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Tag: transportation funding

Beyond the pump: Evaluating fresh approaches to transportation funding

An empty gas station with rows of abandoned power blue pumps glowing with neon lights in the middle of the night

Current state gasoline taxes aren’t enough to cover our transportation funding needs. Evaluating alternatives needs to involve taking five key principles into account. Read our policy evaluation framework, created by T4A Policy Associate Stephen Coleman Kenny with support from T4A Policy Director Benito Pérez, NRDC Senior Transportation Advocate Zak Accuardi, and T4A Policy Intern Julia Camacho.

An empty gas station with rows of abandoned power blue pumps glowing with neon lights in the middle of the night

Our transportation systems are largely funded by motor fuel taxes that finance the federal Highway Trust Fund. Since the 1980s, these funds have been allocated using a roughly 80/20 split between highway and transit spending under the assumption that drivers were paying a larger share and deserved to receive more investments in return. However, after a crisis in 2008 when the national fund ran out of money—requiring billions of dollars in bailouts ever since—this system has proven to be outdated and unstable.

Why the gas tax status quo needs to change

In 2008, the National Surface Transportation Infrastructure Financing Commission wrote that the United States has an “ever-expanding backlog of investment needs” that then-current transportation funding policies would only cover one third of. As of 2016, public transit systems have faced a backlog of over $105 billion for maintenance and replacement costs.

Today, this problem is only worsening. America’s reliance on gasoline taxes in order to fund roads and transit systems is proving to be unsustainable. As vehicles become increasingly efficient and electric vehicles (EVs) become more commonplace, overall levels of fuel consumption are decreasing—thus lowering gas tax revenues and further widening the infrastructure funding gap. Without a change in our revenue-raising systems, our roads and transit infrastructure will crumble. It’s critical we act now. 

As policymakers explore potential alternatives to the gas tax, a variety of options have emerged, including the following: 

  • Road pricing, or taxing by vehicle miles traveled (VMT)
  • Adding new tolls
  • Congestion pricing
  • Flat vehicle registration fees
  • Indexing the gas tax to inflation
  • Taxes on external costs of driving like emissions and accidents
  • General revenue subsidies
  • Duties on fuel sales

Many of these proposals are not new—for instance, T4A wrote about raising the gas tax or indexing it to construction fees back in 2014. But save for some VMT-based road pricing pilot programs in Oregon, Virginia, and most recently Utah, little progress has been made.

Choosing the right option

There are a variety of possibilities, but no one option fits every regional context. Rather, the process of evaluation has to be sensitive to the goals and priorities of state and federal transportation programs. With that in mind, there are five main needs that new proposals will need to address, which we compiled into a policy evaluation framework:

  • Outcomes: How the funding scheme changes road user behavior by incentivizing one of the following outcomes: electrification (EV adoption), mode shift away from personal vehicles, or maintaining the status quo.
  • Fairness: Ensuring that the funding scheme is fair to all users by having road users (including drivers of internal combustion engine (ICE) cars and EVs alike) pay user fees in accordance with the wear and tear they impose on the road system.
  • Stability: Estimating the revenue projections of the proposed system and whether or not it raises enough money to maintain the transportation system in both the short and long term.
  • Equity: Examining how the structure of the funding scheme impacts different socioeconomic groups, and how the benefits and burdens are distributed. 
  • Feasibility: Considering the administrative costs, jurisdictional issues, technology for implementation, political popularity, and public support for the proposal. 

There are tradeoffs between these goals, but looking at the possible alternatives to the gas tax through these five lenses provides a starting point for choosing a new policy. Find examples of our policy evaluation framework in action here.

Taking a closer look at a VMT tax and its implementation in Oregon

Among the options mentioned above, road pricing, or a tax on VMT, has emerged as a popular frontrunner among policymakers and thought leaders. A VMT tax would impact ICE cars and EVs equally, would include usage of all roads—not just interstates or toll roads—and would result in a precise user charge, especially if adjusted for vehicle weight, that drivers pay based on their wear and tear on the road system.  However, the shortcomings of a VMT tax lie in the other four aspects—equity, outcomes, feasibility, and revenue stability. 

A VMT tax would be regressive, penalizing people who need to drive the furthest—in other words, rural households and those who live farther from city centers—and already have to pay high transportation costs as a result. Additionally, a VMT tax only incentivizes mode shift for that same group of people, who are the most likely to not be able to shift away from driving due to a lack of transportation alternatives.

Furthermore, a simple VMT tax doesn’t incentivize EV adoption over ICE cars or even just more efficient vehicles over heavier ones that use more fuel, since all vehicles are treated the same. With regards to feasibility, VMT taxes have faced technology challenges, high administrative costs, and public opposition. And in terms of revenue stability, a VMT tax is sufficient only if we maintain high levels of driving in the long term.

Oregon, a state that has historically been especially reliant on the gas tax for transportation funding, has tested out a VMT tax. In 2001, Oregon created a Road User Fee Task Force (RUFTF) in order to evaluate possible alternatives as hybrid vehicles and EVs began to rise in popularity. RUFTF decided to try implementing a road usage charge and launched a VMT pilot program in 2012 that succeeded in four areas: policy and public acceptance, technology, operations, and cost. This led to the creation of the voluntary OReGO program in 2015 that now enables drivers of EVs and efficient vehicles to pay a per-mile charge in exchange for reduced vehicle registration fees or gas tax rebates.

It’s notable that one of the aspects that wasn’t considered was outcomes—how the funding scheme changes (or doesn’t change) the behavior of road users, incentivizing electrification or mode shift or neither. Oregon’s eventual vision is to have a dual tax system—VMT for EVs and efficient vehicles, and a gas tax for all other vehicles.

When asked whether a VMT tax for fuel-efficient vehicles punishes drivers trying to do the right thing environmentally, Jim Whitty, who led the implementation of these programs at Oregon’s DOT, said that “making the great choice to buy a less polluting vehicle doesn’t make it a great choice to let the road system crumble.” And when asked why people who will pay more under a VMT system would volunteer to participate in the program, Whitty didn’t have a clear answer.

Notably, as of 2020, only 701 drivers were actively participating—well under the 5,000 that the program had initially envisioned. Oregon is now considering making OReGO into a mandatory policy, but other states should still try out other options before rushing to commit to a VMT tax.

Reevaluating America’s transportation funding systems

It’s of course critical that we act now to resolve this growing funding gap in order to address pressing maintenance needs and invest in the future of America’s transportation systems. When choosing an alternative policy (or combination of policies) to replace the current gas tax, it will be important to consider these five aspects—outcomes, fairness, stability, equity, and feasibility.

However, federal and state leadership will be as critical as funding. Both levels of government have a crucial role in transportation funding. Much innovation is fostered in localities, but without an overarching vision and approach, this can result in a patchwork of approaches that can spur inequitable outcomes.

It’s also important that we consider the ultimate impacts of this transportation funding system: namely, how the money is actually used. In a foundational 2006 report on possible alternatives to the fuel tax, for example, the Transportation Research Board acknowledged that their analysis prioritized problems related to highway financing over public transit. 

We can’t afford to pour money into expanding highways and worsening America’s transportation woes. Even if we achieve an optimal policy that maximizes revenue raised for transportation funding, we need to ensure that the money raised by any of these proposals is actually used for projects that prioritize maintenance and repair and make advancements towards reliable, affordable, and frequent transit systems that connect people to the places they need to go.

Learn more about how to evaluate alternatives. Read our policy evaluation framework here.

Show me the money: Financial breakdown of the infrastructure law

graphic showing comparison data between fast act and infrastrucure bill

A month has passed since the $1.2 trillion infrastructure deal was signed into law and set the direction for the federal transportation program for the next five years. With this mammoth infusion of unexpected cash (which is already flowing out the door), there is much to unpack as to exactly how much money there is for the surface transportation program and how it can be used.

To big fanfare, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act was signed into law on November 15, 2021 by President Biden. The President and the press have touted how this law will invest $550 billions in supplemental appropriations  into transportation and other infrastructure needs of the United States.  But rather than just how much more the pie was supersized, most states, regions, and local governments want to know more details about the size of all the bill’s various pie pieces. T4America has you covered, dissecting the infrastructure law and following the money for the surface transportation program. 

FHWA also released their full apportionment tables on Dec. 15, which show the full official breakdown of where the money is going and what sources it’s coming from. Find those tables here.

promo graphic for a guide to the IIJA

This post is part of T4America’s suite of materials explaining the 2021 $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), which governs all federal transportation policy and funding through 2026. What do you need to know about the new infrastructure law? We know that federal transportation policy can be intimidating and confusing. Our hub for the new law will walk you through it, from the basics all the way to more complex details.

1) Where this money is going—the big picture

As the following chart shows, 54 percent ($643 billion) of the infrastructure law’s funding goes toward reauthorizing the surface transportation program through 2026. The rest of the bill’s $1.2 trillion price tag goes toward other various non surface-transportation infrastructure. This $643 billion part of the deal has been reported as reauthorization plus additional above-and-beyond funds for various programs (even by us!), but the easiest way to understand this is that this is a massive five-year authorization that’s nearly twice the size of the FAST Act that it replaces. (The next biggest question is how much of the $643 billion comes from the gas-tax-funded trust fund, and how much comes from general tax dollars, which we get into in #2 below.)

Of this $643 billion, two-thirds of the money ($432 billion) is flowing to conventional highway programs.

Just to put this scale of spending in perspective, if the FAST Act (the just-ended five-year transportation law) had just been extended instead, that would have only been about $299 billion for these three basic areas of funding over five years. So compared to the previous five-year law, the new infrastructure bill brings a:

  • 90 percent increase in highway program funding (from $226 up to $432 billion);
  • 79 percent increase in public transportation funding (from $61 billion up to $109 billion); and
  • 750 percent increase in railroad infrastructure funding (from $12 billion up to $102 billion)

While the bill has added some new programs (some of which we cover here), the primary way to understand the amount of money is that it will go down as roughly double what we spent over the previous five years.

2) Where is this money coming from? 

Taking a closer look at that nearly $432 billion for highways, $110+ billion in supplemental funding (for predominantly highway competitive grant programs) is sourced from general funds from the US Treasury, i.e, paid for with tax dollars from every American and not just gas taxes In a notable change from historic practice, these supplemental funds will be appropriated in advance of other priorities in the annual budget process. (Typically,  funding for programs that are not funded with gas tax dollars are fought over year after year in appropriations, though the starting point may be the “authorized” amount in the current five-year authorization.)  This is different from a couple of discretionary programs, such as the Healthy Streets program, which authorizes expenditures, but did not identify funding for the program. These types of programs will face potential cuts before competitive highway programs ever do, for example.

This supplemental funding from all taxpayers is layered on about $312 billion sourced from the gas-tax-funded Highway Trust Fund (HTF). 87 percent (about $271 billion) of those trust fund dollars is directed to formula programs and will be spent at the discretion of states and metro areas (within the contours of the policy Congress wrote.) The administration has almost no ability to shape how those dollars get spent with future administrative actions or rulemakings. In fact, this money is already flowing directly into the coffers of state departments of transportation. The rest of the $312B in trust fund dollars (~$39B) are being directed to discretionary programs, such as competitive grants and research administered by USDOT.

When it comes to the federal transit program, the infrastructure law sets aside $109 billion, of which nearly $70 billion is from the also gas-tax-funded Mass Transit Account within the HTF, and an additional $39 billion in general tax funds over the next five years (which will also be appropriated each year in advance of other budget needs.)

Lastly, the federal rail program sets aside $102 billion over five years to be annually appropriated in advance of other budget needs, from the general fund from the US Treasury. None of the rail funding comes from the Highway Trust Fund.

As far as how these “advance” appropriations are going to work out in practice, no one is really sure what to expect in reality over the next five years as Congress could change several times over during the 2021 infrastructure law’s lifespan. In theory, these programs provided with appropriations in advance (like transit and passenger rail) should be safer than other programs that are wholly discretionary and left up to future appropriators to decide funding each year, but it’s a real possibility that a new Congress could certainly find a way to undo some of the advance funding for programs that they deem unworthy. This will be an issue that we will be keeping a close eye on in the years ahead.

3) What makes the infrastructure law’s funding historic?

The infrastructure law comes with its flaws in policy, but there are still opportunities to maximize the potential of this unprecedented influx of transportation investment. As noted in the first graphic above, these are huge increases in funding over what states and metro areas and transit agencies would have expected to see in just another year of the FAST Act. 

 The vast majority of that highway money will be allocated to the states using complex formulas that ensure an equitable distribution of funding tied to average gas tax receipts and previous state allocations. Based on what T4America knows on the apportionment formula, the following chart highlights how the total highway funding for formula programs can be sliced and diced to the states. Of all the states, Texas, California, and Florida account for a quarter of the apportionment of the federal highway program. It will be incumbent on USDOT and advocates to hold all of the states accountable for how their federal dollars are used.

Amendments we’re tracking to the House transportation bill

The INVEST Act could be a turning point for the federal transportation program, almost hitting the mark on Transportation for America’s three principles for transportation investment. But a few amendments could make—or break—the bill. Stay up to date here.

The House transportation committee’s markup of the INVEST Act starts at 10 a.m. on Wednesday, June 17th. Get real-time updates by following @t4america on Twitter, visit our hub for all T4America content about the INVEST Act, and take action by sending a message to your representative if they sit on this House committee.

So far well over 200 amendments have been proposed. Bookmark this page, as we’ll be posting updates to the most notable amendments we’re tracking closely. Smart Growth America is fighting for four amendments in particular to be included in the final bill:

  1. Garcia #63: An amendment that strengthens the fix-it-first provision of the bill; 
  2. Garcia #64: An amendment that increases transit funding to the same level as highways; 
  3. Garcia #65: An amendment that sheds some light on a misguided transportation metric, Level of Service; 
  4. Cohen #91: And an amendment that expands the eligibility for transit-oriented development in the Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act.

Tracker

Find this table on the web here in case it does not display well below. The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee will start consideration of this bill via a (remote) markup on Wednesday, June 17th at 10:00 a.m. Eastern. We expect the committee to take at least a day if not more to mark up the bill before they move to a final vote to advance it to the full House. We’ll be keeping this tracker updated as the markup proceeds, but stay tuned especially to @t4america on twitter for more real-time updates.

For those of you that live in a House transportation district, send a message to your rep and urge them to support the INVEST Act and to support these four amendments. If you’re not sure if your rep is on the committee, just go on over to take action and the form will let you know.

TAKE ACTION

BUILDing Complete Streets

By now it’s well known that the Trump administration is no friend to transit funding. (If this is news to you, see here, here, and here). Even the BUILD grant program—which was originally designed to fund complex, multimodal projects—has been warped by the administration’s focus on roads. Traditional roads and highways have received the most grant dollars since the Trump administration took control of the program in 2017.

Our Taming the TIGER analysis showed how the BUILD program changed after two years with the Trump administration in charge.

The administration recently announced the latest round of BUILD grant recipients (which would be BUILD II if added to the graph above) and the story is much of the same: traditional road projects received the largest share of funding, while transit saw a further decrease—from around 10 percent of funding in 2018 to less than 7 percent. Freight held steady at just under 20 percent.

But there is a bit of a silver lining: Complete Streets & other multimodal projects racked up almost a third of the BUILD funding, the highest percentage such projects have received under the Trump administration. This is also particularly notable given the worrying rise in pedestrian and bicycle fatalities across the country, attributable in large part to the lack of safe infrastructure on our roadways for people without cars.

Among the Complete Streets grants this year is $20 million for the Orange County Local Alternative Mobility Network Project outside Orlando. The project will upgrade existing pedestrian and bicycle paths while constructing “shared mobility lanes,” shelter and naturally shaded environments, new wayfinding, and a transit hub. It will also fund “autonomous vehicle infrastructure facilitating local adoption of AVs.” Another multimodal project, The Underpass Project at Uptown Station in Normal, IL, received a $13 million grant and builds on one of the first projects ever funded through the TIGER program. In 2009, Normal, IL received a grant to build a new Amtrak station and civic space that has been a boon for the entire city. A decade later, this new grant will excavate a path for pedestrians, bicyclists, and passengers under the train tracks and allow a second boarding platform to be constructed.

And while transit only received a tiny sliver of the overall funding, some important projects got a nod, like a new BRT line in Memphis, TN that received $12 million for 28 new stations, nine electric buses, and charging equipment.

The BUILD program is one of the only funding options for innovative, complex, or multi-jurisdictional projects that can be difficult to fund with traditional federal transportation programs. But the Trump administration has made it harder for those projects to receive funding by favoring roads over everything else. Read our full analysis—Taming the TIGER—to see how Congress can help ensure BUILD lives up to its full potential.

Members of Congress launch a new caucus on transportation policy

Today, Representatives Chuy García (IL-4), Ayanna Pressley (MA-7), and Mark Takano (CA-41) launched a new caucus dedicated to creating a vision for the future of our transportation system that emphasizes equity, access, and sustainability.

Reps García, Pressley, Takano, and Earl Blumenauer (OR-3) at the launch of the Congressional Future of Transportation Caucus.

Transportation for America joined the representatives as they launched their new caucus in front of a packed room of constituents and transportation advocates. The “Future of Transportation Caucus,” as the members have dubbed their new group, will dedicate itself to revisiting the underlying policies that have built the transportation systems that continue to crumble into disrepair, fuel inequities, exacerbate climate change, and fail to connect people to jobs and services.

Speaking at the launch, the co-chairs of the caucus expressed the need for a more visionary and equitable transportation policy.

“Access to safe, reliable, and inclusive modes of transportation is a matter of social justice,” Rep. Pressley said during the event. She explained that the caucus would work to advance policies that prioritize “community connectivity, multimodal networks with seamless bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure so that every community has access to critical housing, education, employment, and the health services necessary to thrive.”

Rep. Garcia echoed this sentiment, saying, “It boils down to social justice. People cannot afford to get to where they need to go or stay where they grew up. We need to take a step back and start thinking about what it is we’re throwing hundreds of billions of dollars [at] every year.”

“This caucus will refocus Congress’s discussion on transportation that goes beyond just funding,” Rep. Takano said. He continued, saying that the caucus would “create an approach to transportation that centers on equity, accessibility, and sustainability.”

We couldn’t agree more with the caucus co-chairs. As we explained in our recent blog post outlining our new principles for transportation policy and investment, the one-dimensional debate about transportation funding leaves out an urgently needed conversation about the purpose of the federal transportation program. We need to ask ourselves what we’re trying to accomplish and provide accountability to the American taxpayer by making a few clear, concrete, measurable goals.

We know that existing policy exacerbates climate change, fails to maintain our roads, puts pedestrians and bikers in danger, and makes it nearly impossible to build new or expand transit systems.

We’re excited to see that some members of Congress agree with us on this. The Future of Transportation Caucus is a huge step in the right direction and shows the some policymakers are interested in actually writing new policy. This conversation desperately needs to be had on the Hill. We look forward to working with the caucus as they discuss new goals for our transportation system and the policies we’ll need to achieve them, not just some pie in the sky dollar amount for infrastructure.

Why we are no longer advocating for Congress to increase transportation funding

Since our inception in 2008, Transportation for America has always primarily advocated for reforming the federal transportation program. But raising the gas tax or otherwise raising new funding overall has also been a core plank of our platform since 2013. With the release of our brand new policy platform and principles coming this Monday, Transportation for America is no longer asking Congress to provide an increase in money for federal transportation program. Why?

Picture of Bellevue, WA light rail construction

For as long as I’ve been working in transportation and probably longer, the debate surrounding the federal transportation program has been a one-note affair: a never-ending fight over who gets money and how much money they get. Those who get money want more flexibility to spend it however they want. Those who get a little money want a bigger piece of the pie. And then both political parties come together in a “bipartisan” way to grow the pie and keep everyone happy.

This two-dimensional debate always leaves out an urgently needed conversation about the purpose of this federal transportation program. What are we doing? Why are we spending $50 billion a year? What is it supposed to accomplish? Does anyone know anymore?

Nearly seven decades ago we set out with a clear purpose: connect our cities and rural areas and states with high-speed interstates and highways for cars and trucks and make travel all about speed. These brand new highways made things like cross-country and inter-state travel easier than we ever imagined possible. We connected places that weren’t well-connected before and reaped the economic benefits (while also dividing and obliterating some communities along the way).

We’ve never really updated those broad goals from 1956 in a meaningful way. We’ve moved from the exponential returns of building brand new connections where they didn’t exist to the diminishing, marginal returns of spending billions to add a new lane of road here and there, which promptly fills up with new traffic.

Why in the world would we just pour more money into a program that is “devoid of any broad, ambitious vision for the future, and [in which] more spending has only led to more roads, more traffic, more pollution, more inequality, and a lack of transportation options,” as I wrote in the Washington Post during Infrastructure Week?

What the program should be about is accountability to the American taxpayer—making a few clear, concrete, measurable promises and then delivering on them. The program should focus on what we’re getting for the funds we’re spending—not simply whether or not money gets spent and how much there was.

Does anyone doubt Congress’s ability to successfully spend money? We all have supreme confidence in their ability to spend hundreds of billions of dollars. Our question is whether that money can be spent in a way that accomplishes something tangible and measurable for the American people.

Taxpayers deserve to know what they’re getting for their spending. Today, they don’t, and nothing about the debate so far in 2019 with Congress has indicated that will change. So we’ve scrapped “provide real funding” from our core principles. T4America has concluded that more money devoted to this same flawed system will just do more damage.

Coming next week: our new principles

With the conversation about money put behind us, on Monday we’re releasing three new principles for what we expect this upcoming surface transportation bill to accomplish. We believe that whether Congress decides to spend more money or less, these three things should be paramount.

Every time federal transportation reauthorization comes up, we hear endless cries about the poor state of our crumbling infrastructure. How many bridges are structurally deficient, how poor our roads are, the long backlogs of neglected maintenance, the (severely inflated) costs of congestion, perhaps even a few voices about the alarming increase in people struck and killed while walking…the list of woes goes on and on.

And then, predictably, states, interest groups, members of Congress and others call for more money for the federal transportation program as the only logical solution, with no clear promises made for how this money will solve any of the problems outlined above or precisely what will be better or different after five years of spending yet billions more.

So let’s stop limping along and spending billions with an unclear purpose and marginal returns. We need a clear set of explicit goals for the federal program. We’ll be back here on Monday as we unveil our principles.

See T4America’s new principles and outcomes for federal transportation policy >>

 

In the Washington Post: Let’s skip the infrastructure spending spree

A new opinion piece in the Washington Post takes a contrarian view of all the talk about money during Infrastructure Week. Let’s skip the infrastructure plan and focus on policy, because without good policy more spending could actually do more harm than good.

Yesterday, Repair Priorities 2019 showed how America desperately needs to change federal transportation policy that allows states to neglect their repair needs in favor of costly road expansions.

Today, a new piece in the Washington Post from Transportation for America Director Beth Osborne makes that clear with some pointed language:

At best, this infrastructure plan would throw more money into the same flawed system. At worst, Congress and the president would be signing a blank check with no sense of what the money is intended to accomplish, no clear system for accountability, no requirements for states to actually repair our “crumbling roads and bridges” and no guarantees that any of us would have an easier time getting from A to B when all that money has been spent.

What we need from Congress is an update to federal transportation policy for the next six years, which governs how we spend some $61 billion annually on highways and transit programs. And we need lawmakers to find more than $13 billion a year to cover shrinking gas-tax revenue.

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Agencies competing for limited federal funds to expand transit must prove they can also cover long-term maintenance and operations, something no road project ever has to do. When state highway departments can’t cover their commitments because they’ve prioritized expansion over repair, they’ll just ask for more money.

After all, there will always be another Infrastructure Week.

While decision makers are focused on infrastructure this week, so are we. Read the full op-ed  and then share Beth’s message with your networks on Twitter and/or Facebook to help us spread the word!

What to watch for in Tuesday’s transportation and climate change hearing

The intersection between climate change and transportation will be on full display during a committee hearing in the U.S. House of Representatives. But will members of Congress take the opportunity to examine the critical role that federal transportation policy has played in creating the climate crisis? Here are six things we’ll be looking for during the hearing.

On Tuesday, February 26, at 10 a.m., the House Transportation and Infrastructure (T&I) Committee will hold a hearing entitled, “Examining How Federal Infrastructure Policy Could Help Mitigate and Adapt to Climate Change.” This hearing will give members of Congress a unique opportunity to discuss the merits and flaws in our transportation system.

When this topic has come up in the past, Congress has often focused exclusively on the role of auto manufacturers in improving fuel economy and the oil industry in reducing the carbon content of gasoline. But will the T&I Committee take advantage of this opportunity to ask probing questions about its own role in reducing GHG emissions by the way it funds the transportation system?

To help the committee inform its discussion, we recently produced two fact sheets outlining the links between transportation and climate change and some solutions.

Here are six things we would like to hear from today’s hearing:

1. A real conversation about the links between transportation and climate change

Transportation is now the single largest source of greenhouse gases (GHG), contributing 28 percent of the United States’ total GHG emissions, surpassing electrical generation. While many other sectors have improved, transportation is headed in the wrong direction. Driving represents 83 percent of all transportation emissions and these emissions are rising—despite more efficient vehicles and cleaner fuels—because people are driving more and making longer trips.

2. Focus on policy, not technology

EV’s will not solve the climate crisis alone: The State of Minnesota recently found that, “the average Minnesotan would have to drive an estimated 1,500 fewer miles per year” to achieve its climate goals. The State of California found that, even after a ten-fold increase in the number of zero emission vehicles, it would have to reduce vehicle miles traveled (VMT) per capita by 25 percent to achieve its climate goals. Hawaii came to a similar conclusion. Electric vehicles alone will not be sufficient to reduce transportation sector emissions, even if we replaced every gas car on the road with an electric one tomorrow.

3. A discussion about whether federal policy should continue to disproportionately subsidize driving over all other modes

80 percent of federal transportation formula funding is for roads. Though they are permitted to, states rarely use these funds for other purposes and there is no requirement to prioritize maintenance first. Funding for new roads is guaranteed through the highway trust fund. Funding for new transit is discretionary and has been repeatedly targeted for cuts or outright elimination. The federal government will only cover up to about 50 percent of the cost of new transit projects, while covering around 80 percent of the cost of new roads.

With new roads subsidized by the federal government, localities struggle to stay ahead of development that spreads further from the center of metro areas, forcing people to travel further to access jobs and services. Often, state and local authorities use funding intended to make walking or bicycling safer to build roadways instead. The resulting growth in driving and congestion leads to a demand for more roads, which induces even more driving. The U.S. has added lane miles faster than our population has grown. This strategy has failed to “solve” traffic congestion and has significantly increased greenhouse gas emissions, offsetting the modest gains made in vehicle efficiency and cleaner fuel.

4. An acknowledgment of the perverse incentives in the current system

States are rewarded with more federal funds if they burn more fuel, increase vehicle miles traveled, and build new lane-miles. That’s one example. There are scores of others.

5. Call out the role of speed in degrading safety, increasing pollution and congestion

Because free flowing traffic is considered the gold standard, roads are built to ensure traffic flows quickly. This means that a long-distance commute where a car moves very quickly (even over a very long total trip time) would be considered more successful than a far shorter commute at a slower speed in traffic. Designing roads with speed as the highest goal is what leads us to more and wider roads, and more and longer trips. Instead, roads should be considered as part of a network which is judged on whether people can reach jobs and services by any mode of travel, not the simplistic measure of whether some of them travel at high speed when driving.

6. A discussion about measuring progress (or failure), and holding states accountable

In 2012, Congress gave states more discretion over spending in exchange for a weak, opaque system of accountability in which states are required to set targets for transportation safety, state of repair and traffic movement. These targets can be negative (e.g., a safety target of increasing roadway deaths) with no rewards for hitting targets nor penalties for missing them. After seven years most of those targets are still not public. There are also no requirements for states or communities to measure and report the GHG emissions and VMT per capita effects of their transportation investments.

Congress got snowed by the states.

Looking for solutions?

A conversation along these lines above would be new and an important step forward, but we also need to start talking about some thoughtful solutions. With driving responsible for 83 percent of all transportation emissions—which are growing despite more efficient vehicles and cleaner fuels because people are driving more and making longer trips—it is critical for Congress to make major changes to the federal transportation policy that’s making it all possible.

What will the committee members propose? We have some ideas:

  • All modes should receive the same federal share: Currently, the federal government will fund up to 80 percent of a road project (even 90 percent in limited cases), while it will only fund up to 50 percent of a transit project.
  • Reform federal funding distribution: Currently, each state receives dedicated road funding through the highway trust fund formulas, which increases as states increase their VMT. New public transit, bike, and pedestrian infrastructure funds are either discretionary (transit Capital Investment Grant program), or an underused option within roadway funding (eg. Transportation Alternatives Program and Surface Transportation Block Grant). Congress could organize the formula funding around efficiency goals and create more parity between the modes.
  • Prioritize maintenance with formula road funding: Historically, states have used this formula funding for new road construction, encouraging far-flung auto-oriented development that increases the length and number of car trips. The program should focus on getting greater efficiency from the roads we have already built.
  • Measure the right things: Communities need accurate tools to make informed choices. So what should we measure and replace?
    • Measure GHG, and VMT per capita: States and communities should measure and report the GHG emissions and VMT per capita effects of their transportation investments.
    • Measure how well the transportation system connects people to destinations: Roadways are designed to move cars quickly with the assumption that there will always be more traffic, a self-fulfilling prophecy that leads to more and wider roads. Instead of measuring speed and traffic flow on roads, we should measure how the system, and any new investment, connects people to jobs and services by all modes of travel.
  • Set climate goals and penalties for failure to achieve goals: Just measuring our impact won’t quite cut it. The federal government should set GHG and VMT per capita reduction goals and require all states to implement policies to achieve these goals. States failing to achieve their goals should be penalized. States that exceed goals should be rewarded.
  • Align new construction with GHG goals: In the transit program, new capacity projects have to compete for funding and successful projects must demonstrate that they advance national and local goals, including environmental benefits and economic development. There is no such standard for new highway projects. Congress should require funding for new highway capacity to compete for funding, and preference should be given for projects that reduce GHG emissions and VMT per capita.

A vital tool in the transportation-funding toolbox

A bus from UMass Amherst going up scenic Route 116 in the Pioneer Valley. (Image: Mehrashk, Wikimedia Commons)

The current administration is doing what it can to interfere with federal funding for transit, which makes it important that localities have a broad set of transportation funding tools. Today, we share an argument from Timothy Brennan, executive director of the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission, on the need to legalize regional ballot initiatives in Massachusetts and beyond.

Over the past two weeks, transportation news feeds have been full of stories about how the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) is either slowing down the grant process for transit projects, holding up payments on transit projects already approved for federal dollars, or injecting more uncertainty into the funding process by redefining what constitutes local dollars. The message is clear: the current administration believes it is not the role of the federal government to fund transit. They see it as a state and local responsibility, and as such they are on the hunt for ways to require states and local governments to pony up even more resources for projects that receive a share of federal money.

Regardless of how one views the issue (and we believe the federal government should robustly fund transit for a number of reasons), it’s clear that localities must have the broadest set of tools available to finance transportation projects if they hope to secure any federal funding. While many communities are prepared to tackle this challenge at the ballot box, nine states—including the Commonwealth of Massachusetts—prohibit cities and towns from allowing voters to approve local taxes to fund transportation projects. Communities in states that limit the use of regional ballot initiatives may find themselves at a distinct competitive disadvantage as they seek federal funding.

Today, we welcome thoughts from Timothy Brennan, executive director of Massachusetts’ second largest regional planning agency—the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission—on the need to legalize regional ballot initiatives (RBIs) in the Commonwealth.

Unlocking the Potential of RBIs

Timothy Brennan, Executive Director, Pioneer Valley Planning Commission

As the current legislative sessions winds down here in Massachusetts, there is lingering hope that state legislators will enact legislation enabling regional ballot initiatives (RBIs) for cities and towns to raise local transportation funds. State Senator Eric Lesser—who serves as Senate Chair of the Joint Committee on Economic Development & Emerging Technologies and Vice Chair of the Joint Committee on Transportation—is sponsoring legislation that would, if approved, allow voters in regions across the Commonwealth to decide at the ballot box whether to approve a placed-based RBI to generate supplemental funds dedicated to advancing a pre-defined list of transportation projects over 10-20 years.

At a recent RBI legislative briefing session convened by Senator Lesser, a panel of knowledgeable RBI proponents outlined the attributes and benefits of RBIs. Those advocates—from Transportation for America, the Metro Atlanta Chamber, Transportation for Massachusetts, and my own, Springfield-based Pioneer Valley Planning Commission—made the case for why RBIs can be a powerful addition to today’s transportation financing toolbox. I’ve long been a committed advocate for RBIs based on the experiences of other cities dating back to 1987 when voters in the San Diego region approved one of the nation’s first RBIs. Since then, San Diego voters have repeatedly renewed the measure, even with California’s mandatory two-thirds vote margin. This has extended the RBI’s useful life for decades, along with the transportation investment funds it has generated, making San Diego one of the most successful RBI regions anywhere in the United States. Today 41 states have various forms of RBI-enabling laws in place.

Five Reasons Massachusetts—and every state—should allow RBIs

Here in Massachusetts, RBI enabling legislation has yet to be enacted by the State Legislature. Unlike 41 other states where cities and towns can vote on a custom-fitted RBI to fund priority transportation improvements, our residents do not have that option. And RBIs are generally quite popular; historically, RBIs have been approved 70 percent of the time in places on both ends of the political spectrum. So what has 30 plus years of RBI experience in a broad array of metropolitan and rural areas taught us? Five compelling reasons to enable RBIs in Massachusetts stand out:

  1. SCALE: RBIs can be adjusted to work for regions of different geographic size and reach. Collectively, regions can generate significant local revenue that are solely dedicated to advancing specific, priority improvement projects that are shared with voters before they’re asked to cast their RBI ballot.
  2. STRUCTURE: All decisions as to whether to approve or reject an RBI are made locally by voters who, in turn, also get to decide on the RBIs local, long-term governance structure.
  3. STRATEGY: RBIs are by definition “placed-based” financing mechanisms, which give voters in a defined region the ability to shape and act on their desired future. By their very nature, voters must approve the regional transportation investments, necessitating local, public engagement.
  4. SUCCESS: With RBI enabling legislation in place, sustained success is possible provided there’s evidence of continuing progress on the implementation of the transportation improvements voters approved. RBIs create a mechanism that enlists ongoing voter engagement and sustains RBI support.
  5. SUNSETTING: Voters must re-visit and re-vote on RBIs every 10 to 20 years, which serves as an ultimate measure of performance and accountability. If real progress is not achieved on the region’s priority transportation improvements during the RBI’s life cycle, the likelihood of this RBI being extended by the voters becomes highly unlikely. As one established RBI district in Colorado proclaims, “promises made need to be promises kept.”

For these reasons, I believe enacting RBI-enabling legislation here in Massachusetts can produce benefits that are comparable to what’s already been experienced in San Diego and dozens of other regions, large and small, across our nation. Massachusetts is one more RBI success story that’s just waiting to happen.

Pioneer Valley Transit Authority (PVTA) buses at Union Station in Springfield, MA . (Image: Newflyer504, Wikimedia Commons)

Choosing transportation projects that actually match our priorities

Arial views of the Des Moines, IA region, one of the metro areas Transportation for America worked with. (Image: USDA photo by Preston Keres)

Transportation for America recently wrapped up a year of work with six metro areas to direct their transportation dollars to projects that help them achieve their goals and become the kinds of places they aspire to be.

Here’s a simple and perhaps obvious fact about transportation funding: There will never be enough money to do all the things we want to do. Even when the federal government, states, or localities come up with additional new money through a ballot measure or a gas tax increase or the like, the list projects that we want to build just grows along with the dollars.

So what’s the recipe for success? Like most truths in life, the answer is simple, but hard. Transportation agencies that want to succeed must: 1) articulate their goals, 2) evaluate transportation projects to ensure they are well-connected to those goals, and then 3) track how those projects perform after they are built. That is the simple idea behind performance measures in transportation. And sadly, their use is rare.

While 75 percent of the metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) we surveyed in 2017 (78 of 104) used performance measures in some fashion in their last long-range plan, less than half (45 out of 104) actually used them to explicitly select which projects to include in the plan. Less than half of them actually created a system to determine “whether or not this project will move the needle on our overall goals.” (MPOs are the federally created regional agencies that plan and distribute federal transportation money within metro areas.)

Pretty much every metro area across the nation has a clear list of priorities or goals for their transportation dollars, but those goals are rarely used to choose projects for funding. For example, “repair” is a top, stated priority for transportation agencies everywhere. But all too often, the state or metro area is more likely to fund new, expensive projects that add capacity—projects that also come with years of embedded maintenance costs. And then you end up with a situation similar to Mississippi’s, where they’ve spent millions building highways across the state that they can’t afford to maintain.

This isn’t a funding problem, this is a failure to set priorities.

Over the last year, thanks to support from the Kresge Foundation, Transportation for America has worked closely with six MPOs that want to change this paradigm. We worked with these transportation leaders to create more effective systems that fund the transportation projects that best line up with their stated priorities. Those MPOs were:

  • Des Moines Area Metropolitan Planning Organization (Des Moines, IA);
  • Imperial Calcasieu Regional Planning and Development Commission (Lake Charles, LA);
  • Michiana Area Council of Governments (South Bend, IN);
  • Rapides Area Planning Commission (Alexandria, LA);
  • Roanoke Valley Transportation Planning Organization (Roanoke, VA); and
  • Sarasota/Manatee Metropolitan Planning Organization (Sarasota, FL).

Beth Osborne presenting at a workshop with the Sarasota/Manatee MPO. (Image: Staff)

Our work with these six unique metro areas was intended to align their project funding with their regional priorities. None of these metro areas are huge cities or regions with a large staff or tons of funding to buy elaborate models; but all six of these MPOs are well on their way to becoming national leaders in using performance measurement to better line up the projects they choose with the goals they’re pursuing.

Throughout or work, we were also encouraged by how every single one of these MPOs were interested in moving beyond the traditional, simple performance measures like pavement condition, congestion, or safety. All six were interested in coming up with measures that work for all of their residents and better reflect what their residents deal with on a daily basis—not just measures that assess how the system works for people who drive everywhere. There was a strong undercurrent of concern about equity and ensuring that they create processes that steer transportation investments in ways that create opportunity for everyone.

The challenges that these six metro areas are facing are unique and really digging in to solve them demands a tailored approach. For example, Sarasota is facing housing and transportation costs that might be distorted because a percentage of their housing market is made up of second vacation homes, while a place like Roanoke has faced challenges attracting a labor pool and maintaining its young adult population. The kind of tailored assistance that the Kresge Foundation enabled us to provide relevant support that, in turn, made change possible on the ground.

Transportation is a particularly difficult field to change—we’ve done things the same way for generations. Change does not come overnight, but we’re excited to see how these six metro areas lead with performance measures. Our sincere thanks goes to the Kresge Foundation for their support of this valuable work and we hope other MPOs are given the opportunity to learn like these six did.

Summary of House Fiscal Year 2019 Transportation, Housing and Urban Development Appropriations Bill

On May 16 the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation and Housing (THUD) passed, by voice vote, its funding bill for fiscal year 2019 (FY19). Under this bill, the U.S. Department of Transportation is funded at $71.8 billion for FY19. This is $1.5 billion above the FY2018 enacted level. The full House appropriations committee is expected to markup the bill on May 23.

The following is a brief summary of key parts of the bill.

Capital Investment Grants (CIG)

The bill provides $ 2.614 billion for CIG, a 0.5 percent increase over the FY18 enacted level. The bill requires the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) to advance projects through the pipeline and to obligate $2.222 billion by the end of 2020. In addition, the bill directs the Trump Administration to reissue the FY19 Report to Congress with allocations for projects. The bill allocates CIG funding as follows:

  • Existing New Starts full-funding grant agreements (FFGA): $836 million
  • Additional New Starts projects (e.g. in project engineering, project development phases): $500 million
  • Core Capacity projects with FFGAs: $200 million
  • Additional Core Capacity projects: $550 million
  • Small Starts projects: $502 million

BUILD

The bill directs $750 million to Better Utilizing Investments to Leverage Development (BUILD) grants (formerly known as the Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) grant program). This allocation represents a 50 percent reduction in funding compared with the FY18 enacted funding level of $1.5 billion; however, it is a 50 percent increase in funding for the program when compared to historic funding trends for TIGER that have generally been appropriated for $500 million annually.

The funding is allocated as follows:

  • Projects in rural areas (below 200,000 in population): $250 million
  • Projects in urbanized areas (above 200,000 in population): $250 million
  • Projects at seaports or intermodal facilities: $250 million

Historically, funding for the TIGER/BUILD program has not been apportioned by geography or mode by statute, though there has been a mandatory set aside for rural projects and a requirement for geographic diversity. Historically grants have been distributed across all modes and a broad geography of the county.

The bill requires USDOT to conduct a new competition to select projects to fund. USDOT must issue a NOFO within 60 days of enactment of the appropriation, set a deadline for applications within 90 days of enactment, and award grants within 270 days of enactment.

The bill prohibits USDOT from using federal share of project funding as a selection criteria.

The bill also sets the minimum BUILD award at $5 million and the maximum at $25 million.

Highway programs

The bill obligates $45 billion from the Highway Trust Fund for Federal-Aid Highway programs, as authorized by the FAST Act. The bill appropriates an additional $4.25 billion from the general fund to highway programs. This additional funding is allocated to:

  • Construction of highways, bridges, and tunnels: $3.812 billion
  • Highway safety improvement projects: $250 million
  • Puerto Rico Highway Program: $31 million
  • Territorial Highway Program: $8 million
  • Tribal Transportation Program: $50 million
  • Nationally Significant Federal Lands and Tribal Projects Program: $100 million

These amounts are apportioned to the states, tribes, and territories through the same formulas as funds from the Highway Trust Fund.

The supplemental General Fund allotment for highway safety improvement projects is exempted from the high-risk rural road safety rule that requires states to direct additional funds to rural highway safety projects if the fatality rate on rural highways increases.

Transit grants

The bill appropriates $9.9 billion from the Mass Transit Account of the Highway Trust Fund to transit formula programs, as authorized by the FAST Act. The bill provides an additional $800 million from the general fund for transit capital grants, allocated to:

  • Bus and Bus Facilities: $350 million (of which $50 million is for No and Low Emission Buses)
  • State of Good Repair: $200 million
  • Rural formula grants (Section 5311): $50 million
  • Urbanized area formula grants (Section 5307): $150 million
  • Growing States and High Density States formula grants (section 5340): $50 million

Rail

Rail infrastructure and safety programs are funded at $3.2 billion, $63 million over the FY18 enacted level. The bill provides a total of $1.9 billion for Amtrak, of which $650 million is for the Northeast Corridor and $1.3 billion is to support the national network. The bill also provides $221 million to fund FRA’s safety, operations, research and development activities. The Consolidated Rail Infrastructure and Safety Improvement (CRISI) Grants Program is funded at $300 million, of which $150 million is for Positive Train Control. The Federal-State Partnership for State of Good Repair Grants program is funded at $500 million and the Restoration and Enhancement Grants program is not funded.

Looking ahead: Senate

The Senate THUD subcommittee is expected to consider its own FY19 funding bill the week of June 4.

For questions or more information, please contact Scott Goldstein at scott.goldstein@t4america.org or 202-971-3911.

Capital Ideas 2018 Conference— Call for session proposals now open

Mark your calendars for the 2018 edition of Transportation for America’s national conference for those interested in forward-looking state transportation policy and funding solutions.

In light of the Trump administration’s rhetorical and policy shift away from direct federal funding for transportation investments, the spotlight again turns to states and localities when it comes to policy and funding for transportation. Over 30 states have stepped up and passed new transportation funding legislation since 2012. An unfortunately much smaller number of states have passed smart policies to reform how those dollars are spent.

Capital Ideas 2018, will offer a highly interactive curriculum of model state legislation, campaign tactics, innovative policies, and peer-to-peer collaboration to help participants advance successful proposals to raise new funding for transportation and ensure those dollars are wisely spent to accomplish tangible goals and help states stay competitive in the 21st century. Our 3rd biennial national conference to be held in Atlanta, GA on Wednesday, December 5, 2018 and Thursday, December 6, 2018.

Call for session proposals now open

Transportation for America invites cutting-edge proposals for conference roundtable sessions and general plenary sessions that pertain to the emerging paradigm shift characterizing our transportation landscape today—disruption and uncertainty. The plenary and roundtable discussions at Capital Ideas 2018 seeks to address the following questions:

  • How will states manage their role in transportation funding & policy during this time of dramatic transition and change?
  • What is the appropriate role of state government in a disruptive world of transportation policy?
  • What can states do to ensure that our transportation network is equitable, accessible, safe and affordable?
  • Are our investment decisions today ensuring stronger local economies, greater access to opportunity and jobs, cleaner environments, healthier populations or better mobility for everyone in the future?
  • With a continually shifting and uncertain future for federal transportation funding, how can states successfully fund transportation investments and how will they demonstrate the value of their investments?

All plenary and session proposals are due on June 15, 2018 at 8 p.m. EDT.  Submitted your plenary and or session proposal here. Also remember that as a T4America member you get a discounted member ticket price. Conference registration opens on May 8, 2018. Learn more here.

 

Fight for your ride: An advocate’s guide for expanding and improving transit

In their search for a second HQ site, Amazon’s essential requirement for high-quality transit was, in the words of Laura Bliss at The Atlantic, “a come to Jesus moment for cities where high-quality service has long been an afterthought.” In many regions, the public transportation service just isn’t up to the task, offering infrequent, slow service and poor access to job centers or critical destinations—turning away potential riders and punishing those who must rely on transit.

But long before Amazon’s kick in the pants last year, scores of community leaders, business leaders, local elected officials, and grassroots advocates have been looking for ways to change the status quo. Many are eager to improve their local transit systems to speed up commutes, expand access to jobs and opportunities, attract and retain businesses and talent, and grow their economies.

This Transportation for America guidebook, Fight For Your Ride: An advocate’s guide for improving & expanding transit, offers local advocates and transit champions practical advice for making real improvements to public transit. Drawing examples from successful campaigns and reform efforts in small, medium, and large cities across the country, the guide illuminates effective ways to speed up transit, expand its reach, and improve service for riders. It offers tactical lessons on building a coalition, developing an effective message, and organizing a campaign for better transit in your community.

Download your copy now >>

We All Have a Role To Play in Winning More Transportation Funding

Last week, I attended the Center for Transportation Excellence’s (CFTE) bi-annual Transit Initiatives and Communities (TIC) Conference in Seattle. The conference focused on how to win local ballot measures to fund transit, but many of the lessons can be applied to different transportation ballot measures. The big take home message was this: everyone has a different role to play.

The reason for holding the conference in Seattle is pretty obvious to those familiar with the recent ballot measure victories for the county, city and region. Speakers were on hand to tell those stories, including T4A members like Tacoma, Seattle, King County, Transportation Choices Coalition, Move LA, and the Metro Atlanta Chamber. We also heard lessons learned from places big and small, including: Indianapolis, Los Angeles, Spokane, and Ellensburg.

So, what do I mean by “Everyone has a role to play”? Agency staff, local politicians, business leaders, labor leaders, and advocates all have very specific roles in bringing a ballot measure across the finish line. As we heard T4A Advisory Board member Denny Zane say at Capital Ideas last fall and again here at TIC, you need to pull together this broad coalition early to ensure everyone is bought into winning. Assuming you’ve already done that, here is what each player can do in their role:

Agency Staff often feel disempowered because the law tends to prohibit advocating for a measure that will benefit the agency on agency time. We learned from Steven Jones at AC Transit that many agencies could do a lot more. With the caveat that agency staff should check with their legal council, Steven told the story of being very aggressive in sharing information about their ballot measure, reminding transit riders about the registration deadline and election dates, and even registering new voters while making sure they never told anyone to vote a particular way. “The bus is your friend. Use it!” said Steve. They used bus marquis, and pamphlets on buses to communicate about election dates and voter information. They even dedicated a bus to voter registration, bringing it to events and festivals. Another key role for agency staff: delivering on the promises of the campaign. “The way to change perception is to be effective every day,” said Rob Gannon, general manager of King County Metro, a T4A member.

Local Politicians tend to step a bit farther forward than is optimal in many campaigns. Yet, can be a very powerful source of support if they are restrained about elbowing their way into the limelight, according to Jay Schenirer, a Sacramento City Council member. Jay informed us that politicians are better off leaving the campaign organizing to community groups as stakeholders have reason to not be honest about their positions with politicians while lobbying other issues. Politicians can do a number of critical things to lay the groundwork for a successful campaign. These include: polling, education, raising money and providing infrastructure like mailing lists and campaign volunteers. Local elected officials can also sometimes be helpful in bringing certain groups on board like the business community. Perhaps most important, politicians can “rig the election” by adjusting the geography and timing of a ballot measure to maximize the prospects of success.

Business leaders typically get less engaged in the exact contents of a measure. They can provide funding for the campaign, and can bring effective spokespeople in the right context, especially from the healthcare industry. “The business community doesn’t knock on doors, but they do raise money for campaigns,” said Hilary Norton of Fixing Angelenos Stuck in Traffic (FAST).

Labor has some capability to raise funds, but their biggest strength is boots on the ground. “Labor is good at knocking on doors and making phone calls,” said Rusty Hicks from the LA County Federation of Labor. Labor groups have big memberships that represent a voter and volunteer base. They have the organizing infrastructure like call centers and newsletters to members. Rusty cautioned organizers to acknowledge diversity of labor membership and tailor the message and approach accordingly to recruit support from service sector, building trades and government worker unions. “Thirty percent of union members are Republican so you need some labor spokespeople to reach those voters,” he said.

Advocates by contrast care a lot about what’s in a package. This type of group can bring legitimacy of the measure from a particular perspective such as transit or biking and walking, and expertise in building coalitions and running campaigns. Shefali Ranganathan of Transportation Choices Coalition, a T4A member, who led the successful ST3 campaign for $54 billion-worth of transit investments in the Puget Sound region, talked about using polling data and modeling to identify a group of persuadable voters on which they could focus messaging and outreach efforts.

There were several overarching messages that participants took from the conference. Denny Zane admonished participants to make big plans, telling us, “Fortune favors the bold.” Furthermore, the work does not end when the campaign ends. In reference to the successful passage of “ST3” in the Puget Sound region last November, Tacoma mayor Marilyn Strickland said, “The campaign didn’t end in November. It began in November. Sound Transit needs to deliver because someday there will be an ST4.”

South Carolina legislature overrides governor’s veto to increase state gas tax

Last week the South Carolina legislature voted to override a veto from the governor to successfully raise the state’s gas tax and other fees to increase funding for state highway projects. South Carolina is the 29th state to raise new transportation revenues since 2012.

To view details on the all of the states that have new revenue since 2012, please see this page, along with the rest of our resources on state funding & policy.

South Carolina’s new law (H. 3516) will raise fuel tax rates by a total of 12 cents per gallon by increasing the rate by 2 cents each year until 2022. When fully implemented, the 12-cent tax increase will generate an estimated $486 million annually.

The funding bill adds a new five percent tax on vehicle sales, netting $73 million annually. It also increases registration fees by $16 (netting $26 million annually) and adds a new $120 biennial fee on electric vehicles and a $60 biennial fee on hybrid vehicles (for $1.5 million annually).

New funding will be directed to maintenance and new construction on the state’s transportation system and to the state infrastructure bank to finance new projects. The law does not make major changes to the state’s transportation priorities

To offset the impact of tax and fee increases, the law creates a refundable tax credit in the amount of either the increased fuel tax cost or the amount paid on vehicle maintenance (whichever is less). This credit expires in 2022.

The House voted 95-18 and the Senate voted 32-12 on May 10 to override the veto. The passage came after several years of debate over new road funding. The state chamber of commerce and local chambers from Charleston, Greenville, and Lexington counties campaigned for the tax hike, including by sending mailers urging constituents to call their legislators to show support for the funding bill.

South Carolina is the fifth state to take action to raise new revenues in 2017, joining California, Indiana, Tennessee and Montana.

Copy this tactic: Community Transit defends program by using unexpected voices

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.

Community Transit’s Swift Green Line Infographic

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!

President Trump’s federal infrastructure priorities likely to be revealed this week

There’s no need to wait months for President Trump’s $1 trillion infrastructure package to discover the transportation priorities of this president — they’ll be clearly telegraphed with the release of his first annual budget later this week.

For months there’s been endless discussion of the President’s $1 trillion pledge to “build new roads, and highways, and bridges, and airports, and tunnels, and railways all across our wonderful nation.” And while industry groups scramble to divvy up funding or financing from a package that may or may not materialize, President Trump’s first real infrastructure effort should be considered his annual budget request with top-line numbers for transportation spending, which will tell us much about his priorities.

When the first look at that budget comes later this week, we’ll likely face the dissonance of a President rallying support for a $1 trillion investment in infrastructure at the same time he’s proposing billions in cuts to transportation investment to accompany his plan to increase defense spending by $54 billion.

While trade groups, members of Congress and local advocates are discussing what projects they want to include in this dream of a huge infrastructure package that may or may not come up later this year, they could see devastating cuts proposed for crucial transportation programs that fund smart transportation projects all across the country in less than 48 hours.

Melanie Zanona wrote about this inconsistency in The Hill today, noting that “the optics of slashing federal transportation funds in his budget proposal while pushing for a separate financing package underscores Trump’s challenge of balancing his promises of massive infrastructure investment and dramatic cuts in government spending.”

While many people — even staffers or elected reps on Capitol Hill — tend to think transportation spending decisions are determined by the long-term transportation bill that gets passed every few years, the money for new transit and rail projects still has to be appropriated by Congress each year through the budget process. 

This is an important point.

To get a big infrastructure package passed by Congress, the president will need the full coalition of transportation stakeholders, from those seeking funds for roads, to transit, rail and ports. But if there are cuts in the budget made to discretionary spending (i.e., programs not paid out of the highway trust fund), those cuts would fall disproportionately on funding for new transit construction (New and Small Starts) and multimodal and local priority projects (TIGER) — amongst other programs. Targeting parts of the infrastructure coalition with this budget now is a good way to make sure you have no coalition when you need it later.

President Trump had a meeting at the White House last week with some key transportation, real estate and infrastructure advisors about his priorities. Real estate developer Richard LeFrak talked to CNBC about what he heard in the meeting:

US 'behind the curve' on infrastructure upgrading: Richard LeFrak “One thing [Trump] said while we were in the meeting, he said ‘don’t bring me any projects that you want federal funding for that you can’t start and had completed the state approval processes,'” LeFrak said.

That’s because “‘most of these projects come from the state, in 90 to 100 days. If they’re not ready in 120 days, tell them to go back, get finished, and bring it back,’ [Trump said]. In other words, he’s not going to … devote the resources to things that he can’t implement immediately,” he added.

Of course, we’ve seen plenty of evidence that “shovel-ready” isn’t always the best qualifier to identify the best projects. Following 2009’s stimulus effort, we learned that many shovel-ready projects weren’t under construction for a reason, and many were just mothballed projects that had been sitting on a shelf for the last 20 years because they simply never merited moving forward.

Ed Mortimer from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce echoed that point while testifying alongside our Beth Osborne before a Senate Committee last week. Any new infrastructure package, he said, “should not be a replication of the Recovery Act [which focused entirely on shovel-ready projects.] Projects need to be selected to deliver long-term economic growth, not the speed at which they can be constructed.”

But not all shovel-ready projects are created equal, either.

Scores of local communities with well-conceived ready-to-go multimodal projects are eager to apply to the incredibly competitive TIGER grant program, and on average, winning TIGER projects brought at least three state or local dollars to the table for each federal dollar sought. There are transit projects all across the country that have already raised local or state funding and are literally just waiting on a check for capital dollars from the federal government to proceed, including “projects like Indianapolis’ Red Line bus rapid transit project which has already been promised more than $70 million in federal dollars to pair with nearly $20 million in local funds from an income tax increase that Indianapolis voters approved back in November at the ballot box,” as we noted last week.

USDOT has already promised over $6 billion to these shovel-ready transit construction projects that have local funding in hand and are ready to go. If this week’s budget does indeed cut (or even eliminate funding outright) for the New & Small Starts transit program which exists explicitly to help metro areas of all sizes build new transit systems, the projects in that pipeline could be immediately threatened, as will their promises of supporting economic development & improved mobility.

When any president starts talking about a big new investment in transportation, it’s natural for people to get excited — Congress has been begging, borrowing and dealing to keep federal transportation program solvent for the last decade.

But whether or not President Trump finds a way to successfully advance and pay for a massive investment in infrastructure, come hell or high water, there will be a budget for these crucial transportation programs this year. And it will tell us all we need to know about his priorities.

We’ll be breaking down the budget when it’s released and arm you with the information you’ll need to take action and weigh in with your members of Congress. Do you want to get this sort of information directly to your inbox? Sign up for email today.

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Member weekly news bulletin 01-13-2016

National & policy

Chao skates through hearing despite little info on infrastructure. “Transportation Secretary-designee Elaine Chao emerged from the Senate Commerce Committee’s hearing today largely unscathed despite offering few concrete details about how she or Donald Trump planned to roll out a massive infrastructure investment program that the president-elect has promised.” (Politico)

Pelosi: Dems won’t back tax breaks ‘disguised’ as infrastructure bill. “House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Friday reiterated a commitment to work with President-elect Donald Trump on a massive infrastructure package, but only under certain conditions.” (The Hill)

Transportation Agencies Will Finally Measure the Movement of People, Not Just Cars
“What you measure is what you get,” the saying goes, and for a long time, America’s transportation policy establishment was obsessed with measuring one thing: car congestion. Hundreds of billions of dollars have been spent in the quest for free-flowing vehicular traffic. The result is wider highways, more sprawl, and more people stuck in congestion. But this week U.S. DOT took an important step to change course, releasing new standards to guide how transportation agencies measure their performance. Advocates for transit and walkability say the policy is a significant improvement.” (Streetsblog)

Local & state news

Walking in Nashville
CityLab
“Only about half of Nashville’s roads currently have sidewalks, and no one knows where to find the money to cover the rest of them. The sidewalk situation even became a point of contention in last year’s mayoral campaign. “We’re just chipping away at a huge deficit and huge need,” says Mary Beth Ikard, Nashville’s Transportation & Sustainability Manager.”

Transit

Openings and Construction Starts Planned for 2017
The Transport Politic
“There are major transit infrastructure projects under construction throughout North America thanks to significant interest from local officials and support from national governments. That momentum is likely to continue thanks to the passage of several transit-supporting tax referenda last November. But in the U.S., there are big questions about the impact of the incoming Trump Administration.”

Shared-use mobility & tech

New Transportation Department panel on automation to weigh in on self-driving cars
LA Times
“The U.S. Transportation Department has created an advisory committee on automation filled with representatives from the auto industry, ride-hailing companies, universities and the mayor of Los Angeles. The committee will hold its first meeting Monday to discuss automation issues, such as the development and deployment of self-driving cars.”

New Jersey shuts down almost all transportation projects amidst fight over nearly bankrupt transportation fund

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie shut down almost all ongoing state transportation projects this week after a legislative stalemate over rescuing the state’s bankrupt Transportation Trust Fund — a debate that hinged on pairing a gas tax increase with cuts to the state’s sales tax.

Flickr photo by Bob Jagendorf. /photos/bobjagendorf/5492860578

Flickr photo by Bob Jagendorf. http://flickr.com/photos/bobjagendorf/5492860578

This week New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) ordered a halt to all of the state’s transportation projects, other than those that are “absolutely essential”, to conserve the dwindling cash in the state’s Transportation Trust Fund.

With an incredibly low gas tax that hasn’t increased since 1988, the state has relied on bonding, rather than new revenue, to pay for road and transit projects. As a result, an astonishing 100 percent of all fuel tax revenues are now devoted to paying down debt on past projects.

Since hitting a borrowing limit on June 30th, the fund is quickly running out of cash for new projects. The Governor, state Assembly, and bipartisan groups of senators have all backed various plans that would include a big hike in the state’s gas tax — the second-lowest state fuel tax in the country at 14.5 cents-per-gallon — to boost transportation funding.

But negotiations stalled over what tax cuts or new policies would accompany the increase in the gas tax.

While this funding crisis has been looming for years, state leaders — especially Gov. Christie — have long opposed any increases to the fuel tax as a solution. But last week, when facing a funding cliff, legislators seemed to agree on a plan to pair a 23-cent-per-gallon increase in the state fuel tax with cuts to the estate tax and an increase in the earned-income tax credit. This package had bipartisan sponsors in the state Senate when it was introduced last Monday.

But that same day, Gov. Christie came out of negotiations with Assembly leaders with a new plan: keep the 23-cent gas tax increase, but pair it with a one-percentage-point cut to the state sales tax. That plan (A12) cleared the Assembly on a 53-23 vote and was publicly backed by the governor.

The Senate balked at this alternative and the $1.7 billion hole it would blow in the state’s general fund. Cutting the state’s sales tax would jeopardize many state programs that depend on general funds, including slashing the main source of operating funds for the state’s transit agency while increasing the primary source of funds for roads.

Already, the state has cut operating funds for NJ Transit from $278 million in 2005 to just $33 million in 2016. Some extra money for transit has come from shifting long-term capital funds (including money originally set aside for Access to the Region’s Core trans-Hudson tunnel project that Gov. Christie canceled in 2010) to day-to-day operations. But the rest of the funding gap has come at transit riders’ expense, from fare hikes and service cuts, all while road users have enjoyed the same low gas tax rate since the year President Ronald Reagan left office. The Tri-State Transportation Campaign illustrated this in a picture:

Gov. Christie is blaming the transportation shut down on the Senate. But transportation advocates in the state accuse the governor of holding transportation projects hostage in a bid to win bigger tax cuts.

The shutdown will have real consequences for the state. Christie’s order has halted more than 1,100 active state, county, and local highway and transit projects. Stopping and eventually restarting construction projects can add considerably to their costs. People driving and people riding transit will wait longer — at least as long as the standoff lasts — for relief and improved service the projects would offer.

The short-term crises are a disaster at the time the state needs long-term funding to complete critical, major projects, like the Gateway Tunnel into New York City, the Hudson-Bergen Light Rail extension, and the Glassboro-Camden line.

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We’re closely watching New Jersey to see how the state resolves this funding crisis. Many state legislators have expressed an unwillingness to increase the gas tax in the past because they believe their citizens don’t have faith that the existing money is well spent. How can these legislators implement smarter policies to boost the confidence of those citizens in order to raise new money for transportation?

Join us for Capital Ideas II in Sacramento November 16-17 for in-depth conversations on state transportation policy and politics. Register today!

President Obama releases robust final budget; summary included

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.

Read a more detailed analysis here.