The Senate Commerce Committee this morning passed a bill to create and implement goals and objectives for the overall transportation bill, update our federal freight transportation policy, and an amendment to help ensure that federal dollars help build streets that are safe for all users.

As a refresher, there are four committees that share most of the responsibility for the bill in the Senate, with the Commerce Committee covering safety and freight, as well as a few other components. Today’s bills (including others not mentioned) represent the majority of this committee’s contribution to the overall Senate transportation bill.

Many components of Senator Lautenberg’s FREIGHT Act, which we’ve been supporting since its introduction in 2010, were passed out of committee as a part of S. 1950 today. It would create a coordinated national policy for freight and ports across the country.

The FREIGHT Act was combined with a separate bill about performance goals and objectives to become the Surface Transportation and Freight Policy Act. These two proposals both had language on measuring performance – one focused on the freight system and the other on the entire surface transportation network.. The combined bill melds performance goals and objectives from both bills to see if we’re really spending money wisely across our whole system, not just freight.

This bill will establish national policy objectives and goals for the transportation system. It explicitly covers key indicators such as congestion, road condition, reducing environmental impacts, improving the reliability of freight movement, increasing access to transit, and reducing traffic fatalities across all modes. It directs the Secretary to create a national strategic plan for surface transportation and freight and examine all transportation programs for their consistency with these goals and objectives, evaluating and reporting on that every two years.

There’s also a multimodal grant program for freight infrastructure projects focused on bottlenecks, areas of congestion and other key freight needs. The projects are selected by criteria that support many of the same goals and objectives listed above.

The FREIGHT Act was passed out of committee on a party line vote. Republican Senators had asked for more time to review the legislation and raised concerns about the potential impact on the Highway Trust Fund. However, EPW Chairman Barbara Boxer, a member of the Commerce Committee, spoke up in support of Senator Lautenberg’s amendment and assured the Committee that the program wouldn’t impact the trust fund. “I support what Senator Lautenberg is doing with this,” she told her fellow Committee members.

Senator Begich introduced an amendment to “ensure that the design of Federal surface transportation projects provides for the safe and adequate accommodation…of all users of the transportation network,” which passed on a unanimous voice vote after it was amended.

Under this bill, USDOT will work with states to develop standards to ensure that any surface transportation project built with federal funds provides safe and adequate accommodation for all users. Senator Thune offered an amendment to this that would give states discretion as to what is safe and adequate. States have the option of developing their own standards which would then apply instead of the federal standards. This will help states have been leading the way on policies to improve street design.

The Commerce Committee could take up other key provisions in 2012 related to intercity passenger rail, the TIGER program and an Infrastructure Bank, but this morning’s provisions are now done and will join MAP-21 and the pending Banking Committee markup in awaiting floor action in the Senate.

Related: read our full statement on today’s Commerce Committee action

An amendment offered by Senator Mark Begich (D-Alaska), and modified by Senator Thune (R-SD), directs the DOT Secretary to “establish standards to ensure that the design of Federal surface transportation projects provides for the safe and adequate accommodation … of all users of the transportation network, including motorized and non-motorized users.”

Transportation for America’s director, James Corless, offered this statement in response:

“The Commerce Committee’s measures offer critical policy direction at a time when our key national infrastructure program is in urgent need of renewed focus and reinvigoration. Establishing national goals and performance-based objectives for our investment in transportation would be a vast improvement over our current system, improving accountability and transparency of federal transportation spending. The Surface Transportation and Freight Policy Act would go a long way toward ensuring that we get the most bang for the buck from our increasingly constrained transportation dollars.

At a time when pedestrian fatalities and injuries are rising as other traffic fatalities fall, the Begich amendment would help to improve safety for everyone on our roads and save money. With support from the full Senate and incorporation into the House’s companion bill, these measures would establish safety, fairness and efficiency as the hallmarks of the next authorization.”

One thing MAP-21 does — something that House and Senate members on both sides of the aisle have been suggesting — is consolidate more than 100 programs in the transportation program down to a more manageable number. (View our graphic showing the consolidation here.)

One of these newly consolidated programs is the National Highway Performance Program (NHPP), which essentially took three current highway and bridge programs — Interstate Maintenance, National Highway System and the Highway Bridge Program — and combined them into one new program. Here’s how we summarized this program after the bill was released.

National Highway Performance Program (NHPP): ~$20.6 billion

This new program focuses on repairing and improving an expanded National Highway System (NHS). The NHS is expanded from ~160,000 miles to ~220,000 miles. States are required to develop asset management plans and as a part of these plans establish performance targets for the condition of roads and bridges and the performance of the system. In addition, the program includes provisions to hold states accountable for the repair of Interstate pavement and NHS bridges by requiring that they spend a certain amount of funding on the repair of those facilities if they fall below minimum standards established by USDOT.

Ok, so what does that mean, exactly? Before we break that down a little bit it’s worth looking at current policy and how it determines how states and localities prioritize repair of our roads and bridges.

Current policy

Under the current policy, states receive money through the Interstate Maintenance program to improve the condition of Interstate highways. States are also provided funds through the Highway Bridge program to rehabilitate and replace deficient bridges, and at least 15% of those dollars must be used on what’s known as “off-system” bridges, which essentially means bridges not on a federal aid highway — like rural minor collector roads or local streets.

One big loophole in the current law is that up to 50 percent of the funds in both of these programs can be transferred to other programs for other purposes. Which means that a state isn’t completely required to prioritize bridge repair ahead of spending on new roadway capacity, even with their bridge repair funds. As an example, a state where 25 percent of its bridges are structurally deficient doesn’t have to knock that total down to 20 percent before they can take bridge repair money and spend it on something else.

Along those same lines, there currently aren’t any performance measures or targets related to infrastructure condition. There’s nothing that establishes targets for the condition of a state’s roads or the sufficiency of their bridges and no measures to hold states accountable to meet before getting the next infusion of cash to expand their system.

MAP-21 policy

MAP-21 makes some serious strides forward in ensuring that “state of good repair” becomes a measurable, concrete priority that states will be held accountable to meeting. One of the proposals that we’ve been supporting that would help move the needle in this direction was Sen. Cardin’s “Preservation and Renewal of Federal-Aid Highways Act.”

The good news is that much of that bill’s language was wholly incorporated into MAP-21, making for a bill that is much stronger on repair than current policy.

Under the Senate’s MAP-21, money for highways and bridges is provided through this new National Highway Performance Program (NHPP) described above. In one of the most promising changes, 60 percent of NHPP funds must be used to repair NHS highways and bridges and cannot be used for new capacity. The NHS is also expanded from the current ~160,000 miles up to ~220,000 miles.

States are required to develop risk-based asset management plans — basically a concrete plan to prioritize the most urgent repairs first and save money by making repairs early and often — to help improve the state of good repair of bridges and highways.

Measuring the condition of our infrastructure is the first step toward doing a better job of maintaining it. Under MAP-21, the USDOT will develop performance measures for the condition of pavement, bridges and the performance of the Interstate and NHS systems. Though the feds will create the measures, states will be responsible for setting, and then meeting, their own performance targets for each measure.

Starting 4 years after MAP-21 is enacted, States must report on how they’re doing with meeting the targets they created. To hold them accountable, if a state is not making progress towards its targets, they must submit a plan to USDOT showing how it will make progress towards it targets.

There’s also a minimum standard that all the states will have to meet for the condition of the interstates and NHS bridges. If states fall below those minimums then they’re required to spend more money (outside of their repair dollars) to meet the minimum condition level.

This isn’t a comprehensive list of all the specific changes that MAP-21 makes for repair and maintenance, but it’s a good outline of the basics. These changes will help move us in the direction of taking care of our existing transportation assets before spending scarce dollars on new things we can’t afford to maintain.

Eastbound Originally uploaded by robholland Take action if you live in one of these Senate Banking Committee states

AL – Sen. Shelby
CO – Sen. Bennet
HI – Sen. Akaka
ID – Sen. Crapo
IL – Sen. Kirk
KS – Sen. Moran
LA – Sen. Vitter
MT – Sen. Tester
NC – Sen. Hagan
NE – Sen. Johanns
NJ – Sen. Menendez
NY – Sen. Schumer
OH – Sen. Brown
OR – Sen. Merkley
PA – Sen. Toomey
RI – Sen. Reed
SC – Sen. DeMint
SD – Tim Johnson
TN – Sen. Corker
VA – Sen. Warner
WI – Sen. Kohl

USA Today covered the news today from the American Public Transportation Association that transit ridership went up another 2 percent nationally in the third quarter, compared to the same period last year.

“We are seeing employment tick up and people are making lifestyle choices,” says Michael Melaniphy, association president. “People think, ‘There must be a better alternative.’ “

This good news comes along with a dose of bad news — the same bad news we’ve been experiencing for the last three or four years. An example from the story:

The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, which serves the Boston area, is considering fare hikes and service cuts to its 180 bus routes and 17 commuter and subway lines because of a potential $161 million shortfall next year, says Acting General Manager Jonathan Davis. The authority posted record ridership in September and October. Weekday ridership for October increased 3.2% compared with a year earlier.

All across the country, hundreds of transit agencies just like the MBTA are in dire budgetary straits: they’re cutting back on service, laying off workers, and hiking fares. On our interactive map about transit cuts across the country, Alexander in Los Angeles described to us how cuts have affected him:

… I am deeply disappointed by the service cuts. I used to be a regular MTA patron (in Los Angeles), however while the subway and LRT service is more or less OK, the bus service has fallen to a completely unacceptable level. …15-minute headways on some lines turned to 40-minute intervals; this is no exaggeration. I am now back to driving (polluting the air and adding to gridlock, having no other choice…)

Of course, Alexander is somewhat lucky, in that he can afford a car and gas to still make it to work each day. Millions of others depend on public transportation each day without any other options to lean on when their bus starts coming once an hour instead of every 15 minutes.

We talk about this now because a key Senate committee is deciding the fate of public transportation right now. The Senate Banking Committee is writing their portion of the Senate transportation reauthorization and they have jurisdiction over transit.

They need to know that it’s important to give transit agencies the flexibility to use their money not just to buy new buses or railcars but for the operation of those buses and trains. That’s because transit agencies in our larger cities aren’t allowed to use the federal dollars they receive to keep trains and buses running, even in this incredibly difficult time.

Public transportation ridership has been growing three times faster than the US population to reach record highs. Public transit is a driving force in our economy, and we need it now more than ever to help the economy rebound.

So if you live in one of the states listed below or at right, tell your Senators on the Banking Committee to support flexibility for public transportation operations in their draft transportation bill. 

(If you don’t live in a Banking Committee state, the action page won’t let you send a message.)

AL – Sen. Shelby
CO – Sen. Bennet
HI – Sen. Akaka
ID – Sen. Crapo
IL – Sen. Kirk
KS – Sen. Moran
LA – Sen. Vitter
MT – Sen. Tester
NC – Sen. Hagan
NE – Sen. Johanns
NJ – Sen. Menendez
NY – Sen. Schumer
OH – Sen. Brown
OR – Sen. Merkley
PA – Sen. Toomey
RI – Sen. Reed
SC – Sen. DeMint
SD – Tim Johnson
TN – Sen. Corker
VA – Sen. Warner
WI – Sen. Kohl

The conference agreement between the two chambers preserves funding for transit and the innovative TIGER grants program, while zeroing out high-speed rail. The Federal Transit Administration is provided a total of $10.608 billion. Amtrak, with $466 million for operating and $952 million for capital, would be funded at a level lower than what the Senate requested but higher than the House-proposed amount. But Amtrak did receive more capital funding than either the House or Senate originally proposed.

$500 million for TIGER constitutes a 5.1 percent cut from current levels, but is a significant improvement over the House proposal to eliminate the program entirely. Every round of grant applications for TIGER has yielded far more interest from communities that USDOT has been able to accommodate, and the program rewards projects that meet local needs. Streetsblog is reporting that the third round of TIGER applications outstrips the available grant amount by 27 to 1.

The New Starts program receives $1.95 billion. New Starts is a key funding source for transit projects across the country, particularly in large metropolitan areas. The WMATA transit system in Washington, DC gets $150 million.

Traditional highway funding under the Federal Highway Administration is funded slightly below current levels, with $39.143 billion.

In a disappointing move, negotiators did not include funding for Partnership for Sustainable Communities grants. The partnership is a joint venture between USDOT, the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. While no new grants will be awarded under this agreement, the office will remain open and negotiators notably refused to include House-proposed language that would have disallowed the three departments from working collaboratively.

Both chambers will need to pass the “minibus” agreement by Friday to avoid a government shutdown. With bipartisan sign-off on these funding levels, passage is almost assured.

Check out the chart below, which compares the 2010 budget, 2011 budget and the House/Senate proposals that got us to the proposed 2012 budget.

Federal Transportation, Housing and Urban Development Budget: Highlighted transportation and sustainable communities programs.

The committee markup was short, as compared to a typical markup of such a large bill, but that was a testament to the work done behind the scenes by Senators Boxer, Inhofe, Baucus and Vitter to get consensus among the four of them on the major policy points.

At the markup, a single package of amendments, known as a manager’s amendment, agreed to ahead of time by the four key Senators, was approved by a unanimous voice vote. No other amendments were voted on, though many others were filed.

After that amendment package was approved, Senators took turns talking about other amendments that they had drafted but weren’t formally proposing, in order to preserve the bipartisan vote and also because the four committee leaders made it clear they would oppose any other amendments, effectively ensuring no amendments would pass — a process known as “offer and withdraw.”

Senators talk about their amendment, offer it, and then note that they’re not calling for a vote and withdraw the amendment. The idea behind this is to indicate the Senator’s desire to continue to push an issue and work with the Committee to find ways to incorporate concepts into the final bill as it moves to the floor.

There were a few smart, notable amendments offered in that way, and a handful of others that were not offered. Sen. Gillibrand talked at length about a program that would help train low-income workers, but we’ll be talking more about those amendments in the days and weeks to come as the bill moves forward.

Here’s a summary list of the amendments that were approved in the manager’s package. Some other small changes to the bill were made in an amendment written and approved by the four committee leaders, but that text is not yet available. Additional explanatory notes from T4 America are in italics.

(Amendment data derived in part from Transportation Weekly and Jeff Davis.)

Busy bicycling bridge Originally uploaded by Steven Vance to Flickr.

Send a message to your Senator to tell them how you feel about their vote on this amendment.

Senator Paul’s “misrepresentation” of the facts in his amendment, as the Associated Press termed it, sought to force the Senate into a false choice: either safety in our cars while driving on our bridges or safety while walking and biking on our streets and roads. A bipartisan group of Senators made it clear that’s a choice we don’t have to make and voted against the amendment, reaffirming the importance of making our streets safe for everyone, no matter how they’re traveling.

Senator Paul claimed that the amendment would take “beautification” dollars and direct them toward bridge repair. But that money (which largely goes to help keep people safe while walking or biking) is a tiny drop in the bucket compared to what we need to actually make a dent in repairing our bridges.

The FHWA estimates that we need almost $71 billion dollars right now to repair all of today’s deficient bridges, to say nothing of the bridges that will be deficient by next year. This small program that is mostly used on bike and pedestrian facilities was around $900 million last year. Under this plan, at the cost of safety for everyone who uses a road, states would have gained enough money to repaint a few bridges.

AASHTO, the trade group that represents state transportation officials, pointed out to the AP that “the stipulation that states set aside enhancement dollars has survived for nearly two decades because it’s popular with local officials and metropolitan planning organizations.”

This relatively small amount spent on safer streets and roads is popular because they save lives and give millions of people another option for getting around.

We do deserve a serious plan to address the woeful condition of our nation’s bridges. But taking the one or two pennies of each transportation dollar that help keep people safe while walking and spending it on bridge repair isn’t the serious proposal that we need. That’s akin to going on a diet by eating Big Macs everyday — but leaving out the lettuce to lose weight.

Here’s one fact about bridge repair that you likely haven’t been told by the people cooking up these plans:

States can already take up to half of their money for bridge repair and spend it on new highway capacity, no matter the condition of their bridges. And states can already spend most of what’s usually the biggest pot of transportation funding on almost anything they want. It’s entirely flexible. They could fix bridges, build transit, highways, bridges, sidewalks; it’s all eligible, and totally up to the states. No mandates from Washington.

The breakdown of the vote is below. If you want to send a thank you message — or send a message of disappointment to your Senator who voted the wrong way — we’ve modified our action for the amendment to do exactly that. Send a message to your Senator here.

You can also use that page to give the “No’s” a call and a thank you, which is always appreciated and rarely given.

And for all of you that called or sent a message urging a “no” vote in the last two days, thank you for your support. Your action had real impacts on this particular bill.

“Today’s vote in the Senate to preserve current levels of infrastructure investment is an important signal that there is overwhelming bipartisan support to invest in job-creating transportation projects.

“With this vote, the Senate chose to protect vital funding for Amtrak, which recently announced record-breaking ridership. The Senate also preserves support for the innovative and successful New Starts and TIGER grants programs. Competitive programs like these are already bringing a long-overdue focus on performance to our nation’s transportation system.

“The Senate was wise to defeat amendments aimed at weakening funding for projects to make walking and bicycling safer. We look forward to continuing to work with both parties to make prudent transportation investments without jeopardizing programs that keep Americans safe on our roads.”

Senators Rand Paul of Kentucky, Tom Coburn of Oklahoma and John McCain of Arizona have been targeting the transportation enhancements program, a mere 2 percent of the federal transportation budget. They say eliminating the set-aside would make it easier for states to repair bridges, even though many states have failed to prioritize maintenance when they can spend the bulk of their transportation funds however they want.

The Senators and their supporters seem to have gotten a good chuckle out of some particular projects. They point to, among others, roadside snack stand in Pennsylvania shaped like a giant coffee pot and a lighthouse renovation in Toledo, Ohio.

“We picked some of the more interesting and exciting ones to get our colleagues’ attention,” McCain reportedly admitted.

But exciting as they might be, the claims about the projects are “exaggerated and misrepresented,” according to a fact check feature in the Associated Press this past weekend.

That roadside coffee pot? AP’s Joan Lowy reports:

No transportation aid was spent on the coffee pot’s $100,000 restoration, said Olga Herbert, executive director of the Lincoln Highway Heritage Corridor. The money was raised entirely from preservation and civic organizations and local supporters”

“We did not use any of this $300,000 award for anything to do with the coffee pot,” she said. “It’s interesting that nobody from Senator Coburn’s office called me about this.”

As for the lighthouse in Toledo:

Actually, no transportation dollars have been authorized or awarded. The lighthouse renovation is among projects community officials tentatively hope to get around to in 2019.

Senator Paul has also repeatedly cited a supposed “turtle tunnel” project. But the project he referenced on U.S. 27 in Florida was a significant safety issue for motorists, many of whom were forced to swerve when alligators, turtles and other creatures crossed the highway from adjacent Lake Jackson. While Coburn claimed the project would require $6 million or more to finish on an undefined timeline, in fact, USDOT told Lowy the project was completed in September 2010 at $3 million, under budget and $3 million less than Senator Coburn claimed.

Streetsblog Capitol Hill has more.

The takeaway? At the least, members of Conrgess should do a better job fact-checking. While they’re checking the numbers, they might look to see how long it would take to repair bridges relying solely on this relatively tiny share of funds. It would take Paul’s home state of Kentucky 66 years of bike and pedestrian funding to achieve a state of good repair for their bridges. Pennsylvania wouldn’t catch up until sometime during the 24th century.

Safe to say, this isn’t the serious proposal for bridge repair that we urgently need. If Paul, Coburn and McCain are serious about fixing bridges and not just scoring political points, they’ll come back with something better.

Photo courtesy of the Associated Press.

Late update: Senator Rand Paul’s amendment to cut money for walking and biking and direct it to bridge repair failed in the Senate today, by a 60-38 count.

A New Trail Originally uploaded by M.V. Jantzen to Flickr.

Safe travels for people on foot, on bike and in cars on the new Wilson Bridge in Washington, D.C. Should we really have to choose?

The small Transportation Enhancements program represents less than 2 percent of all transportation funding, and more than half of that 2 percent is used to help make walking and biking safer — a worthy expenditure considering 10 percent of trips are taken on foot and 47,700 people on foot were killed from 2000-2009.

Senator Rand Paul is expected to offer an amendment next week to take all of the TE money and put it toward bridge repair. And a handful of others in Congress have been trying to kill this program for years, well before the current talk of austerity.

Sen. Paul’s proposal doesn’t represent a sincere plan to repair our bridges, but unfortunately, a handful in the media are still taking the bait.

The question is this: With the nation facing a transportation crisis that has gotten little attention outside of policy wonks and Washington, should the federal government continue to mandate that states spend federal dollars on pedestrian safety, bicycling trails, landscaping and historic preservation?

When you ask the wrong question, you often get the wrong answer. And this question in particular has been manufactured by those who would capitalize on the sense of urgency about our bridges to eliminate a program they’ve been after for years.

We’ve covered before how the money spent on walking and biking safety won’t actually do anything to address the bridge backlog. It would take Kentucky 66 years of bike/ped money to fix all of the bridges that are deficient today. And as we wrote in National Journal, “So what if we decided to ignore the significant safety issues faced daily by pedestrians and cyclists, and spent that money instead on bridge repair as some have suggested? We could indeed fix all the currently deficient bridges in the state of Missouri, for example. We’d just need to be patient because it would take 82 years. The State of Washington could get to its backlog in 164 years. And Pennsylvania could finish up with its deficient bridge list at the start of the 24th century.”

Raiding these safety funds to fix our bridges is like trying to stop a freight train with a BB gun. Beyond that, it’s false — and cruel — to suggest that we have to even decide between safety on our bridges and safety on our streets.

We have often pointed out the fact that states have the flexibility to spend up to half of their bridge repair money elsewhere, regardless of the condition of their bridges. But they also have the flexibility to spend most of their Surface Transportation Program dollars, usually the biggest pot of transportation funding, on almost anything they want. They could fix bridges, build transit, highways, bridges, sidewalks; it’s all eligible, and totally up to the states for how they spend it. No mandates from Washington.

Despite false assertions that we require states to build museums or turtle tunnels instead of repairing their bridges, there’s nothing stopping states from getting on top of their deficient bridges. Just like nothing has stopped Florida from spending their TE money each year while also setting up a bridge repair program to target funds first and foremost to bridges that need attention, resulting in some of the best bridges in the country. Meanwhile, Senator Paul’s state of Kentucky, with more than 2,700 deficient bridges, spends $6.50 on new highway capacity for every dollar they spend on bridge repair.

We don’t have to choose between being safe when we walk or being safe when we drive over a bridge. Anyone who tells you otherwise has their own agenda; an agenda that has very little to do with actually repairing our bridges.

It’s time for serious proposals from Congress to fix our crumbling bridges and infrastructure, rather than making a large percentage of people less safe in the name of grabbing a few extra bucks for our bridges.

Along these lines, a good step would be Senator Cardin’s “Preservation and Renewal of Federal-Aid Highways Act.” Tell your Senators to support this important piece of legislation.