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Washington State Department of Transportation announces the selection of two artists to serve in the country’s first statewide artist-in-residence program

With today’s announcement that Kelly Gregory and Mary Welcome have been selected to serve as artists-in-residence with WSDOT for a year, Washington becomes the first state to embed an artist in a statewide agency.

CONTACT: Ben Stone, bstone@smartgrowthamerica.org / 410.370.3843 and Barbara LaBoe, laboeb@wsdot.wa.gov/ 360.705.7080

Artist team Kelly Gregory and Mary Welcome will spend a year working with the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) as artists-in-residence to bring a creative approach and help develop new ways to achieve agency goals through a first-of-its-kind program created by ArtPlace America and Transportation for America, a program of Smart Growth America.

Recognized as a tool for pioneering innovative and creative solutions, artist-in-residence programs have been piloted across the nation in municipal governmental agencies, but WSDOT will be the first statewide agency to pilot such a program at the state level. These two artists will help find creative ways to advance WSDOT’s strategic plan goals of inclusion, practical solutions and workforce development.

“The quality and quantity of applications we received for the artist-in-residence position impressed our selection committee, and we’re thrilled to have selected the team of Kelly Gregory and Mary Welcome,” said Ben Stone, Smart Growth America’s director of arts & culture. “Their collaborative approach, insatiable curiosity, and experience with design, planning, community engagement, and Washington state make them ideal artists-in-residence. I can’t wait to share their work with other states who are in the process of considering setting up their own similar programs.”

“We’re excited to work with Kelly and Mary to find innovative ways to better engage the communities we serve and deliver the best possible transportation projects,” said Roger Millar, WSDOT’s secretary of transportation. “They have experience with both rural and urban communities that will help us foster deeper community engagement, build relationships with underrepresented communities, and bring creativity to design challenges.”

“This opportunity stood out because it brings together so many of the issues we care about: transportation, infrastructure, community, the rural-urban continuum, and the role of civic service in stewarding the commons,” Gregory and Welcome said. “As artists and activists, we have a history of working in collaboration with non-arts communities and building relational bridges between fun and function. We really believe in the power of artists to bring fresh perspectives and strengthen community connections.”

About the two artists

Mary Welcome, of Palouse, Washington, is a multidisciplinary cultural worker collaborating with complex and often under-represented rural communities, with projects rooted in community engagement and the development of intersectional programming to address hyper-local issues of equity, cultural advocacy, inclusivity, visibility, and imagination. She collaborates to build cooperative environments that encourage civic engagement, radical education, and community progress.

Kelly Gregory is an itinerant social architect based on the Pacific coast. Her practice is rooted in socially-engaged work: affordable housing projects, exhibitions, reimagining spaces of incarceration, democratic public space, and in-depth community-driven research. Her projects fold current communities and future solutions into functional, beautiful spaces for collaboration and engagement. As a team, with a multi-disciplinary backgrounds in arts, outreach, architecture, and activism, they listen with communities and imagine new solutions in collaboration with neighbors.

For more information about the team, read this Q&A between the artists and Transportation for America: https://t4america.org/2019/03/21/get-to-know-washington-states-new-artists-in-residence

What will these artists do?

The residency, based in Olympia, will run for one year with both artists making rotations as a team through several WSDOT core divisions to gain knowledge on the agency’s operations, priorities and challenges. The artist team will then propose projects to address WSDOT’s overarching goals. Their work may address some or all of the following topics: improving community engagement, supporting alternatives to single occupancy vehicle transport, creating healthier communities and enhancing safety and equity. After four months of rotations, eight months will be devoted to the artists’ project(s) development and production.

The artists will begin the residency in July 2019.

More details about the program

Several organizations collaborated on the artist-in-residence program. ArtPlace America is providing a $125,000 grant for the program, including a $40,000 stipend split between the two artists and $25,000 for a final project(s) the artists and staff develop. Transportation for America will administer both the funds and the overall program, including providing staff and consulting assistance. The State Smart Transportation Initiative (SSTI) will also provide staff support. Both T4A and SSTI are programs of Smart Growth America. WSDOT is not providing funding for the program, but will supply in-kind contributions consisting of work space for the selected artists and staff time for agency workers to collaborate on the new program.

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Transportation for America is an alliance of elected, business, and civic leaders from communities across the country, united to ensure that states and the federal government step up to invest in smart, homegrown, locally-driven transportation solutions — because these are the investments that hold the key to our future economic prosperity. T4America is a program of Smart Growth America. www.t4america.org

The State Smart Transportation Initiative promotes transportation practices that advance environmental sustainability and equitable economic development, while maintaining high standards of governmental efficiency and transparency. It is jointly operated by the University of Wisconsin and Smart Growth America.

ArtPlace America is a ten-year collaboration among a number of foundations, federal agencies, and financial institutions. We began our work as an organization in 2011, and will finish in 2020. Our mission is to position arts and culture as a core sector of community planning and development.

WSDOT keeps people, businesses and the economy moving by operating and improving the state’s transportation systems. To learn more about what we’re doing, go to www.wsdot.wa.gov/news for pictures, videos, news and blogs. Real time traffic information is available at wsdot.com/traffic or by dialing 511.

Go big or go home: Massachusetts leaders get inspired in Seattle

Last week, a delegation of elected officials, business and civic leaders, funders, and transportation advocates from Massachusetts traveled to Seattle to see firsthand the specific ways that Seattle is investing in transportation to build strong local communities, thriving neighborhoods, and growing businesses.

Sound Transit’s LINK light rail on the Seattle-SeaTac line. LINK is in the process of being expanded by a combination of local funds approved by voters and federal funds.

Supported by the Barr Foundation and in partnership with Transportation for Massachusetts, last week T4America led a delegation of local & elected leaders from Massachusetts to Seattle for a transportation study tour. And we saw an incredible range of things: from the huge new tunnel under the city, to dockless bikeshare, to a growing light rail system, and everything in between, these Massachusetts leaders were inspired and received practical advice for making ambitious investments in transportation.

Seattle City Traffic Engineer Dongho Chang shows the MA leaders some of the particulars about the design of new separated bike lanes in downtown Seattle.

The group took a tour of the new SR-99 tunnel under Seattle, being built to replace an earthquake-damaged viaduct that is a barrier between downtown and the Puget Sound waterfront.

From the SR-99 tunnel tour to Seattle’s growing experiments with dockless bikeshare, study tour participants spent as much time interacting with transportation projects as they did taking in practical lessons from Roger Millar (Secretary of Transportation, Washington), Josh Brown (Executive Director, Puget Sound Regional Council), Shefali Ranganathan (Executive Director, Transportation Choices Coalition), and Peter Rogoff (Chief Executive Officer, Sound Transit).

Roger Millar from WSDOT walks the participants through the state’s multimodal approach to transportation.

Woven in the various presentations on a range of topics was a common thread: how to be intentional to ensure that the transportation network is about putting people first and providing access to economic opportunity, education, and key services.

As we’ve profiled here before, there’s a long history of partnership and cooperation between agencies at various levels that makes Seattle’s success possible. Participants were wowed to hear the details of how the Washington State Department of Transportation, King County, Sound Transit, Seattle Department of Transportation, and the Puget Sound Regional Council all work together to ensure transportation investments reap economic dividends in one of the fastest growing regions in the country.

As participants rode the ferry, light rail, bus service, and used their phones to unlock the new dockless bikes, we heard the participants focusing their discussion on the policies and programs that currently don’t exist in Massachusetts — and what they’d like to replicate. Transportation ballot measures, dynamic pricing, tolling to manage congestion, HOT lanes, dockless bike-shares, commuter ferries, and dedicated transportation equity managers were all discussed as promising ideas to take back to Massachusetts.

Transportation for America looks forward to supporting these local leaders in Massachusetts for years to come.

Our thanks to the Barr Foundation and T4Mass for their support and leadership of the study tour.

Recapping our discussion about states making transportation a key driver of their economic development agendas [video]

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.

Download it today.

State policy network

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.

How are states making transportation a key driver of their economic development agendas? [Webinar]

Join us in two weeks as we explore how two states have made transportation a key piece of their economic development agendas and have focused state funds on cost-effective investments in transportation.

Updated 2/2/17: Watch the full recording below.

This session is tied to the guide we recently produced for governors and their administrations which shows 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.

On a webinar Friday, January 27th at 3:00 EST, learn how two administrations – under Gov. Charlie Baker (R) in Massachusetts and Gov. Jay Inslee (D) in Washington – have utilized transportation as a tool that helps them accomplish their economic goals. The webinar will feature:

Charles Knutson, Senior Policy Advisor for Transportation and Economic Development to Gov. Inslee.
Kate Fichter, Assistant Secretary for Policy Coordination for the Massachusetts Department of Transportation.

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. Download it today, and join us on January 27th for a terrific discussion.

If you want to get up to date on the legislative discussions we’re keeping a close eye on, or if you’re someone who is engaged at the state level on funding or policy, join our START network today.

Can-do places: How Seattle is accommodating population growth and sustaining economic growth while maintaining quality of life

This story from Seattle, Washington is the seventh in our series of stories illustrating how local communities across the country are casting a vision and often putting their own skin in the game first with local funding while hoping for a strong federal partner to make those plans a reality.

In cities, towns and suburbs like Seattle all across the country, local leaders are responding to new economic challenges with innovative plans for their transportation networks, including taxing themselves to make their visions a reality. But they can’t do it alone and need strong federal and state partners to make it work.

Set aside some time to read this long profile of what’s been happening in Seattle — which includes their enormous measure on November’s ballot, where voters will decide whether or not to bring the next phase of their regional transit expansion to life.

Seattle, Washington

The economy in Seattle and the greater Puget Sound region is soaring, and area population growth is supersonic. Unmanaged, that prosperity could drive the cost of living out of reach for many low- and middle-income Seattleites and choke the regional transportation network to deadlock congestion, pumping the brakes on the region’s historic prosperity. But forward-thinking transportation investments and smart city planning have the region poised to stay in control of the boom.

Read the full story here.

Mt. Rainier peaks over the Seattle skyline. Natural beauty, a bustling job market, and high quality life have this Pacific metro booming. Flickr photo by Daniel Schwen.

What progress did states make this year on raising new funding or improving policy?

Nearly all state legislatures have adjourned for the year. Here’s our regular look at the progress made in states working to create more transparency, build more public trust in transportation spending, or raise new money.

Though most states have wrapped up their legislative sessions, transportation funding fights still loom large on the agendas for many of the states still in session. And one key issue to watch is the scores of local governments putting forward ballot measures for this November’s election to approve new local funding.

Our state policy bill tracker is the best way to keep tabs on the most current information about these states attempting to raise new funding in 2016, states attempting to reform how those dollars are spent and states taking unfortunate steps in the wrong direction on policy — all tracked in three separate searchable, sortable tables of that information.

In addition, our hub for state policy and funding related resources includes all past and current reports, bill trackers, and other state-focused resources.

STATE FUNDING

New Jersey faces perhaps the worst transportation funding crisis in the country with a trust fund that is bankrupt. Transportation funds will be shut off completely on July 1st unless state leaders find new funding.

Legislative leaders are reportedly developing a “tax fairness plan” that would raise new revenue for transportation and cut other state taxes. Negotiating a package that will pass the assembly and senate with bipartisan, veto-proof supermajorities would sidestep Gov. Chris Christie (R), who has not supported any new revenues for transportation. In fact, the governor and transportation commissioner have downplayed the crisis and put the obligation on the legislature to find new revenue.

A tax agreement would likely include income tax deductions and a reduction of the estate tax, resulting in cuts to the general state budget, while a fuel tax or other new revenue would add to the state’s Transportation Trust Fund. Another possible funding source under consideration is adding new tolls on highways that are now free.

The state has the second lowest gas tax in the country and $30 billion in outstanding debt from past transportation projects. As a result, 100% of the dollars collected through the gas tax go to cover debt on past projects. The Transportation Trust Fund will run dry when it reaches a borrowing limit on June 30th.

Democrats are pushing for $2 billion in annual transportation spending; Republicans are looking for $1.6 billion annually, the average amount of state funding each of the last five years. The state’s transportation needs — especially the need for expanded transit service — are growing. The population around rail transit stations in the state is booming.

Illinois Senate President John Cullerton (D-Chicago) proposed a per-mile driving charge (SB 3267) as an alternative to the state’s per-gallon fuel tax. Though after receiving feedback he says he will not move forward with the proposal.

There’s been little visible progress toward any sort of agreement on transportation funding in Minnesota, and other policy and budget issues stand in the way of a bipartisan agreement. A bill (SF3211) introduced in the senate by Sen. Vicki Jensen (DFL-Owatonna) would direct the state DOT to develop a new, objective process to score and select projects. Moving in this direction could help steer the limited funds to the best projects while also building up public support for additional transportation funding.

The Colorado House passed a bill (HB1420) 39-26 to make budget changes that would allow additional state funds to flow to transportation. The bill faces an uncertain future in the Republican-controlled Senate.

The Oregon Legislature has named a new, special, bicameral, bipartisan study committee to develop a transportation funding package. The committee will begin regularly holding public meetings in May. This is a big improvement in transparency from the closed-door negotiation that resulted in a dead-end transportation funding proposal last year.

LOCAL FUNDING

Sacramento County, California, is moving ahead with a $3.6 billion, 30-year local sales tax. A deal struck by the Sacramento Transportation Authority will split these funds, with 70 percent going toward highways and streets and 30 percent toward transit. The county transit agency had reportedly anticipated as much as half of the new funding. In the first five years, three-quarters of the local road money would be used exclusively for repairing city streets. The proposal will need to be approved by the county board this summer and then supported by two-thirds of county voters in the November election.

We’ll see the results when we are in Sacramento November 16-17 for Transportation for America’s Capital Ideas state policy conference. Which reminds us…

Registration is now open for Capital Ideas, the premier conference on state transportation funding and policy, coming up this November 16-17, 2016, in Sacramento, CA. Sign up today to secure your seat and grab one of the limited number of discounted hotel rooms available.

As Sound Transit, the transit agency for metro Seattle, Washington, finalizes a $50 billion local funding plan to go before voters in November, free parking has become a major point of contention. The plan initially called for thousands of free parking spaces alongside new transit lines, but local leaders are calling for more housing and business development alongside transit stops, instead. Spokane-area voters will decide on a major expansion of transit service and the addition of a new bus rapid transit line at the ballot this November. Voters will consider a 0.1 percent sales tax increase in April 2017 with a second 0.1 increase to follow two years later and both running through 2028.

The county commission in Hillsborough County, Florida (which includes Tampa) voted 4-3 against putting a transportation sales tax measure on the November ballot. The long-debated measure would have raised new funding for highways and transit.

Stay up to date on all progress with state transportation funding and policy issues with our bill tracker.

Seattle making smart decisions today to continue their city’s renaissance tomorrow

Downtown Seattle has become the hot place in the region for companies to locate as employment and growth has accelerated to new highs over the last decade, but limited space downtown could stymie job growth and economic potential if Seattle doesn’t continue thinking differently about transportation.

The Seattle regional economy is perhaps best known for big suburban employers Microsoft and Boeing, but over the last decade, the region’s recent economic growth has been driven by many companies choosing to locate in downtown and investing in new and old properties alike. For example, Amazon has rapidly expanded in South Lake Union (with more investment in the pipeline) and forest products giant Weyerhaueser is relocating into downtown from the suburbs south of Seattle and building a new headquarters in Pioneer Square. And travel giant Expedia Inc. announced that they’ll be moving to a new campus in Seattle in 2018.

Sponsored streetcar stop Yet if the region doesn’t continue making smart transportation investments and developing the kind of policies that have already reduced the share of people commuting alone by car into downtown, that prosperity could be threatened — killing the goose that laid the golden egg.

Culture of collaboration

Luckily, the Seattle region is tapping their strong culture of collaboration to ensure that they come together to protect that golden goose. That collaboration is exemplified by the ORCA transit fare card. Developed over 15 years ago, the “One Regional Card For All” enables transit riders to seamlessly use one card to pay fares with 7 different agencies. “The ORCA regional fare card project paved the way for all kinds of interagency collaboration,” says Josh Kavanagh, Director of Transportation Services at University of Washington.

About 10 years ago, Downtown Seattle Association’s then-President Kate Joncas saw great economic potential if decision-makers could come together and free up transportation capacity into and within downtown Seattle and encourage more employers to set up shop there. She convened leaders at Seattle DOT, Downtown Seattle Association and King County Metro. They formed the Downtown Transportation Alliance and in turn created Commute Seattle, an entity focused on reducing drive-alone trips into downtown.

Transit as a growth strategy

They implemented two key strategies that helped make it easier to access jobs (and future jobs) located downtown.

The first was bus passes. Washington State’s Commute Trip Reduction (CTR) Program requires employers with more than 100 employees to provide employees with transit passes and other strategies to reduce drive-alone trips. Smaller employers face no such requirement, so Commute Seattle focused its efforts on bringing these smaller employers voluntarily into the fold.

Boarding 594 to Seattle at Tacoma Dome Station

Transit passes aren’t enough to get folks on board if transit service is lousy, and Seattle’s high-density downtown environment makes transit/traffic conflicts challenging. Metro needed a way to bring buses through downtown and load and unload them more efficiently. The transit tunnel underneath the downtown core, built in 1984, did not have enough capacity for all the bus lines — a problem that was magnified when new LINK light rail service began in 2009 and also required use of the tunnel.

Ready to roll To address this Seattle worked with the business community and Metro to incrementally improve 3^rd Avenue and set aside space for use as a transit mall. If you visit 3^rd Avenue at 5 p.m., you’ll be struck by the volume of buses and the crowds of passengers boarding them.

These thousands of people are some of the workers filling tens of thousands of new jobs downtown. Through all of these efforts, Seattle was able to reduce the proportion of drive-alone trips into downtown Seattle from 50% to 31% over the course of 14 years, which made it possible to add tens of thousands of jobs downtown while keeping car trips into downtown more or less the same. 27,857 jobs were created in downtown Seattle just from 2010 to 2013. Expanding and making transit work for more people has been critical in facilitating and encouraging this expansion.

Progress hasn’t been limited to downtown. The region’s light rail system LINK, run by Sound Transit, serves Sea-Tac Airport to the south and is opening a new northward extension to the University of Washington in 2016 from downtown. Which is a good thing since Seattle’s population is also growing and transit ridership is bumping up against capacity in places like the University District. In fact, population growth in the city has outpaced growth in the King County suburbs since 2010, with more than 70,000 new residents added since 2010 in the city.

Investing for the future

The last few years have been successful, but with the city continuing to add jobs and people, the question remains: How can Seattle accommodate its population growth and sustain its economic growth and still maintain a good quality of life?

SDOT Director Scott Kubly speaks to the press at a Microsurfacing Event

SDOT Director Scott Kubly speaks to the press. Flickr image from Seattle DOT.

Coming into office in 2014, Mayor Edward Murray viewed addressing this challenge as a one of the most important parts of his job. He brought in new expertise at the Seattle Department of Transportation by luring Scott Kubly, a star staffer from Gabe Klein’s transportation team in Chicago, to serve as SDOT director. Kubly cut to the heart of Seattle’s geometric transportation challenge, pointing out that “if all the people moving to our city — 60,000 new people by 2025, according to the mayor — have to drive their cars everywhere, we’ll descend into an awful hellscape of traffic jams even worse than what we have now.”

Under Kubly’s leadership, Seattle developed a plan called “Let’s Move Seattle” that focuses on accommodating new growth while preserving the quality of life that Seattle is known for and existing residents value.

Some exciting elements include seven new Rapid Ride bus rapid transit (BRT) corridors, and three new light rail access points: one new station, one pedestrian bridge, and realignment of another station to improve access. Safety improvements include 150 miles of new sidewalks and other projects to make the walk to and from school safer for Seattle children. The city will also be able to invest in 16 bridge retrofits to make sure they’re more resilient in the face of earthquakes, and in repaving 180 miles of arterial streets.

Cyclists on Dexter Avenue

Looking to the ballot in 2015 and 2016

The plan to pay for all of this involves extending and expanding the “Bridging the Gap” property tax levy that expires this year. City homeowners will pay about $12 per month, which is relatively affordable considering that Seattleites who are able to switch even some of their trips from driving to transit as a result of these investments could save money, and those who could make a more permanent change could save as much as $1,101 dollars per month. Seattle voters will decide on this plan at the ballot next week on November 3rd.

That measure is just the first of two important steps for Seattle voters in deciding whether or not to pay for the investments needed to help keep their booming economy humming.

With the Washington legislature’s passage of a $16.1 billion statewide transportation package earlier this year, the three-county regional transit agency, Sound Transit, received the authority ask voters to approve up to $15 billion in transit investments. They’re developing plans for placing a measure on the November 2016 ballot, Sound Transit 3, which could extend LINK light rail to important residential and employment centers in Tacoma, Redmond, and Everett — connecting yet more jobs to the region’s transit system — and lead to construction of new light rail lines to Seattle neighborhoods such as Ballard and West Seattle.

Seattle is unique amongst American cities in that transportation ranks as the top priority in public polling. We will see if the importance of transportation and a collaborative approach help the city and region to continue investing in transportation options to keep that goose laying golden eggs.

Local communities in Utah and beyond will decide their transportation funding fate this November

As November approaches, voters in a majority of Utah’s counties will be weighing a decision to approve a 0.25-cent increase in their counties’ sales tax to fund transportation projects in those counties. This is just one of many notable ballot measures for transportation on the horizon for this fall and next year.

Utah Light Rail 1 Utah’s legislature acted earlier this year to increase the state’s gas tax, tie it to inflation, and provide individual counties with the ability to go to the ballot to increase sales taxes to fund additional local transportation priorities. As of this writing, 17 out of 29 Utah counties have decided to put those measures on their ballots.

The state hadn’t increased its gas tax — the most significant funding source for the state’s roads and bridges — since 1997. Gas tax revenue in Utah, however, is constitutionally limited only to road projects, which requires other source of funding for transit and other important local transportation projects. Utah legislators addressed that concern with a bipartisan compromise to let local voters decide whether or not to raise sales taxes, which are entirely flexible and can be spent on nearly any local transportation need.

With the elections a little over a month away, a statewide advocacy group affiliated with the Salt Lake Chamber of Commerce has embarked upon a massive education campaign to educate voters about the benefits of raising new local money for transportation. The group, called Utahns for Responsible Transportation, is launching ads on TV, radio, and the internet, as well as in newspapers and on billboards. The group is also calling and mailing voters directly.

State leaders expect the state’s population to double by 2050, flooding the state’s most populous areas with new residents. This makes sound transportation investments of all types across the board – light rail, commuter rail, bike trails and new, safe pedestrian infrastructure – even more imperative as Utah’s cities add new residents and keep their economies chugging along.

In Salt Lake City’s core counties — including Salt Lake County, Weber County, Davis County, and Utah County — if the ballot measure is successful, a portion of the revenue will go to UTA, the regional transit system that runs light rail, buses and commuter rail in those counties, in addition to funding other local priority projects of any type.

Several others worth watching

Utah isn’t the only place where local voters will be deciding whether or not to tax themselves to raise new money to invest in transportation.There are several significant issues being decided in the Pacific Northwest this year and next.

Sound Transit’s LINK light rail on the Seattle-SeaTac line.

This November, Seattle voters will decide on a $900 million levy to fund five new bus rapid transit lines and complete streets projects throughout the city. In November 2016, residents in the three counties of the Seattle metro area will decide whether to allocate $16 billion dollars to Sound Transit for an extensive expansion of the region’s light rail network.

Just north of Seattle proper, on November 3^rd, Snohomish County voters will decide on a 0.3 percent sales tax increase for Community Transit to improve service frequency, add commuter service to Seattle and the University of Washington, and add new bus routes, among other things.

In Oregon, voters in the Salem-Keizer Transit District are voting in November on a new payroll tax, the proceeds of which will be used to restore bus service on nights and weekends for service between Salem and Keizer.

Outside of the northwest, voters in Indianapolis counties will decide in November 2016 whether to increase local income tax rates to fund an ambitious transit expansion throughout the city and into surrounding counties, focusing first on new bus rapid transit lines.

We’ll be watching the results of these ballot initiatives closely, so stay tuned for updates. We’re beginning to collect a list of other notable measures worth watching, so if there’s one you know of that we should keep our eyes on, let us know in the comments.

How Can a State Department of Transportation Do Right by the Locals?

A key theme in a recent Washington State DOT conference was a recognition that the state DOT needs to do more to engage with local constituents and agencies and meet local needs, particularly in cities. Those cities are the engines of economic growth, and where the default approach of the past half-century — road widening to speed driving at the expense of other goals — did not, does not, and will not work.

A sizable crowd at the WSDOT Innovations & Partnerships in Transportation summit

I attended the conference on September 22, entitled Innovations & Partnerships in Transportation, which strived to train WSDOT staff and local agencies in Washington State on partnership and innovation.

With Secretary of Transportation Lynn Peterson at the helm since early 2013, WSDOT is one state DOT that is working hard to be more innovative and responsive to evolving transportation needs. T4A member Transportation Choices Coalition worked with T4A and Smart Growth America to organize a training for WSDOT leadership staff in Olympia in November, 2014 on performance-based planning. In some ways, the 2014 training helped seed interest in this most recent symposium of WSDOT and local agency staff from across the state.

Roger Millar, recently departed from SGA, is starting work as Deputy Secretary at WSDOT in October.

Many of the same speakers we brought in 2014 came back to discuss many of the same issues in this bigger forum. Jeffrey Tumlin of Nelson Nygard returned to speak about new approaches to practical design. SGA’s Roger Millar, also featured prominently in the 2014 workshop, was incidentally just hired as WSDOT’s Deputy Secretary starting in October.

State DOTs typically concern themselves with longer distance or inter-city travel, and not necessarily with the local needs that drive local economies, but this conference pointed to a different direction for WSDOT. Multiple speakers discussed the changes leading the agency to a more multimodal approach to transportation that does a better job of meeting the needs of cities and their residents. Households are shrinking, Millennials especially are driving less, buying fewer cars and getting their drivers licenses later if at all. More people are moving to downtowns and walkable neighborhoods, and companies are moving to these places to attract and retain talent.

The economy is shifting from an emphasis on ownership to an emphasis on sharing, experiences, and more efficient use of resources.

To illustrate the pace of change we could expect to see because of new mobility options like Lyft, Uber, bike share and autonomous cars, speaker Gabe Klein, a former director of both Chicago’s and D.C.’s DOT, asked the audience how many of them owned a smart phone 10 years ago. No one raised their hands — smartphones weren’t even available just ten short years ago, but today nearly every participant owned one. “That’s how fast change can take place.”

Several speakers, Jeffrey Tumlin in particular, talked openly about the problem of induced demand — the phenomenon where increased roadway capacity induces more driving resulting in a failure to solve congestion problems. This topic is not one typically broached at state DOT functions.

Can a state DOT re-orient toward the new realities of multi-modalism, urban economic development, and unknowns like autonomous vehicles? WSDOT, with Lynn Peterson at the helm, is one of the state DOTs that has a shot. In closing the conference, Lynn called on the several hundred of her staff in attendance to work through these issues in partnership with local agencies and constituencies.

Effectively linking transportation with economic development: Beth Osborne visits the Pacific Northwest

On September 10 and 11, T4A brought Senior Policy Advisor Beth Osborne to the Pacific Northwest to speak with audiences in Seattle, Portland and Eugene about the links between transportation investment and economic development. There are countless examples of these links in each city, and local speakers shared those stories at all three events.

A good crowd gathered at Metro’s policy breakfast with Beth Osborne in Portland.

This November, Seattle voters will decide whether to support the Move Seattle levy, an ambitious plan to invest in five bus rapid transit (BRT) lines and a range of complete streets projects to improve Seattleites’ mobility and safety by updating the design of city streets to better match the demands being placed on them by a greater range of users. Mayor Murray’s transportation policy director Andrew Glass-Hastings was there to share details on that effort. (The City of Seattle is a T4A member.)

The Portland event was hosted by Metro, another T4A member. Years of hard work have come to fruition with both the Portland Milwaukie Light Rail (PMLR) line and Tilikum Crossing over the Willamette River opening immediately after the event on September 12, and the region is hard at work planning a Bus Rapid Transit line from Portland to Gresham. (Both cities are members of T4A as is TriMet, the region’s transit district.) Brian Newman from Oregon Health & Science University shared the story of the hundreds of millions of dollars of current and planned economic development in the South Waterfront spurred by the new light rail line, streetcar, the aerial tram and TIGER-funded improvements to S.W. Moody Avenue. Duncan Hwang from the Jade business district spoke about their efforts to minimize or prevent displacement of disadvantaged communities when the Powell Division BRT line is built in the next 5 years.

Beth Osborne sharing with the crowd in Eugene

The third event was in Eugene, where the neighboring city of Springfield (another T4A member) has a TIGER application in for streetscape improvements on Franklin Boulevard that could spark substantial infill development — including new hotels to serve the visitors at the 2021 World Track Championships hosted by the region. Springfield Mayor Christine Lundberg shared those aspirations, and Eugene Mayor Kitty Piercy, Eugene Area Chamber of Commerce president Dave Hauser and PIVOT Architecture principal Kari Turner all testified to how Eugene-Springfield’s growing regional BRT network is part of their economic development strategy. In fact, T4A member Lane Transit District received federal Small Starts funding for its West EmX BRT project on the same day as our event in Eugene.

The local stories at all three events helped provide context for Beth’s Ms. Osborne’s message: if your region wants to get the best economic development results from transportation investments, it’s imperative to carefully measure the outcomes against your region’s values. Measure outcomes like congestion the wrong way, and you could be inhibiting economic development in favor of moving cars around quickly for no economic gain.

Referencing a series of recent T4America and Smart Growth America reports – Measuring What We Value, Core Values, The Innovative MPO – Ms. Osborne pointed to new approaches yielding better results.

These recent events are sparking productive conversations in each region. Interested in organizing an event like these in your area for members and non-members? Get in touch with us and feel free to share ideas for topics and speakers.

performance-measures-members-featured Relatedly to the topic of measuring outcomes, don’t miss Beth’s ongoing series on performance measures, available only for members.

Feel a little lost when it comes to the concept of transportation performance measures? In this short series expressly for T4A members, our resident expert and USDOT veteran will help bring you up to speed on an issue that’s complicated but represents a smart way forward on transportation planning and spending. Read more.

Pilot program to support smart planning around new transit lines will benefit 21 different cities

It’s important that communities make the best use of land around transit lines and stops, efficiently locate jobs and housing near new transit stations, and boost ridership — which can also increase the amount of money gained back at the farebox. 21 communities today received a total of $19.5 million in federal grants from a new pilot program intended to do exactly that.

Sound Transit's LINK light rail on the Seattle-SeaTac line. Six stations will eventually be added to Tacoma's current LINK line, doubling their number of stations.

Sound Transit’s LINK light rail on the Seattle-SeaTac line. Six stations will eventually be added to Tacoma’s separate LINK line, doubling their number of stations.

Building a new transit line isn’t some sort of magic wand; a new rail or rapid bus line doesn’t automatically mean that well-planned, walkable neighborhoods will spring up to help support the line by adding new riders nearby, or result in new buildings filled with meaningful destinations bringing transit riders to the area. A lot of work goes into creating a plan that can foster and incentivize the kind of private development that a community wants to see around their transit stations, and the grants in this small pilot program will be a big boost to these 21 communities either currently expanding or planning to expand transit service to their residents.

This pilot program was one of the bright spots in MAP-21, and was a priority we worked hard to see included in the final bill during those negotiations back in the summer of 2012, along with our colleagues at LOCUS, the coalition of responsible real estate investors within Smart Growth America.

Making proactive steps to plan for development along entire transit corridors – rather than just one station area at a time – can attract private-sector interest as well as stronger buy-in from the community by creating a complete picture of the development opportunities presented by the new transit line.

A wide variety of projects received grants ranging in size from $250,000 awards to support the Woodward Avenue bus rapid transit line that will connect downtown Detroit with Pontiac and a transit overlay district in the area around the planned Valley Metro light rail expansion to Tempe; all the way up to $2 million for planning around the six stations of Sound Transit’s light rail expansion in Tacoma, including street design to improve connectivity for pedestrians, bicyclists, motorists and transit riders and a plan to expand access to jobs and job training in a fairly disadvantaged area.

Therese McMillan, the acting administrator, was on hand in Tacoma to announce the grants. “Transit-oriented development is critical to the success of new projects and to the economy of the local communities they serve,” she said. “These grants will help communities like Tacoma develop a transportation system that encourages people to use transit to reach jobs, education, medical care, housing and other vital services that they need.”

We’re excited to finally see the first fruits of this small pilot program that we worked so hard to see included in MAP-21. These grants will go a long way toward ensuring that these numerous planned transit investments bring the greatest returns and the best possible benefits to all.

The full list of winners can be found on the FTA website.

“How Do We Become the Department of Yes?”

A new T4America member is hoping to successfully leverage the exploding landscape of new mobility options to meet more of their goals for encouraging smart development, reduce the amount of required single-occupant car trips and create a better city for tomorrow along the way.

This is a post originally published last week on our member portal especially for T4America members. Would you like to find out more about joining as a member?

Tell Me More

Scott Kubly, Seattle DOT

At the Intelligent Transportation Society of America Symposium at University of Washington in Seattle back in July, I had the privilege of hearing Seattle DOT Director Scott Kubly speak to the challenges local governments are facing as they attempt to adapt to new forms of mobility exploding all over the country — ride-for-hire services like Lyft and Uber, carshare services like Zipcar and Car2Go, and bikeshare. (Seattle is a new T4America member.)

I was impressed by Scott’s ability to step back and look at the whole picture in the context of the City of Seattle’s goals.

Seattle is growing quickly. There simply isn’t enough physical space for business as usual, and the city is adjusting accordingly. In the last 4 years, downtown Seattle added 40,000 employees, made possible in part because they planned for, and achieved, a drop in single occupant vehicle mode-share from 35 percent to 31 percent.

New mobility options are often sprouting so fast that it’s difficult for local governments (and regulations) to keep up, but they present a great opportunity for Seattle given the geometric constraints on physical space. “As we keep growing, we need to keep setting that mode-share target lower and lower and get people to use different types of modes, and we need to look at new options,” he said.

Scott suggests re-imagining departments of transportation less as infrastructure providers, and more as systems integrators whose actions are driven by the idea of improving the user’s experience.

As some examples of where that sort of integration to improve overall mobility for users, Scott pointed out the big return on investment for bike-share, and the potential for Uber and Lyft to provide more affordable late-night service than transit can accomplish.

The advent of Uber and Lyft certainly raises questions about drivers’ wages, equitable access, and the risks of congestion caused by oversupply of rides-for-hire that must all be addressed, but in a call to move the ball forward, Scott asks this:

“How do we become the department of yes? How do the public and private sectors work together and say ‘this is what our shared goal is’, so when there is a new service with no regulatory framework, how do we say ‘yeah that’s a cool idea and let’s figure it out.’”

Seattle seems to be figuring out a lot, and we’re excited to have them on board as a new T4A member.

It’s also worth reading this Scott Kubly interview with startup incubator 1776 from earlier this year. -Ed.

Join T4A’s Beth Osborne in Portland and Seattle next week for talks on transportation and economic development

Beth Osborne, Transportation for America’s senior policy advisor, is making three stops in the Pacific Northwest soon to discuss how investing in transportation can help drive economic development.

The three sessions will focus on how we can plan and develop our roads, transit systems and freight networks to bring the best possible economic returns. You will learn how regions across the country have made investment decisions and the results they achieved with regard to economic development and competitiveness.

Beth Osborne brings five year’s experience from US DOT, including serving as Acting Assistant Secretary for Transportation Policy, and a national perspective on prospects for improvements to transportation policy and funding. Sign up today. T4America members should have already received a promo code for discounted registration.

Find out more about each session and register with the links below.

Improving Health and Opportunities: Programs Designed to Save Lives

Community health and transportation are inextricably linked. Residents in vulnerable communities face a number of threats posed by poor street design, CO2 emissions, and inadequate pedestrian infrastructure. Investments in curbing threats posed to low income communities in particular are a matter of life and death for residents that call these communities home. In Arizona and Washington State, two new transportation programs intended to improve community health are seeing positive results for the most vulnerable populations.

Air quality and pollution in Phoenix, AZ and surrounding Maricopa County persisted as major threats to the community for well over two decades. Under the federal Clean Air Act, the region was dubbed a “non-attainment area” in 1978 and remained noncompliant with pollution. High rates of single-occupancy vehicle driving commutes have contributed to increases in pollution.

Flickr photo by Devin: https://www.flickr.com/photos/kingdafy/321019324/

The region’s transit agency, Valley Metro, uses their robust trip reduction program to reduce the rate of single-occupancy vehicles commuting to and from work. This was accomplished by actively engaging employers in the region. Their work was bolstered by a state statute requiring employers to make a good-faith effort to reduce solo driving trips by participating in the regional effort. Click here to learn more about the comprehensive program and how Valley metro is reducing trips: http://bit.ly/1WcYgAB.

Vulnerable populations disproportionately suffer negative health and safety affects from poorly planned transportation systems. High numbers of pedestrian fatalities is one of those harsh consequences. Communities of color and senior citizens in particular make up a significant portion of these avoidable traffic deaths. In the year 2000, Washington State became the first state in the nation to adopt a policy aimed at eliminating deaths on its roadways, a movement most known as Vision Zero. Since then, the state has made remarkable progress, dropping to the 4^th lowest fatality rate in the country.

Similarly, Washington’s Target Zero blueprint relies on four tenants: educating, enforcement, engineering, and emergency medical services. Washington State finds its continued partnership with the governor’s administration, federal, state and local agencies, local organizations, and interested stakeholders remains vital to achieving the goal of zero traffic deaths and fatalities by 2030. Learn more about how your region and community can implement a vision zero plan here: http://bit.ly/1DDcLYy.

Check out additional regional case studies in our series on Improving Health and Opportunities . Interested in more transportation equity news and trends? Contact Program Manager, Alicia Orosco, for more information at Alicia.Orosco@t4america.org.

States continue to take action to solve transportation funding crises

This year started with a transportation bang for many states across the country. In the last few weeks, four states in particular have made major strides in funding transportation and infrastructure projects as gas prices continue to remain low.

Georgia transportation officials have said they are facing an annual, billion-dollar funding gap to maintain their existing roads and bridges in good condition.Last week, the Georgia House passed HB 170which would make a few notable changes to their current funding structure, where they currently use both a sales tax and a per-gallon excise tax on gasoline. HB 170 would remove the current sales tax on gasoline entirely and increase the current 8.2 cents per-gallon rate by 21 cents for a new rate of 29.2 cents per gallon. The bill also requires the rate be adjusted annually to adapt to growing vehicle fuel efficiency and inflation in the cost of highway construction.

Besides the excise tax, the legislation would also impose new fees on private electric cars and commercial electric vehicles. The bill has been sent on to the state Senate.

In North Carolina, where gas tax rates are pegged to fuel prices, the House and Senate are moving competing bills to address an expected multi-million dollar shortfall resulting from cheaper gas and growing efficiency.

The Senate’s version, SB 20, eventually would raise the floor for the sinking gas tax from 21 cents per gallon to 35 cents per gallon, and increase the percentage rate on fuel from 7 percent to 9.9 percent. But it actually would cut the fuel tax by 2.5-cents per gallon between now and December. This would reduce transportation funding by $33 million between now and July, but is expected to raise an additional $237 million next year and $352 million a year by 2018.

Last week, the House passed a version of this bill that would reduce the current rate of 37.5 cents a gallon to 36 cents and hold it at that rate until the end of 2015. Delaying an expected drop in the adjustable, percentage gas tax rate (a consequence of falling gas prices) would bring in an additional $142 million during the next fiscal year (or approximately half of the Senate’s version).

In Utah, the Senate acted Monday to raise gas taxes for the first time in 18 years, increasing it by 5 cents per gallon this year, with an additional penny added each of the next four years. The state is currently looking at a deficit of $11 billion over the next two decades if the legislature does not act now. Consideration of the plan now moves to the House, where leaders are considering a slightly different approach.

Coming off a bold call to action in Governor Jay Inslee’s State of the State speech, Washington’s Senate on March 2 passed a $15 billion transportation package paid for by raising gasoline taxes by 11.7 cents over the next three years. It also would allow certain localities, including Seattle, to ask their voters for additional transit funding in the coming years.

Iowa, in the meantime, already has passed and enacted a transportation revenue package. Strongly supported by Governor Terry Branstad, the bill increases Iowa’s state gas tax by 10 cents per gallon. New funds will go entirely to highway projects, as required by a restrictive state constitutional requirement in place in Iowa and dozens of other states.

Watch this space for a more in-depth look into how business community and other supporters, along with legislative leaders, helped move the package to passage.

After years of depressed revenues and growing needs, states are making big moves on transportation this year. Whether or not they have long-term economic payoff will hinge on the degree to which their cities and towns get the resources and latitude they need to compete in the 21^st century.

Make sure to check back with our resource that tracks state transportation funding for the latest updates; you can also sign up to receive the latest news and updates.

15 issues to watch in ’15, Part III: People

The members of Congress who will rewrite the nation’s transportation policies and attempt to raise funding to keep the program afloat is just one important discussion taking place this year. More states will continue efforts to raise transportation revenue and mayors in communities of all sizes will move forward key transportation initiatives; among others on a long list of people with an important role to play in 2015. Here are five that rose to the top, but tell us who you think we missed.

Ed: As the year began, we thought it would be fun to identify 15 people, places and trends worth keeping an eye on the next 12 months. We covered this list in three posts — read about five policy issues worth watching on Capitol Hill in 2015, and five places worth keeping an eye on this year.

People

1. Senator Jim Inhofe (R-OK)

The senior Senator from Oklahoma is once again leading the Senate’s powerful Environment and Public Works Committee, which is responsible for the largest portion of the Senate’s transportation reauthorization. Back in 2012, as the ranking member, he teamed up with then-Chairman Barbara Boxer to write MAP-21 and shepherd it through their committee and Senate passage. They worked in a bipartisan fashion to reach agreement with their House colleagues on the version of MAP-21 enacted into law in July 2012.

Sen. Inhofe also chaired the committee during the passage of MAP-21’s predecessor (SAFETEA-LU) and has regained the chairmanship for the 114th Congress. A staunch advocate for the federal role in investing in infrastructure, he has been on record this year saying an increase in the gas tax may be the fairest way to charge users for fixing and improving the nation’s transportation system.

After a few years on the back burner, the question of funding and rescuing the nation’s transportation fund from insolvency will be front and center in 2015, and Sen. Inhofe will be right in the middle of it. While we know roughly where he stands on the issue of funding, the bigger questions have to do with policy: Will he keep MAP-21’s policies largely intact? Will he work closely once again with Senator Boxer (who is back as ranking member) to write the bill? Will he support the inclusion of a policy like the Innovation in Surface Transportation Act to improve opportunities for local elected officials to access the program? However those questions are answered, he will be at the center of the debate in the Senate this year, and will likely have his stamp on any authorization enacted this Congress.

2. Representative Mario Diaz-Balart (R-FL)

You may not have heard his name much yet, but the seven-term representative from the Miami region has been handed the reigns to a powerful House subcommittee overseeing transportation (and housing) issues. Replacing the retiring Tom Latham (R-IA) on the Appropriations Transportation, Housing and Urban Development (THUD) Subcommittee, he’ll have direct involvement in the budgeting for the U.S. DOT each year.

While Highway Trust Fund spending levels are largely determined by the current surface transportation authorization (MAP-21 in this case), Rep. Diaz-Balart will still approve annual spending levels for the department at large, including key discretionary (non-trust fund) programs like the popular TIGER grant program, transit funding, and passenger rail programs. His mantra so far in interviews has been accountability and rooting out potential waste, but he also represents a district with a greater range of transportation options to move people and goods than his predecessor on the subcommittee. Time will tell, but there is reason to hope that Diaz-Balart will be supportive of broader transportation interests in the annual transportation appropriation bill.

3. Governor Rick Snyder of Michigan

Pushing the legislature on this package is nothing new for Gov. Snyder, who has been a strong advocate on critical transportation issues in Michigan. He released a smart plan to invest in infrastructure statewide and raise new revenue all the way back in 2011. He supported the 2012 fight in the legislature to create a long overdue regional transit agency for Detroit to organize and catalyze investment there. Passenger rail statewide has had a significant boost with help from Gov. Snyder as well. Michigan has received about $500 million for the Chicago-Detroit/Pontiac passenger rail route, including funds to purchase track so that more trains can run at higher speeds for longer distances.

In May, voters will decide on increasing the sales tax for schools and municipalities in one ballot question. The other tax changes in the package are contingent on the passage of that referendum. Annually, these bills will bring in an additional $1.3 billion for transportation. It’s a critical vote looming in May. We’ll continue to keep our eye on Gov. Snyder and this important decision.

4. Mayor Marilyn Strickland of Tacoma, Washington

Many states and localities are working to raise additional transportation revenues of their own, but they are doing so with the expectation that federal aid will continue. Few have expressed the need better than Tacoma Mayor Marilyn Strickland did in this terrific OnPoint interview:

A lot of the projects that have helped Tacoma have been a direct result of assistance we’ve received from Washington, D.C. We remediated our waterfront, we’ve done great infrastructure projects. We’re trying to expand our light rail in Tacoma, and we will absolutely, positively need federal help to do that. We recently met with Senator Patty Murray and Secretary of Transportation Anthony Foxx in Seattle two days ago, and we talked about the need for the federal government to continue to invest in infrastructure.

Mayor Strickland is as proud that Tacoma is part of the Seattle metro area (“We aren’t in its shadow, we bask in its glow.”) as she is of the city’s own blue-collar, working-class identity. But as it becomes more entrepreneurial and diversifies into healthcare and technology, Tacoma hopes to stay competitive by investing in the kinds of transportation options that can help retain and attract a younger, talented workforce. Expanding the regional light rail system that now ends at SeaTac airport, halfway between the two cities, is a big part of that.

The Sound Transit 3 package would enable the localities to raise a part of the funding to make it happen. If that passes the legislature, the measure would go to Puget Sound voters in November of 2016. With local money in hand, strong federal commitment in the form of New Starts and/or TIGER support would leverage those local dollars to ensure the Link light rail finally reaches Tacoma and beyond to Dupont, connecting it to the regional light rail transit network.

Mayor Strickland knows how important that connection is for the future of her city, and the level of cooperation required to make it a reality:

Having support at the federal level really helps us do some things that we need to do. And, again, it’s about connecting the dots. When we have better public transportation options, we are more attractive to people who are creative who want to come live in our cities. When we have a talent pool like that we are more likely to attract high paying jobs. And, so, you have to connect the dots between federal government, state government, and local government.

5. Mayor Kasim Reed of Atlanta, Georgia

Buoyed by the long-awaited opening of the city’s first streetcar line in decades, Mayor Reed is bouncing back from the disappointing defeat of a regional transportation ballot measure in 2012 and moving forward an Atlanta-only bond plan to raise revenues and make a dent in citywide infrastructure needs. While Renew Atlanta 2015 goes beyond transportation, it will allow the city to make some much-needed repairs and improvements, “including repair and construction of complete streets projects, sidewalks, bridges, and curb ramps.”

Mayor Reed will certainly be focused on turning out the votes for this measure on March 17, but he’s also looking beyond and dreaming much bigger. After the disappointment of the T-SPLOST regional tax referendum, which he called “the biggest failure of my political career,” he has often suggested that Atlanta might instead pair up with a few other nearby municipalities on a separate measure to raise funds for transportation. City of Atlanta and Dekalb county voters strongly favored the 2012 measure, so a joint Atlanta-DeKalb plan could be a possibility to watch for discussion of in 2015.

They have a lot of needs to meet. The short streetcar line is just the first phase of a longer planned line. MARTA is just now getting back to pre-recession levels of service. And Atlanta’s one-of-a-kind Beltline plan for parks and transit lines circling the city in an old railroad corridor has years of investment required to see the entire thing come to fruition.

Even if Atlanta manages to pass the bond measure and take on a more ambitious local funding measure to make more significant transportation investments happen, city leaders still will be looking to the feds for support. After years of funding the decentralization of cities like Atlanta for decades through various federal programs, mayors like Mayor Reed will be counting on support from the federal government to aid their efforts to reverse that trend.

Governors step out in favor of raising transportation revenue

States across the country are facing huge deficits in their own transportation budgets — a problem compounded by the uncertainty over the support they’ve always received from the federal transportation fund, which is now just months away from insolvency. However, over the last month or so, at least nine governors have highlighted plans to raise new state transportation revenues in their State of the State addresses, marking the issue as a top priority.

NEWSLETTER - Governor State of the State on revenue While their speeches are notable for their willingness to take a stand on the issue, these governors (and many state legislators) are stepping out on the issue because states face growing needs and static or falling revenues from state as well as federal sources.

As of press time, six Republicans and three Democrats spanning from Washington to Connecticut have come out in support of raising transportation funding at the state level by various mechanisms in the hopes of providing stable and reliable revenue for years to come. And they’re counting on Congress to do their part and come through with reliable federal funding as well.

After looking over the transcripts of all nine speeches, two major themes stood out: the importance to a state’s economic growth and development of a well-run, well-funded transportation system, and the financial and public safety cost of poorly maintained infrastructure.

After campaigning on the issue, returning Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy (D) introduced his plan for a 30-year overhaul of the state’s entire transportation system, including the creation of a “transportation lockbox” to ensure transportation revenues are spent on transportation projects. He has promised to propose specific revenue mechanisms in his February 18^th budget address.

“We know that transportation and economic growth are bound together,” Governor Dayton said on January 7^th. “States that make long term investments in their infrastructure can have vibrant economies for generations. States that don’t, will struggle. It’s that simple.

Transportation connects us – literally – community to community, state to state, nation to nation. It connects us economic opportunity, and it connects us to another.”

Idaho Governor Butch Otter (R) proposed raising transportation fees to help address the state’s ever increasing number of deficient bridges and poorly maintained highways, suggesting that spending some now will save more in the future. While calling for greater investments for transportation and infrastructure in his speech, he did not address any specific plans to do so, only saying to his fellow legislative colleagues, “I am not going to stand here and tell you how to swallow this elephant.”

“I fully understand the misgivings of some about higher transportation costs. But there is something to be said for the old adage about being ‘penny wise and pound foolish.’ In fact, every dollar we invest now in our roads and bridges will save motorists and taxpayers $6 to $14 later.”

In Iowa, with 35 percent of their annual transportation budget coming from the 19 cents per gallon gas tax, Republican Governor Terry Branstad is concerned about the state’s ability to adequately build and maintain the state’s infrastructure and transportation system with that source. The governor did say before his State of the State address that part of the solution could be allowing local governments to add their own gas tax for local projects and transportation needs. He expressed hope that lawmakers and stakeholders could come to a consensus on a specific solution.

“Over the past few years, rhetoric has trumped results when it comes to action on infrastructure funding for Iowa. A recently completed Battelle study demonstrates the need for us to take a hard look at adequate road funding. The study shows that without action funding available for road and bridge maintenance will fall short of what is needed to remain competitive and most importantly, safe.

Without action, Iowa’s roads and bridges face an uncertain future. Our farmers will find it more difficult to deliver their commodities to market. Business and industry will look elsewhere when considering where to invest and grow. As the study found, sound infrastructure remains a prerequisite for economic development. “

While Democratic Minnesota Mayor Mark Dayton has yet to give his State of the State address, his administration did release the details of his $11 billion transportation funding plan this week. It implements a 6.5 percent gross receipts tax on gasoline, raises the current 1.25 percent base on vehicle registration fees to 1.5 percent, and increases the sales tax by a half cent in the Twin Cities Metro area, specifically for improved transit, bicycle, and pedestrian infrastructure.

“Inadequate transportation clogs our lives with worse traffic congestion, longer commutes, more dangerous travel conditions. Those deficiencies restrict our future economic growth and detract from our quality of life,” said Governor Dayton. “If we continue to avoid these problems, they will only get worse. It’s time to begin to solve them.”

South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley (R) called for a 10-cent gas tax increase, as long as the legislation included cutting the state’s income tax by 30 percent and restructuring the state’s Department of Transportation.

“Deficient roads and highways are an economic issue. That’s why we supported $1 billion in new road funds last year, which was the biggest infrastructure investment in a generation. It’s why we proposed in our Executive Budget dedicating an additional $61 million in auto sales tax funds entirely to roads. But we know that’s not enough. We still have very substantial revenue needs that need to be addressed.”

Republican South Dakota Governor Dennis Daugaard outlined his transportation plan that would raise the vehicle excise tax from three to four percent, and increase the motor fuel tax by two cents this year and an additional two cents every year going forward. His plan would also implement a 10 percent increase in vehicle registration fees for local entities. The plan would allow the state to invest $50.5 million more for roads and bridges, with $39.8 million for the state highway fund, and an additional $10.7 million for local towns and cities.

“Our entire economy – our very wellbeing – depends on road infrastructure,” Governor Daugaard said during his State of the State Address. “And right now, our roads are underfunded.”

Addresses from the governors in Georgia, Michigan, and Washington focused on the need to raise revenue because current conditions represent public safety issues — or could soon without adequate investment.

The Republican governor from Georgia, Nathan Deal, has suggested that his state needs an estimated $1 billion to $1.5 billion more to maintain the state’s roads, highways, and bridges — and even millions more to expand. He offered the legislature three options to raise the funding needed to maintain the state’s infrastructure: a regional one percent sales tax designated for infrastructure projects; a plan that will reprioritize funding and focus on the most essential projects; or a “transportation plan that would address the ongoing needs of maintenance and repair, as well as freight corridor and other transportation improvements.”

“We are currently operating at a rate that requires 50 years to resurface every state road in Georgia. If your road is paved when you graduate high school, by the time it is paved again you will be eligible for Social Security.

If we continue to do nothing, we would continue to have to depend on the federal government, whose transportation funds are also dwindling. If we should choose not to maintain and improve our infrastructure, economic development would stall, companies would be unable to conduct their business efficiently, commuters would waste more time and gas sitting in traffic, and no one would be satisfied.”

Michigan Governor Rick Snyder (R) signed a plan to raise $1.3 billion more a year to mend deteriorating roads and other transportation infrastructure, contingent on Michigan voters increasing the state sales tax to seven percent via a May ballot measure. This bipartisan package of 11 laws would restructure and ultimately raise static per-gallon fuel taxes while exempting fuel from the state’s 6 percent sales tax.

“The key issue is public safety. If you look at it and you look at our bridges, one out of nine is structurally deficient. So, when you drive Michigan and you see plywood underneath the bridge, why is it there? It’s keeping crumbling concrete from falling on your vehicle, that’s unacceptable.

When you talk about our roads and you see those potholes, just think about the issues and concerns you’ve had this personally. When you swerve to miss a pothole, you are a distracted driver. You are putting yourself at risk and other drivers and other people. If you hit that pothole and you blow a tire you’re at risk of a major accident. That is unacceptable.”

Democratic Washington Governor Jay Inslee introduced a cap-and-trade program that would require the largest industrial polluters to pay for every ton of carbon they release, and then direct at least a portion of those funds into transportation. It could raise nearly $1 billion in its first year to pay for transportation projects. California is the only other state to attempt such a funding mechanism.

“Without action, there will be 52 percent cut in the maintenance budget, and 71 bridges will become structurally deficient or functionally obsolete. Without action, commute times will continue to rise, robbing us of time with our families. Without action, our ability to move goods efficiently will be diminished.

[This plan] keeps us safe by fixing our bridges, patching our roads, and cleaning out air and water. It also embraces efficiency, saves time and money, and drives results that the public can trust through real reform. Finally, it’s a plan that delivers a transportation system that truly works as a system. A system that transcends our old divides and rivalries. No more east versus west, urban versus rural or roads versus transit.”

Though some plans are certainly better than others, these nine governors are demonstrating true leadership by bucking the conventional wisdom and supporting new revenue to invest in transportation and infrastructure. More could follow in the weeks ahead as a few more State of the State addresses happen and legislative sessions get underway. Transportation for America is pleased to see these leaders take a stand on raising stable transportation funding, and we hope that Congress follows suit to support their efforts by rescuing the nation’s transportation fund from insolvency this spring.

In 2013, 20-plus states took up transportation funding: Here’s the final tally

Welcome to 2014! With a large number of state legislatures convening as the new year gets underway, it’s worth a look back at an important trend from 2013: States stepping forward to raise additional money for transportation. With federal funding remaining flat in 2012′s transportation bill (MAP-21) and after years of deferred action during the long recession, a large number of states, metro areas and local communities moved to supplement federal dollars with new revenues of their own.

In April, we reported that 19 states were looking at ways to increase their own funding for transportation. Some needed the funds just to make ends meet after years of flat or declining state revenues, while others also were looking for funds to match those available from MAP-21 new and updated loan and grant programs (like TIFIA or TIGER).

Here’s how they fared:

Key Successes

We covered Maryland’s ambitious plan on this blog, as well as Massachusetts.

Both of those states’ plans indexed the state gas tax to keep pace with inflation — something the federal gas tax, unchanged since 1993 — does not do. In Maryland, the state also added a sales tax on gasoline, while in Massachusetts, the package included an increase in cigarette taxes and certain business taxes. The good news was that in making the changes, both states recognized the importance of all modes of transportation and the revenues will fund important transit and road projects around the states.

In Virginia, Governor McDonnell began the debate with a proposal to abolish the per-gallon gasoline tax entirely and replace it with sales and wholesale taxes on fuel. That brought together legislators from both parties, who developed an innovative package of revenue increases to put transportation funding on a long-term, stable footing.

New legislation raised vehicle fees, along with local taxes in two of the states’ most heavily populated areas, Northern Virginia (near Washington, DC) and Hampton Roads (near Norfolk/Virginia Beach on the coast). Recognizing that businesses, residents, and visitors to Virginia depend on many types of transportation to move around the state, the new law directs funding to all modes of surface transportation, including transit, passenger rail, roads, and bridges. The package is projected to have more than $9.5 billion in economic impact in the state. As the Gov. McDonnell said in signing the bill: “This legislation will ensure that Virginia’s economy can grow in the years ahead, and that businesses will have the infrastructure they need to create the good-paying jobs Virginians deserve.”

Most recently, legislators in Pennsylvania reached agreement on a package of tax and fee changes that will raise $2.3 billion annually for the state’s transportation infrastructure – $1.65 billion for roads and bridges and $475 million for transit. The debate went down to the wire with agreement finally reached in a special legislative session just before Thanksgiving, allowing the governor to sign the bill on a cold day in late November.

AP photo by Nabil Mark – Gov. Tom Corbett, center, signs into law a bill that will provide $2.3 billion a year for improvements to Pennsylvania’s highways, bridges and mass-transit systems.

The PA legislation eliminates the retail tax on gasoline and a state cap on gas tax paid at the wholesale level and raises various vehicles and driver fees over the next five years. The new funding will help to advance projects like the rehabilitation of the structurally deficient Liberty Bridge in Pittsburgh and of outdated equipment used by SEPTA.

Not all states that raised money recognized the value of investing across the board in all types of transportation to keep their economies moving. Ohio, Wyoming, and Vermont enacted tax increases intended for highway projects only. In Wisconsin, new bonding authority was enacted, with bond funds directed almost entirely to highways.

One positive outcome in Wisconsin: While the governor had proposed kicking transit out of the state transportation fund (similar to what the House of Representatives proposed in 2012), the legislature rejected that proposal and instead transferred general fund money into the fund (much as the federal government has done for its highway trust fund) to keep funding public transportation.

Try again next year!

Some states explicitly punted the issue to next year by creating commissions to report back to the legislature on transportation revenue options.

In Indiana, where a bill had been moving forward to allow the central Indiana region (which includes Indianapolis) to raise their own regional taxes to pay for transit, legislators instead commissioned a study on how to fund transit in the region. In November, the transit study commission voted in favor of allowing counties in the Indianapolis region to impose an income tax or business tax increase, if approved by a voter referendum, to fund regional transit. Reports like these help reinforce the notion — which we agree with — that regions should always have the ability, especially with the blessing of voters, to raise their own revenues to invest in regional transportation needs. We will definitely be keeping Indiana on our “watch list” for 2014.

Another state to watch in 2014 is Washington, where legislators negotiated on transportation funding through mid-December before calling it quits for the year. They promise to resume when the next legislative session begins in January. The current discussion is about increasing the state gas tax, with legislators debating items such as stormwater treatment, how to use the sales taxes collected from transportation projects, and funding for public transportation.

The need is urgent in Washington. Without any increase in state revenue, for example, the bus systems in the Seattle region are facing severe cuts in service that employers and employees depend on, along with fare increases.

A state we also hope will try again is Missouri, where a plan to raise $7.9 billion over 10 years through a penny sales tax passed both the Missouri House and Senate, but was then filibustered at the 11th hour when the Senate took up the package for a final vote. The fact that it was a sales tax was notable because in Missouri, as in many other states, while gas taxes are limited to only funding highway projects, a sales tax can be used for any mode of transportation, giving the state much more flexibility to invest.

Looking back

This movement we saw in 2013 is just the beginning. More and more states are increasingly looking for ways to bring more of their own dollars to the table, as well as making plans to invest in a range of transportation options. For a complete list see our state funding tracker.

The folks on the ground in these towns, cities, and metro areas know how important transportation is to their economic success. And keeping those local economies humming is key to our national economic prosperity.

Other states – and the federal government – need to take a page from their playbook and find a way to invest more money in transportation – it’s vital for our economy. One good place to start the discussion would be with our proposal to raise more revenue for transportation for the price of a weekly coffee and doughnut per commuter.

Tragic bridge collapse in Washington highlights urgent problem of aging and deficient US bridges

For Immediate Release
Contact: Stephen Davis
202-955-5543 x242
202-569-8218
steve.davis@t4america.org

or David Goldberg
202-412-7930

Transportation for America issued the following statement following last night’s collapse of the Interstate 5 bridge over the Skagit River near Mount Vernon, Washington.

“The shocking collapse of a busy Interstate 5 bridge over the Skagit River in Washington State highlights the issue of our country’s aging bridges and what we’re doing to address them. Thankfully, no one was killed or even seriously injured in this collapse, which could not be said about the last high profile bridge collapse in Minnesota.

Nationwide, more than one in ten bridges is rated structurally deficient, in need of close monitoring, urgent repairs, rehabilitation or replacement. We take more than 260 million trips over deficient bridges each day. In just our 102 largest metro areas alone, there are more deficient bridges than there are McDonald’s restaurants in the entire country, 18,000 versus 14,000.

While this particular bridge was not considered structurally deficient at the time of its collapse, it is one of thousands that are well past their intended lifespan and carrying far more traffic than intended at the time they were built. The typical bridge is 43 years old with a design life of 50 years.

Considering that progress on repairing deficient bridges has slowed in the last ten years, Congress took a major gamble in last summer’s new transportation law (MAP-21) by eliminating dedicated funding for repairing highway bridges. Now bridge repair is forced to compete with other transportation needs for funding.

At the same time, our chief source of repair dollars – the federal gas tax – is declining as Americans drive more fuel-efficient cars and fewer miles. Congress urgently needs to address both our funding priorities and how we will pay for them in the face of an aging system and growing population, before the next preventable bridge collapse strands commuters, cripples a local economy and claims lives.”

58-year-old bridge collapses in Washington State on west coast’s most major interstate

Shortly after the evening commute last night (around 7 p.m. local time) an entire section of the Interstate 5 bridge — both north and southbound lanes — over the Skagit River an hour north of Seattle, Washington collapsed and fell into the river, sending two cars tumbling down into the river, injuring three yet miraculously killing no one. One of those who plunged into the river along with his wife called it a “miracle” that no one was killed or more severely injured.

From the Seattle Times:

Rescuers pulled three people with minor injuries from the water after the collapse, which authorities say began when a semitruck with an oversized load struck a steel beam at around 7 p.m.

That caused a massive piece of the northern side of the bridge to wobble, and then fall into the water, taking with it a gold pickup, its travel trailer and an orange SUV.

Rescuers did not believe there was anybody else in the water but were planning a morning search to be sure.

Seattle Times photo by Dean Rutz. Link to gallery of images here.

Perhaps the most amazing part of this story is that on a bridge that carries more than 70,000 cars daily and at a time of day when traffic could be expected to be moderate at the least, only two vehicles fell into the yawning gap and into the water. Along with everyone else, we at T4 America are relieved that no one died in this tragic bridge collapse.

Just like several years ago in Minnesota, attention quickly turned to the bridge itself. So what do we know about it today?

The Interstate 5 bridge over the Skagit River actually predates the creation of Interstate 5. It was built to carry old US 99 over the river in 1955. When Interstate 5 was built in 1957, it largely followed the US 99 corridor and just like many other bridges, this bridge was folded into the interstate system, though it certainly wasn’t built to today’s interstate standards.

Because of that (and likely other design considerations), the bridge was considered “functionally obsolete” by state and federal inspectors, which is a designation that could mean any number of things, none of which have anything to do with structural safety. The lanes could be narrower than today’s standards, the weights allowed could be less than an interstate bridge built today, or built using materials that would be considered obsolete today.

However, the bridge was not considered “structurally deficient” at the time of collapse, which means that a bridge requires repair, rehabilitation or replacement, along with much more regular inspections. To be considered structurally deficient, one of the three major components of a bridge (deck, superstructure, substructure) has to score a 4 or below on a scale of 1-10.

The data in our interactive map is not the most recent release of federal data, but the ratings for this specific bridge have not changed in the federal National Bridge Inventory that was reported in early to mid 2012 by Washington State. WSDOT likely inspected the bridge again sometime in 2012 after they reported annual bridge data to the federal government, and WSDOT is saying publicly today that the bridge was not structurally deficient and was still only considered functionally obsolete.

Here’s the snapshot from our interactive map of U.S. bridges, which you can use to look up the condition of the bridges near any U.S. address.

(Amazingly, you can see that Google Maps has already updated their map to show that Interstate 5 no longer crosses the Skagit River.)

On a list of structurally deficient bridges in Washington compiled by WSDOT in September 2011, this bridge is not included, though there is at least one other nearby Interstate 5 bridge in Snohomish County that is included, built in 1933. (It’s scheduled for repair, per WSDOT.)

It’s hard to accurately describe how crucial this interstate connection is. I-5 runs from Canada to Mexico within the U.S. and touches almost every single major city on the west coast. It’s a vital corridor not only commuters but also for freight traffic — 12 percent of the daily traffic on this bridge was truck traffic. And this is the main route from Seattle up to Vancouver, certainly a direction that many Seattle region residents might have been planning to travel for the long holiday weekend starting this afternoon.

Those plans are surely on hold, and the ripple effect for freight and other travel up and down the west coast will be felt for some time to come as Washington authorities decide how to handle this painful gap in their transportation network.

We will be back later this morning with a short statement, and follow us along on twitter at @t4america for other news and developments.

PS, here’s the cover of the Seattle Times this morning.

Seattle Times bridge collapse cover

Update: this post incorrectly said the bridge 63 years old at first publication. That has been corrected.