In a conversation with CBS Sunday Morning, T4A’s executive director Beth Osborne explains that our roads are dangerous by design.
If you watch CBS on Sunday mornings, you might have caught our own Beth Osborne talking about dangerous street design. She was joined by John Barth, who’s working on Complete Streets implementation in Indianapolis, and Latanya Byrd, a safe streets advocate in Philadelphia.
In the clip, Beth explained why more people are being hit and killed on our nation’s roadways. She noted that vehicles have gotten bigger, and streets continue to be designed for speed over safety. As we explained in our report Dangerous by Design, the combination of speed and size leads to deadly consequences for people walking, particularly people of color.
“It turns out when we build things unsafe for pedestrians, we build them unsafe for everybody. There’s really nobody winning in this system,” said Beth.
Our newest video, part of Divided by Design, helps explain how federal guidance known as value of time gets used every day to justify the cost of building incredibly expensive highways (or additional highway lanes) that divide our communities, produce more congestion and pollution, and ultimately make it harder to get around in nearly every way.
Our new Divided by Design report examines how the transportation models, policies, and practices we use today took root in the highway era, and they continue to inflict the most harm on people of color. Value of time is just one example of the outdated tools transportation planners and engineers use today that perpetuate harm.
When moving vehicles quickly on all roads is the number one goal for transportation agencies, agencies focus on time savings to drivers at the expense of nearly every other type of user or activity. Value of time encourages agencies to increase speeds and eliminate congestion at all costs, but its emphasis on vehicle speed alone ultimately leads to longer trip times and divided communities.
Sometimes we have to see it to believe it. How would street design really look if we prioritized the safety of all road users? Smart Growth America and the National Complete Streets Coalition’s latest video illustrates that when streets are designed to move as many cars as possible as quickly as possible, other road users pay the price.
The number of people struck and killed by drivers increased by an astonishing amount during the pandemic, but traffic fatalities were already on the rise long before COVID-19. For years, states and localities have focused on enforcement, ineffective education campaigns, or blaming the victims of these crashes, ignoring the role of the underlying perpetrator in these deaths: roadway design.
Right now, transportation engineers tend to favor “forgiving” street design like wide, high-visibility roadways with minimal features that would slow cars down. When all streets are designed this way, drivers are lulled into a false sense of security and speed up—doing exactly what the designs are encouraging them to do. At the same time, crosswalks and other safety elements that would slow car travel are kept to a minimum, making it inherently difficult for all other road users to travel safely.
Let’s get one thing straight: this design style isn’t “forgiving” at all. The higher a vehicle’s speed, the less response time a driver will have if they make a mistake. Without stop signs and crosswalks (features that slow drivers down), pedestrians have fewer options to cross streets safely. High speeds are also more likely to result in a fatality than an injury.
Complete Streets are streets for everyone. Complete Streets is an approach to planning, designing, building, operating, and maintaining streets that enables safe access for all people who need to use them, including pedestrians, bicyclists, motorists, and transit riders of all ages and abilities.
One way to limit the risk of pedestrian fatalities is to remove pedestrians and nondrivers from the street altogether, as we do on interstates. But what about every other type of roadway, like commercial and residential streets?
In our latest video, we take a look at the design elements that enhance street safety, and you’ll notice that they all have something in common. When we install traffic signals, bike lanes, narrower lanes, and crosswalks, drivers naturally drive at slower and safer speeds.
Properly designed Complete Streets can improve safety on residential and commercial roadways. But many Complete Streets have been implemented incorrectly, cutting corners to preserve the convenience of drivers. This unfortunate trend reflects a national culture that prioritizes vehicle speed over all else, a culture that is inherently at odds with safer roadways.
If safety truly is the top priority, streets must be designed in a way that makes dangerous behavior difficult and safe behavior easy. Only then can our streets be safe for all.
T4America director Beth Osborne joined Wall Street Journal correspondent George Downs to explain why one controversial method for setting speed limits results in higher and higher speeds.
There’s been a lot of talk in the news lately about the increasing danger of U.S. roadways, and recently, USDOT released their road safety strategy, which included advice for updated guidance on setting safe speeds and the 85th percentile rule. To explain why this outdated rule for setting speed limits actually leads to higher speeds, Beth Osborne sat down with George Downs. The visuals really nail it!
“A lot of people believe we say, ‘Let’s set the speed limit there and design the road around it.’ We actually do the exact reverse.”
Smart Growth America and the National Complete Streets Coalition, with partnership and support from CityHealth, produced a series of videos telling the story of Complete Streets policies in three U.S. cities. These videos provide insight into what Complete Streets policies can accomplish, what makes for an effective policy, and strategies for complete streets implementation.
Don’t miss our videos about three cities that have passed a policy and are now doing the work to make the transportation system safer and more accessible for all members of their community.
About Complete Streets and these videos
Complete Streets are streets for everyone—designed and managed to prioritize safety, comfort, and access to destinations for all people who need to use a street. Complete Streets policies can help cities transform how they make decisions about their streets. Done right, these policies can help cities improve public health and address longstanding inequities in the transportation system. The National Complete Streets Coalition at Smart Growth America has been advancing the adoption and implementation of Complete Streets policies for two decades to ensure that everyone who needs to use our streets—no matter how they get around—can safely and comfortably do so.
CityHealth and the National Complete Streets Coalition at Smart Growth America recognize cities with exemplary Complete Streets policies—a key step in producing safer streets that can be used by everyone. Learn more at cityhealth.org and completestreets.org.
Pittsburgh, PA
In Pittsburgh, the need and demand for modes of transportation beyond car travel was clear when former Mayor Bill Peduto and the City Council passed the 2015 Complete Streets ordinance, creating the Department of Mobility and Infrastructure (DOMI), and starting the ongoing process of creating space for transportation modes beyond car travel. Though a Complete Streets policy didn’t change Pittsburgh overnight, the policy serves as a blueprint that will outlast individual mayors and DOMI directors and continue guiding Pittsburgh towards safer streets.
If you are a mayor, look at your population. And if your population needs multiple different ways to get from point A to point B, then you have a responsibility. Because mobility not only affects being able to get to work, it affects being able to get to the doctor, it affects being able to get food. And in fact, the greatest factor in economic mobility is the ability to get from point A to point B.
Bill Peduto, mayor of Pittsburgh, 2014-2022
Hear from
Mayor Ed Gainey
Bill Peduto, mayor 2014-2022
Kim Lucas, acting director of DOMI
Karina Ricks, former director of DOMI
Erika Strassburger, City Councilmember, District 8
Louisville, KY
“A lot of our high-intensity traffic areas are also in the same areas that our poorest health outcomes are occuring at. Now we have the opportunity to try and correct that.” —David James, City Councilchair & co-sponsor of the Louisville Complete Streets ordinance
Adopted in 2019, the Louisville, KY Complete Streets policy is newer, but some changes are already underway in the city, including simple design changes to Bardstown Road, a neighborhood main street that was instead engineered to move as many cars as possible as fast as possible, at the expense of moving all people safely and enhancing a valuable destination. In the video, city council members, city transportation staffers, and a Louisville resident describe the changes they’ve observed in the city and why they are excited to see implementation continue.
Hear from
David James, City Council Chair & co-sponsor of Complete Streets ordinance
Cassie Armstrong, City Councilmember
Dirk Gowin, City of Louisville, Transportation Division Manager
Amanda Deatherage, City of Louisville, Transportation Planner Supervisor
Jackie Cobb, Louisville resident
Tucson, AZ
For three years, local groups, including the Living Streets Alliance, advocated for a Complete Streets policy in Tucson in response to the city’s pedestrian injury and fatality rate. The policy was adopted unanimously in 2019. Now, the city is focused on implementing the policy in the communities that need safety and public health investments most.
We’re using safety as a key driver…as well as investing in areas of our community that have historically seen lower levels in investment…where you see residents that are going to be more dependent on walking, biking, taking transit as their primary means of transportation, and they’re gonna face [street safety] risks at higher levels.
Patrick Hartley, City of Tucson, Complete Streets Coordinator
Right now, the city is building hundreds of miles of bike boulevards throughout the city, and as they restripe streets, they’ve found opportunities to expand bike lanes, narrow car lanes, and even drop travel lanes on larger roadways that don’t have much traffic. Residents look forward to a safer, healthier, and more equitable city.
Hear from
Mayor Regina Romero
Patrick Hartley, City of Tucson, Complete Streets Coordinator
Evren Sönmez, Living Streets Alliance, Director of Strategic Policy and Practice
In 2016, T4America launched the Smart Cities Collaborative, a learning and support network to help leaders from 16 cities proactively use technology to make their cities safer, more accessible, equitable and prosperous for all.
Seventy-seven cities applied to the US Department of Transportation’s Smart Cities Challenge, but 76 of them walked away empty-handed when Columbus, OH nabbed the winner-take-all $40 million prize. It became clear to us: cities across the country want help dealing with the explosion of new tech-driven transportation services like microtransit, ride-hailing and automated vehicles; and help harnessing all of them to create better places to live. Over the last year, our Smart Cities Collaborative has done just that.
Listen to what five of the participants from our initial cohort of 16 cities had to say about their experience. Watch the short video.
“This is going to change everything about how we live and work. And no one quite knows what that impact will be. It’s a pretty big revolution and having this brain trust of cities get together with experts really adds a tremendous amount of value as we embark on this. And frankly, we’re all going to be stronger together and benefit from the thinking if we work together — rather than all trying the same things and not sharing.”
– Shireen Santosham, City of San Jose
These new technologies could make it easier to get around, make jobs more accessible, and ensure that low-income residents benefit from increasingly prosperous cities. But cities have to be intentional and proactive to make sure the technologies work for the people and not the other way around.
Our Smart Cities Collaborative made a tangible difference — help us do more in 2018 by donating today.
Catch up with our webinar on Asset Recycling: An Alternative Approach to P3s with the full recording of the presentation.
In light of the current administration’s intense focus on public-private partnerships (P3s), last week we discussed a specific type of P3 known as asset recycling, the practice of selling or leasing existing, publicly-owned infrastructure and using the proceeds to pay for building or maintaining other infrastructure.
Along with T4America expert Beth Osborne, Robert Puentes, President and CEO of the Eno Center for Transportation, discussed the strengths, weaknesses and potential pitfalls of this approach for transportation, and shared three specific case studies from Australia, Virginia, and Indiana.
View the full session below.
Is your organization a Transportation for America member? Transportation for America is dedicated to building strong coalitions and delivering policy wins, funding opportunities, and more to our members. Proudly supporting public entities, businesses, non-profit organizations, and universities, our members receive exclusive transportation policy information and a host of other benefits. Contact us about joining today.
States are changing how they select transportation projects in order to save money and boost economic development. Catch up on our webinar explaining how states are attempting to focus state funds on more cost-effective investments in transportation.
We’d like to offer a hearty thanks to our two featured speakers, Kate Fichter, Assistant Secretary for Policy Coordination for the Massachusetts Department of Transportation and Charles Knutson, Executive Policy Advisor for Transportation and Economic Development to Washington Governor Jay Inslee.
Kate and Charles shared how each of their states have reformed how transportation projects are selected and built to ensure every state investment delivers the greatest bang for the buck and to reduce to overall cost of megaprojects. In the Q&A in the second half of the program, we talked about balancing local and state priorities, balancing needs across different regions of diverse states, as well as how each state is preparing for new automated vehicle technology.
Catch up with the full recording above.
Briefing book for governors
This webinar follows our recent guidebook for governors and their administrations explaining how a fresh approach to transportation is fundamental to creating quality jobs and shared prosperity while running an efficient government that gets the greatest benefit from every taxpayer dollar.
State legislatures around the country are beginning new sessions as we speak, and this means a renewed focus on raising new state funding for transportation and also reforming the policies for spending those dollars. As legislators take a hard look at transportation programs, the policies and strategies in this new guidebook above — and in our previous resources — show how states can save money, improve projects, and make a stronger case to transportation spending through smart policy reforms. These resources are part of our State Transportation Advocacy, Research, & Training network. We provide policy information and connect a diverse group of state policy makers and advocates through this network.
The new requirements released last week by USDOT for how states and metro areas will have to measure traffic congestion were just part of a larger package of all-new performance measures. Catch up on what you need to know about them with our detailed webinar unpacking all of it.
Many thanks to our Beth Osborne for sharing her knowledge and wisdom about performance measures with us on this helpful session. FHWA was unable to participate due to the regulatory freeze now in place preventing federal agencies from communicating further about any new regulations in process or not yet completely finalized, but we were able to roll on ahead. (2:20)
The 2012 transportation law (MAP-21) required transportation agencies to begin using a new system of performance measures to govern how federal dollars are spent. USDOT’s final rule for measuring traffic congestion was just one part of a much larger package of new performance measures, including measures for safety, the state of repair, congestion, air emissions and other aspects of our transportation system. (4:00)
On this webinar, we walked through the last of three final rules that cover road, bridge and pavement condition, and overall system performance. We discussed what’s missing in the new measures (8:00), what changes we asked for along the way (10:30), what comprises the final package of rules (15:20), the changes made to the final package (18:05), the dates that states and metro areas will need to be aware of over the next year (18:50), some other helpful resources from T4America and others (20:20) and answered a handful of really smart questions from those who participated (24:00).
The new requirements released last week by USDOT for how states and metro areas will have to measure traffic congestion were just part of a larger package of new performance measures. Join us next week to unpack the congestion rule and the rest of the suite of new measures.
Updated 1/26/17: Thanks to everyone who was able to join us on the webinar. Here’s the archived recording if you missed it or want to revisit. -Ed.
The 2012 transportation law (MAP-21) required transportation agencies to begin using a new system of performance measures to govern how federal dollars are spent. And it was indeed big news last week when USDOT — responding to thousands of your comments we submitted — backed away from most of the outdated measures of traffic congestion that were proposed. But this was just one part of a much larger package of new performance measures and with last week’s release, USDOT has now finalized all of the new measures for safety, the state of repair, congestion, air emissions and other aspects of our transportation system.
Join us next Tuesday on January 24th at 10:00 a.m. EST as we walk through the second two (of three total) final rules that cover road, bridge and pavement condition, and overall system performance (the latter is what includes the traffic congestion measures.)
T4America experts will be on hand to unpack these final rules, discuss what states and metro areas need to know about this crucial first step toward more performance-based and data-driven decision-making when it comes to transportation investments.
We’ll also be announcing a new opportunity for technical assistance on performance measures, as well as some survey results on the state of the practice at metropolitan planning organizations across the country. Be the first to hear about both.
How do we justify transportation expenditures? To many people, the perception is that project decisions are made in a murky, mysterious process, or, even worse, through a political process where only the projects with the most connections get funded. Further, it is not clear to the average person what all the spending gets them. With public confidence in government at low levels, it’s more important than ever to quantify the public benefits of transportation investment and let voters know what their money is going to buy — especially when attempts are being made to raise new money for transportation to fill the gap.
Transitioning to a more performance-based system of transportation investment was one of the key reforms of MAP-21 and these newly finalized measures could represent the beginning of a sea change in how funding decisions are made and our transportation system performs.
Two days after the election, we streamed a live post-election panel discussion on how the 2016 elections will impact transportation policy at the federal, state and local levels. If you missed it, catch up here.
How will this year’s elections impact transportation? How will any congressional shakeup affect the committees with jurisdiction over transportation? What happened with the more than $200 billion in ballot measures decided in critical races across the country? With the help of a few national experts, we had a discussion about what the new presidential administration means for transportation, and how congress, key state races, and ballot measures will impact your community.
Recorded from a Facebook live stream during the first meeting of our Smart Cities Collaborative in Minneapolis, MN.
How did Utah leaders and citizens stare down a recession while raising new state revenues for transportation and making a range of investments to bolster the economy and quality of life? On day two of our Capital Ideas conference on November 16-17, Utah House Speaker Greg Hughes will be on hand to answer that question and others.
Click the video above to hear a few nuggets from Capital Ideas keynote speaker Speaker Hughes about his state’s approach to building consensus for new transportation investments.
Republican House Speaker Greg Hughes has been on the front lines of these efforts to raise new state funding, empower local communities and build a huge regional transit system nearly from scratch in Salt Lake City. In addition to Speaker Hughes, hear from an expansive roster of other speakers at this year’s Capital Ideas conference.
Don’t miss out on these conversations. Join us in Sacramento on November 16-17 for Capital Ideas. Register now and reserve your spot!
The Gulf Coast inspection train, run by Amtrak in partnership with the Southern Rail Commission (SRC), toured a potential route and examined the CSX tracks last week from February 18-19th. It was the product of years of work by local residents and elected leaders at almost all levels to restore the passenger rail service wiped out by Katrina over ten years ago.
Note: Transportation for America serves in an official capacity as policy advisors for SRC. -Ed.
Transportation for America was along for the ride, interviewing local residents and the local, state and federal elected officials along the two-day route. Read all of our posts on the trip here in order:
And don’t miss this short video below that we produced on the trip, which was shown to the Senate Commerce Committee this morning in a hearing on passenger rail issues.
On his late night HBO show, the British comic John Oliver took up the cause of our nation’s infrastructure — with help from some Hollywood A-listers (and a couple suggestions from us).
Goodness knows we’ve tried to get America’s attention on the issue, and no matter how many catchy infographics or compelling reports full of eye-popping statistics we produce, they’ll never reach as many people as Hollywood does with even the most mediocre movie.
That was John Oliver’s conclusion on his weekly show: Hollywood has been blowing up our infrastructure for decades, and viewers will turn out reliably to watch the destruction time after time in Die Hard 9 or The Day After the Day After Tomorrow. Oliver decided that what we really need is a blockbuster movie that can make routine preventive maintenance on a bridge just as awesome as Bruce Willis can make blowing it all up with a F-22.
Watch the whole segment, but the explosive trailer for a sure-to-be Hollywood summer blockbuster starts around 17 minutes in.
We were delighted to be able to provide some background information to the show’s producers as they prepared the piece, but they never told us about the movie. Next time, maybe we should trade information for a few minor roles in the actual movie?
Today is the start of a brand new focus for Transportation for America.
Since 2008, we’ve been a leading advocate in Washington for a national investment plan for transportation that matches today’s challenges and opportunities. We’re proud to have your support on these important issues.
Today, we’re launching the next phase: A new alliance of business, elected, and civic leaders from cities, towns and suburbs across the nation. They know how valuable a robust transportation network is for local economies, and that stronger local economies build a stronger America. They will be there to stand up for local communities as Congress in 2014 addresses the growing hole in the transportation fund and the expiration of last year’s MAP-21 law.
The new alliance kicks off today: Tune in this morning to the live webcast below, which goes live at 8:30 a.m. eastern time. (Stream is now complete, thanks for watching! Keep your eyes peeled on our blog for recaps and videos from the day. – Ed.
LOCAL ECONOMIES, NATIONAL PROSPERITY: Community leaders make the economic case for federal investment in transportation
Tuesday, November 19, 2013
8:30 AM—1:00 PM EST
We’re at Washington, DC’s Union Station this morning — a transportation hub just steps from the U.S. Capitol—to talk with some of the nation’s economic development and transportation leaders. Tune in this morning from 8:30 AM to 1:00 PM EST to watch a live webcast of the keynote speakers and panelists, and be sure to join the conversation on Twitter at the hashtag #CanDoLeaders.
We’ll be keeping up with all of you on twitter while at the event this morning, so reach out to us with the hashtag and @t4america
If you’re a regular visitor, you may have noticed a brand new and improved T4America.org. We’ll have more on the new site later today, but poke around and explore. And don’t miss a new video showcasing our vision, shared by communities around the country, for investment to serve the needs of today’s economy, for people of all wage levels and businesses of all sizes.
AGENDA
Welcome and Introductions
James Corless, Director, Transportation for America
Michael Myers, Senior Policy Officer and Director of Centennial Programming, Rockefeller Foundation
8:45-9:45 AM What it takes for local economies to thrive – the role of smart transportation investments
Moderator: Ronnie Duncan, Chairman, Tampa Bay Regional Transportation Authority
The Hon. Ben McAdams, Mayor, Salt Lake County, Utah
Sumi Parekh, Director of Legislative Affairs, Los Angeles Business Council
Will Schroeer, Director, Infrastructure for Economic Development, Minneapolis Regional Chamber of Commerce, St. Paul Area Chamber of Commerce
Gary Sasso, Chair, Transportation, Tampa Bay Partnership
10:00-11:00 AM Barriers to success – making the federal transportation program work for local communities
Moderator: The Hon. Marc Morial, President and CEO, National Urban League; Former Mayor, New Orleans, Louisiana
The Hon. Ken Moore, Mayor, Franklin, Tennessee
The Hon. Mark Mallory, Mayor, Cincinnati, Ohio
Mike McKeever, Chief Executive Officer, Sacramento Area Council of Governments
11:00 AM-12:00 PM Building bridges – the importance of diverse alliances and new partners
Moderator: Wade Henderson, President and CEO, The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights
Dave Williams, Senior Vice President, Public Policy, Metro Atlanta Chamber
María Elena Durazo, Executive Secretary-Treasurer, Los Angeles County Federation of Labor AFL-CIO
Anita Hairston, Associate Director, PolicyLink
LUNCH
12:10-12:30 PM Keynote Speaker
Moving Forward: Federal priorities connecting state and local opportunities
The Honorable Polly Trottenberg, Under Secretary for Policy, U.S. Department of Transportation
12:30-1:00 PM Transportation for America’s Call to Action
The Honorable John Robert Smith, Former Mayor, Meridian, MS
It’s easy to be cynical about our often frivolous media environment these days, but it is heartening to see the seriousness with which outlets of all sizes are treating reports about the need to maintain our aging bridges and other infrastructure. In addition to dozens of newspaper and web reports, more than 500 broadcast outlets have picked up yesterday’s release of the “The Fix We’re in For“, the 2013 edition of our report on bridge conditions nationwide.
Among the highest-profile, and best, TV stories was certainly this from NBC Nightly News yesterday evening that we embedded in the previous blog post. (Click to watch.)
In the Washington Post, Ashley Halsey looked at the impact that deteriorating bridges can have short of actually falling down:
When big bridges collapse they make news, but it generally escapes notice when decrepit bridges just cause prices to go up on almost anything that gets to the store by truck. …
The group put out a report Wednesday that uses state and federal statistics to put a fresh face on an existing issue, and to raise a question rarely heard above a whisper in Washington because Capitol Hill hasn’t come up with a good answer to it: Where will the $76 billion come from that the Federal Highway Administration says is needed to repair deficient bridges that carry 260 million vehicles each day?
Larry Copeland, writing for USA Today, noted that Congress made changes last year in the federal transportation program, known as MAP-21, that could have a negative impact on the ability of states and localities to return the most threatened bridges to a state of good repair:
In the two-year federal transportation funding bill it passed last year, Congress eliminated a dedicated fund for bridge repair. “The upshot is that bridge repair now must compete with other transportation needs,” the report says. Money previously targeted for bridge repair was rolled into a new National Highway Performance Program, which can be spent only on highways that are part of the National Highway System, which includes interstates and major state highways. Nearly 90% of structurally deficient bridges are not part of the National Highway System.
The Fix We’re In For: The State of Our Nation’s Bridges 2013 is an updated version of the data we released two years ago, and the findings are much the same: Everyday, Americans of all different stripes drive across these deficient bridges, with more than 260 million trips taken on them each day. To put that crazy number in perspective, McDonalds’ restaurants will serve only about 64 million worldwide today. And though we’ve gotten about 0.5 percent better nationally in the last two years, from 11.5 to 11 percent deficient, that’s only a difference of about 2,400 deficient bridges.
As those comments at the very end of the segment point out, we’re better off today than we were a few years ago, so that’s good, right? Well, sure, if you’re content with a rate of improvement that’s slowed to a trickle.
We once made huge progress on repairing our deficient bridges, but today, that progress has almost flatlined. Check out this chart from our report showing the reduction in the number of structurally deficient bridges per four-year period starting back in 1992.
Starting in 1993, shortly after Congress gave bridge repair a greater focus in 1991’s transportation bill (ISTEA), we repaired about 17,000 deficient bridges over the following four years. But in the four-year period from 2009-2012, our log of deficient bridges shrank by only about 5,000 in total. That’s a rate of repair that’s almost three times slower than it was 20 years ago.
If you take a closer look at that improvement over 2011 (about 2,400 fewer deficient bridges), you’ll see that the big improvements made in just two states that heavily prioritized repair, Pennsylvania (-500) and Missouri (-640), account for almost half of that total national reduction of 2,400.
Also keep in mind that the last two years included a heavy load of stimulus spending on repair, and still progress has almost flatlined. Should we be content with hovering around 11 percent of our bridges structurally deficient? Should that be good enough? Can’t we do better?
Considering the dire budgetary straits that many states are in combined with Congress eliminating the dedicated bridge repair program last summer and forcing 90 percent of our deficient bridges to compete with all other pressing local needs for funding, could we finally see a year ahead where the backlog either doesn’t shrink much at all, or even grows somewhat? Certainly.
And Let Congress knowit’s time to win the confidence back of the people and be good stewards of our existing infrastructure, before we build new things that we’ll also have to pay to maintain for decades.
Unsurprisingly, the sudden collapse of the 58-year-old Interstate 5 bridge over the Skagit River in Washington state last Thursday night captured the attention of the country and virtually all major national news outlets. Just like in the days after the Minnesapolis I-35W bridge collapse — though mercifully no one died in this incident — reporters scrambled to understand the issue of bridge condition and asked the same question: “how could this happen, and could it happen again somewhere else tomorrow?”
T4 communications director David Goldberg was on site in Washington and did several interviews on television from the bank of the Skagit River to talk about America’s aging bridges and the 66,000-plus that are structurally deficient across the country.
CNN’s Jake Tapper took up the issue head-on with a live interview on The Lead Friday evening (ignore the Arrested Development video thumbnail…):
TAPPER: The American Society of Civil Engineers gave a C-plus to the 600,000 bridges in the U.S.; 11 percent of them are considered structurally deficient. How worried should Americans be when they drive across bridges?
GOLDBERG: Well, the worry is not so much that they will collapse like this with a lot of frequency, but the problem is that the system is aging and it’s aging pretty rapidly. The typical bridge out there was designed to last 50 years and the average age is 44.
And if you look at the bridges that are structurally deficient, the one in 10 bridges that are rated as structurally deficient, something like the typical age of those is 65 years. And that’s going to be — we’re going to have 65-year-old bridges coming every year from now — now on, because we have been building them like mad since the 1950s. And we frankly haven’t been keeping up with them like we should.
TAPPER: And, David, what should the government be doing that in your view they are not doing enough?
GOLDBERG: Well, there’s a couple things that have happened in recent years that Congress in particular needs to pay attention to, because it’s federal money that pays for the big bridges like this across the country.
And they are the ones that stand to hurt us the most if they fall or if we have to close them. And one thing is that we have to recognize the gas tax receipts are going down. We’re getting more fuel- efficient cars and people are driving less, so we have to figure out a way to replace a lot of that money.
And the other thing that has happened in the last year or so is that Congress actually eliminated the fund that was dedicated to bridge repair and sort of said to states, well, you know, you just decide whether they should be fixed or not. But the problem is we have got political pressure to build a lot of the new projects, which competes with that repair money.
So you get situations like this where bridges should have been replaced. They’re not going to be unless we have a dedicated fund.
TAPPER: So, it sounds like you’re saying that the people who make these decisions need to be a little bit more focused on rebuilding and restrengthening things that already exist, as opposed to pursuing new projects?
GOLDBERG: Well, we certainly need to fix things before we build the new stuff that we can’t afford to maintain. So, we have got to get the money together to fix the things and we have got to make it a priority to fix them, because this can’t happen in America.
And NBC Nightly News also led off their Friday evening coverage with the bridge collapse story.
Have you seen another interesting story on the bridge collapse and what it means for transportation policy in your state or nationally? Send it our way via email or in the comments below.
And in case you still haven’t seen it yet, don’t miss our interactive map (and 2011 report) that allows you to search by address and see the status of all bridges around any U.S. address, with inspection data and sufficiency ratings. We’re hoping to update the map and the report in the coming weeks, so stay tuned.
We asked you to submit questions for Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood, and here is the resulting segment of “On the Go”, his regular web video series where he answers a handful of transportation questions. This time, he asked us at T4 America to gather supporters from our thousands of supporters across the country.
In the video, he talked about high-speed rail, trucking, and biking and walking, reminding all of us that in his travels across the country, he keeps hearing that people “want the opportunity for walking and biking paths.” “…These kinds of programs really enhance communities and help provide options.”
Sec. LaHood also reiterates his optimism about the prospects of Congress passing a transportation bill in the coming months — after a momentary bout of pessimism last week. In contrast to a House bill coming out today that could have difficulty getting bipartisan support due to some controversial revenue sources, he praised the efforts of Senators Boxer and Inhofe in the Senate for their bipartisan bill that passed out of committee with its full support.
Without much ado, here is the video, including a few shout-outs for Transportation for America.
Congratulations to “saxman66”, “Conservative Values”, and Peggy Da Silva for getting their questions addressed in the video.
I hope so, because the U.S. Secretary of Transportation wants to answer yours!
Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood has asked Transportation for America’s many partners and supporters to submit questions for him that he’ll answer in his next edition of “On the Go,” a monthly video segment with the Secretary where he answers a few in-depth transportation-related questions. Here’s the December edition of the show:
His office has asked us to gather a collection of questions from T4 America partners and our thousands of supporters from all across the country. So ask away! Do you want to know about the prospects of the transportation bill or what the administration is doing to get it passed? Curious about the future of the high-speed rail program after recent cuts? Whatever you’d like to know, you can ask it here and it’ll land on the Secretary’s desk — though no guarantees on which questions he chooses, of course.
You can submit your question a few different ways:
Leave it right here on this post in the comments
Ask it on Twitter by including the hashtag #q4ray at the end of your tweet
Email it directly to us at info [at] t4america.org and we’ll pass it along.
So get your questions in by next Tuesday, January 17th.
