rural, more tax-averse parts of the state.

5) Significant discussion on accountability
Because of recent, expensive boondoggle transportation projects, legislators are anxious to show the public they can improve transparency and accountability in this bill. The proposal calls for giving the Oregon Transportation Commission greater power and capacity to oversee the Oregon Department of Transportation. It also calls for cost benefit analysis of future projects and communicating construction progress on an improved website.

We’ll be tracking this legislation as it develops, but this is already certainly a package that other state legislatures may want to keep an eye on.

Will Oregon’s DOT change how they do business?

Buttressed by public opinion, a new oversight effort and legislative action, momentum is building in Oregon for increasing transparency and accountability in how the state’s transportation agency does its business.

I-5 over the Columbia River in Oregon. Flickr photo by Doug Kerr. httpswww.flickr.com/photos/dougtone/7459949082

Governor Kate Brown and the Oregon legislature have been working for well over a year to restart efforts to raise new state revenues for transportation after a failed attempt in 2015. Two separate special committees have toured the state for listening sessions, and have developed or are in the process of developing proposals for a transportation investment package.

These efforts to raise new funding have put a spotlight on the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT). A growing number of legislators, local leaders and members of the public are asking whether or not ODOT’s investment choices are maximizing return on investment, and whether those decisions are made with adequate accountability and transparency.

While the agency is respected for innovative programs like ConnectOregon’s competitive grants and a strong commitment to fix-it-first principles, it has stumbled occasionally as well, including the failure to win support for the problematic Columbia River Crossing mega-project, massive cost overruns on a rural highway project in the landslide-prone coastal mountains, and ill-timed miscalculation of carbon emissions estimates related to failed 2015 transportation investment legislation.

In late 2015 members of the legislature demanded, and the governor commissioned, an audit of ODOT to review the agency’s management structure and oversight.

Just this last week, the Oregon Transportation Commission (OTC), a body of five volunteers appointed by the governor to oversee ODOT, has jumped into the fray. OTC Chair Tammy Baney took the unusual step of sending a formal letter to Governor Brown requesting dedicated independent staff and participation in the agency director’s performance review — to help the OTC fulfill its oversight duties.

This latest move by the OTC coincides with similar efforts in the legislature.

Representative Jeff Reardon (D) has introduced a bill (HB 2532) directing the “Oregon Transportation Commission to adopt rules establishing quantitative system for scoring and ranking transportation projects that are being considered by commission for inclusion in Statewide Transportation Improvement Program.”

Transportation for America has assisted in developing this bill, which draws on programs in Virginia, Massachusetts, Washington State, and others. The legislative session starts this week, and the bill already enjoys support from five other legislators, including top Senate transportation committee Republican Brian Boquist.

With all these efforts to reform ODOT now in motion, this Thursday’s meeting of the new oversight group should be lively. OTC members and meeting attendees will learn about the draft findings from the ODOT audit for the first time — a topic that will almost certainly touch on the accountability and transparency of ODOT’s business decisions.

Trickle-up performance measures

While working to enhance its performance-based planning framework, Metro, the metropolitan planning organization for the Portland, Oregon region, can draw from the experience of local jurisdictions within its own region — bringing unanticipated benefits through “trickle-up” learning.

This is the second of a series of posts on the issues and challenges of performance-based planning in the Portland region.

When Metro kicked off the process of developing its long-range transportation plan governing the next ten years of spending it was clear that performance measures would be a focus, both because of the new requirements created by the 2012 federal transportation law (MAP-21) and a growing public interest in making smarter choices about transportation investments.

Metro convened a workgroup of stakeholders to provide guidance on performance measures. To get things started, Metro hosted a workshop in January of 2016, which included presentations on the performance measure work of two local jurisdictions: City of Portland and Washington County.

The experience of each of these jurisdictions offered up lessons that have informed the workgroup’s efforts to identify performance measures and develop a framework to inform Metro’s next long-range plan.

As part of its transportation plan, Portland has used performance-based criteria as a way to prioritize investment, and has been careful to ensure that those criteria reflect the city’s values. Criteria were derived from numerous sources that incorporate citizen input. The seven criteria are “cross-modal”; they evaluate various concerns and support a balance among modes.

Portland’s evaluation criteria

In 2014, Washington County published Multimodal Performance Measures and Standards, prepared by Kittleson & Associates. The report strives to identify performance measures that are relevant to non-automobile modes of travel. While the suite of performance measures identified in this study are useful fodder for Metro’s workgroup, some of the greatest value is the lessons learned in the process, and the opportunity to adapt some of the study’s approaches to evaluating the performance measures themselves.

While the study lists five lessons learned, the first two are most of interest:

  • Different measures are best for different planning applications.
  • Different measures may be needed to assess the same goal.

These two lessons, along with the use of matrices to visually compare proposed measures, are playing the biggest role in informing the work of Metro’s performance measures workgroup.

Performance Measures, Graphic, Transportation Planning, Grid, Chart, Corridor Planning, Development, Crash, Pedestrian, Mode Share, Travel Time, Portland, Oregon

Washington County, Oregon developed matrices to identify how proposed performance measures could be applied.

Taken together, these lessons led the workgroup to ask for matrices to illustrate the role of performance measures under consideration for Metro’s long-range plan. Metro is using two types of matrices to answer two questions. First, what is the relationship between the proposed performance measures and the region’s goals. Second, at what stage of planning can each performance measure be applied?

For example, Metro is using vehicle miles traveled as a performance measure in several stages of planning. It’s important to understand how this measure relates to several of the regions’ goals including efficiency of the transportation system, reducing household transportation costs, reducing greenhouse gas emissions and improving safety. A matrix comparing proposed measures with the region’s goals helps workgroup members to visualize those relationships and identify redundant measures.

RTP, Evaluation System, Matrix, Graphic, Chart, Portland, Oregon, Measures, Evaluation, Travel, Region, Efficient, RTP Goals

Metro staff developed a matrix that communicates how each proposed performance measure addresses the region’s goals.

Likewise developing a matrix to look at how measures can be applied is also helpful. For example, crash rate is something that cannot be predicted in Metro’s travel model. So while safety is a major goal for most transportation agencies, a proxy may be needed to inform selection of a preferred scenario or project prioritization. Metro is considering a measure they are calling “VMT exposure” which is the amount of traffic on surface streets. While this isn’t an exact measure of safety by any means, it is strongly correlated and can be easily forecast in a transportation model. Crash rate will be used as a monitoring measure to determine if the region’s investment strategy is working to reduce crashes in hindsight.

Besides the ideas on how to evaluate performance measures, there is an additional benefit to learning from local jurisdictions: consistency between local measures and regional measures. Getting everyone on the same page to coordinate regional investments helps ensure that all dollars are going to accomplish goals that are shared across the region. Regional performance measures that reflect those bubbling up from local jurisdictions will help local jurisdictions like Portland and Washington County that are already ahead of the game develop local plans that reflect their own local values while still being consistent with the regional plan.

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.

Oregon DOT provides a wake up call for local leaders in other states

In a move that should raise alarm bells for local leaders in other states, last week the Oregon Department of Transportation decided where to spend nearly $200 million in new money from last year’s FAST Act on their road system with limited to zero public engagement.

Interstate 5 - Oregon

I-5 over the Columbia River in Oregon. Flickr photo by Doug Kerr.

The FAST Act, the five-year transportation bill passed by Congress in late 2015, provided a level of funding certainty for state transportation programs that they’ve not had in years. Thanks to a $70 billion transfer from general taxpayer funds into the Highway Trust Fund, the FAST Act also provided a slight increase in funding for each state. This followed on the heels of $75 billion in transfers total over the prior seven years, just to keep the trust fund solvent.

Yet simply funneling more money into the same system won’t necessarily ensure better outcomes for the taxpayers’ investment or that local priorities will be addressed, and Oregon’s actions could be a preview of what might happen in countless other states, deciding not to equitably distribute the new funds to state and local priorities.

Rather than improve the underlying policies that directs each state’s transportation investments, Congress chose to largely direct the FAST Act’s increased funding into new freight programs, the largest of which is being distributed to states by a formula wholly unrelated to freight needs or merit. (This was one of the provisions we called out in our post covering ten things to know about the FAST Act. –Ed.)

This new National Highway Freight Program will dole out more than $1 billion per year to state DOTs with zero relation to the value or tonnage of the freight moved within its borders. It also predetermines that the solution to any freight problem is highway-related by directing all but 10 percent of each state’s funding to highway development only, disregarding the fact that these funds were not collected from gas taxes.

In addition, the increase in funds in the main highway programs are also directed largely to state DOT owned roads (interstates and highways). Thus, local governments must be prepared to ensure their priorities are addressed and the states share in their newfound resources, however large those may be. 

Case in point: Oregon.

As Bike Portland originally reported back on 3/17, The Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT), with the approval of its Transportation Commission, programmed $196 million in new funding from the FAST Act on Thursday, March 17. While ODOT is correct that the majority of its new funding is from the highway freight formula program, the agency has misinformed (pdf) their audience by stating the funds must be allocated to “freight-related projects on high-volume, high-priority truck freight routes, primarily the Interstate.”

Congress provides ODOT, and every other state, great flexibility to direct federal highway dollars to priority projects — state or local, highway or non-highway. Every state has the flexibility to transfer 50 percent of its funding for a highway program to a separate highway program such as the highly flexible and locally accessible Surface Transportation Program, which can be used on almost any type of important project.

While nearly 40 percent of the additional $200 million in Oregon will support fix-it-first projects – a priority that Transportation for America supports —95 percent of the new funding will likely go to state-owned highways and almost nothing is done to improve transparency and accountability for the public. To wit: the list of project types receiving funds does not provide a discussion or rationale for which projects will receive the new funding or why any particular project category received funding.

The murky process of picking projects in a way that is nearly impossible for the public to decipher will continue.

ODOT will not begin spending the nearly $200 million in newly programmed funds until 2018, which provides Oregon’s local leaders two years to build their case to receive a greater portion of the new funding from the FAST Act for their priorities.

But today and tomorrow, Oregon’s example illustrates why local leaders in other states need to proactively engage their state representatives and DOT to ensure their state’s new funding from the FAST Act is shared and supports both local and state priorities.

Click here to review the amount of highway funding directed to your state DOT from the FAST Act

Effectively linking transportation with economic development: Beth Osborne visits the Pacific Northwest

On September 10 and 11, T4A brought Senior Policy Advisor Beth Osborne to the Pacific Northwest to speak with audiences in Seattle, Portland and Eugene about the links between transportation investment and economic development. There are countless examples of these links in each city, and local speakers shared those stories at all three events.

Portland policy breakfast

A good crowd gathered at Metro’s policy breakfast with Beth Osborne in Portland.

This November, Seattle voters will decide whether to support the Move Seattle levy, an ambitious plan to invest in five bus rapid transit (BRT) lines and a range of complete streets projects to improve Seattleites’ mobility and safety by updating the design of city streets to better match the demands being placed on them by a greater range of users. Mayor Murray’s transportation policy director Andrew Glass-Hastings was there to share details on that effort. (The City of Seattle is a T4A member.)

The Portland event was hosted by Metro, another T4A member. Years of hard work have come to fruition with both the Portland Milwaukie Light Rail (PMLR) line and Tilikum Crossing over the Willamette River opening immediately after the event on September 12, and the region is hard at work planning a Bus Rapid Transit line from Portland to Gresham. (Both cities are members of T4A as is TriMet, the region’s transit district.) Brian Newman from Oregon Health & Science University shared the story of the hundreds of millions of dollars of current and planned economic development in the South Waterfront spurred by the new light rail line, streetcar, the aerial tram and TIGER-funded improvements to S.W. Moody Avenue. Duncan Hwang from the Jade business district spoke about their efforts to minimize or prevent displacement of disadvantaged communities when the Powell Division BRT line is built in the next 5 years.

Beth Osborne speaking in PNW

Beth Osborne sharing with the crowd in Eugene

The third event was in Eugene, where the neighboring city of Springfield (another T4A member) has a TIGER application in for streetscape improvements on Franklin Boulevard that could spark substantial infill development — including new hotels to serve the visitors at the 2021 World Track Championships hosted by the region. Springfield Mayor Christine Lundberg shared those aspirations, and Eugene Mayor Kitty Piercy, Eugene Area Chamber of Commerce president Dave Hauser and PIVOT Architecture principal Kari Turner all testified to how Eugene-Springfield’s growing regional BRT network is part of their economic development strategy. In fact, T4A member Lane Transit District received federal Small Starts funding for its West EmX BRT project on the same day as our event in Eugene.

The local stories at all three events helped provide context for Beth’s Ms. Osborne’s message: if your region wants to get the best economic development results from transportation investments, it’s imperative to carefully measure the outcomes against your region’s values. Measure outcomes like congestion the wrong way, and you could be inhibiting economic development in favor of moving cars around quickly for no economic gain.

Referencing a series of recent T4America and Smart Growth America reports – Measuring What We Value, Core Values, The Innovative MPO – Ms. Osborne pointed to new approaches yielding better results.

These recent events are sparking productive conversations in each region. Interested in organizing an event like these in your area for members and non-members? Get in touch with us and feel free to share ideas for topics and speakers.

performance-measures-members-featuredRelatedly to the topic of measuring outcomes, don’t miss Beth’s ongoing series on performance measures, available only for members.

Feel a little lost when it comes to the concept of transportation performance measures? In this short series expressly for T4A members, our resident expert and USDOT veteran will help bring you up to speed on an issue that’s complicated but represents a smart way forward on transportation planning and spending. Read more. 

Join T4A’s Beth Osborne in Portland and Seattle next week for talks on transportation and economic development

Beth Osborne, Transportation for America’s senior policy advisor, is making three stops in the Pacific Northwest soon to discuss how investing in transportation can help drive economic development. 

The three sessions will focus on how we can plan and develop our roads, transit systems and freight networks to bring the best possible economic returns. You will learn how regions across the country have made investment decisions and the results they achieved with regard to economic development and competitiveness.

Beth Osborne brings five year’s experience from US DOT, including serving as Acting Assistant Secretary for Transportation Policy, and a national perspective on prospects for improvements to transportation policy and funding. Sign up today. T4America members should have already received a promo code for discounted registration.

Find out more about each session and register with the links below.

T4A’s Beth Osborne Highlights Economic Development in Pacific Northwest Appearances

T4A is pleased to announce upcoming events featuring T4A’s Senior Policy Advisor Beth Osborne in Oregon and Washington September 10th and 11th. Ms. Osborne brings five year’s experience at US DOT – including serving as Acting Assistant Secretary for Transportation Policy – and a national perspective on prospects for improvements to transportation policy and funding.

Osborne and local speakers will discuss economic development implications stemming from how we plan and develop our roads, transit systems and freight networks, and how we might measure success. Come learn how regions across the country have made investment decisions, and what the results they have achieved with regard to economic development and competitiveness. As a benefit of being a T4A member you are able to get discounts on T4A events. To receive a discount on upcoming events enter the promo code: T4A1707 and receive 50% off your tickets.

If you have any trouble with the promo code or have any questions regarding these upcoming events please contact Alicia Orosco at alicia.orosco@t4america.org.

 

Thursday, Sept. 10, 12:00-1:30pm at the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce

Register Today! Thursday, Sept. 10, 12:00-1:30pm at the
Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce

Friday, Sept. 11, 7:30-9:00am at the Metro Regional Center, Portland

Register Today! Friday, Sept. 11, 7:30-9:00am at the
Metro Regional Center, Portland

 

 

 

 

 

Screen Shot 2015-08-17 at 3.20.16 PM

Register Today! Friday, Sept. 11, 2:30-4:00pm at the Center for Meeting & Learning

New report ranks worst counties in Oregon for aging bridges, finds state’s 439 structurally deficient bridges carry 1,000 vehicles every minute

Report comes as Oregon’s legislature considers new transportation funding in part to address precisely these types of ongoing repair and maintenance needs

OREGON – A new Transportation for America report analyzes the condition of Oregon’s bridges and finds that 439 are structurally deficient — requiring urgent repair, rehabilitation or replacement. These 439 bridges represent 5.5 percent of all Oregon bridges.

These bridges are located in areas urban and rural and serve as critical links in moving people to work and goods to market each day. In 2014, Oregon drivers took 1,000 trips per minute over these deficient bridges. Compared to other states, Oregon has done a better job keeping their bridges repaired, but 439 structurally deficient bridges is still far too many, and without continuing to prioritize and fund their repair, progress could slow or even reverse course.

Most bridges are designed with a 50-year lifespan, but these structurally deficient bridges are an average of 55 years old, 14 years older than the average age of all Oregon bridges. One in twelve bridges were built before 1948, which means that 680 bridges have been carrying traffic since before the Korean War and the creation of Medicare.

“Federal and state transportation funding simply hasn’t kept up due to declining gas tax revenues, inflation and improved vehicle fuel efficiency,” said T4America director James Corless. “With action by the legislature, Oregon could join a growing list of 
states — 20 and counting — that have raised their own transportation
 revenues since 2012. While increasing state funding is a good step, Congress needs 
to reward those efforts by fulfilling the 
historic federal role as a trusted partner in
transportation investment and passing a long-term transportation bill with stable, increased funding. Doing so would allow the State of Oregon and local officials to better address these sorts of ongoing maintenance needs.”

Oregon’s 2003 OTIA bond package prioritized the repair of the state’s busiest structurally deficient bridges, but now the bill is coming due for those bonds and is eating into yearly transportation budgets. Without new funding — and in light of Congress’ inability to pass a long-term transportation funding bill to support states like Oregon — the state will face more competition for fewer financial resources to address the state’s transportation needs.

“Even though the state of repair of our bridges is in relatively good shape in Washington County, we will see declines if we don’t increase revenue to address our backlog of maintenance needs,” said Andrew Singelakis, Washington County’s Director of Land Use and Transportation.

4,032 of the state’s 8,052 bridges are locally-maintained, and 7.2 percent of those locally-maintained bridges are structurally deficient — significantly higher than the state’s average rate of 5.5 percent for all bridges. And a staggering 66.5 percent (292 total) of Oregon’s 439 deficient bridges are maintained by local entities.

Though Oregon does direct a portion of state gas tax revenues to local governments — 30 percent to counties and 20 percent to cities — that money is flexible and with a range of pressing local needs, these local jurisdictions have to make difficult decisions with those funds, and they’re already feeling the squeeze.

“The average value of Wasco County’s yearly agricultural production is over $80 million dollars,” said Arthur Smith, Wasco County Public Works Director. “Most of the cherries, wheat and other products grown here are hauled on county roads, so any closures or load limits placed on county bridges can have a very significant impact. We laid-off 30 percent of our workforce in 2007 because of loss of forest receipts, and are now, more than ever, totally dependent on state and federal funding to fix our bridges. It’s vital that those structures remain in good shape.”

This report can be found online at https://t4america.org/maps-tools/bridges. That site includes an interactive map that allows one to map all bridges within a ten-mile radius of any U.S. address and see their condition and other vital statistics.

Contact:

Oregon: Chris Rall, 971-230-4745
NW Field Organizer
chris.rall@t4america.org

DC: Steve Davis, 202-971-3902
Deputy Communications Director steve.davis@t4america.org

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.

“It’s not just a highway bill. It has to be a transportation bill.”

Those were the words of Congresswoman Suzanne Bonamici (OR, 1) during a transportation roundtable on May 5th that T4America participated in with local members and other partners while House members were back home in their districts

At the roundtable with key local leaders and advocates in Hillsboro, Rep. Bonamici explained her concerns with transportation funding and the need to convince her colleagues to support new revenues to make the Highway Trust Fund whole.

Transportation for America member Washington County was represented by Commissioner Dick Schouten and Land Use and Transportation Director Andrew Singelakis in the meeting at the Willow Creek Campus of Portland Community College on TriMet’s MAX light rail line in Hillsboro. Smart Growth America Local Leaders Council member Mayor Denny Doyle attended, along with transportation leaders from labor, business, and Oregon DOT.

I shared the tally of how many states have passed transportation revenue packages – 7 states this year, and 19 since 2012 — from T4A’s state transportation funding tracker, demonstrating the growing needs for more reliable transportation funding. I also shared our data on the re-election rate for state legislators who support gas tax increases – 98% in their primaries, 90% in general elections, an indication that supporting increased transportation revenue is a good political choice for lawmakers.

Commissioner Schouten spoke about his experiences in Asia and Western Europe, remarking how we are falling behind our international competitors. He called for bold vision and leadership.

Andrew Singelakis talked about Washington County’s role in funding its own projects using the Major Streets Transportation Improvement Program (MSTIP), general fund, transportation development taxes and other programs. Washington County does its part to raise funding locally but is counting on a reliable federal partner to help them complete larger projects they cannot do on their own.

For her part, Representative Bonamici appears to support a lot of T4America’s platform — investment, transportation options, key programs like New Starts, TIGER, and TIFIA, and the importance of the federal government taking a strong role in funding transportation.

Last week’s event was a good step forward in the long march to build a case for federal support for a robust transportation system.

Chris Rall is T4America’s Pacific Northwest Field Organizer

GOP Rep. Petri joins bill to raise the federal gas tax

The Highway Trust Fund, our nation’s key infrastructure funding source, has been teetering on the edge of insolvency for the last half decade, with legislators from both parties unable to secure a long term funding source.

Rather than continue to stand by and do nothing, retiring Rep. Tom Petri (R-WI) has decided to join Rep. Earl Blumenauer, a Democrat from Oregon, as a co-sponsor on a bill to gradually raise our current gas tax 15 cents to a total of 33.3 cents. That would be the first increase since 1993 when Bill Clinton was president and gas cost a little more than a dollar. The measure also would also index the tax to inflation to stave off future shortfalls.

On Wednesday morning, the bipartisan pair will host an event on Capitol Hill, accompanied by President Reagan – or at least his words and image., Reagan “spoke eloquently on the need for Congress to raise the gas tax in 1982,” according to a joint statement from the two.

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Representative Blumenauer quotes President Reagan on the need for an increase of the gas tax at a press event at the Capitol.

Representative Petri has long been a senior member of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee for the House side and has said for years now that Congress needs to address the constant deficiencies of the Highway Trust Fund.

“In the Highways and Transit subcommittee, we have held hearing after hearing where state transportation officials, mayors, governors, truckers, transit operators, economists, and experts in transportation policy have testified with unwavering support for a long-term, fully-funded surface transportation bill,” said Petri, after the last short term fix was applied to the Highway Trust Fund over the summer.  “That should still be our goal.”

Blumenauer has been echoing similar sentiments since introducing a similar bill last December.

”Today, with inflation and increased fuel efficiency for vehicles, the average motorist is paying about half as much per mile as they did in 1993,” Blumenauer said in a statement at the time of the introduction. “It’s time for Congress to act. There’s a broad and persuasive coalition that stands ready to support Congress. We just need to give them something to support.”

Although the idea of raising the gas tax polls poorly, politicians of either party would seem to have little to fear from their constituents if they make a good case for ensuring sound highways and transit investments. Since 2012, 98 percent of state legislators in a variety of states including Wyoming, Massachusetts, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and New Hampshire who voted to approve an increase of the gas tax were re-elected in their next primary, our analysis shows.

When Senators Murphy and Corker introduced their bipartisan bill that would have raised the gas tax 12 cents over the next two years, Transportation for America’s director, James Corless, stated his approval with an urgency to find a long-term solution instead of short-term fixes.

“A return to stable funding will ensure that our states and communities can repair aging roads, bridges and transit systems and build the infrastructure we need for a growing economy. The alternative is to allow our transportation system to crumble along with an economy hobbled by crapshoot commutes and clogged freight corridors.”

Competitive grant programs in PA and OR provide a blueprint for a different approach

There’s strong support for a plan in Congress to give locals more access to their transportation dollars, but two states are already leading the way on the idea of competitive grants for smart projects — and Pennsylvania took a big step today.

Drexel Master Plan before after
A photo of current conditions and a rendering from the campus master plan for Drexel University around 30th Street Station in Philadelphia, one of the grantees. More info below.

The Pennsylvania DOT today announced the initial winners of a new statewide competitive grant program specifically for multimodal projects and the impressive list shows just how much demand there is at the local level for these types of innovative projects.

Pennsylvania was one of 12 states that managed to successfully raise new transportation revenue over the last couple of years, but they went a step beyond just raising funds to pour into the same old projects or plug budget gaps. After changing their transportation funding structure, they directed a portion of the new money raised each year into a new, statewide, multimodal grant program.

The first round of winners totaling $84 million is an impressive collection of roadway, freight and passenger rail, aviation, port and waterway, bicycle and pedestrian safety, and other projects. Every single applicant has their own financial skin in the game, bringing significant local or private money to the table.

That last detail is important — applicants are required to have 30 percent of the total cost in hand from other sources to even be considered for receiving state funds. By contrast, traditional federal formula funds only require a 20 percent match. And unlike most other grant programs, private entities can apply and win funding (more on one of those below), which means private money can be brought to bear on improving the transportation system.

Pennsylvania is not the first to create a program like this. In 2005, Oregon successfully created a program called ConnectOregon, which has received more than 528 applications and awarded $482 million in grants since the program’s inception. In just the first four rounds of competitive grants, $340 million in grants for multimodal projects leveraged an additional $500 million in non-state funds.

One thing that local elected officials like to hear is that these programs in PA or OR (or the potential programs in every state that Congress’ Innovation in Surface Transportation Act would create) are equally accessible to rural and urban areas.

Even if you’re a smaller city, the eligibility is the same: Do you have a good project that hits all the competitive criteria from the state? Does your project bring a strong return on investment? Are you bringing your own money to the table? Then you’ve got as good a chance to win funding as a big project in Philadelphia.

Mayors and elected officials throughout the country are looking for an opportunity to compete for funds — especially those that are too often left out of the decision-making process. Representatives in both chambers of Congress have taken these concerns to heart and incorporated some of the best qualities of these two state programs into The Innovation in Surface Transportation Act, which has strong bipartisan support in both the House and Senate.

Pore over the list of winners in Pennsylvania announced today and it’s obvious just how much pent-up demand there is to get funding for smart, innovative local projects. One project in Pittsburgh stands out from the typical winners you see in TIGER, because it’s a private entity. The Oxford Development Company received $2.2 million to augment a development project that will bring tangible benefits to the transportation network in the neighborhood and for the city. Oxford has a $130 million plan to develop Three Crossings, a mixed-use development in the Strip District that will include a multimodal transportation facility on-site and improved bike and pedestrian connections into that historic walkable neighborhood just north of downtown.

A few others worth noting:

  • Port Authority of Allegheny County, McKeesport – $1 million to demolish the existing McKeesport Transportation Center and build a new multimodal terminal that will bring together regional and local buses, vans, and ACCESS paratransit, a park-and-ride lot, and a major bicycle trail. (Photos of the current station)
  • Drexel University, Philadelphia – $2.5 million to create an integrated plan to address transportation, commercial opportunities and the station and facilities in the area around Philadelphia’s bustling 30th Street Station. (Photo from the Drexel Master Plan below)
  • Erie Regional Airport Authority, Millcreek Township – $700,000 for improvements to the Erie International Airport terminal building.
  • Economic Progress Alliance of Crawford County, Greenwood Township – $1 million to construct an 85-car unit train loop track in the Keystone Regional Industrial Park that will allow a an 85-car train to be serviced, unloaded and turned around at the Keystone Regional Industrial Park without having to uncouple its engine or cars. The state’s $1 million contribution will make it possible for this $7.2 million project to proceed. Story.
  • Big Spring School District, West Pennsboro Township – $525,000 to complete pedestrian safety improvements, including the design of a pedestrian tunnel connecting Big Spring High School with the fitness center and middle school located across the street in this small town.

Oregon Senator Ron Wyden wants to relaunch popular Build America Bonds program

The Build America Bonds program, a popular infrastructure investment initiative in the 2009 Recovery Act, did not make it into the bipartisan tax deal struck by President Obama and Congressional Republicans late last year. But Senator Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, is now attempting a rebrand and relaunch.

The original Build America Bonds program provided issuers rebates equal to 35 percent of interest costs, and issuers ultimately sold more than $180 billion in BABs since the program debuted in April 2009. The existence of BABs ensured a continuing line of credit for states and cities during a fragile financial market, allowing them to proceed with job-creating infrastructure projects despite the rough climate for borrowing. Lisa Lambert in Reuters reported:

The housing market collapse, financial crisis and recession ravaged (state and local) revenues and forced them to cut spending, hike taxes, turn to the federal government for help and borrow at higher levels to keep their budgets balanced.

Wyden said the bonds under his new program would be called TRIPs, or Transportation and Regional Infrastructure Bonds. The matching rate of 35 percent would likely be lowered, though a set amount has not yet been identified.

John Mica, the Republican chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, indicated support for including BABs in a new transportation bill, and the Washington Post endorsed an extension of the program last November. Republican Senator John Thune of South Dakota has been working with Wyden on the issue.

Representative Sander Levin, a Democrat of Michigan, is pushing similar legislation in the House.

Photo credit: The Oregonian