A word of warning: this is for those that want to go a little deeper into the specific policies and differences between the two bills. It’s long and fairly wonky.

National Goals & Performance Measures

Senate: The Commerce Committee title establishes national transportation goals and performance measures. It requires states and metro areas to use performance measures in long-range planning and short-term programming processes. It explicitly covers key indicators such as congestion, road condition, reducing environmental impacts, improving the reliability of freight movement, increasing access to transit, and reducing traffic fatalities across all modes.

House: It contains no comprehensive national goals. It requires US DOT to establish a qualitative “national goal” but the intent is unclear. Requires states to establish performance measures for a broad set of target areas.

State of Good Repair

Senate: The Senate bill has strong repair provisions. 60% of the funds in the newly-consolidated highway program are required to be spent on repairing roads and bridges. (Click to enlarge this helpful chart at right — the new consolidated program is at the top right.) It also requires DOT to establish minimum condition levels for roads and bridges and includes penalties for states for not meeting them.

Repairing other non-National Highway System bridges are eligible under the flexible 40% pot of funding — the second blue box from the top on the graphic. States must establish targets for infrastructure condition. (Read this post from our blog for more about repair: A closer look at the Senate’s MAP-21: state of good repair.)

House: The House’s newly-consolidated highway program requires reporting on progress towards state of good repair by states but without similar fixed requirements for spending on repair. There are penalties if a State’s National Highway System or other bridges are very bad (10% of NHS bridge deck area structurally deficient or 15% of off-system bridges are structurally deficient).

Possible House amendment fix:  Boswell 116 establishes minimum standards for National Highway System bridges and requires funds to be spent on bridge repair unless states meet those levels. Boswell 117 requires states with a significant number of federal-aid bridges to spend funds on repairing them.

Planning & Suballocation

Senate: Ties planning to performance-oriented goals and defines scenario planning. Divides metropolitan area planning organizations into tiers according to size. The amount of federal transportation funds given directly to metro areas is roughly equivalent to what they receive under current law, though the actual percentage has decreased.

House: Like the Senate bill, suballocated funds are roughly equivalent though the actual percentage has decreased. The above-mentioned penalties for not meeting minimum bridge requirements could reduce the funds available for metro areas. This bill also allows states (and the Governor) to override local planning decisions for projects on interstates. (See #3 in our list of top ten provisions being opposed in the House bill.)

Possible House amendment fix: Nadler 25 would restore the ability of metro regions to develop a transportation plan that meets their community needs without unilateral amendment by the Governor, addressing part of that #3 from our top ten list.

Public transportation & transit-oriented development

Senate: Continues dedicated funding for public transportation at traditional 20 percent share. Creates some new flexibility to spend federal funds on operations, i.e., keeping buses and trains running, not just buying new equipment. A new transit-oriented development planning program was incorporated into the bill via the Banking title.

House: Original bill ends 30 years of dedicated funding for public transit — read the letter we organized by more than 600 groups and individuals in opposition. Allows loans for transit-oriented development as an eligible expense under the TIFIA loan program. It doesn’t provide large transit operators with any flexibility to spend federal money on operating their transit systems. There’s also a provision to restrict any transit agency that operates a rail system from being eligible for grants that help build bus systems and bus facilities — resulting in unnecessary bureaucracy as large transit agencies split into two agencies to continue receiving those grants.

Read more about that provision in our recent post: Fixing the House Bill: cutting regulatory burdens and bureaucracy.

Possible House amendment fix:  LaTourette/Carnahan 16 would allow all transit agencies to use a portion of their federal transit funding for operating expenses during times of economic crisis. (This amendment is similar to this bill the two representatives offered back in 2011.)

Walking and bicycling, local control of funds

Senate: Due in part to this amendment offered by Senators Cardin and Cochran and incorporated into the bill, MAP-21 consolidates programs for making biking and walking safer (as well as for other small local projects) and gives 50 percent of this consolidated program directly to metro areas. States and metro areas must create a competitive grant process to distribute that funding to local communities that apply. The Commerce Committee title also includes a new Complete Streets provision.

House: Eliminates most dedicated funding for bicycling & walking. Those uses remain “eligible” but without any dedicated funding for them. The bill also deletes numerous references throughout the bill that encourage multimodal projects. The bill retains the Recreational Trails program.

Possible House amendment fix: Petri-Blumenauer 103 creates consolidated program for bike/ped and other local projects and provides local governments access to new consolidated pot of funding.

Rural Issues

Senate: Ensures rural roads are properly considered for safety projects. Provides flexibility to invest in street networks. Consolidates rural and specialized transit programs to ensure that service is better coordinated.

House: Ensures rural roads are properly considered for safety projects. Consolidates rural and specialized transit programs.

Congestion and Air Quality

Senate: Retains the Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality program but with a new focus on PM2.5 (particulate matter 2.5: diesel emissions). Air quality is not included in new statewide planning goals.

House: Moves CMAQ program into the Alternative Transit Account. Allows construction of single occupant vehicle projects with funds. (Read more about this provision in our blog post: Fixing the House bill: reducing air pollution by providing more travel options)

Possible House amendment fix:  Ellison 97/Blumenauer 191 restores CMAQ program to original intent.

Workforce Development

Senate: Requires urban transit agencies to spend a portion of their funds on workforce development activities.

House: No new workforce development provisions.

Passenger Rail

Senate: Requires National, Regional and State comprehensive passenger and freight rail plans, including a Northeast corridor high speed rail plan. Includes Amtrak authorization language and adds eligibility for other high speed rail projects.

House: Includes Amtrak authorization language but with a 20-25% cut in operating funds for Amtrak. No high speed rail funding.

Freight

Senate: Establishes a new national freight program and new national freight strategic plan. Read more about the FREIGHT Act that was incorporated into MAP-21. Allows up to 10 percent of highway freight program and 5 percent of flexible Transportation Mobility Program funds to be spent on rail. States and regions must establish performance targets for freight movement.

House:  No new freight program. Encourages States to form freight plans tied to achieving broad goals. Read more about the freight provisions in the second half of our recent post: Fixing the House Bill: cutting regulatory burdens and bureaucracy.

How can the proposals in our Blueprint help strengthen the economy and create jobs? As we noted in the last post in this series, making our economy more competitive, increasing workforce development opportunities, and improving the efficiency of our transportation system represents one of our six national objectives that must guide our national transportation program.

As a quick refresher: while many of our 10 performances targets line up with this objective, there are two that we believe are particularly important:

• Reduce delay per capita by 10 percent by 2030
• Lower congestion costs by reducing traffic crashes by 50 percent by 2030.

Meeting these goals won’t be easy — it requires us to rethink how we approach our transportation investments, to create an integrated system that balances investments in highways, public transportation, rail, and walking and biking, and to use state-of-the art technology to manage our existing transportation infrastructure.

To see what programs and policies in our Blueprint will help us reach this objectives, keep on reading below the fold.

Reduce congestion with smarter policies and smarter infrastructure

In some of our earlier posts, we’ve talked about how “intelligent transportation systems” — computerized communications networks that feed through our infrastructure — will be essential to improving our transportation system. To support and bolster these efforts, Transportation for America has proposed a new Smart Communities Innovation Program (page 43 in our Blueprint) which would promote the deployment of efforts like congestion pricing or a driving-tax pilot program to help make our system more efficient without simply building more.

Instead of attempting to solve congestion with the construction of more highways, T4 America is also looking to greatly expand investments in public transportation, walking, and biking — through our Multimodal Access Program (pg. 87) and Major Transit Capital Program (pg. 39) — and shift a portion of our freight from highway to rail through our Green Frieghts and Ports Program (pg. 36).

Finally, while an improved safety program is absolutely critical for reducing deaths and injuries on our roads, it can also play an important role in cutting down on congestion and improving the efficiency of our transportation systems. For this reason, we propose a revitalized federal safety program that holds states accountable for demonstrating measurable reductions in deaths and injuries and invests in safety where it’s needed most, for all users of the transportation system.

Develop our transportation workforce

The transportation sector is a critical contributor to our national economy, employing millions of Americans who build and operate the highways, bridges, and transit systems that keep Americans moving.

Though the transportation bill has often supported hundreds of thousands of jobs by paving the way for construction projects across the country, Transportation for America believes that the next bill must help us train the next generation of workers in the transportation sector and provide economic opportunity to populations underrepresented in the workforce.

While current federal law mandates that 1/2 of 1 percent of transportation funds from five separate programs can be used for training, education and workforce development, T4 America supports raising that ceiling to allow states and metro regions to use as much as 1 percent of all federal transportation dollars for these purposes.

Invest for the future

We don’t need to travel across the world to know that countries like China, Spain, or India are building modern, 21st century rail systems and other large-scale transportation projects — we hear about these stories from our own transportation secretary. If the U.S. expects to create strong local economies and remain competitive in the global economy, we need to think big about our transportation system and jumpstart investment in efficient, technologically-advanced projects of the future.

Transportation for America is supporting two essential programs that will lay the groundwork for these investments: our Intercity Passengers Transportation Program (pg. 35) is designed to give people options for quick and efficient travel between large cities by rail or bus by the year 2050 through investment in the corridors that have the greatest demand for travel.

And our Transportation Projects of National Significance Program (pg. 40) will provide targeted funds for the “mega-projects” that cross regional boundaries and bring truly national benefits without favoring any specific mode of transportation over another. To help fund this program, we support the plans by the Obama administration to create a National Infrastructure Bank, a government-owned corporation that could fund these large-scale projects by leveraging private investment.

We’ll return — other big Capitol Hill news permitting — to our Blueprint later on this week with a look at a new objective. Stay plugged in as we unpack T4′s policies for a renewed transportation system.

When President Dwight Eisenhower laid the groundwork for the interstate highway system in 1956, he understood that an efficient, interconnected, well-functioning transportation system is absolutely essential to building a strong national economy.

A successful transportation system ensures that we arrive to work on time, moves goods quickly and efficiently, and employs millions of Americans in well-paying jobs. With our nation facing some of the greatest challenges in recent history, it’s particularly important that we make the right investments now to promote long-term economic growth for the future.

For this reason, one of our six national transportation objectives is to improve economic competitiveness, transportation system efficiency, and workforce development opportunities.

As we’ve discussed in this ongoing series breaking down the blueprint, our six objectives are tied to 10 performance targets — which should be met by 2030 — to help guide our program into the 21st century. While laying the groundwork for a more efficient and competitive economy through better infrastructure is a complex, multi-faceted goal intertwined with our whole transportation system, we believe that two of our performance targets are particularly relevant to this objective:

Traffic congestion puts a huge burden on our nation’s economy, draining $78 billion in production annually through 4.2 billion lost hours and 2.9 billion gallons of wasted fuel, according to the Texas Transportation Institute.

Those of us who have to deal with mind-numbing commutes every day, or see the impacts of endless pile-ups on the movement of goods and freight, know that these numbers don’t begin to tell half the story. While the federal government has historically focused on solving traffic issues and increasing economic output by simply expanding road capacity — a method proven time and time again to fail — Transportation for America advocates fighting some of the root causes of traffic, like highway crashes caused by a lack of focus and accountability on improving safety, limited capacity for public transportation and rail movement, and subsidization of sprawling, outward development.

Flickr photo originally uploaded by Atwater Village Newbie

Improving our economic performance is also about providing Americans with good-paying, green jobs in the transportation sector. Research from the United States Department of Transportation has shown that each billion of federal dollars invested in transportation creates approximately 34,000 jobs.

Congress and the Obama administration acknowledged the role of transportation projects to create jobs in the federal stimulus and invested more than $45 billion in public transportation, highways, high-speed rail, and walking and biking paths as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

While elected officials have often seen the federal transportation legislation as a “jobs bill,” we believe the next transportation bill needs go beyond the status quo by expanding existing provisions to recruit, train, and retain underrepresented workers in transportation construction. The numbers of women and minorities in transportation construction don’t reflect the percentages of those populations in the workforce at large in most regions of the country. Apart from simply creating jobs, this next bill should help create a more diverse, equitable workforce.

Obviously, improving economic performance and competitiveness goes far beyond making our roads less congested or training our workforce for jobs in transportation. It means creating better technology to make infrastructure more efficient; it means connecting small towns and metro areas through vastly expanded high-speed rail; and it means promoting economic growth in towns and cities by creating incentives for transit-oriented development.

In our next post on the Blueprint, we’ll tell you how some of our proposals can help make our transportation system more efficient and competitive to meet these targets.