The opening of LAX/Metro Transit Center Station on the Los Angeles Metro is a major milestone in the city’s history and is vital for the 2028 Summer Olympics, but there are far more reasons to invest in alternative transportation options beyond major sporting events.
A Los Angeles Metro Rail C Line Train at LAX/Metro Transit Center during the testing phase (Source: LACMTA)
The grand opening of a long awaited station
(Source: LACMTA)
This year, the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (LACMTA) plans to open the LAX/Metro Transit Center Station on the Los Angeles Metro Rail C and K Lines to serve Los Angeles International Airport (LAX). Despite having the second highest population of any city in the United States behind New York, Los Angeles did not provide rail transit service to LAX (the 8th busiest airport in the world) until 2025. While there is still work to be done on the LAX Automated People Mover (expected to open in 2026) to connect the transit center to the terminals at LAX without the need for a shuttle bus, the opening of LAX/Metro Transit Center is still a major milestone. LA has proven that it is committed to investing in the rest of its transportation system by heavily expanding the LA Metro Rail system and improving frequency and reliability on the LA Metro Bus network.
The LAX/Metro Transit Center Station is part of a larger set of projects known as the Twenty Eight by ‘28 plan in order to ensure Los Angeles and its transportation network are ready for the upcoming Olympic Games in the summer of 2028. Other upcoming notable projects part of the plan include the three phases of the D Line Extension along Wilshire Boulevard to the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), an extension of the A Line to Pomona, bike lane and pedestrian path improvements along the Los Angeles River, and more. Many of these projects are important initiatives to incentivize other methods of transportation beyond driving and will greatly benefit the local residents beyond the Olympics and the influx of people it will bring.
Competing Priorities for “Car-Free Games”
Los Angeles is a city well known for its car culture and particularly for its traffic. However, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass has stated that the 2028 Olympics will be a “no-car games. This is a tall order for LA, and such an investment will require cooperation from the federal, state, and local levels. However, this mission statement by Mayor Bass aims to avoid congestion by making transit and active transportation the primary focus of the city for the Olympics.
These Olympic Games are a prime time to build transit better in LA, and show the world that a car-free Olympics is possible, even in a city famous for its traffic. In addition, these policy decisions to prioritize alternative transportation for the Olympics will have broad implications beyond the games themselves, as the transit improvements such as the A and D Line Extensions will permeate far beyond the Olympics in 2028, and greatly enhance how Angelenos move throughout the region.
However, it is important that Mayor Bass and the LA Metro follow through with their vision for a car-free games. The need to focus on traffic alleviation and unsafe freeway interchange has prompted LA Metro to shift their focus to freeway expansions, including Express Lanes in I-105, increasing capacity at the interchange of State Routes 57 and 60, and expanding capacity for I-5. These projects run counter to the notion of a car-free games and should be re-examined in favor of other, smaller multimodal improvements which emit less carbon and cause less congestion.
Beyond the Olympics
By focusing on other methods of transportation such as cycling, walking, and many modes of public transit from buses to light rail and heavy rail, LA is creating options for moving around the city beyond driving that will last far beyond the 2028 Olympics. Oftentimes, after the Olympics, many of the facilities built and used for the events end up being underutilized and expensive to maintain (also known as a white elephant facility). By primarily investing in mobility options and reusing existing facilities, LA is creating a lasting mobility legacy beyond the Olympic Games.
A local coalition started by Move LA (the only countywide organization dedicated to public transportation funding that passed transformative initiatives like Measures R and M), FASTLinkDTLA, Agency Artifact, LA Commons, LA Neighborhood Initiative, and the California Community Foundation have come together to create the “Festival Trail” as a legacy project. This 28-mile-long zero-emissions, non-vehicular corridor connects the major venues currently proposed for the 2028 Games in the greater LA region. The Festival Trail is a linkage to current and planned Caltrans, LA Metro, and LA city projects with new public spaces celebrating each community and unlocking up to 20,000 units of new affordable housing in the most under-resourced communities of south LA and downtown.
Ideally, it should not take a major sporting event such as the Olympics to see the benefits of public transit, cycling, and other alternative transportation improvements. Building more public transit, both bus and rail, and investing in cycling and pedestrian pathways should be principles that cities across the United States implement regardless. But these mega-events do provide a deadline to move these projects along at a much faster pace. If a city so famous for its car culture such as Los Angeles can understand the value of alternative transportation, any city can.
Transit Equity Day—which honors Civil Rights Leader Rosa Parks—is on February 4th. As we celebrate the importance of ensuring people of all backgrounds and abilities are able to use transportation, it is imperative to highlight communities that are often left out of the public transit conversation: rural communities.
All communities and people deserve transit options to ensure their greatest well-being. Access to high-quality and reliable public transportation is foundational to ensure everyone can access essential destinations like schools, healthcare facilities, and jobs. Traditionally, transportation advocacy is seen in urban and metropolitan areas where density is plentiful, and the demand for transit is loud. However, rural communities are lost in the conversation, perceived as areas that do not need access to transit due to the sprawling nature of the communities and assumed access to private vehicles.
A Complete Streets approach is needed—and can be made possible—in rural communities. Learn more about how to create safe and inclusive small towns in this video.
In reality, more than one million households in rural areas do not have access to a car. In fact, the majority of counties with zero-car households are in rural communities, highlighting the brazen need to invest in public transit. The lack of transportation access leads to a decreased quality of life with barriers to access community amenitites, healthcare resources, and schools. However, studies have repeatedly shown that people in rural areas are equally as likely to walk and bike as those in urban areas if they have access to safe and reliable options to do so. In spite of this, investments in transportation networks that support walking, biking, and public transit are largely limited to urban communities. There are a lot of affordable, attainable solutions to encourage active and multimodal transportation in rural America. Implementing Complete Streets, more effective and multimodal-oriented land-use approaches, and strategic transit planning would all result in more mobility options for residents, as well as significant benefits, including healthier and more economically prosperous places.
A critical part of the strategic planning process includes developing a vision for a community that is tailored to its unique needs and features building partnerships with community groups, agencies, and individuals that will help realize this vision. Having land development policies and guidelines in place is also key to producing strong economic outcomes and vitality in the long term.
Strategic innovation also ensures the availability of viable and affordable transit for underserved regions. A study in rural New Mexico examined the feasibility of microtransit implementation in the area, finding that community engagement accompanied with diverse funding strategies was key to achieving success. Other examples of such efforts include the Blackfeet Indian Reservation’s micro-transit service in northwest Montana or the City of Wilson’s RIDE service. Innovative, shared mobility options that go beyond traditional buses, like bikeshare systems or vans, can offer flexible options that serve the unique needs of rural communities.
Transit Equity Day serves as a reminder for local leaders and planners to prioritize transit investments in rural communities. By fostering equitable access to transportation options in rural communities, we can build more resilient areas where everyone can thrive.
Transit agencies across the United States have struggled with decreased ridership, safety hazards, and low morale as a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet some have responded by changing their approach to better serve everyday riders, make transit free or more affordable, and rethink what the future of transit should look like to reduce emissions and provide access for those who need it most.
This post was written by Devin Willis, program associate at Smart Growth America. It is the fourth of a series of posts on this topic—find the full set here. Some of the agencies profiled in this piece were interviewed with support from the Kresge Foundation.
This series has explored how public transit is an essential part of mitigating climate change by reducing emissions. Connecting more people to their everyday destinations via public transit offers a way to cut back on vehicle miles traveled (VMT) and transportation emissions.
We’ve been writing this series against the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has presented unprecedented challenges for transit agencies and the millions of riders they serve. Transit providers all over the country are struggling with revenue loss due to the massive ridership drop in 2020, service cuts, driver shortages and illness, vaccine skepticism, and low morale. Although the funds for transit in the 2021 infrastructure bill will help, those funds can’t help fund operations for most transit agencies or undo the damage caused by the pandemic. (The American Rescue Plan, passed during the pandemic, does specifically provide emergency operations support for transit agencies.)
This is a slight detour from our series about the potential of reducing emissions with more transit, but we wanted to profile a few transit agencies that shifted their approach during this historic pandemic to provide better access for their riders and rethink the future of transit in their communities—both of which are stepping stones to more significant improvements that can help reduce emissions.
Richmond, VA preserved ridership levels with fare-free transit and a past network redesign
Unlike many transit agencies nationwide, Richmond’s public transit only suffered a relatively modest drop in ridership, and has already recovered local bus ridership to pre-pandemic levels. This is likely due in part to a handful of bold actions on the part of the city government and the Greater Richmond Transit Company (GRTC). GRTC CEO Julie Timm, hired just six months before the pandemic, attributes their success to three main steps taken:
1) The strength of the 2018 network redesign connecting essential workers to jobs; 2) the extensive COVID protective measures enacted early and throughout the pandemic to protect staff and riders; and 3) the ongoing commitment to Zero Fare operations to protect the health and financial stability of our riders. GRTC’s focus on connecting people to essential resources resulted in higher sustained ridership.
As Timm notes, before the pandemic in 2018, GRTC implemented a significant redesign of its bus routes to improve access and produce faster, more consistent service. Their redesign includes new route names and numbers (routes are now named after major roads that are well known to locals like Hull Street), increased bus frequency, and easier connections. This service redesign successfully produced an increase in ridership every month between June 2018 and February 2020, reaching a full 29 percent increase over that time period and providing a solid foundation to build upon during the difficulties of the pandemic.
The most notable change that GRTC made during the pandemic was the decision by the GRTC and Mayor Levar Stoney in March of 2020 to suspend all fare collection from bus riders. In Richmond, the majority of the bus service ridership and revenue comes from the often economically distressed households of essential and low-income riders. This shift to 100 percent free transit spared many families and workers from having to choose between their bus fare and other needs like food, medicine, and employment access.
While Richmond was not the only city to introduce fare-free policies during the pandemic, GRTC is among the more successful cities to do so, effectively preserving the city’s bus ridership and maintaining the zero fare policy longer term. And two years later, GRTC is continuing to offer fare-free transit while most other cities that did so have since returned to their previous fare policies. The GRTC was awarded $8 million in state grant funding from the Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation to continue experimenting with the effects of zero fare policy over the next three years through June of 2025. The City of Richmond and Virginia Commonwealth University have agreed to match this funding in support of the zero fare policy and its positive effect on bus riders.
Atlanta, GA looks to restructure service to respond to changing needs
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Agency (MARTA) had approximately 110 bus routes with over four million passengers per month. In the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic MARTA, like many other US transit agencies, watched ridership crater. And in the intervening two years of the pandemic, they have struggled to bring their ridership back to pre-pandemic levels. At present, MARTA’s ridership is approximately 65 percent of pre-pandemic levels.
Similar to Richmond’s 2018 redesign but taking place during the pandemic, MARTA launched a major initiative to restructure bus service as a response to the pandemic and to better address the needs of residents. MARTA is currently leading a major online and in-person community engagement effort, soliciting feedback and ideas regarding new potential bus routes and service types. MARTA is posing key questions to its riders directly about the tradeoffs between service frequency and breadth of coverage directly: do riders want to see fewer routes with more reliable, frequent service between highly-trafficked areas (similar to the changes Richmond made, as well as Columbus and Houston) or more routes in more neighborhoods but less convenient service on those routes? Following the engagement, the proposed redesign concept will be released in the spring of 2022.
In addition to the bus network redesign, MARTA has also begun to experiment with mobile ticketing and fare collection to ensure the wellbeing of transit operators and riders. The agency added a mobile ticketing system in order to make transit use more contactless and limit the spread of coronavirus. MARTA hopes to make these changes permanent.
Pittsburgh, PA reroutes buses to better serve low-income riders
Pittsburgh’s Port Authority of Allegheny County lost 80 percent of its ridership during the coronavirus pandemic. Prior to the pandemic, the Port Authority’s transit network was historically focused on connecting suburban commuters to downtown Pittsburgh from residential and suburban areas in the surrounding region. When the pandemic hit and many of those office jobs switched temporarily or permanently to remote work, this type of commuter ridership dried up almost completely.
The Port Authority also implemented changes in the fare system to encourage different types of riders to use the bus system. They recently introduced a modest fare proposal that would restructure the bus fare pass from a calendar-based weekly and monthly pass system to a more flexible 7- and 31-day pass system. This move is a good first step as it removes the bus pass from the commuter-centric five-day week and allows the bus system to better serve non-commuters such as persons traveling on the weekend or outside of rush hours. Locals have pushed for even more significant changes, including fare-free service or a similar policy. One proposal recommends that fares be limited for low-income passengers who are SNAP/EBT beneficiaries.
What’s next
The steps these agencies have taken are examples of what other agencies can do to increase ridership and safety in the pandemic. While the challenges faced by transit agencies during the COVID-19 crisis are very real and there are not easy solutions, the agencies profiled here were able to respond to the changing needs that they observed, focusing on providing access for those who need it most, potentially reducing emissions in the process by improving access and ridership. This type of responsive, nimble approach to transportation infrastructure will help make transit a viable alternative to driving and will help us reach our climate goals.
Flickr/Creative Commons of a Metro Transit METRO C Line bus photo by Tony Webster. https://www.flickr.com/photos/diversey/49040491042.
Greater transit use is key for lowering emissions, and cities across America are reconsidering how they serve their residents with public transit—and the land uses that encourage better service and ridership. Several cities are laying the groundwork to make this happen—even outside of the “transit hotspots” one may expect.
This post was written by T4America policy intern Jackson Pierce. This post is the third in a series of posts on this topic—find the full set here.
In our first and second installments of this series, we showed how proper funding for transit operations and for increasing transit access are a one-two punch that makes transit more useful, lessening the need to drive and in turn lowering emissions. The historic influx of transit funding coming from the infrastructure bill provides an opportunity to better connect people to the jobs and services they need while reducing climate impacts. These improvements will also help address equity concerns by providing better quality service to more people who urgently need it. In our third installment, we highlight how Houston, Columbus, Austin, and Minnesota’s Twin Cities have made strides toward better service and smarter planning by focusing on providing better transit access to adapt today’s limited funding to existing infrastructure.
Houston and Columbus rescued their bus systems from low ridership by starting fresh
Houston—with a population ranked 4th in the nation by city proper, 5th by immediate metro area and 9th by expanded metro area—is infamous for its wide highways, sprawling cityscape, poor walking infrastructure in many areas, and nearly ubiquitous accommodation of the motor vehicle. Yet Houston has also become a public transit leader by significantly redesigning its bus service from the ground up in 2015 to focus on giving as many people as possible access to frequent, high quality transit, with help from transit consultants Jarrett Walker & Associates.
Houston is recognized as a leader for good reason. The city redrew its former bus network from scratch, allowing METRO (the city’s transit agency) to consolidate redundant routes into more frequent, centralized patterns that served population centers more often.
Houston’s frequent bus routes before and after the redesign.
On August 15th, 2015, a network of mostly infrequent bus routes converged downtown, which was not where most bus riders needed to go in the very decentralized metro area. On August 16th, these same buses ran on a brand-new network, a grid of 22 frequent routes that allowed access to multiple spread-out dense activity centers and neighborhoods. It was a transformation that required no new resources (outside of signage and wayfinding changes), just a smarter approach that recognized the city’s changing development patterns. (Read Smart Growth America’s longer 2015 profile of this story, just before the changes went into effect, which details the planning and work that went into it.)
There are a few things worth recognizing when discussing the replicability of Houston’s plan in other cities. Houston’s old network had clear redundancy in its routes. In other cities these routes may not exist, or have been cut in the past, so a comparable result to Houston’s “cost-neutral” solution may require greater investment overall or adding more resources elsewhere. Houston is also anchored by the Red Line, one of the most successful modern light rail projects in the country, and having that service as a network cornerstone bolstered METRO’s ridership on both modes.
While Houston is a popular example of a completely redesigned network, the idea has been successfully replicated at smaller scales.
By Ɱ – CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=89607531
Columbus: Before Columbus redesigned its routes in 2017, for example, their bus map had been largely unchanged since 1974—even though the region had become one of the fastest-growing in the country. COTA (the Central Ohio Transit Authority) didn’t have the fleet size or duplicative routes that Houston’s METRO did, but managed to add seven frequent routes to their previous total of three, including two new crosstown routes that matched the city’s multi-centered development patterns.
Equity was a major concern during Columbus’ route redesign, leading Columbus to emphasize improving the frequency of their routes on weekends. Columbus also introduced their CMAX rapid bus line in 2018. While not “true” bus rapid transit—lacking dedicated lanes, off-board fare payment, and frequent headways on weekends—it still provides a solid anchor service for COTA’s other routes to feed into.
Frequent routes on COTA before and after the update.
Despite a nationwide decrease in transit ridership in the 2010s, Houston and Columbus both grew their ridership with their redesigns. Within a year of opening Houston saw a six percent growth in system ridership, and before the pandemic, Columbus’ ridership was up four percent overall since the 2017 redesign. This occurred because both cities updated their transit network to match changes in development patterns, improving transit access in the process.
In Austin, a strong baseline is paying off
CC photo of an Austin bus by I-ride capital metro on Flickr https://www.flickr.com/photos/i-ride/5179709865/
Austin’s population has nearly doubled from 2000-2020 and its transportation systems are struggling to keep up, but the region’s major transit agency, Capital Metro, is working its way toward an accessible and intuitive system.
In 2010 Austin launched Capital Metrorail, a 32-mile commuter rail line that failed to draw significant riders, because it runs infrequently and misses much of the city’s density. To address that gap, in 2014, Capital Metro launched MetroRapid, a rapid bus system (similar to Columbus’ CMAX) featuring two lines making limited stops along some of the city’s main north-south corridors, hitting the neighborhoods that Metrorail missed, including the downtown core, south Austin, and the University of Texas. And in 2018, Capital Metro also embarked upon a full bus network redesign, which they dubbed “CapRemap.”
Austin’s current high frequency transit network.
CapRemap followed the principles of Houston and Columbus’ work, achieving similar results. A year after CapRemap’s release, the total bus system’s ridership had increased by about 4 percent and MetroRapid’s increase was about 6 percent—indicating that improving the grid of routes that increase accessibility across the city also strengthens the core of the system. Capital Metro also introduced new standards of mapping and signage that make Austin’s buses easier to use and navigate.
These improvements contributed to the success of a ballot initiative in November 2020 for the agency’s much more ambitious $7 billion ProjectConnect plan (click to see a map.) At the center of that plan are two light rail lines, which largely follow the current MetroRapid routes, paired with the introduction of new MetroRapid upgrades for some of the busiest existing bus routes. ProjectConnect is evidence that a well-planned baseline system will grow public support for more substantial infrastructure through incremental upgrades.
The Twin Cities are focused on serving corridors with the highest driving demand
Compared to the prior examples, Minnesota’s Twin Cities are taking a more incremental and perhaps unconventional approach to transit improvement and network strengthening. Like in Houston, many of the region’s main activity centers—like downtown Minneapolis, downtown St. Paul and suburban Bloomington—are connected by well-used local light rail services, which are reinforced by a grid of crosstown bus routes. Sixteen of these bus routes run every 15 minutes or better on corridors that are highly traveled but do not need the level of capacity that rail provides, and the region’s transit agency, Metro Transit, sees this network as a key to improving access throughout the region.
The A Line and C Line are currently operating as “backbone” routes of the bus network, with three more (F, G, and H) prioritized for near-term service frequency upgrades in the agency’s 2021 Network Next plan. This plan, set to be updated every five years, is centered around making data-driven, equitable decisions that improve speed and reliability.
Metro Transit is also working to better integrate local buses into its larger regional bus network, branded with colors, which operates partially on major freeways. The Orange Line, which just opened in December 2021, travels in dedicated high-occupancy toll lanes southward from downtown along Interstate 35W, one of the region’ busiest freeways. Unlike some freeway express routes in other cities, the Orange Line runs in both directions at 15-minute intervals (during weekdays) and serves substantial, accessible modern stations that bridge the gap between the speed of freeway travel and the pedestrian accessibility that serves successful transit. This approach also acknowledges the reality of the region’s multiple centers and serves the places that people are already going by car.
One of the I-35W rapid bus median stations on Metro Transit’s new Orange Line.Photo by Metro Transit.
Final construction of an I-35W rapid bus median station on Metro Transit’s new Orange Line.Photo by Metro Transit.
An early rendering of an I-35W rapid bus median station on Metro Transit’s new Orange Line. Photo by Metro Transit.
When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Metro Transit became one of a number of agencies to adjust its service to respond to shifting transit needs and provide better access: by lowering fares, providing near-term service to get students to school in the wake of bus driver shortages, and expanding a program to provide targeted transit passes to specific apartment buildings to better meet the needs of residents and actively reduce car-dependence.
The agency’s strategies stem from three principles, according to Metro Transit arterial bus rapid transit manager Katie Roth, who collaborated with T4A in this case study: 1) to meet the market for transit as it stands today, 2) improve the market for transit for the future, and 3) improve access to transit in communities that have historically suffered disinvestment. “This is how we’re going to emerge from the pandemic as a transit system,” she says.
Following traveler demand and creating a reliable all-day network will boost the resilience of neighborhoods around the region, providing a solid foundation to expand upon with their Network Next plan.
What other communities can learn about improving transit access
Making a real impact on our climate will require providing transit that offers a true alternative to driving. While there is no “one-size-fits-all” answer that works for every city and no US city that has fully solved this puzzle, the agencies profiled here have several things in common: they used data to understand service needs and were willing to rethink their route structure—sometimes dramatically—to provide better access for people most reliant on transit and keep up with changing development patterns, often seeing significant increases in ridership as a result.
Unfortunately, no amount of clever service redesign will make up for resources that simply aren’t there, so increasing transit funding must be part of the picture. And even a significant boost in funding won’t be enough to meaningfully improve transit access for all the people who need it in the more sprawling areas of our metro regions, so putting more people in the path of high quality transit by changing local development practices is a critical step on the path to a lower-emissions transportation system.
The Twin Cities region isn’t the only one that has updated its transit service to respond to evolving needs during the pandemic and beyond. In our final post in this series, we will be profiling agencies that have changed their approach during COVID to shift some focus away from traditional 9-to-5 commuters, make transit more affordable, and rethink what the future of transit should look like to reduce emissions and provide access for those who need it most.
Current federal transportation policy is diametrically opposed to climate action. The Green New Deal framework released a year ago mostly left that unchanged. But a new report T4America contributed to fills in those gaps and gives transportation policy the same visionary makeover to show what we could achieve if our transportation and climate goals were aligned.
When the Green New Deal was first released last year, Transportation for America Director Beth Osborne had some pointed critiques.
The transportation sector is the largest source of greenhouse gasses in the United States and it’s also the one that federal officials have the most control over with the power of the purse. Yet the Green New Deal is largely devoid of the bold reimagining of federal transportation spending which encourages more roads, more driving, more sprawl, and more emissions.
The Green New Deal as originally introduced completely ignores the role development patterns play in driving the climate crisis and fails to align our transportation policy with our environmental goals and aspirations (to say nothing of what people actually want from our transportation system). Though the Green New Deal is a broad policy framework, that’s a glaring oversight for something billed as a comprehensive answer to climate change.
We also know that current federal policy is actively undermining any progress on achieving real climate progress. The way we distribute money incentivizes more road building and more driving. The amount we spend on transit is pitiful compared to the amount spent on highways. Americans want more transportation options, but are stuck with their cars. Electric buses would be welcome, but too many people can’t safely walk to the bus stop because our streets are designed to prioritize high-speed traffic over safety.
So what would our federal transportation policy look like if the Green New Deal reimagined it? How would we invest limited transportation dollars to align our environmental ambitions with our policy? In a new report that we contributed to—A Green New Deal for City and Suburban Transportation—we outline how federal transportation policy can reduce greenhouse gas emissions by:
Putting the majority of Americans within walking distance of frequent, high-quality public transit by 2030, by providing agencies with operating assistance to run more buses and trains, expanding overall funding for transit projects, and encouraging transit-oriented development.
Incentivizing and requiring communities to design transit-friendly streets and safe roadways for all users.
Prioritizing roadway maintenance over expansion, and ensuring that any new road capacity meets environmental goals.
Ensuring a “just transition” that creates secure, well-paying jobs and funds training and apprenticeship programs in the transit industry.
Providing funding for research into barriers to equitable transit provision.
Creating an EV incentive program weighted by income, geography, and vehicle size.
A better transportation system
A Green New Deal done right provides an opportunity to break out of the status quo and do transportation better. It’s an opportunity to reevaluate our transit and roadway systems, invest in electric vehicles, and broaden our conception of frontline communities in this sector—namely, the suburban and urban communities where public transit service is sparse or non-existent and owning a personal vehicle is all but required.
We can use the transportation sector as a strategic lever toward a Green New Deal by tackling our highest sources of carbon emissions, putting millions of people to work upgrading and repairing existing infrastructure rather than building new roads. Bringing our road and transit systems into a state of good repair over the next 10 years could support or create over 6.6 million jobs across the U.S. economy.
By making our cities and suburbs easy and safe to navigate without driving, we’ll also equitably grow our economy. In an America with abundant transit and safe streets for walking, biking, and rolling, more jobs will be within reach of people with low incomes, and transportation costs will consume far less of their earnings. What’s more, with less driving we’ll have less congestion. Our expensive gambit to build our way out of congestion hasn’t worked, but a Green New Deal could.
By providing more options, we’ll enable millions of people to take advantage of jobs and opportunities throughout their cities and regions, reducing the current disparities in mobility linked to race, economic status, age, or ability. The incidence of asthma, cardiovascular disease, and other chronic ailments caused by car pollution—which disproportionately afflict communities of color—will fall.
Getting transportation and climate policy right
It’s striking that many climate plans almost completely ignore transportation and land use. But our new report makes it clear what a huge opportunity we would be squandering without more direct, visionary action with a Green New Deal.
We have an enormous opportunity to both reduce emissions and rethink our transportation system. Let’s focus on the outcomes we want to achieve, not just how much money we’re going to spend. We can’t keep doing the same old transportation policy. Download the full report to learn more.
Last month Transportation for America’s Chairman John Robert Smith traveled to Overland Park, KS to discuss the economic impact of public transportation dollars on local manufacturing jobs with state and local leaders. Local manufacturer Dimensional Innovations (DI) hosted the event at their facility where attendees saw the recently constructed shelters destined for the Downtown Kansas City Streetcar. Transit shelters are one part of the transit supply chain with over 20 percent of DI’s business stemming from public transportation.
Since opening in 2016, the Kansas City Streetcar (KC Streetcar) has been a remarkable success. It’s seen record high ridership levels, logging more than five million passenger trips. It’s also spurred more than $2 billion in residential, retail, and commercial investment. As Tom Gerend, Executive Director of the Kansas City Streetcar Authority states, the streetcar has fueled a economic boom in Kansas City.
But the benefits of transit systems like the KC Streetcar go far beyond the streets and neighborhoods they serve. In the KC Streetcar’s case, it has supported manufacturing jobs at 83 suppliers in 26 different states. Last month, Transportation for America traveled to one such manufacturer—Dimensional Innovations—in Overland Park, KS to highlight the economic impact of public transportation dollars on manufacturing jobs for state and local leaders.
Congresswoman Sharice Davids and staff for Congressman Sam Graves joined leadership from the Greater KC Chamber of Commerce, Kansas City Area Transportation Authority, and Kansas City Streetcar Authority to tour Dimensional Innovations’ manufacturing facility where they build the station shelters for the KC Streetcar.
DI uses its inspired design skills—honed from creating interactive pieces for museums, hospitals, and sports arenas—to make sleek transit shelters that incorporate public art pieces and provide information to customers. Over 20 percent of DI’s business stems from public transportation.
“DI has been incredibly fortunate to be involved in transit-related work across the Kansas City metro for nearly 15 years,” said Tucker Trotter, CEO of Dimensional Innovations. “Transit work has not only created multiple jobs for our organization and allowed us to invest in other areas for growth, but it’s done the same for our local partners and subcontractors. We believe this creates a positive ripple effect within our community, and makes Kansas City an even better place for our employees and their families.”
The transit supply chain is far reaching, touching almost every congressional district. When cities like Kansas City or Chicago invest local and federal dollars in transit projects, they support jobs in the transit supply chain throughout the country. In the case of the KC Streetcar, when Kansas City purchased transit shelters, some of those dollars came to Overland Park and supported jobs locally.
Many public transit manufacturers and suppliers rely on a trained and consistent workforce. Without stable funding from state and federal partners, these jobs might be lost. According to Transportation for America Director Beth Osborne, “that’s a very real threat given that President Trump’s 2020 budget would cut federal transit capital grants by $1 billion.”
The decisions Congress makes regarding transportation funding will impact people who live in communities building transit systems and in the communities that manufacture the seats, engines, wheels, technology, and station shelters that keep those transit systems running. As Gerend says, “Transit investment equals job creation. Not only is the KC Streetcar creating opportunities locally, but it’s helping to create jobs across the country.”
Catch up with yesterday’s launch webinar for T4America’s new guidebook, Fight for Your Ride: An advocate’s guide for expanding and improving transit, which offers tangible ways to improve transit in your city and region.
Quality transit service is increasingly becoming a “must-have” for economic development. Amazon’s HQ2 search is only the most public example of major businesses choosing locations with quality transit to expand. Quality transit is also vital to improving access to jobs and opportunity and creating pathways to prosperity for residents in your region. But how can business leaders, local elected leaders, or transportation advocates improve their local transit service?
T4America’s new guidebook, Fight for Your Ride: An advocate’s guide for expanding and improving transit, offers tangible ways you can make these needed improvements to transit in your city and region.
On a webinar to release the guide earlier this week, two local transit leaders—Karen Rindge, Executive Director of WakeUp Wake County in the Raleigh, NC area, and Christof Spieler, board member for Houston METRO—presented lessons from their successful transit initiatives. View the full webinar here:
Fight for Your Ride includes tactical guidance on how to build your coalition, how to hone your message, and how to advocate to your federal representatives. On the launch webinar, Karen Rindge shared her firsthand lessons from organizing a coalition and successful campaign in Wake County.
Rindge explained that the most important asset that helped power Wake County’s transit referendum campaign was a broad and diverse coalition. WakeUp didn’t wait until a referendum was on the ballot to build this coalition, but began nearly ten years ago engaging key partners in the effort to develop a regional transit plan and build up community support for new investments in transit. Having partners who could talk directly to different constituencies—like seniors, environmentalists, and African-American communities—allowed the campaign to cut through the crowded campaign news cycle and directly inform key voters about the referendum.
Fight for Your Ride also helps to diagnose transportation challenges in your region and offers examples of how other regions have made improvements to transit. The guide illustrates more than a dozen different approaches. Some, like building new transit lines, carry a large price tag and will take years to complete. But many of the solutions offered in the guide are smaller and can be implemented much more quickly. These include adding late night transit service, speeding buses through congested chokepoints, reducing fares for low-income youth riders, adding shuttle service to reach job sites, and realigning transit service.
On the webinar, Christof Spieler offered an example of this last tactic, presenting the story of how Houston Metro reimagined their bus system map to provide better service for riders without more funding.
Speiler explained that for METRO to change its service map, it first had to acknowledge that it was not providing useful service to all potential riders across the region.
It wasn’t that Houstonians wouldn’t ride the bus—data showed that on commuter corridors with quality bus service, more that a third of commuters were already choosing transit. But many dense corridors outside of downtown lacked frequent service, or were served by meandering routes that were too confusing for anyone except daily riders to understand. Spieler described the effort he and METRO’s leadership led to reroute all of Houston’s bus routes, all at once, to offer quality, frequent service across the city. He spoke about the obstacles they faced and how political support was critical for moving the new plan forward.
As he closed, Christof reminded us that improving transit is about more than just the right techniques or strategies — we have to be storytellers too.
“We need to talk about transit,” he said. “The more we tell the story of what transit does well, the more we tell the story of how to make transit effective, and the more we keep this on the front of people’s minds, the more success we’ll have in getting things done.”
We hope you will use Fight for Your Ride to plan efforts to improve transit in your community. We can help by leading workshops or leadership academies in your region to bring together diverse leaders and organize a transit improvement or turnaround plan.
Last week, I visited with T4A’s members and partners in the Puget Sound region. In the time of “skinny budgets” and tenuous federal support for transit, it was encouraging to hear from local elected officials, advocates and transit agencies on how they’re progressing despite federal (and in their case state) uncertainty.
On the federal level, this region will be among the hardest hit if Congress declines to fund the capital improvement program, with more than $2 billion in federal New Starts investments at risk. These projects include:
$1.17 billion for the Lynnwood Link Extension
up to $720 million for the Federal Way Link Extension
$75 million for the Seattle Streetcar Center City Connector
$75 million for Tacoma Link Expansion
$43 million for Swift II BRT in Everett
$61 million for Madison Street Corridor Bus Rapid Transit in Seattle
These numbers don’t include the threats to passenger rail service or to TIGER.
Rather than throw their hands up in frustration, Community Transit, a T4America member, is using this as an opportunity to tell the story about the economic and job benefits of their Swift bus rapid transit line. We are seeing more and more transit agencies talk not just about the direct benefits they provide to their community, but also the upstream jobs that are created…whether the buses they buy are manufactured in Everett, Washington or St. Cloud, Minnesota.
Copy this tactic: Including suppliers and engaging your entire supply chain gives you the ability to reach other decision-makers that you may not otherwise have access to. It builds your advocate tent and adds unexpected voices to your issue.
For example, when Community Transit gives this powerful piece of information to one of their members of Congress, Rick Larsen, a Democrat…he can advocate to Tom Emmer, the Republican Member of Congress from St. Cloud. Additionally, their bus manufacturer can advocate to Rep. Emmer directly. This is just one way to show leaders how transportation is truly a bipartisan issue.
T4America continues to find stories like these to use in our work and highlight what’s working. If you have similar stories that you’d like to share with us, please send them our way. We want to know!
This story from Seattle, Washington is the seventh in our series of stories illustrating how local communities across the country are casting a vision and often putting their own skin in the game first with local funding while hoping for a strong federal partner to make those plans a reality.
In cities, towns and suburbs like Seattle all across the country, local leaders are responding to new economic challenges with innovative plans for their transportation networks, including taxing themselves to make their visions a reality. But they can’t do it alone and need strong federal and state partners to make it work.
Set aside some time to read this long profile of what’s been happening in Seattle — which includes their enormous measure on November’s ballot, where voters will decide whether or not to bring the next phase of their regional transit expansion to life.
Seattle, Washington
The economy in Seattle and the greater Puget Sound region is soaring, and area population growth is supersonic. Unmanaged, that prosperity could drive the cost of living out of reach for many low- and middle-income Seattleites and choke the regional transportation network to deadlock congestion, pumping the brakes on the region’s historic prosperity. But forward-thinking transportation investments and smart city planning have the region poised to stay in control of the boom.
Mt. Rainier peaks over the Seattle skyline. Natural beauty, a bustling job market, and high quality life have this Pacific metro booming. Flickr photo by Daniel Schwen.
Champaign-Urbana’s leaders are clear on what they want for their future: a progressive environment with urban amenities while maintaining small city affordability. To achieve that vision, the region is pinning its future on the transformation of a few key corridors that connect the cities of Champaign and Urbana with the University of Illinois’ flagship campus in Champaign, IL. While this effort will consist of many projects over a number of years, Transportation for America Technical Assistance partnered with the lead agency to secure a substantial and important federal TIGER grant, jumpstarting the project.
Success and its challenges
Since the 1990’s, regional leaders have charted future development to be denser, greener, and provide more transportation options. Over that time, transit ridership has increased and more people are biking and walking. But the confluence of pedestrians, bicyclists and drivers can mean a chaotic atmosphere, especially during events or when school is in session. “There are a lot of conflicts between bikes, pedestrians, buses and cars,” said Dave Clark, City Engineer for the City of Champaign.
Heavy pedestrian traffic at the intersection of Wright and Armory Streets.
These conflicts can be dangerous and city planners realized that their solutions would need to take into account not just the safety of their residents and visitors, but also the livability and affordability of the region. “The streets really needed repair,” said Jane Sullivan, sustainability planner for the Champaign-Urbana Mass Transit District (CUMTD) “but we didn’t just want to pave over them and leave the same problems.”
The solution
In order to achieve these multiple goals, CUMTD approached the cities of Champaign and Urbana to work collaboratively and transform the two-lane roads along the downtown corridor to complete streets that prioritize pedestrians, bicyclists, and transit users. Ultimately, this became known as the Multimodal Corridor Enhancement (MCORE) project. MCORE consists of five individual street projects and centers on Wright Street, the street dividing Champaign and Urbana. This is where the hub of the campus transportation system meets Green Street, the heart of Campustown for the University of Illinois and its entertainment, shopping, and cultural center. As Dave Clark noted, the campus is “directly sandwiched between Champaign and Urbana’s respective downtowns and over 80% of the region’s jobs are located within a mile of the thoroughfare.”
The rendering of what Green Street will look like when completed.
Using a complete streets approach to accommodate all modes of travel (bus, pedestrian, bike and vehicles), each street will undergo either full reconstruction or major rehabilitation, transforming each into a multimodal corridor that better serves everyone who uses the street. In addition to the road improvements, other project benefits will be improved bus capacity and frequency on these key bus routes; improved sidewalks, new street lighting and the addition of on-street bicycle lanes.
Third time’s the charm
In order to make this ambitious project happen, CUMTD applied for USDOT’s highly competitive TIGER program twice before but, had struck out in both attempts. The third time, CUMTD turned to Transportation for America Consulting to help develop a strong grant application and organize support from Illinois’ congressional delegation — the latter of which was crucial for a successful application.
“It was very important that both cities & the university were involved in the application and able to commit time and funding”, said Sullivan, who also manages CUMTD’s grants. “We knew this wouldn’t work unless all partners were supportive and able to make the investment.” In 2014, with T4America Consulting’s help, the group of local agencies finally won a $15.7 million TIGER grant to rehabilitate and redesign these busy, crucial streets to safely accommodate all roadway users.
Partnership pays off
“This project is a great example of the municipalities, the CUMTD and the University working together to maximize their leverage to accomplish infrastructure needs for all,” said Michael DeLorenzo, associate chancellor for the University. “It is a true local partnership, with the assistance of our Congressional delegation, which has enabled us to get the resources necessary to make this possible.”
The project is expected to spur additional development and increase accessibility in some areas where transit-oriented development is already occurring. It will be easier and safer for people to get around whether they are on foot, bike, transit or driving. “Pedestrians and bicyclists and transit users will get to see and feel the experience of feeling safer and more comfortable” said Sullivan, “and I think even more people will be willing to walk, bike, and take transit.”
TIGER supports neglected local needs
The MCORE project is a great example of how direct federal investment to communities can incentivize local partnerships and fund smart, homegrown transportation projects to solve locally identified issues. White reinforces this:
“So often, federal dollars are spent on the bare minimum for highways and bridges, and aren’t spent on the projects that are closest to the people, the communities. The state DOT focuses on its own bridges & roads, different jurisdictions operate in their own silos, and then the systems in our cities are not integrated. The TIGER program smashes those silos, providing an incentive to collaborate and look at the most sustainable and effective solutions.”
“The TIGER model just works better,” White says, “because it demands cooperation and allows communities to focus on the solutions that work for them.” In Champaign-Urbana, collaboration through the TIGER-funded MCORE project will help all members of the community get around more safely, quickly, and conveniently, helping to bring local partners even closer together.
Transportation for America has long supported the federal TIGER program and continues to do so in this year’s appropriations process. This year, T4A—in partnership with over 170 elected officials and local, civic, and business leaders from 45 states—sent a powerful message to congressional appropriators that the competitive TIGER and New Starts programs are crucial to local economic prosperity and competitiveness. Of note, the letter urged Congress to include at least $500 million for TIGER transportation grants. Congressional appropriators listened, with the US Senate providing $525 million for TIGER and the US House providing $450 million in their respective FY2017 T-HUD bills.
If approved, the measure would allow IndyGo, the city’s transit agency, to dramatically expand and improve public transportation service, tripling the number of residents and doubling the number of jobs within a five-minute walk from frequent transit service. It will also extend the hours of service for transit, making it a viable choice for more workers. This base of new funding will also support the start of building out the city’s visionary network of bus-rapid transit (BRT) lines.
Read more about Indy’s long-term plan and their journey to this point in our can-do profile: “Action by the Indiana legislature in early 2014 cleared the way for metro Indianapolis counties to have a long-awaited vote on funding a much-expanded public transportation network, with a major emphasis on bus rapid transit. With that legislative battle behind them, the broad Indy coalition is working toward a November 2016 ballot measure to fund the first phase of their ambitious Indy Connect transportation plan.”
With the council’s vote now completed, voters in Marion County will decide on supporting a 0.25% increase in income taxes — a tax of about $100 for a resident earning $42,000 a year — specifically for transit. This additional revenue source will provide an additional $56 million a year for IndyGo.
Improving transit service has been a top priority for Indianapolis’s business community and many of the city’s elected, civic and faith-based leaders, who recognize that investing in transportation options is vital both for connecting low-income workers to economic opportunity and for the competition for talented workers and new businesses.
“It’s…a growth issue; employers and younger workers are moving to more walkable areas served by transit. Rapid transit also attracts people and investment,” Indy Chamber President Michael Huber said in a statement after the council approved the measure.
As it happened, on the day that the city council vote took place, T4America Director James Corless was an invited guest at the Indy Chamber’s quarterly policy breakfast, speaking about the challenges facing mid-sized cities like Indy and affirming the region’s plans to invest in transit to help stay competitive.
Now comes a months-long campaign to convince voters to vote “yes.”
…“We feel very comfortable heading into November that if we’re able to get our message out and speak to the different reasons people would support transit, polling does show we have a path for success,” said Mark Fisher, Indy Chamber’s vice president of government relations and policy development, to a room full of business leaders and government officials.
Fisher and a handful of other local leaders were supported and encouraged over the last year by the Transportation Innovation Academy, a program convened by Transportation for America and TransitCenter last year to train local leaders from three mid-sized regions on the critical role transit can play in their cities. The Indy Chamber convened a diverse team of community leaders that participated in the yearlong program, and today, we’re so proud to see participants in the academy from Indy playing key roles in building community support for the ambitious vision for new transit service.
Though ballot measures are common in other parts of the country, it is a new tool for this region. A first step for regional transit champions was winning approval from legislators in 2014 to allow the local tax measure to go on the ballot. If successful, this will be the first time Indianapolis raises dedicated funding for public transportation through a ballot measure.
Along with a handful of other regions, we will be watching Indianapolis carefully this November.
Today, the White House released President Obama’s fiscal year 2017 (FY17) budget proposal, the final of his presidency. This budget adheres to the $1.07 trillion spending cap that resulted from the bipartisan two-year budget deal agreed to last November. The President’s budget proposal either falls in line with or exceeds FAST Act funding levels, increases transit and rail funding, and funds TIGER (the FAST Act does not authorize the program), among other programs. The budget also calls for the creation of a 21st Century Regions program, a clean communities competitive grant program and funds the President’s 21st Century Clean Transportation Plan.
Speaker Ryan (R-WI) has asked congressman to maintain the funding levels agreed to last November, though there are signals that some may seek additional cuts.
The National Study of BRT Development Outcomes, authored by Arthur C. (“Chris”) Nelson and published by the National Institute for Transportation and Communities at Portland State University, was publicly released on Tuesday, January 12 at a live event in Washington, DC.
This new peer-reviewed research provides compelling evidence that BRT systems in the U.S. can indeed generate economic development, attract jobs, retail and affordable housing — at a cost that’s well within reach for many mid-size American cities.
So many people have expressed interest in this research that we’re holding an online version of the kickoff event. Join us on Monday, January 25, 2016 at 3:30pm EST to learn all the details of this new research from the report’s author, as well as what this means for communities considering a BRT line.
All across the U.S., interest in BRT is booming as a smart, more affordable transit option. As of today, more than 30 U.S. regions in at least 24 states are either building or actively considering building new bus rapid transit lines in 2016 and beyond. The new study looks at what these projects could mean for development patterns, housing affordability, and employment and wages in those areas.
Next week’s webinar is a chance to hear all the details of this new research, as well as ask your questions of the report’s author. We’ll be taking questions during the event, as well as on Twitter at the hashtag #BusesMeanBusiness. Register to join us next week — we look forward to talking with you.
Today T4America unveiled the findings of a new peer-reviewed study that examined existing bus rapid transit (BRT) lines and found strong evidence that BRT systems in the U.S. can indeed generate economic development, attract jobs, retail and affordable housing — at a cost that’s well within reach for many mid-size American cities.
Bus rapid transit is a type of bus service that travels faster and more reliably by providing level boarding, triggering traffic signals, providing pre-board fare payment and running in dedicated lanes separated from traffic, among other typical characteristics. For the first time, a new peer-reviewed research study, unveiled this morning, provides compelling evidence that BRT — often with a price tag far lower than other transit investments — can provide ample economic benefits for cities large and small.
The study, authored by Arthur C. (Chris) Nelson and published by the National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC) at Portland State University, was publicly released this morning in an event held by Transportation for America, Smart Growth America’s TOD Technical Assistance Initiative and NITC.
Interested in learning more? Couldn’t make our in-person event today in Washington, DC? We’ll be going over the findings in detail again in an online presentation on Monday, January 25, at 3:30 Eastern time. It’s free and open to all, so register today.
All across the US, interest in bus rapid transit is booming as a smart, more affordable transit option. According to data gathered by Yonah Freemark and Steven Vance for Transit Explorer, more than 30 U.S. regions in at least 24 states are either building or actively considering building new bus rapid transit lines in 2016 and beyond.
But there have been notable gaps in the research on the possible benefits — until now.
What does the study have to say about the economic benefits of BRT?
BRT encourages new office growth in locations connected to transit.
The areas within a half-mile of BRT corridors increased their share of new office space by one third from 2000-2007, and new multifamily apartment construction doubled in those half-mile areas since 2008. For most areas studied, there was a rent premium for office space within a BRT corridor.
BRT corridors fared better than other areas after the recession.
During the economic recovery following the 2008 recession, these corridors also increased their share of office space by one third, and more higher-wage job growth occurred near BRT stations than occurred in central counties. During the economic recovery, BRT station areas saw the largest positive shift in the share of upper-wage jobs, and employment in the manufacturing sector increased.
“Unlike the presumptions of some, bus rapid transit systems have important effects on metropolitan development patterns,” report author Dr. Arthur C. Nelson said in the study. “At substantially lower costs, BRT generates important and sometimes impressive development outcomes.”
To that end, Mayor Gregory Ballard, the recently departed Mayor of Indianapolis and a guest speaker at this morning’s event, noted that a new bus rapid transit network is one of his city’s primary economic competitiveness strategies.
“170,000 employees work within walking distance of our planned Red Line bus rapid transit service — one out of every five employees in the region,” Mayor Ballard said. “We have existing bus service, but it doesn’t go to where the existing jobs are. Providing a way to connect more people to more jobs in the region via a lower-cost, fast, flexible transportation option like bus rapid transit is a smart economic move to ensure that our growing region prospers for years to come.”
At the event, the Hon. Chris Zimmerman, Vice President for Economic Development at Smart Growth America, referenced work that Smart Growth America performed to quantify those potential economic benefits.
“A fiscal analysis we conducted for Indianapolis showed substantial benefits in terms of municipal revenues and costs if future development could be attracted to areas around their new bus rapid transit stations,” Zimmerman said. “It’s this kind of potential that is generating increasing interest in BRT, especially in mid-size cities.” Zimmerman directs the National Public Transportation/Transit-Oriented Development Technical Assistance initiative which Smart Growth America is leading in partnerships with the Federal Transit Administration.
The Hon. John Robert Smith, Transportation for America Advisory Board Chair, noted that Indianapolis is far from alone, supporting Dr. Nelson’s assertion that BRT could represent a large share of new high-quality transit investment for the next few decades.
“These findings are an affirmation for the scores of other can-do regions that bus rapid transit is a smart investment that can indeed bring tangible economic returns. The mayors and other elected officials I meet with on a regular basis are intensely concerned with connecting their residents to jobs, and evidence like this will bolster their efforts to use BRT as a tool to do so,” Smith added.
The study was published by the National Institute of Transportation and Communities at Portland State University and was funded partially through a grant from Transportation for America. Dr. Nelson, who began the study at the University of Utah’s Metropolitan Research Center, is currently Professor of Planning & Real Estate Development at the University of Arizona.
SGA’s TOD Technical Assistance Initiative is made possible through support from the Federal Transit Administration.
This morning the conference committee for the surface transportation authorization bill met for the first time. The first order of business was appointing Representative Bill Shuster (R-PA) – chair of the House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee – as the conference chair and Senator Jim Inhofe (R-OK) – chair of the Senate Environment & Public Works Committee -as the vice-chair.
Possibly the most revealing item covered during this first official meeting was an early statement from Chairman Shuster (R-PA) that the conference plans to work diligently through the Thanksgiving recess that starts this Thursday, November 19th, to meet a self-imposed deadline of Monday, November 30. The proposed timeline will allow the House and Senate to vote on final passage for the conference agreement before MAP-21 expires on Friday, December 4th (MAP-21 expires this Friday, November 20th, but the House has already passed a bill to extend the authorization to December 4 and the Senate is expected to follow suit today or tomorrow).
There are still a few sticking points that need to be resolved and came up today during each conferee’s opportunity to speak today. Many hold differing positions on the low funding levels for this authorization as well as the non-transportation generated revenue used to pay for the bill. Those in the Northeast took issue with a House provision to remove transit funding dedicated to high-growth states in the northeast and place it in a national competitive bus and bus facilities program. And others, while not objecting to including passenger rail authorization in the surface authorization for the first time ever as expected by this bill, wanted to include greater reform at Amtrak.
We do not expect any further public meetings until the Members of Congress return on November 30, at which time the conference is expected to have finalized this bill. This means that much of the work on the conference report will happen out of view and behind closed doors. If interested, we advise that you contact your member over the Thanksgiving recess and visit them in person if you can about items of importance for you and your community.
Senate Conference Members
Environment & Public Works Committee
Republicans
Jim Inhofe (R-OK)
John Barrasso (R-WY)
Deb Fischer (R-NE) – also a Commerce Committee member
Democrats
Barbara Boxer (D-CA)
Commerce Committee
Republicans
John Thune (R-SD) – also a Finance Committee member
Democrats
Bill Nelson (D-FL) – also a Finance Committee member
Banking Committee
Democrats
Sherrod Brown (D-OH) – also a Finance Committee member
On October 23rd, the US House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee passed out of committee a long-term surface authorization. The bill, the Surface Transportation Reauthorization and Reform Act (HR 3763), authorizes the federal surface transportation program for six years, and recommends flat line funding plus inflation over the life of the bill.
Transportation for America (T4A) published a summary of the bill (pre-mark-up) for members, click HERE to download it.
Ultimately, the big-four agreement – a bipartisan agreement determining which amendments would be allowed, accepted or rejected that exists between the Chairmen and Ranking Members of the full- and subcommittees – proved to hold firm during yesterday’s nearly six-hour meeting.
Of the 160 plus amendments offered during the mark-up by members of the committee, the Chairman agreed to only three:
adding tourism to state and MPO planning scopes,
exempting weight limits for emergency vehicles, and
including a performance metric on urban highway state of good repair.
Only two received votes and both failed by large margins. In return for assurances by Chairman Shuster (R-PA) that the Members’ concerns would be taken care of before the bill reaches the House floor, nearly all Members offered and withdrew their amendments.
Of importance, Representatives Davis (R-IL) and Titus (D-NV) offered an amendment to increase the amount of funding directed to metro regions by $9 billion over the life of the bill and improve the transparency and project selection process for regions under 200,000 in population. Download the Davis-Titus summary memo HERE.
Though Rep. Davis (R-IL) had the votes yesterday to pass this amendment, he offered and withdrew the amendment after it gained the largest number of bipartisan statements of support during the markup (those came from Reps. Davis, Titus, Frankel (D-FL), Edwards (D-MD), Rouzer (R-NC)). Chairman Shuster signaled that he is open to working with the bipartisan group to make improvements to this area of the bill as it moves forward in the process.
There were also a number of non-controversial amendments included in the manager’s amendment prior to the start of the meeting. Notable amendments include:
Sires (D-NJ) and Costello (R-PA) – amends the planning section to encourage MPOS to develop congestion management plans that develop strategies and projects that improve transportation access during peak hour travel and would include employers and representatives of low-income households.
Curbelo (R-FL) and Titus (D-NV) – amends the safe streets language to encourage reporting on the development and implementation of safe streets at the state level.
Despite a number of statements of support from various organizations, T4A finds that this bill doesn’t meet the forward-looking federal policies needed to strengthen the economic and social prosperity of our nation’s communities. We will continue to work to ensure the House STRR Act and the Senate DRIVE Act move in our direction and I thank you for your support.
There’s an old proverb that says “A teacher is better than two books,” and the local leaders from Raleigh, Indianapolis and Nashville participating in the first yearlong Transportation Innovation Academy — organized by T4America and TransitCenter — will get the opportunity be taught firsthand about the returns that Denver is reaping from their incredibly ambitious FasTracks transit expansion plan.
Through workshops, site visits, and discussions with key leaders in the Denver region this week, academy participants will get an in-person look at one specific story of how scores of local communities across the country are casting a vision and often putting their own skin in the game first with local funding while hoping for a strong federal partner to make those plans a reality. While the three regions all have different transportation needs and plans for the future, Denver’s story broadly represents the kind of success that these leaders would certainly love to replicate.
We covered Denver’s story at length in one of our can-do regional profiles:
Denver: Betting on the future and seeing early returns
Faced with potential employers suggesting that the lack of transit connections were preventing Denver from realizing their economic development goals, the region’s leaders banded together and made a bold bet on an ambitious and comprehensive plan to expand their transportation network a decade ago.
Key business leaders are part of each regional contingent, along with mayors and city/county council members, real estate pros, housing industry experts and local advocates. The Academy is intended to share knowledge and best practices, visit cities (like Denver) that have inspiring success stories, and help develop and catalyze the local leadership necessary to turn these ambitious visions into reality.
We’re looking forward to hearing the Denver story in great depth this week and know that these 21 leaders will find inspiration and practical lessons to take back home to help them take the next step on their journeys toward improving and expanding transit service.
Follow along and hear some of the great insights that participants are picking up in this week’s workshop, surely with some great photos of what’s happening in Denver. Follow @t4america, @TransitCenter and the hashtag #TranspoAcademy on Wednesday and Thursday this week (September 16-17).
Today, T4A hosted a members-only webinar on Transit Return on Investment and how to assess impacts in your region.
As a T4A member, you can access the webinar anytime through this page.
Given the number of regions across the country contemplating similar transit investments, T4A created a rubric for understanding the full range of economic impacts that transit projects have in a region. As detailed by the report’s lead author, Sarah Kline, this methodology includes both near term and long-term economic impacts, including: Employment, Business Attraction, Real Estate Development, Impact on Disposable Income, Fiscal Impacts.
Access the webinar powerpoint here.
View the complete Weighing Maryland’s Economic Future report as a guide to help assess economic impacts of proposed projects and what this can mean for your region.
The US Senate continues to debate the federal surface transportation bill this week, with a series of votes taken last night by the full Senate. Individual senators filed over 200 amendments and T4America continues to track the latest developments on those amendments. We have compiled a brief update on where things stand and provide information on three amendments that we know would spur innovation, access and local control.
**It is rumored that another manager’s amendment package will be offered in the near future. T4A will update this information as needed.
Transportation Funding Timeline Update: Transportation funding expires this Friday and the House announced this morning that they intend to pass a 3-month extension to match the Senate’s; setting up a new October 29 transportation funding deadline.
Last week, Majority Leader McConnell (R-KY) introduced what is expected to be the first of potentially two or more manager’s amendment packages. Manager’s packages serve as legislative vehicles to modify a piece of legislation in committee or on the floor, wholesale. This first manager’s package makes a number of changes, including maintaining the historic 80/20 highway and transit funding split; increases funding for the FTA High Intensity/Fixed Guideway State of Good Repair Formula program by $100 million (paid for by cutting TIFIA and the Assistance for Major Projects by $50 million each) and requires 50% of the off-system bridge set-aside funding in the STP program to be used on bridges that are not on the federal-aid highway system.
Last Sunday, the Senate dispatched a couple of non-germane amendments, but voted to allow Senators to vote on whether or not to tie the Ex-Im Bank authorization to the highway authorization. Late last night, the Senate voted and approved that plan (64-39).
Under this new modified manager’s package, T4A believes that it is unlikely that few if any of the 200+ plus amendments filed by Senators will be considered or voted on. However, we do anticipate the introduction of a third manager’s amendment which will reflect additional changes. T4A continues to work to increase local control, innovation and access to jobs and opportunity through three primary amendments. They include the following:
Update: 5 Issues to Watch (for more information, please refer to T4A’s Member post on 7/23/15):
Pay-fors – Since the last post on 7/23/15, a number of items have shifted. A few provisions, considered poison pills, were removed, including the $2.3 billion that came from denying those with felony warrants social security benefits and $1.7 billion that came from rescinding unused funds for TARP’s Hardest Hit Fund. These rescissions leave the authorization with $43.7 billion, all of which are generated outside of the traditional transportation-user fee system. The measure would provide enough additional HTF revenues to provide the first three years of highway and transit investment, but Congress would be required to raise additional resources before October 2018 to be able to fund the final three years of the DRIVE Act’s authorized spending.
Transit funding – Changes in the manager’s package increased the levels of transit funding to be 24% of the authorized levels overall and 24% of any new funding generated annually.
Freight –The DRIVE Act creates a robust freight planning process that directs states to examine efficient goods movement and identify projects needed to improve multimodal freight movement. However, despite instituting a multi-modal freight planning process, the new National Highway Freight Program would require 90% of the funding go to highway-only projects rather than to multimodal projects using a performance-based system. What impact will this have?
Take, for example, the non-highway freight needs in the State of California. Ten percent of California’s funding would be only $9.3 million in 2016, growing to $23 million in 2021. Comparitively, one multimodal project at the Port of Long Beach in California to remove a railroad bottleneck and build more on-dock rail capacity cost the Port $84 million. T4A views this policy as a missed opportunity and not consistent with T4A’s freight policy.
Overall, due to removal of the TARP Hardest Hit Fund, the bill’s overall investment levels needed to be reduced. Under the first manager’s package, the freight program was set to receive $1.5 billion in FY2016 growing to $2 billion in FY2018. The program would now receive $991.5 million in FY2016 and increase to 1.9 billion in Fy2018.
Passenger Rail – No changes to note from the last update on 7/23/15.
Assistance for Major Projects (AMP) – Funding decreased by $50 million per year to increase funds for FTA’s High Intensity/Fixed Guideway State of Good Repair Formula program. AMP would now be authorized at $250 million in FY16 and rise to $400 million in FY2021.
*NEW* TIFIA – The initial manager’s package introduced early last week would cut TIFIA funding from $1 billion to $500 million per year. Removing the TARP Hardest Hit Fund and other payfors required additional cuts, which senate authorizers took out of the TIFIA program. Those cuts, plus the increase to the FTA’s High Intensity/Fixed Guideway State of Good Repair program, result in an overall authorized funding level for TIFIA at just $300 million per year over the life of the bill.
***Please note, at 10:00am T4A received McConnell’s substitute amendment, which means that a number of these items may have changed. We’ll keep you updated as it proceeds.**
Last night, the US Senate passed a procedural vote called cloture. Like a starting pistol in a race, this means that they can now start debating, amending and eventually pass a federal surface transportation bill out of the Senate. While many things can, and will, happen over the next few days, there are a number of topics that Transportation for America is watching.
Want to know how your Senator voted on cloture? Click HERE.
1.Payfors – DC parlance for real and imaginary ways to pay for this bill.
At this time, there appears to be a wide-ranging list of payfors that run as small as $172 million up to $16 billion. Some of these include items like such as rescinding unused TARP funds or extending fees for TSA. There do not seem to be many that keep the traditional tie between users of the system and payments into the system.
The mass transit account appears to be running out of funding well before the highway trust fund. Initial T4A analysis seems to indicate that the legislation pulls in all 10 years of the proposed funding to pay for 3 years of the highway trust fund and 1.5 years of the mass transit account.
APTA transit funding table in current Senate transportation legislation
The legislation also appears to sell 101 million barrels out of the 693.7 million barrels of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) between 2018 and 2025 to bring in $9B over 10 years. Critics of this funding scheme assert that we are selling the oil when prices are at record lows, making it a foolish idea. Sen. Murkowski (R-AK) is reportedly one of those critics.
Originally, this legislation withheld Social Security payments from recipients that are subjects of a felony arrest warrant and for whom the state has given notice that they intend to pursue the warrant, raising $2.3 billion over 10 years. T4A has heard that Senate negotiators have removed this provision due to the advocacy of a number of social equity and civil rights groups.
2. Transit
T4A and the larger transportation community have several concerns about this title, the main ones are:
US Banking Democrats chart on modal share under currently proposed Senate legislation
First, the DRIVE Act fails to provide public transportation with 20% of the new revenue dedicated to growth, which is a historical guarantee dating back to President Reagan’s agreement in 1982. Public transportation receives only 6% of the revenue derived from the future funding growth (see Senate Banking Democrats chart). U.S. DOT estimates that the Mass Transit Account ends the third year of the bill (FY 2018) with a negative balance of $180 million. Senator Boxer is reportedly negotiating a fix with Senate Republicans that will increase that percentage.
Second, projects with private funds get to “skip the line” for federal money, providing a major incentive for privatized service. The existence of a new expedited process could entice cities to pursue transit privatization on a large scale by using P3s to operate transit service. The labor community has expressed strong opposition and may oppose the entire bill if this provision isn’t removed.
Third, this legislation forces the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) to wait 6 months before increasing oversight of at-risk projects. Sec. 21015 requires the FTA to wait for a project to fail 2 consecutive quarterly reviews before providing more oversight to a project that is going over budget or falling behind schedule.
3. The Freight program
This legislation includes all modes of freight, including pipelines for the first time. It also requires the establishment of a new multi-modal freight network within 1 year of enactment, the establishment of which appears to be similar to the creation of the existing freight network (as well as a re designation of the existing highway freight network). It does, however, define economic competitiveness by the amount of traffic moved and not economic outcomes and will fund projects that reduce congestion, improve reliability, boost productivity, improve safety or state of good repair, use advanced technology or protect the environment on the national highway freight network.
You’ll recall that T4A sent out an action alert to keep the TIGER programmultimodal and not let the US Senate Commerce Committee use it for freight-exclusive purposes. We’re happy to report that effort was successful, though the TIGER program is still not authorized or funded in the transportation bill.
4. Passenger Rail
This legislation authorizes passenger rail funding for the first time ever in a federal surface transportation reauthorization. The legislation calls for $1.44B in 2016 and growing to $1.9B in 2019. It maintains a national system and provides for clear cost accounting among the 4 business lines of Amtrak of the corridor, state-supported and long-distance trains. Provides for up to 6 new passenger rail routes on a competitive basis and for the first time makes operational costs eligible for grants.
5. AMP – Assistance for Major Projects
This is a new project for highway or transit projects that cost at least $350M or 25% percent of state highway apportionment (10% in a rural state). Applications should be reviewed based on consistency with federal goals, improvement to the performance of the system, is consistent with the statewide plan, can’t be completed without federal help and will achieve one or more of the following:
generate national economic benefits outweigh cost,
reduce congestion,
improve the reliability of movement of people and freight, or
improve safety
Grants under AMP must be at least $50M, with a rural guarantee of 20%. Eligible applicants for AMP include states, local governments (or group of locals), tribal governments, transit agencies, port authorities, public authorities with transportation function and federal land management agencies. It is not yet clear if this language is specific enough to include MPOs.
Amendments to be offered: T4A staff is monitoring a number of potential amendments. One of which (offered by Senators Wicker (R-MS) and Booker (D-NJ)) would increase the ability of communities to fund projects through the Surface Transportation Program. We strongly urge you to call your Senator and tell them to co-sponsor that amendment.
Current federal transportation policy is diametrically opposed to climate action. The Green New Deal framework released a year ago mostly left that unchanged. But a 
