Administration releases their principles for an 18-month transportation bill
July 1, 2009By Stephen Lee Davis
When DOT Secretary LaHood was on Capitol Hill a few weeks ago discussing the Obama Administration’s plan for a transitional transportation bill, he mentioned that their plan for an 18-month extension would “enact critical reforms” while stopping short of a fundamental overhaul of the program — leaving that for the full six-year bill.
A lot of transportation advocates were left wondering what sort of reforms the administration would propose. Today we got a first look at their general proposal (via Transportation Weekly.) Update: Elana Schor @ Streetsblog has the details on the National Infrastructure Bank.
As you may remember, Chairman James Oberstar and his House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee are at odds over the timing of the authorization bill. Oberstar and company want to pass a full six-year authorization bill by September, while the Administration favors an 18-month transitional bill to patch the soon-to-be insolvent Highway Trust Fund.
At the forefront of the administration proposal is a $20 billion transfer from the general fund to keep the Highway and Mass Transit Accounts in the Highway Trust Fund from going bankrupt, keeping them solvent until March 2011. They propose to return the money to the general fund over 10 years.
In a section titled “Downpayment on Reform,” the administration outlines three proposals, including $310 million to help states and metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) voluntarily improve their project evaluation process, helping them choose worthy projects based on data , preparing them “for improved accountability standards and merit criteria in the long-term reauthorization.”
The second proposal would provide $10 million for “USDOT to develop performance goals and establish guidelines for states and localities on project evaluation.” And in language that sounds similar to the stimulus spending, the third proposal aims to improve the transparency and accountability in transportation spending, to “lay the groundwork for further accountability reforms in the long-term reauthorization.”
Lastly is a section on livable communities and improving regional access:
Livability: developing guidelines for community plans and providing funding for approved projects with special emphasis on convenience of transportation options, reductions in travel times, smart growth, preservation of open space, and more integrated responses to land use and transportation needs.
Chairman Oberstar is still opposed to any extension and it’s worth noting that any 18-month proposal would have to pass through his committee in the House. Read the full memo to Congress below.
(Continue Reading)
Sec. LaHood: Any new money will come with reform
June 4, 2009By Andrew Bielak
 |
| National Bike Summit – Day two-5 Originally uploaded by BikePortland.org |
| Sec. LaHood at the National Bike Summit this year in Washington, DC. |
Just yesterday, we noted that our transportation system is facing a severe financial crisis. The main source of funding for our federal transportation investments, the Highway Trust Fund, is desperately short on cash, and will need as much as $7 billion from the general fund by September to continue paying for our infrastructure.
While we recognize the need to find new sources of revenue to pay for our roads, bridges, public transportation systems, and walking and biking paths, we believe strongly that we can’t afford to just pour more money into a broken system and must tie any increased funding to strong, measurable reforms.
Or as we said yesterday, we need a federal transportation system that works, not the same broken thing at twice the price.
It appears that the U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood and the administration agrees pretty strongly with that sentiment. During a hearing today in front of the transportation panel of U.S. House Appropriations Committee, LaHood made a clear, concise point on linking more funding to accountability and performance measures.
“We believe very strongly that any trust fund fix must be paid for. We also believe that any trust fund fix must be tied to reform of the current highway program to make it more performance-based and accountable, such as improving safety or improving the livability of our communities — two priorities for me.”
Check out this post from Elana Schor and our friends at Streetsblog for the whole scoop.
There’s still the sizable challenge of figuring out how to pay for the transportation infrastructure that will keep our country economically competitive and give Americans better options. But it’s incredibly encouraging to see that Sec. LaHood is broadcasting our message on Capitol Hill loud and clear — no new money without reforming the broken system.
Highway Trust Fund could need as much as $17 billion to stay in the black
June 3, 2009By Stephen Lee Davis
 |
| Flickr photo originally uploaded by Madison Guy |
In September last year, Congress had to provide an emergency infusion of $8 billion to the Highway Trust Fund for the first time in history to keep it from going broke. This transfer of cash from the general fund to an account that is supposed to be completely self-supporting showed us that our transportation system is in serious financial trouble.
Unfortunately, we’re expecting the Highway Trust Fund to run out of money even sooner this year.
News broke yesterday that the Obama administration is telling members of the U.S. Senate that the fund — which pays for projects approved in the transportation bill — will go broke by August if an emergency infusion of at least $7 billion isn’t approved. And it could need as much as $10 billion more to make it through the next fiscal year, which ends in September 2010.
With Congress talking about a transportation bill this year in the range of $450 billion and current gas tax revenues failing to cover the costs of the last $286 billion transportation bill, it’s clear that we need a new method of paying for our transportation infrastructure. We’re driving less and less, not just because of expensive gas, but also due to changing demographics and consumer preferences, and it’s unlikely that gas tax revenues will go up any time soon.
Predictably, many sensible voices are calling for the gas tax to be raised, which has been going down in real terms as inflation increases and the tax stays fixed at 18.4 cents per gallon. Both of the Congressionally-mandated transportation study commissions recommended an increase in the gas tax. But while we certainly more money from some somewhere to pay for the transportation investments we need, it’s imperative that we change the broken system before we pour new money into it.
The way things works now, states are esssentially encouraged have their residents drive more to increase gas tax revenues, which allows them to contribute more to the federal government and get more money back in return. We need a system that encourages states to improve mobility and safety, reduce congestion, and meet other performance measures, instead of building new roads to increase miles driven.
We need a federal transportation system that works, not the same broken thing at twice the price.
No new money without reforming the broken system.
Transportation for America unveils its Blueprint for Reform on Capitol Hill
May 11, 2009By Andrew Bielak
 |
| BlueprintRelease6 Originally uploaded by Transportation for America |
| Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell delivers the keynote at this morning’s Capitol Hill briefing marking the release of The Route to Reform Blueprint. |
With Congress preparing to write the bill that will determine the next six years of transportation spending, Transportation for America today released a detailed plan to restructure the nation’s transportation program in order to build a smart, safe and clean transportation system that provides real choices to all Americans.
If our platform, released in February, lays out the vision and goals for America’s transportation system, then the Transportation for America Blueprint contains the detailed directions for getting there.
The Route to Reform: Blueprint for a 21st Century Federal Transportation Program will serve as T4 America’s proposal for the policies and financing structures necessary to achieve real transformational change in America’s transportation system. (We’ll be highlighting and explaining pieces of the Blueprint here over the coming weeks — it’s a lot to digest at once.)
Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell — a co-chair of the Build America’s Future campaign and one of the leading voices calling for a renewed transportation system – gave the event’s keynote speech in the same committee where the transportation bill will be written and considered first by Chairman Oberstar’s House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.
Read the press release from this morning’s event.
Gov. Rendell was followed by a panel that included James Corless, director of the Transportation for America Campaign; Elaine Clegg, Special Projects Director for Idaho Smart Growth and and city council member in Boise; Astrid Glynn, former Commissioner of the New York State Department of Transportation; Andrew Cotugno, the director of planning for Metro in Portland, Oregon; and Ronald Kilcoyne, the General Manager/CEO of Greater Bridgeport Transit Authority.
Governor Rendell kicked off the event by praising T4 America’s vision for the future while urging advocates and experts to fight tooth and nail to push for a 21st Century transportation system.
“This report couldn’t be more correct when it says this is a once in a lifetime opportunity,” Gov. Rendell said.
“If we don’t take advantage of this opportunity…nothing will change, and we’ll just bump along, funding some good projects almost by accident, some mediocre projects and some terrible projects. We won’t have national policy, we won’t move the ball forward, and we won’t do something that will improve our economic competitiveness – we’ll just keep moving along the way we’ve been moving along, and not solving any problems.”
Thankfully, Gov. Rendell echoed T4 America’s optimism in envisioning a brighter future for our national economy that could rest on a revitalized transportation system.
He called attention to a factory outside Harrisburg, Pennsylvania that produces railroad ties and could build a second plant and double its workforce if the country committed to building an intercity rail system. Calling The Route to Reform a “very thorough, very thought-provoking, and very detailed report,” the Governor noted that all the great ideas for building a modern transportation system won’t go anywhere without a sustained and powerful campaign to back them up.
“Every one of us has to fight,” he said. “Let’s touch every media outlet, and get local support among mayors, and councilman and state senators, let’s get everybody talking about infrastructure and how this is the opportunity of a lifetime.”
 |
| BlueprintRelease20 Originally uploaded by Transportation for America |
| T4 America Campaign Director James Corless holds a hot-off-the-presses copy of The Route to Reform. View more photos from today’s event in the Flickr set. |
After Rendell’s remarks, the panelists delved into the details of the report with a detailed discussion of the Blueprint, laying out the campaign’s proposals for a drastically reformed program with clear national objectives and concrete, accountable performance measures.
Download the full report, the executive summary, or the press release with more details about today’s briefing at t4america.org/blueprint.
Poll results show Americans are ready for a new beginning
March 3, 2009By Andrew Bielak
| Download the press release (.PDF) (.DOC) Download the full poll results (.PDF) (.DOC) |
As President Obama and Congress prepare to take up the renewal of the nation’s transportation investment bill, it’s important to note that that the while legislation may be written here in the nation’s capitol, the decisions made and the policies implemented will truly affect those far outside Washington D.C. For this reason, it’s essential to understand what kind of options Americans want, what changes they’d like to see, and what vision they have for the future of our transportation program.
As a poll released last week by Transportation for American and the National Association of Realtors demonstrates, Americans are ready for major, transformative change — and a majority believe that completing the second half of our transportation system, and repairing our roads and bridges, should take precedence over building new highways. The poll, which was conducted by Hart Research Associates, involved conversations with 1,005 adults living in the U.S. from January 5-7.
The answers to a few key questions from the poll, which are shown after the jump, are particularly revealing.
(Continue Reading)
Crafting a vision for the future — and then paying for it
February 26, 2009By Andrew Bielak
As Congress moves towards the reauthorization of our transportation program, we can expect that one of the biggest challenges the federal government will face will be figuring out just how to pay for our vast transportation needs. After all, as Americans continue to drive less, revenues from the gas tax — which hasn’t been raised since 1994 — continue to decline, and both federal and state governments are increasingly unable to find enough money to fund basic maintenance and repair work.
The National Surface Transportation Infrastructure Financing Commission took a shot across the bow today by releasing its report on the funding needs for our system — advocating, among other things, a 10-cent increase in the gas tax, a long-term transition to a mileage-based system that taxes people based on how much the drive, and an expansion of innovative funding mechanisms like congestion pricing and high-occupancy vehicle lanes.
While the report advocates some respectable principles including long-term sustainability and energy independence, we believe the authors missed a golden opportunity to provide a vision for the 21st century. Before figuring how to collect money from taxpayers, we need to decide what we should be building today and for the future, rather than merely spending money on yesterday’s priorities.
As the results on transit-related ballot measures across the country demonstrated on November 4, Americans are more than willing to pay for a green, modern transportation system, as long as they have a good idea of where their dollars are going. If we hope to find new ways to pay for that system, and are to expect present and future generations to foot the bill, the new administration and Congress needs to come out with a bold vision that breaks with the old ways of the status quo — and should show the American people just what a 21st century transportation network could look like .
-
- U.S. Transportation Department makes good on promise to ensure our streets are made safer
March 16, 2010 - Obama’s livability programs help rural America too
March 16, 2010 - Transit grants out the federal door, but what about the cuts?
March 8, 2010 - Transit riders in Atlanta face massive cuts, “wholesale restructuring” of service
March 5, 2010 - Opposition to Senate extension results in looming shutdown of federal transportation programs
February 26, 2010
- U.S. Transportation Department makes good on promise to ensure our streets are made safer
The United States of Transit Cutbacks
Driving is down and transit ridership is at record highs. Yet transit agencies across the country are considering layoffs, service cuts and fare hikes. Find out more and learn what you can do to help at t4america.org/transitcuts
Transportation: In your eyes
Send us your transportation-related photos.
