Abigail Araya, Author at Transportation For America

Why do most pedestrian deaths happen on state-owned roads?

A young man and woman attempt to cross the street on a worn out crosswalk while two cars approach

Ask anyone at a state department of transportation, and they’ll tell you that safety is their top priority. Despite these good intentions, our streets keep getting more deadly. To reverse a decades-long trend of steadily increasing pedestrian deaths, state DOTs and federal leaders will need to fundamentally shift their approach away from speed.

7,522 people were struck and killed while walking in 2022, an average of more than 20 deaths per day. These numbers represent the harsh reality many Americans see on a day-to-day basis: in most places across the U.S., there are few options to travel safely and comfortably outside of a vehicle. When that’s the case, a simple walk to school, work, or the grocery store can mean risking injury or death.

Some of the deadliest roads in the nation are state-owned—often wide, high-speed roadways that place an emphasis on vehicle travel, even as they cut through places where people frequently walk, bike, or roll. However, design changes on these deadly roadways often face pushback from state DOTs—even when those same DOTs claim that safety is their number one priority.

There is a logical disconnect between the way our leaders describe the goals of our roadways and the way our roadways are designed. Despite the stated goal of safety, engineers’ actual top priority is moving cars quickly—as evidenced by measures and models like value of time and level of service.

Years of research have shown that when roads are designed for vehicles to drive as quickly as possible, there are serious consequences for the safety of all other travelers. Yet the same design changes that would improve safety also come up against barrier after barrier to progress.

The change we need from state DOTs

The unfortunate reality is that our traffic engineers have been taught for decades that most problems can be solved with wide, high-speed lanes. Changing that thinking requires a real culture shift, starting at the very top. State DOTs require strong leadership and support to tailor projects to a well-defined problem and evaluate the outcomes of their decisions.

A willingness to rethink old models and reckon with the fact that the go-to solution hasn’t solved many of our transportation problems can go a long way in bringing about a safer travel environment. The good news is that alternative solutions are out there—if state DOTs are willing to give them a try. A select number of state DOTs have already started to implement change by, for example, navigating opportunities to utilize a Complete Streets approach on rural highways or trying out a quick-build demonstration project to boost engagement.

The typical approach to designing our roadways has left safety behind. We can’t curb the danger with more of the same. Going forward, state DOTs will need to think outside of the box to protect everyone traveling on their roads.

Our federal leaders have to be part of the solution

Guidance and regulations from USDOT often set standards that prioritize high-speed vehicle travel, but these same regulations also allow state DOTs to make safer choices if they wish. Unfortunately, practitioners at state DOTs don’t always seem to know they have this flexibility, and even if they are aware, they face additional barriers if they want to use it.

When state DOTs use extra time and effort to overcome these barriers and test out a new safety feature, this gets no notice from the federal government—even if it results in improved safety. In fact, if a state DOT does nothing and allows more people to die on their roadways, that DOT receives the same level of funding and attention as those making effective safety improvements. This creates a system where it is far more practical to maintain the deadly status quo than it is to implement proven safety methods.

Recently, our colleagues at Smart Growth America wrapped up a series of technical assistance projects to build partnerships between local communities and state DOTs and advance safety on state-owned roadways. T4A Director and VP of Transportation and Thriving Communities Beth Osborne reflected on the experience:

We’ve heard through our years of work, including most recently with participants in this program, that state DOT staff often feel left on their own to determine whether a non-traditional safety treatment they may like to try out is permitted by USDOT…even if it has a proven track record of improving safety. There is a great opportunity for federal leaders to work with states, local leaders, and safety and public health partners to foster and support more learning through demonstration projects with proactive new guidance.

For state DOTs to truly prioritize safety over speed, system-wide change is necessary—and they can’t do it alone. USDOT can help by providing affirmative guidance that promotes safety strategies that actually achieve results. Future legislation must also hold states accountable for choosing safety over speed.

It’s Safety Over Speed Week

Click below to access more content related to our first principle for infrastructure investment, Design for safety over speed. Find all three of our principles here.

Three ways quick builds can speed up safety

It will take years to unwind decades of dangerous street designs that have helped contribute to a 40-year high in pedestrian deaths, but quick-build demonstration projects can make a concrete difference overnight. Every state, county, and city that wants to prioritize safety first should be deploying them.
Why do most pedestrian deaths happen on state-owned roads?

Ask anyone at a state DOT, and they’ll tell you that safety is their top priority. Despite these good intentions, our streets keep getting more deadly. To reverse a decades-long trend of steadily increasing pedestrian deaths, state DOTs and federal leaders will need to fundamentally shift their approach away from speed.
Why we need to prioritize safety over speed

Our roads have never been deadlier for people walking, biking, and rolling and the federal government and state DOTs are not doing enough. If we want to fix this, we have to acknowledge the fact that our roads are dangerous and finally make safety a real priority for road design, not just a sound bite.

We can’t afford to keep avoiding repair

When decision-makers fail to prioritize basic maintenance and repair, everyday Americans pay the price—in increased costs, increased time on the road, and suffering local economies. We can’t keep wasting taxpayer dollars without a clear plan to maintain what we’ve already built.

We’ve written a lot about how decision-makers justify spending money on expansions instead of repair, even when we have a $830 billion maintenance backlog on existing highways alone. The idea is that when they add a new lane, they are saving travelers time, primarily by allowing drivers to drive faster. If you’ve been following us for a while, you already know that this logic is fundamentally flawed, but let’s set that aside for a moment.

When we expand roadways at the expense of every other way to travel, we create a transportation system that all but requires owning and driving a personal vehicle for essential trips like going to work, school, or the grocery store. When we then fail to maintain those same roads and bridges, we see travel delays in the form of detours and slowed traffic—delays people must suffer through, because they have no other option.

Because the full transportation system is connected, when one intersection is rendered impassable due to poor maintenance, anyone traveling on the roadways around it can experience disruptions, even if those roads are in perfect condition. If time is money (as transportation officials like to believe), this is reason in itself to invest in more transportation options and maintain our existing infrastructure.

It gets worse

Infrastructure failures also have economic ripple effects. When bridges are closed due to maintenance concerns, changed routes can impact local businesses. Bridge collapses can cost local economies millions and disrupt national supply chains.

This doesn’t even factor in that every dollar we spend on expansion adds to our overall maintenance deficit, as new lanes and bridges have maintenance needs as well. And thanks to induced demand, new lanes often lead to more driving, which leads to even more wear and tear on our roads. These costs, too, will eventually be shouldered by taxpayers.

There are also real, physical costs to poorly maintained roads and bridges. When you don’t maintain the roof of your house, you end up with even more costs as water damages the interior. It’s the same with roads and bridges. Water percolates through cracked and potholed surface pavement leading to worse damage, leading to expensive rebuilds that could have been averted with proper resurfacing and minor repairs. Bridges that aren’t regularly cleaned, sealed and repainted have shorter lifespans leading to more frequent bridge replacements that are very expensive.

Costs accumulate for travelers as well. Driving over potholes risks damage to personal vehicles, which the city and state likely won’t pay. If pavement is in poor condition, risk of crashes can increase. And then there is the physical risk of driving over a poorly maintained bridge, hoping that it won’t collapse. When the Fern Hollow Bridge collapsed in Pittsburgh in 2022 due to lack of maintenance, a bus and six passenger vehicles fell with it, leading to multiple injuries. When a structurally deficient I-35 bridge collapsed in Minneapolis in 2007, 13 people died and 145 more were injured.

You could put it this way: The maintenance costs state and local decision-makers fail to address are all eventually passed on to everyday Americans—to travelers, local business owners, and workers. The costs accumulate in the form of lost time, lost income, damage to personal vehicles, and increased risk of injury. They turn into even more maintenance expenses and higher taxes down the line.

When taxpayer dollars aren’t spent responsibly, we all pay for it, over and over again.

We don’t have the money for this

The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act was a historic investment in our nation’s infrastructure, but without a requirement to fix it first, a substantial portion of those funds went to more roadway expansions without any plan to maintain the roads we’ve already built. The environmental impact alone of these expansions will likely lead to even more maintenance needs in the future.

It’s unlikely we’ll see an investment like that again any time soon, which makes our maintenance needs even more concerning. In the next federal infrastructure investment, congressional leaders need to make sure that taxpayer money gets spent wisely. We simply can’t afford to keep this up.

It’s Fix It First Week

Click below to access more content related to our second principle for infrastructure investment, Fix it first. Find all three of our principles here.

Fix it first in practice

One of our recently launched principles, fix it first, targets maintenance over expansion, advocating for federal highway dollars to be spent repairing old roads and bridges before expanding or building new ones. So, what would it look like in practice to implement this principle into the federal transportation program, to shift our states’ priorities away…
We can’t afford to keep avoiding repair

When decision-makers fail to prioritize basic maintenance and repair, everyday Americans pay the price—in increased costs, increased time on the road, and suffering local economies. We can’t keep wasting taxpayer dollars without a clear plan to maintain what we’ve already built.
It’s time to stop expanding and start maintaining

To reshape our transportation system and address staggering maintenance needs, we must prioritize repairing existing infrastructure before expanding our roadways any further.

Three principles to guide federal transportation spending

T4A's three principles for transportation funding are Safety over Speed, Fix It First, and Invest in the Rest

It’s time for transportation investments that achieve results for all Americans. For future investments in U.S. infrastructure, Congress should follow three key principles: prioritize safety over speed, fix it first, and invest in the rest.

We’ve released our three principles for future federal investments in our nation’s infrastructure. Learn more about them at t4america.org/platform.

Federal transportation policy has very serious problems to solve. Our roads, bridges, transit, sidewalks, bikeways, and rail systems are in disrepair; congestion has increased; pedestrian fatalities and emissions are the highest in decades, and rising; and too many people lack safe, affordable, and convenient access to jobs and essential services.

For too long, Congress has thrown more funding at the problem, hoping that spending more dollars on the same thing will lead to different results. However, all this money has only continued to make our problems worse. As Congress makes decisions about limited taxpayer funds, it’s time that they invest smarter, prioritizing our dollars to create a transportation system that works for the average American.

With the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act expiring in 2026, the next surface transportation reauthorization, a significant federal investment in our nation’s infrastructure, will be top of mind for the next Congress. Based on the results of the last reauthorization (and the one before that, and the one before that), it is clear that we need a fundamental change in approach. That’s why we’re calling on Congress to update the decades-old federal transportation program to design for safety over speed, prioritize maintenance, and invest in the full transportation system, including opportunities to walk, bike, and take public transit.

Invest in the rest

For more than half a century, we’ve invested hundreds of billions of dollars into building a sophisticated highway system that attempts to connect everyone to everything everywhere—by car. We’ve completed a highway system that was once the envy of the world, but now that same system is failing to meet today’s needs. Imagine what we could achieve if we applied the same level of funding and energy into investing in more options to get people where they need to go.

Past road projects destroyed walkable communities or eliminated walking as an option. Investments in highways have drastically outpaced transit investments, with roughly 80 percent of federal transportation money going to highways since the 1980s while only 20 percent has gone to public transportation. As a result, most Americans have to travel by car to get where they need to go—whether or not they want to or can afford to—which leads to more traffic, more lanes, and more harmful climate emissions.

It’s time for Congress to invest in the rest of our transportation system, which has been neglected for far too long, and bring the freedom of choice back to everyday Americans trying to get where they need to go as conveniently, safely, and affordably as possible.

It’s Invest in the Rest Week! In our next three posts, we’ll be diving into this principle and why it should be a top priority in federal transportation spending. Check out the first post here for more on this new T4A principle.

Safety over speed

Ask any member of Congress, and they’ll tell you that they believe our roads should be safe for all travelers. Yet federal investments in transportation have made our roads deadlier. In 2022, the number of people hit and killed while walking reached a 40-year high.

This is because our transportation models and policies prioritize the speed of vehicles over the safety of all road users. High-speed car travel makes sense in some environments, like on interstates or limited access highways. However, when fast-moving cars encounter people walking and biking on our local roadways, crashes, injuries, and deaths become far more likely. When it comes to roads like these, we have to choose between vehicle speed and the safety of all road users—we can’t have both.

Fix it first

There is an $830 billion backlog for repairing existing U.S. highways alone. The entire federal program spends about $50 billion per year, so even if we devoted 100 percent of all federal money to maintenance for ten straight years, we’d still be unable to fully address this backlog. This does not even account for the costs of maintaining and preserving the additional roads and bridges that we continue to build.

Our congressional leaders are well aware of this deficit. In fact, when they are determining how many taxpayer dollars to devote to our nation’s infrastructure, the need for maintenance is always top-of-mind. However, when states go to spend those dollars, they almost always prioritize costly highway expansion projects over needed repairs. And despite the clear public desire to see maintenance needs addressed, there is no federal requirement that they spend these funds any other way.

We can’t continue to build more roads and bridges if we can’t take care of the ones that already exist. Our federal funding needs to be focused on achieving a state of good repair.

For decades, Congress has poured money into the same flawed system. We’ve seen the results of that strategy. It’s time to make smarter investments in our transportation system. Starting now, we will continue to engage our congressional leaders to advance these three principles—and in the year ahead, we’ll be calling on you for help.

Press statement: Funding approved for the return of passenger rail in Mobile

City councilmembers in Mobile, Alabama have removed a barrier to passenger rail’s return in the Coastal South.

Today, the City Council of Mobile, Alabama voted to advance the long-awaited return of passenger rail on the Gulf Coast by approving a long-term lease and funding agreements with Amtrak and the Alabama Port Authority.

“This is a victory not only for Mobile but for every city and small town served by this route,” said John Robert Smith, Chair of Transportation for America. “I applaud the City of Mobile for removing the final roadblock to the return of passenger rail service along the Gulf Coast. This victory will improve economic mobility, connect communities across the Deep South, and set an example for the expansion of passenger rail across the country.”

“Long seen as a bellwether, the return of service to the Gulf Coast has revealed what’s possible, building momentum for a national passenger rail network,” continued Smith.

“Finally, this would not be possible without the instrumental support and leadership of our partners from the Southern Rail Commission; the Surface Transportation Board, which secured a historic settlement agreement among CSX, Norfolk Southern, Amtrak, and the Port; and the Federal Railroad Administration, which not only supported the CRISI grant but provided strong support before the STB. Finally, we would be remiss without thanking Senator Roger Wicker, who has been a tireless champion of passenger rail along the Gulf Coast from the beginning.”

Operating funding for this route, which will span from New Orleans, LA to Mobile, AL was sent off course when Alabama Governor Kay Ivey opposed funding, requiring the City of Mobile to come up with the funds for this vital service. Through an agreement between the Alabama Port Authority, the State of Alabama, and the City Council, roughly $3 million in funding has now been promised to Amtrak for the next three years, marking essential progress for the return of service. These funds build upon a $178.4 million grant previously awarded by the Federal Railroad Administration.

This change would not be possible without strong partnerships, and collaboration will continue to be essential as Amtrak begins track upgrades and infrastructure improvements to pave the way for the return of service, which we hope to see begin as soon as possible.

Learn more about the history of passenger rail and the return of service to the Gulf Coast
In recognition of recent progress for passenger service in the Coastal South, we published a four-part series exploring how unified regional and national approaches, supported by local advocacy and sound policy, can help create a successful passenger rail network.

Read the series here >>

T4A Director Beth Osborne sets the record straight on federal regulation & oversight

A woman with shoulder-length dark hair wearing glasses and a maroon top speaks into a microphone. Behind her are wooden benches and a yellow wall

In testimony to the House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee, Beth Osborne explained how our current approach to transportation is failing average Americans and what steps need to be taken to build a system that responds to taxpayer needs.

Transportation for America Director Beth Osborne was invited to speak before the House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee today during a hearing on the United States Department of Transportation’s regulatory and administrative agenda. In her testimony, she highlighted that current federal investments are failing to achieve their intended results, arguing for stronger accountability for the American taxpayer.

“The point is that federal spending and what we get for it is not regulated nor is there much oversight. There is very little transparency into where funding is allocated and there is rarely a report on whether a project delivered any of the benefits that were promised.”
—Beth Osborne

She also noted that the few regulations that are in place are slowing innovation, particularly for safe streets. Smart Growth America’s Dangerous by Design report found that pedestrian fatalities reached a 40-year high in 2022, concluding that designing for safety over speed would help save thousands of lives. However, street design engineers at the state and local level regularly cite federal rules and standards as the reason they cannot narrow lane widths, add color in the roadway, or slow traffic speeds.

Every five to seven years, our nation’s leaders funnel more taxpayer dollars into our transportation system, hoping that this time more money for the same old approach will lead to different results. Each and every time, they have been proven wrong. As transportation emissions rise and deaths on our roadways increase, accountability to the American people is long overdue.

Read Beth Osborne’s full testimony here.

Dangerous by Design 2024: Deaths of people walking up 75% since 2010

The 2024 edition of Dangerous by Design is out now, combining federal data with lived experience to unpack the connection between roadway design and the ever-increasing record deaths of people walking. The report ranks the most dangerous metros in the United States based on pedestrian fatalities from 2018 to 2022. Click here to access the report’s analysis of the deadliest metro areas and national trends > >

The number of people struck and killed on our roadways continues to rise—reaching 7,522 in the latest available federal reporting, a 75 percent increase since 2010. That’s an average of more than 20 per day. We found that almost every metro in the U.S. was deadlier for people walking in 2022 than in 2021.

Smart Growth America’s rankings of 101 metro areas show that nearly every metro has gotten more dangerous—and those that didn’t get worse have remained about the same.

This year, Memphis was ranked the deadliest city for pedestrians. 344 people died from 2018-2022, an increase of 158 deaths compared to the previous five-year period.

As in previous editions of the report, Smart Growth America found that Black and Indigenous Americans, older adults, and people walking in low-income communities still face the greatest risk.

Read the first installment of the report here to learn more about this year’s metro rankings and how pedestrian deaths impact people from different metro areas, races and ethnicities, income levels, and ages. And stay tuned for upcoming Dangerous by Design releases this summer, sharing analysis for states and congressional districts.

Celebrating 20 years of Complete Streets

A calm tree-lined street in Brooklyn, NY hosts one lane of car traffic, a bike lane, street parking, and a median to shorten the crosswalk distance for pedestrians.

The term “Complete Streets” was coined two decades ago, and while a lot of progress has been made, the fight for safe streets is far from over. To commemorate 20 years of the Complete Streets movement, we’ve rounded up some resources that can help you keep up the fight.

Barbara McCann, the current Senior Advisor to the Associate Administrator for Safety at the Federal Highway Administration (and the first Founding Director of the National Complete Streets Coalition) wrote a blog post to commemorate Complete Streets’ 20-year anniversary.

Thousands of planners, engineers, and others in government, consulting, and public interest groups have worked … to make safety for all users routine in policies and in practice. Now more than 1,700 Complete Streets policies are remaking transportation projects across the country.
—Barbara McCann

But we know this work is far from over. One of our three guiding principles at Transportation for America is safety over speed, a rule that we hope will guide decision makers to reduce the speed of vehicles and prioritize the safety of people walking and rolling to their essential destinations. And while some key safety programs passed in the 2021 infrastructure law, the federal spending bill left even more money available for the deadly status quo, which means we’ll need to keep advocating for safer streets at the local, state, and federal levels in the years ahead.

Our colleagues at the National Complete Streets Coalition (NCSC) are doing the same—and arming advocates with tools to join the movement. Take a look at some of their most recent resources.

1. Policy Action Guide

In partnership with CityHealth, NCSC produced this guide to equip planners and practitioners with practical resources for overcoming barriers and navigating the complexities of policy implementation. From building coalitions to crafting compelling narratives, it offers a comprehensive toolkit for effecting change at the state and local level. Access it here.

2. Complete Streets Story Map

Spread the word about the Complete Streets movement. Whether you’re a planner, engineer, advocate, or new to the smart growth space, the Complete Streets story map (produced in partnership with CityHealth) can serve as an interactive tool that breaks down what makes a Complete Street and why they’re important. The tool also features two case studies—Pittsburgh, PA and Milwaukee, WI—that demonstrate how these communities achieved their Complete Streets vision. Learn more here.

3. Policy Evaluation Tool

NCSC evaluates and scores Complete Streets policies across the country using their Policy Framework (updated just last year). Now, advocates and policymakers can do the same, using a free and open-source tool to evaluate existing or drafted local, MPO, or state-level Complete Streets policies. Use the tool.

There’s more to come

Smart Growth America will soon release a summary of their 2023 Complete Streets Leadership Academies, where they partnered with states and local communities to implement safe street design on state-owned roadways. Stay tuned to see what they learned from this year-long technical assistance project in communities across the country—and keep following us here for more opportunities to advance street safety where you live.

Sizing up deadly vehicles

To check the ever-increasing danger on our nation’s roadways, Transportation for America joined a coalition of advocates to call for stronger federal assessments of large vehicles. Read our comment letter.

A large truck closely follows a cyclist on a busy roadway in San Francisco

Photo by Mujtaba Naquib

More than 6,500 people walking were struck and killed in 2020, and the Governors Highway Safety Association projects that even more were killed in 2021, a sign that our streets continue to be dangerous for people traveling outside of a vehicle. As we wrote in Dangerous by Design, deadly street design, which prioritizes vehicle speed over pedestrian safety, is a key factor to these deaths, and people of color, particularly Black and Native Americans, face the worst consequences of dangerous design.

In a contributing essay, America Walks explained how vehicle size also plays a role in the likelihood that a pedestrian will die when struck by a vehicle. Ever-larger vehicles, and increasingly aggressive drivers, have an impact on the safety on our nation’s roadways. However, federal safety ratings have long ignored how vehicle designs impact the safety of people outside of the vehicle. That will soon change.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has proposed an update to the New Car Assessment Program (NCAP) that would aim to acknowledge the danger the vehicle could pose to pedestrians and other road users outside of the car. The current five-star safety rankings, which evaluate the safety of only the people inside the vehicle, will remain in effect. However, NHTSA proposed adding a “pass” or “fail” symbol to represent danger for people outside of a vehicle.

We joined a coalition of advocates, led by the National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO), to submit comments on this proposed update, which highlighted the following suggestions to strengthen NHTSA’s update:

Any vehicle that receives a failing grade for pedestrian crashworthiness should be ineligible for a 5-star rating.
Adopt a 5-star scoring system for pedestrian crashworthiness, rather than a pass/fail system.
Consider evaluating pedestrian crashworthiness at speeds higher than 25 mph in addition to at or below 25 mph.
Incorporate information about other vehicle safety features that are proven to protect people outside of vehicles into the rating system, and ensure no vehicle receives a 5-star rating if it doesn’t include those features.

This update is a start, but with an ever-increasing number of traffic fatalities each year, the current proposal fails to properly communicate the danger large vehicles pose to people walking and rolling. We’ll continue to call for safer streets for all travelers, whether they’re in or out of a car.

Read our comment letter

Reconnecting Communities awards advance needed change

This morning, the Biden administration announced the first awards for the Reconnecting Communities Program. $185 million will fund 45 projects designed to address harms caused by divisive infrastructure. In response, T4A director Beth Osborne released the following statement:

“We commend USDOT for this commitment to reconnecting communities, a brand new concept for federal infrastructure dollars. The first round of awards is an encouraging list of projects to repair divides across the country, from Alaska to Puerto Rico, and in communities large and small, opening the door for greater economic opportunity and safer travel.

“With 435 applications received, there is clearly a huge demand for funds to repair and reconnect divides caused by harmful infrastructure projects. There are a wide variety of efforts listed, including removing highway ramps, turning high-speed roads into safer streets, highway redesigns and caps, and pedestrian tunnels. With such a range, the success of these projects will be an important lesson for future awards. With just $1 billion available over five years, the administration will need to continue to think carefully about which projects will maximize the program’s impact. Only six projects received capital funds for substantially advancing a project—signifying both the challenges in planning and advancing these projects, and the sheer limitations of the available funding.

“USDOT said today that reconnecting communities is not just a program, but a principle. USDOT will need to use every dollar and tool at their disposal to advance that principle which is being undermined by other state and metro transportation projects advanced by last year’s infrastructure law. Even as this modest but welcome $185 million will advance some exciting projects to restore communities, states are right now planning billions on projects that can further divide and segment communities. The Reconnecting Communities Program should be the tip of the spear for ushering in a new paradigm for the rest of the federal transportation program.”

Sparking Progress: A new report on our electric future

The federal government provided billions of dollars to make transportation cleaner and greener. But to reduce emissions, we need to do more than spend money on the same tired solutions. A new report from the Coalition Helping America Rebuild and Go Electric (CHARGE) explains how federal investments can advance equity and clean energy goals.

*A King County Metro bus charges at the Transit South Base charging facility. Flickr/Seattle Department of Transportation*

To avoid the most harmful impacts of climate change, the time to reduce emissions is now. And when it comes to transportation (the largest contributor to U.S. greenhouse gas emissions), policymakers have an opportunity to make significant progress. After all, two massive infusions of federal cash have provided states with a wealth of resources to advance their emissions goals.

President Biden’s Justice40 Initiative pledges at least 40 percent of the overall benefits of federal clean energy investments to underserved communities. The $1.2 trillion infrastructure law and $500 billion Inflation Reduction Act can both support a more equitable, cleaner, healthier, and more affordable transportation future. However, conventional methods of reducing transportation emissions—namely, incentivizing the production and purchase of private electric vehicles—are insufficient to meet our nation’s goals and would likely leave Justice40 communities behind. Find out why investing in electric vehicles alone won’t advance equity.

As a new report from the CHARGE Coalition explains, there’s a better approach—one that will not only reduce emissions but ensure that the benefits of pollution-free transportation will improve the health and economic well-being of a large number of people. Federal policy and investment can help move the needle by prioritizing three key areas.

1. Public transit

Transit is a longstanding, low-emissions travel option that has suffered across the country due to a lack of investment. Increasing public transit investments into operations, e-fleets, reliability, maintenance facilities, and workforce development will also boost the number of trips people take outside of a private vehicle—lowering emissions.

See how investing in transit operations can reduce private vehicle trips and lower emissions.

2. Electric vehicle charging infrastructure

Garage access shouldn’t be a prerequisite to electric vehicle access. Decision makers can ensure our emerging charging network is developed to be seamless and efficient, supports all types of mobility, is located strategically, and effectively serves people in multi-unit dwellings as well as stand-alone houses, as well as car-share, rental and business fleets.

Learn more about what smart EV infrastructure could look like.

3. Medium- and heavy-duty vehicles

The report also looks at opportunities to spur the conversion of our most polluting vehicles to zero emissions, reducing carbon while sparing the health of all Americans, especially for low-income and communities of color that are disproportionately harmed by air pollution from diesel-powered vehicles.

Click here to read the report.

Case studies throughout the report offer examples of initiatives deserving of federal support and that can serve as national models to meet the needs in the above three areas. The report also includes additional topics to consider in electrifying our transportation system, including the rise of micromobility—e-bikes, scooters, and myriad other battery-powered devices—and the need to make significant investments in our electric grid.

The report recommendations are defined through the Coalition Helping America Rebuild and Go Electric (CHARGE) coalition’s principles, which were developed in partnership with 50 of the most influential clean transportation stakeholder groups in the country. Learn more about CHARGE here.

How to engage with new elected leaders

New state and federal leaders will take office in January. Where they stand on transportation will have a significant impact on the future of mobility in America. Here’s how you can engage with your new elected officials to help improve our transportation system in coming years.

The federal government hands states hundreds of millions of dollars on an annual basis, with few strings attached. Governors, state legislators, and local leaders have a great deal of money to deliver the projects, services, and results that voters demand.

Yet the goals of state transportation programs are often misaligned with voter priorities. For example, a recent report from the National Cooperative Highway Research Program showed that by one measure, states use less than four percent of flexible federal dollars on transit, even though they could spend much more. Learn more on TransitCenter’s blog.

Too often, state leaders focus spending on only one result: eliminating congestion. This approach overlooks voter concerns like equity, maintenance, safety, and climate emissions—and by the time decision makers get around to addressing those issues, they’ve spent a great deal of money and time on roadway expansions. (And these expensive new lanes often fill with more traffic, thanks to a process called “induced demand.” We wrote about this costly cycle in our report The Congestion Con.)

We don’t have to settle for more of the same. With new leaders headed into office, advocates have an opportunity to change this old pattern and help create a better transportation system for their community.

New governors can steer the transportation system in the right direction by providing clear instructions on the goals of the state transportation program so that the transportation department can start making progress on those priorities. In addition, governors can choose strong leadership in their own office, the state DOT, and in some cases, the transportation commission that oversees the DOT. The governor should choose leaders that understand the transportation program and are motivated to make needed changes.

Though often overlooked, local leaders, like mayors, might be the most crucial stakeholders in transportation decision-making. When pushes for smart transportation in communities succeed, it’s often due to support from local leaders who lobby for the project on the state and federal level and bring other elected officials to the table.

Finally, the federal government still has an important role to play. The authorized funding levels set in the infrastructure law aren’t guaranteed, and we’ve already seen federal policymakers underfund transit and defund certain active transportation programs. The Biden administration also makes the final calls on competitive grant funding, determining which projects will benefit from key funding programs like the Reconnecting Communities Program. By making these decisions, the administration can help ensure federal dollars are advancing the President’s goals, including enhancing equity in the transportation system.

With critical decisions happening at all three levels of government, engaging with new leaders can feel like a daunting task. These three pieces of advice can help you maximize your influence to achieve connected, healthy, equitable communities.

Check in early and often

As their constituent, you have unique power to educate elected officials on the challenges and opportunities that impact the transportation space. State and local leaders will ultimately determine how much funding will go to projects and programs near you, including safety improvements, transit, and highway expansions. Engage with them early to develop an understanding of how and when transportation funding will be used and let them know what your priorities are. Take part in public comment and review periods to encourage them to make the right calls on key policy, investment, and implementation actions.

There are many ways you can reach out to your elected leaders, including joining sign-on letters, engaging with their social media, writing them a letter, calling them up, and even visiting their offices. If they start to move the needle in the right direction, don’t forget to praise them.

Invite your state leaders to join the State Legislator Champions Institute so that they can become effective Complete Streets advocates. Learn more about the Institute here and join an information session on December 6 at 3 p.m. ET.

Find the linchpins

Government decision making happens in phases. Elected officials set their priorities, identify issues and approaches to addressing them, create a plan (including time, resources, and budget parameters), and seek input on their budget, policy, or implementation decisions. Once these steps of the process are complete, they’ll evaluate their progress on their priorities and begin the process again.

When having conversations with elected leaders, seek out information about where they’re at in the process and tailor your asks to the present moment. Find out when public hearings are scheduled and attend them. Get in touch with your local advocacy organizations and follow their lead. Finally, don’t be afraid to point out if important details were missed at an earlier stage of the process (as activist Michael Moritz did in Texas).

T4A members receive regular updates on opportunities for advocacy on the Hill. Learn more about T4A membership here.

Look for common ground

Our transportation needs are frequently touted as bipartisan concerns, and for good reason. The success of our transportation system has a direct impact on every constituent, influencing economic vitality, public health, climate emissions, and everyone’s ability to access the goods and services they need.

Often, elected officials enter office without a clear understanding of how the transportation system can help them reach their goals. By making these connections clear, you can create strong allies, even with leaders who initially disagree with you.

Transportation for America Chair John Robert Smith had just that experience when he brought passenger rail to Meridian, MS—he found that Republican politicians, opposed to passenger rail, were willing to support his project once he explained its economic benefits. To further build support, he humanized the issue by bringing decision makers face to face with constituents to explain how passenger rail impacts them.

The bottom line

It’s not uncommon for federal, state, and local elected leaders to lack a strong understanding of our infrastructure needs. But decision makers at all levels need to know that the transportation program can help them deliver on key issues for their constituents, regardless of their political affiliation. By engaging with your new leaders, you can help them make progress on climate, safety, equity, access, and repair goals.

How to present at an unconference

TransportationCamp DC is coming back as a hybrid event on January 7, 2023. This “unconference” is a place where attendees get to set the agenda and lead the conversation. Here are the top 4 pieces of advice for people interested in proposing a session.

*Campers propose sessions at TransportationCamp DC*

At TransportationCamp, every attendee has the opportunity to propose and lead a session on a topic that matters most to them. But how should you decide, and what makes for an engaging session? Read advice from our team and past session leaders below.

In-person attendees propose sessions the morning of the event. Virtual attendees will propose sessions in December. Have a ton of ideas that you can’t wait to share, or are you just eager to hear what other people come up with? We’ll share session previews from our sponsors before the event to give you a sense of where the conversation can go. Register today so you don’t miss a thing.

1. Start brainstorming now

A lot’s changed since our last Camp, including the challenges our transportation system needs to overcome. Transit agencies continue to recover from pandemic shifts. Federal dollars can boost transportation equity, but there’s even more money available to make equity issues worse. States are tasked with building out their EV infrastructure, and a proposed federal rule would require states to monitor their greenhouse gas emissions created by transportation. Plus, there are new opportunities available to explore the role technology can play in improving our system.

Want to talk about these national trends, but not sure where to start? Last year Anna Zivarts, Director of the Disability Mobility Initiative at Disability Rights Washington, co-led a session called “A Quarter of Us Can’t Drive: How BIPOC & Disabled Nondrivers Will Change Transportation.” Her advice: “It’s always good to ground your discussions in stories from people who are most impacted by the work.”

2. Bring in more viewpoints

“The best panels evidence diverse thought—find people with a different perspective and invite them,” said Steven Polunsky, Senior Energy Policy Specialist in Clean Transportation at the Washington State Department of Commerce, and a session leader for “Electric Vehicles Pros and Cons” at last year’s TransportationCamp.

The early morning at TransportationCamp can feel like pandemonium as Campers share their session ideas and forge connections with others who could help lead the session. Whether you’re joining us in person or online, bring in more perspectives and strengthen your idea by pulling in another Camper to get the conversation rolling. Give folks a head’s up in advance and ask them to join you at TransportationCamp.

Social media can be a useful tool to share ideas and build connections. Join our LinkedIn event and tweet out your plans with #TransportationCampDC.

3. Make it fun!

TransportationCamp is known for out-of-the-box thinking and creative sessions. We’ve seen shark tank-style sessions, mock trials, and even a shared mobility caucus. Sessions often come with memorable names, like “WTF Does That Mean?” (on using plain language in transportation advocacy) and “Cage Fight!” (a debate over whether electrification or modeshift had a better chance of addressing climate change).

*Campers participate in a shared mobility caucus*.

“TransportationCamp is a great opportunity for the young and young-at-heart to come together, throw ideas on the wall, and see what sticks,” said Benito Pérez, T4A Director of Policy and a former session leader. “In our schools, firms, and other professional areas, we might find ourselves in an echo chamber. TransportationCamp gives us the opportunity to jump out of the box, hear from new perspectives, and maybe walk away with changed minds—or at least new respect and awareness of different points of view.”

Past session leaders also urge future leaders to boost the conversation by being open and considerate to the multitude of perspectives in the room. “Be open to different viewpoints. The key word here is ‘and’ not ‘but,’” said Polunsky. “Remember that some people don’t process groups well. Be gentle when redirection is needed.”

4. Jump in

You don’t have to be an expert to host a session. In fact, some of our best sessions have come from people who have a question to ask. A former TransportationCamp DC organizer, Jenna Fortunati, put it best when she described the power these sessions can hold.

Here’s an example of why TransportationCamp is so special to me: [at TransportationCamp DC 2019], my mom hosted a session. She’s a city council member in my hometown, and was worried (rightly so) that a street widening project in our neighborhood would increase vehicle speeds. She needed advice from Campers on street designs she could propose that would keep speeds low.
And the Campers delivered: a group of about 10 urban planners, engineers, and students brainstormed that the best solution to my mom’s problem was a small roundabout. And that’s exactly what my hometown decided to build when my mom brought the idea back home.

TransportationCamp is the place to air out your concerns, explore new ideas, and share your point of view.

“Don’t be afraid to post a session—you may not be the most expert in the topic but your unique perspective may be the most valuable to potential attendees. Your strength is your experience,” added Polunsky. “Lead with that.”

Excited to attend TransportationCamp? Space is limited, so register today to secure your spot. We’ll see you there!

No time to lose: Federal rule ready to boost awareness of transportation emissions

10/14 Update: Comments are now closed. More than 60,000 comments on a new rule to measure greenhouse gases from transportation were submitted to USDOT during a comment period that closed on 10/13. Comments in favor outweighed those opposed by more than 3,000 to 1. If the Biden administration moves forward, this new rule could reestablish sunlight and accountability for transportation’s impact on climate change. Here’s what’s next for the proposed measure.

Note 10/24: The FHWA’s final count of comments and submissions is 62,319, but some submissions included more than one comment, which means the actual number of comments is likely higher. A coalition of advocates determined that over 100,000 comments were submitted in favor of the rule.

States were recently granted a historic amount of federal transportation funds, which provides a great deal of flexibility in how states can use their funds. Even though transportation is the largest contributor to U.S. greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, states currently have no requirement to track their projects’ impacts on transportation climate emissions. The proposed GHG emissions measure would reestablish this requirement, previously rolled back under the Trump administration, and help states and MPOs take climate concerns into account in their spending decisions.

Find out how this rule and state actions can reduce emissions here.

Black and brown communities are disproportionately impacted by climate change, and the Biden administration set a goal to advance environmental justice. Justice40 aims to deliver 40 percent of the benefits of federal climate and clean energy investments to communities of color. (For more information about Justice40, read our past blog post.) However, without any sort of tracking in place at the state level for GHG emissions, any Justice40 benefits for marginalized communities could be dwarfed by the consequences of unchecked emissions levels rising overall.

So far, the rule is experiencing a wave of support from advocates, organizations, concerned citizens, and even state DOTs.

However, once comments close, the Biden administration will have to decide what happens next.

Many states are willing and prepared to take on the urgency of the moment. We wrote last month that 24 states and the District of Columbia already have emissions tracking rules in place, some that are more aggressive than what the federal government is proposing. In addition, the FHWA can and should commit to providing tools and best practices to states and MPOs to help them meet their GHG reduction targets. The USDOT can also shed more light on state emissions by providing accessible, user-friendly data for state and regional policymakers, whose job is to ensure that state transportation decisions align with voters’ priorities.

Urgency is needed. The reestablishment of this commonsense measure was one of the first actions we called on the Biden administration to take when they took office. It has been a long time coming, and we are pleased to see an end in sight. Now the administration must be careful not to delay the rule further. The federal funds granted under the 2021 infrastructure law have already started flowing into states’ hands, and shovels are hitting the ground. States are currently making decisions about long-term transportation projects that could make emissions worse. To set them up for success, the administration should finalize the rule quickly and require states’ GHG targets be set within 6 months of the final rule. Failure to act will only move the administration further from its goals and our country further from reducing transportation impacts on climate change.

Comments are now closed. Read more about the rule on NACTO’s site here.

Read our comment.

Here’s what you need to know about the Inflation Reduction Act

A Black man crosses a street without a crosswalk carrying grocery bags

The Senate passed the Inflation Reduction Act, a budget reconciliation package that includes some portions of President Biden’s Build Back Better agenda. This is the largest climate investment in U.S. history, and programs in it will help Americans save money and stay safe on our streets. Here’s what you need to know as the bill awaits the President’s signature.

It’s a surprise that we even got a bill

It’s been a while since we wrote about the Build Back Better Act, the previous attempt to pass some of these provisions, so here’s a quick recap:

Congress removed climate-focused investments when the new infrastructure law passed with the hope of including these funds in a reconciliation bill, the Build Back Better Act. However, once those investments were cut from the infrastructure law, those in favor lost any leverage they had to include them in separate legislation, especially since there are restrictions that bar Congress from approving multiple programs that accomplish the same task.

When the Build Back Better Act finally made it to the Senate floor, Senators Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) refused to vote in favor of it. As negotiations stalled repeatedly, it became clear that the Build Back Better Act was dead.

However, in late July, new legislation appeared seemingly out of nowhere. The Inflation Reduction Act was a deal struck between Senator Chuck Schumer and Senator Manchin. Noticeably lacking the transit, biking and walking investments climate advocates had hoped to see, this reconciliation package still carried some portions of the Build Back Better Act. Though this package largely preserves the car-based status quo, there are a few wins for transportation, which we note in the section below.

Support for safety, access, equity, and reducing emissions

$3 billion in this package goes to a brand new program called Neighborhood Access and Equity Grants, which help mitigate the danger of overbuilt arterial roadways, especially in underserved areas. This is by far the biggest win.

These grants can be used to redesign roadways to make them safer, providing more mobility options for community residents. In addition, these changes can help alleviate the negative health impacts of living near heavily-trafficked roads by diverting travel to other, less polluting modes of transportation like walking, biking, and rolling. Unlike the Reconnecting Communities Program, these funds can go beyond connecting across highways and railroads to allow redesigning big roadways that create division due to the danger in crossing.

As we said in our statement after the Inflation Reduction Act was released: “By providing funds to redesign these roadways, these grants can help to connect the community, support local economic development, save people money on gas by allowing them to get out of their cars, close an obstacle to economic opportunity and, in the process, save lives.”

Safe, walkable communities are in high demand, and their scarcity makes them expensive places to live. To help ensure that the people who live near divisive or dangerous infrastructure will be able to benefit from any improvements, these grants also help fund anti-displacement efforts in economically disadvantaged communities impacted by redesign projects. $1.1 billion of these grants are specifically designated for economically disadvantaged communities, and to qualify for funding, the areas must have an anti-displacement policy and a community land trust or community advisory board in effect. After decades of making infrastructure decisions without substantial community input, the program encourages decision-makers to involve community members in the planning process. Decision-makers must also include a plan to employ local residents in the redesign process.

Because these grants are embedded in U.S. Code, they go beyond the temporary pilot programs (like Reconnecting Communities) introduced in the infrastructure law to address safety, access, climate, and equity, helping to ensure that these issues can be addressed for years to come.

Additionally, the budget reconciliation package includes clean vehicle tax credits to encourage the transition to electric vehicles. The existing clean vehicle credit is now amended to include not only plug-in electric vehicles but fuel cell vehicles as well. The credit applies to new, used, commercial, and heavy-duty vehicles. Unfortunately, the amended credit adds restrictions on eligibility based on vehicle and battery assembly, which would make many current U.S. electric vehicles ineligible for the credit and make them all ineligible in the coming years (unless EV manufacturers make significant changes). $3 billion is available to support the manufacturing of these vehicles.

The tax credit also extends to USPS vehicles, both purchasing an electric fleet and infrastructure to support the new vehicles. We’ve been advocating for the electrification of heavy-duty vehicles and USPS vehicles with the CHARGE Coalition because these vehicles are responsible for a significant portion of transportation emissions.

Unlike the infrastructure law’s investments, the Inflation Reduction Act’s funds go beyond infrastructure. Keep an eye on Smart Growth America’s blog for more information on the land-use investments that will further help tackle the climate crisis.

The status quo strikes again

This bill will be the largest climate investment in U.S. history. However, when it comes to transportation, overall the bill does almost nothing to counter the infrastructure law, which provided more funding for the same broken status quo approach that led to such high transportation emissions in the first place. Transit is entirely absent. While there are billions for new electric cars, there are no tax credits for e-bikes, which currently outsell electric cars and trucks and have incredible potential to replace car trips entirely and expand who can ride a bike. Yet Congress is still focusing entirely on vehicles, and electric vehicles alone will not dig us out of our current climate crisis. We need electric vehicles, and we need to allow people to drive less overall. The Inflation Reduction Act invests heavily in the former while mostly ignoring the latter.

It’s good to see progress on climate.

This has got to be the 1st step, though. We have so much work to do for the environment—stopping the drilling before it begins, giving people alternatives to auto dependency, building more green, affordable housing. The fight moves on. https://t.co/dxtmUM0aTg
— Yonah Freemark (@yfreemark) August 7, 2022

Let this be a lesson to our Congressional leaders. We can’t continue treating transportation as separate from climate. The infrastructure bill is a climate bill, whether it helps or hurts. And if Congress wants to reduce transportation emissions, they can’t cave at the slightest possibility that some infrastructure programs could be included in future legislation. The next time Congress passes a surface reauthorization or any significant infrastructure investment, they must advocate for the full package outright, not only in rhetoric.

A decade of prioritizing speed over safety has led to 62 percent more deaths

Dangerous by Design 2022 from Smart Growth America and the National Complete Streets Coalition

Smart Growth America’s new report Dangerous by Design 2022 uses more data than ever to understand how design impacts travel behavior. The findings confirm what we’ve always known: it’s impossible to prioritize both safety and keeping cars moving quickly.

More than 6,500 people were struck and killed while walking in 2020, an average of nearly 18 per day, and a 4.5 percent increase over 2019. Today, our colleagues at Smart Growth America released their new report, Dangerous by Design 2022, to explain why. When streets are designed for vehicle speed as the top priority, pedestrians and other road users pay the price—often with their lives

And the burden isn’t shared equally. Low-income residents, older adults, and people of color are at greatest risk of being struck and killed while walking.

People of color, particularly Native and Black Americans, are more likelty ot die while walking than any other race or ethnic group.

The Covid pandemic only heightened these issues. As driving decreased, congestion evaporated and speed increased, leading to more pedestrian deaths. Yet, at the same time, the pandemic unearthed a long-dormant demand for walking across the nation, and places with safer infrastructure saw fewer deaths.

The new Dangerous by Design report underscores the nationwide need and demand for safer streets. Read the report and join the public briefing on July 28th at 3 p.m. ET with the report authors and special guests to learn more about its findings. Register here.

This edition also includes guest supplements:

The role engineering plays in dangerous design from Chuck Marohn of Strong Towns
How to design for slower speeds and safety first from NACTO
The safety impact of vehicle design from America Walks
Why safer design is the most effective enforcement solution from Fines & Fees Justice Center

How can your community get safer?

Often, decision makers will claim that road safety is their top priority. In a recent hearing, Shawn Wilson of AASHTO said state DOTs and AASHTO are committed to doing everything they can to make roads safer. Representative Peter DeFazio asked an important follow-up question: if safety is the top priority, why are state DOTs transferring federal funds for safety (in this case, Highway Safety Improvement Program/HSIP dollars) away from safety projects?

That’s a great question from Rep. DeFazio, but we’d have a more pressing follow up: This claim that “safety is the top priority” has rung out from all states, even as pedestrian fatalities skyrocketed 62 percent up to historic highs since 2009. Why should we believe them any longer? These safety programs, while valuable, are tiny compared to the massive influx of cash into conventional road-building programs creating the safety problems in the first place. Here’s what we’d like to ask: why are we asking states to solve safety with tiny safety programs? Why isn’t our entire transportation program a safety program? How will we ever succeed using a million dollars to solve a problem being created every day by a billion?

This passage in the report (p. 28) gets to the heart of why we allocate historic amounts of money to infrastructure and only see the problem getting worse:

There are plenty of examples of successful safety improvements that have reduced fatalities on specific corridors within many of these largest 100 metro areas. But these metro areas have built 70 years of dangerous roads to retrofit, and these improvements, while welcome and needed, are the exception and not the rule. For this reason it has failed to lead to meaningful reductions in deaths across metro areas, states, and the nation. And at the same time states and cities are improving safety on specific corridors or intersections, many are building new roads with all of the same old issues. We need a transformation in the entire system—the task is monumental, and the effort needs to be sustained for years at the scale of this enormous problem.

Fatalities are increasing not because money from tiny programs like HSIP is being transferred out. It’s happening because we don’t make safety the top priority for every dollar spent. That’s why it’s one of our three key priorities.

If road design that prioritizes speed leads to more traffic fatalities, the opposite is also true. Designs that encourage slower speeds make all road users safer. Unfortunately, that’s not the status quo approach, and it’s hard to get our leaders to change their ways. The new infrastructure law could address street safety needs—if your state and local leaders are willing to make safety the priority. Learn about opportunities for safety funding on our blog.

Advocates can identify street safety needs and bring them to light. Read our recent blog on identifying infrastructure needs, even in the streets we’re most used to navigating. And visit this blog post for advice on keeping local decision makers accountable.

Dangerous by Design 2022 includes 5 key recommendations to make our streets safer. Read them in the new report.

When gas prices rise, choice matters

Chevron gas station with gas prices ranging from $6.39 to $6.69

High gas prices put pressure on many Americans’ finances. Unfortunately, the cost of gas depends on a variety of factors, and there’s no silver bullet. Focusing on ineffective short-term solutions can often distract from the long-term problem: when the places we live are designed only for car travel (and longer trips), Americans are forced to pay the cost.

Gas prices have been rising throughout the year, nearing an all-time inflation-adjusted US high. Millions of Americans who rely on a vehicle for essential trips also may depend on low gas prices to make ends meet. Under pressure, state and federal legislators are trying to find ways to drive down the price, including passing gas tax holidays and proposing a federal price gouging bill. However, a variety of factors influence gas prices, and these legislative efforts have little chance of stemming the tide. Gas tax holidays are a particularly shortsighted choice. They threaten funding for needed infrastructure projects, many of which could ultimately alleviate pain at the pump.

Electric vehicles can’t be the sole answer to this problem either, because the issues that come up when people have to drive everywhere, even for the shortest trips, aren’t limited to the cost of fuel. All that driving takes up valuable time. Cars take up space on the road, which turns into traffic, making travel last even longer. It’s expensive to purchase and maintain a car, and when people have to own cars to travel, those who can’t afford one or are unable to drive one are left stranded. (We wrote about some of these issues in our report Driving Down Emissions.)

Every presidential candidate's climate and transportation plan: replace all cars on the road with EVs, akacleaner congestion

Regardless of the cost of gas, it’s never been cheap or convenient to rely solely on driving for daily travel. Whether electric or gas-powered, cars are expensive, and Americans have to drive them further than ever just to access their daily needs—Americans in the biggest metro areas are driving 20 percent more per day than three decades ago.

While gas tax holidays will fail to provide significant relief (and cut revenues for roads and bridges in the process), there are enough other organizations and economists and elected leaders trying to figure out short-term solutions for these historically high prices. We’re taking the long view.

Last year’s infrastructure law, a historic investment in our nation’s transportation system, could provide longer lasting solutions for struggling travelers who need to save time and money at the pump.

The infrastructure law made new funds available to improve transit speeds and access, reconnect communities separated by dangerous infrastructure, and design safer and more active streets. We’ve written before about how these changes can enhance equity and improve climate outcomes, but there’s another benefit we might not bring up enough: more options mean more ways for travelers to save on transportation.

When people live in walkable, multimodal places (of nearly any size) where destinations are located closer together, they can walk, roll, or take the bus to get to work, school, and the grocery store. As gas prices rose, people in these sorts of places, whether affluent or lower-income, were fortunate enough to be able to take much shorter trips by car or switch to other modes of travel. In doing so, they avoided some of the rising cost of car travel, even if they occasionally drove.

Me when gas prices are low vs Me when gas prices are high pic.twitter.com/bFwCft4e89
— Darrell Owens (@IDoTheThinking) March 7, 2022

After 2008, the last time gas prices rose, we had a similar opportunity to make lasting changes to our infrastructure. Demand rose for alternative modes of travel, especially in areas that already had long-established alternate options. If we had invested in multimodal transportation, we’d be in a very different situation today. But we didn’t—and this is where we ended up.

Because much of the funding in the infrastructure law is flexible, we can use it to give travelers more choices. Or we can further entrench ourselves in a system that requires more driving, more pollution, and more unexpected costs. Those choices will be up to states and metro areas as they decide how to invest these funds.

To really address the climbing cost of car travel, state DOTs and metro areas need to make sound infrastructure investments. If they merely use the infrastructure law to supercharge their existing work to prioritize speedy, long-distance travel at the expense of shorter trips via a range of modes, we’ll be right back in this mess the next time gas prices rise. When that time comes, we’ll know who deserves at least some of the blame.

To deliver on Equity Action Plan, USDOT, states, and local decision makers must take real action

Though the USDOT’s Equity Action Plan (EAP) describes the new infrastructure law as “a historic investment in transportation equity,” the final verdict will depend on the administration’s next steps, how they distribute competitive grants, and other choices far outside of their control, such as how states and metro areas invest federal funds.

The EAP sets four main goals: wealth creation, power of community (amplify marginalized voices), interventions (increase funding applications for, and projects in, disadvantaged communities), and expanding access. These are important goals, but unless progress is made at the state and local level, these federal goals won’t lead to strong outcomes.

In addition, although the plan sets targeted goals, it doesn’t go far enough to sketch out the clear, simple, and measurable actions the USDOT will take to achieve them. The EAP emphasizes the importance of developing the resources, knowledge, and voice for underserved and marginalized communities to take full advantage of federal grant programs (whether by competing for contracts or being involved in the transportation decision-making process).

There are a few issues to consider.

First, lower-income jurisdictions have historically struggled to get applications for federal funding out the door, let alone conduct extensive transportation planning to make themselves more competitive. The process for applying for discretionary grants is arduous, and each application demands resources and time. In addition to managing the application process, communities have to manage compliance with statewide performance metrics and documentation processes for noncompetitive (formula) funds. Many also have to deal with state governments that are hostile to equitable distribution of these formula dollars.

To help mitigate this issue, the USDOT plans to pilot a new approach in June to make applying for multiple grant programs a less burdensome process. However, several funding opportunities have already come and gone. The USDOT’s Notice of Funding Opportunities (NOFO) calendar shows what funding opportunities are still to come and when they’re expected to be released.

Second, though the USDOT aims to elevate the voices of the underserved, which will be absolutely necessary to ensure equitable outcomes, political pressure will make this difficult at the local level. Transportation projects regularly fail to address the needs of underserved communities and can even harm these communities. Low-income communities and communities of color require significant investments to rectify past mistakes. To ensure investments appropriately target their concerns, they’ll need to be able to include their input in the decision-making process.

The EAP calls for an equity screening tool and more community engagement to help elevate marginalized voices, but they don’t describe how they’ll support local communities, metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs), state DOTs, or other entities in their efforts to put these tools into action. And as neighborhoods and jurisdictions of all kinds begin to make their case for more funding, local pressures are likely to steer these funds into the same communities that have always gotten funding, not the ones who need it most.

Third, for competitive grant funding programs, the USDOT expects communities to pay for a benefit-cost analysis (BCA). The only mention of BCAs in the EAP focuses on providing the specialized tools and resources to complete a full or “unflawed” BCA. However, even a perfectly completed BCA that meets all of the USDOT’s expectations will be inherently flawed, because these analyses quantify travel modes utilized, on average, by higher earners (like driving) as more valuable than less costly travel modes (like walking, biking, and public transit). So, in underserved communities, where people are less likely to own a car or would benefit from the savings of not having to use a car for daily trips, the scale could automatically be tipped in favor of investments that support car travel.

The USDOT plans to develop a new, accessible, replicable metric to measure transportation cost burdens per individual or household. This is a smart way to build a better understanding of access concerns in our transportation system, but if the flaw in BCAs isn’t addressed, funding will continue going to projects that reduce access now, even as the USDOT looks ahead to expanding access in the future.

The issues and recommendations outlined in the EAP only apply to discretionary grants, which make up just 13 percent of federal transportation funding. The other 87 percent consists of formula grants—funds distributed to states with very few strings attached. Lower-income jurisdictions have been historically marginalized in the planning process and tend to have less political power over how this money is distributed. Because of their flexible nature, the USDOT’s ability to shape how formula dollars are spent is extremely limited. The USDOT has some tools at their disposal, like releasing equity guidance to states, tracking state expenditures through an equity lens, or other such administrative tasks. But at the end of the day, the vast majority of the USDOT’s spending will only be as equitable as states decide it to be.

And this is why we’re nervous about the USDOT setting goals that they, unfortunately, aren’t fully capable of achieving themselves. Ultimately, states and local governments, who don’t all share the USDOT’s goals, will be responsible for delivering strong outcomes from the EAP.

While we applaud the spirit of the USDOT’s EAP and hope to see strong results, the USDOT must recognize that the current system is not set up to achieve equitable outcomes, and they have an uphill battle ahead of them. They’ll need specific, measurable goals to make tangible change, and they must be open to considering how every tool and system in their current arsenal further entrenches inequities. Finally, with funding from the infrastructure law already racing out the door, they’ll need to get moving so that underserved communities can get the most out of the remaining funds available.

For more on the USDOT’s EAP, and the EAPs of other federal agencies, see Smart Growth America’s memos developed by the Land Use and Development team.

Justice40 “benefits” could mean more emissions, worse health outcomes in disadvantaged communities

A biker cruises in the sidewalk along a busy street

In President Biden’s first weeks in office, he established an environmental justice initiative called Justice40, which aims to direct benefits from federal investments to disadvantaged communities. Today, the administration is working on more specific guidance on how Justice40 should be applied, which will determine how effective this effort will be.

To see which communities are most in need of climate and clean energy investments, view the beta Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool, developed by the Council on Environmental Quality. This tool is open for public comment. Submit feedback by May 25, 2022.

Last year, President Biden signed Executive Order 14008, aimed at tackling the climate crisis and creating jobs across the federal government. In this order, the president established Justice40, later described as “a whole-of-government effort to ensure that federal agencies work with states and local communities to make good on President Biden’s promise to deliver at least 40 percent of the overall benefits from federal investments in climate and clean energy to disadvantaged communities” (emphasis ours).

Many types of investments can be justified as climate investments, and it’s not clear what will ultimately fall under the Justice40 umbrella. The executive order listed the following as areas of emphasis: clean energy and energy efficiency, clean transit, affordable and sustainable housing, training and workforce development, the remediation and reduction of legacy pollution, and the development of critical clean water infrastructure.

The order also didn’t mention how they’d measure the types of benefits and who would benefit from investments. But currently, states and local governments are receiving a massive influx of federal infrastructure money, much of which can be used to improve resiliency and support better climate outcomes. That means states and local governments are primed to make these investments without any direction on how to ensure that 40 percent of the benefits go to the people and places most in need.

Typically, the government measures “benefits” in dollars and cents. For USDOT investments to comply with the Justice40 initiative, 40 percent of the infrastructure law’s surface transportation investments would go to underserved communities—a whopping $257 billion, or roughly $51.44 billion per year. There are at least two areas of concern here:

First, USDOT does not have the authority to meet that number because 69 percent of infrastructure funds are formula grants and have very few strings attached. The Administration does not have the authority to direct any of these funds to Justice40 communities. 40 percent of the discretionary funding, on the other hand, comes out to $31 million (far less than 40 percent of the whole program), and that could still be a generous estimate for what the Administration will be able to use to meet Justice40 objectives.

Second, even if the USDOT was on track, there’s a huge difference between simply spending 40 percent of money within underserved communities, and spending 40 percent to accomplish something productive or bring measurable benefits to those places.

While underserved communities absolutely need infrastructure investment, the kind of project matters. For example, installing Complete Streets in disadvantaged communities that lack basic safe infrastructure could improve health outcomes, reduce emissions, benefit the local economy, and provide fundamental access to people in areas that tend to have low car ownership. Adding a new highway or lane could do the exact opposite. Both investments could be counted toward the 40 percent goal in the Justice40 initiative, but one brings greater benefits than the other.

Infrastructure investments often don’t directly benefit the community where the construction takes place. In fact, in many cases when states and localities have built infrastructure in disadvantaged communities, the long-term result has been harm. Highways, for example, tend to benefit people traveling through an area while dislocating, isolating, and/or polluting the communities in which they’re built. In other words, highway construction projects are a major investment within the bounds of a community but are far from a major benefit to them.

Many funding opportunities have already rolled out, and the USDOT’s calendar of funding opportunities shows that there are still many more to come. In addition, the USDOT recently released their Equity Action Plan (EAP), and later we’ll dive deeper into what that plan could mean for infrastructure investments.

The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is expected to release guidance on Justice40 soon. Fundamentally, they need to be honest and clear about what funding they have the power to steer—and consider that in the future when they negotiate huge amounts of funding that they cannot influence at all. And to ensure that this initiative meets its stated goal, we strongly recommend that they take into account not only the size of federal investments but the impact these investments will have on disadvantaged communities. More than just building things inside Justice40 communities, the aim of Justice40 should be delivering solutions that will improve daily life to the people who need them most.

WATCH: Safety and vehicle speed are fundamentally opposed

Sometimes we have to see it to believe it. How would street design really look if we prioritized the safety of all road users? Smart Growth America and the National Complete Streets Coalition’s latest video illustrates that when streets are designed to move as many cars as possible as quickly as possible, other road users pay the price.

The number of people struck and killed by drivers increased by an astonishing amount during the pandemic, but traffic fatalities were already on the rise long before COVID-19. For years, states and localities have focused on enforcement, ineffective education campaigns, or blaming the victims of these crashes, ignoring the role of the underlying perpetrator in these deaths: roadway design.

Right now, transportation engineers tend to favor “forgiving” street design like wide, high-visibility roadways with minimal features that would slow cars down. When all streets are designed this way, drivers are lulled into a false sense of security and speed up—doing exactly what the designs are encouraging them to do. At the same time, crosswalks and other safety elements that would slow car travel are kept to a minimum, making it inherently difficult for all other road users to travel safely.

Let’s get one thing straight: this design style isn’t “forgiving” at all. The higher a vehicle’s speed, the less response time a driver will have if they make a mistake. Without stop signs and crosswalks (features that slow drivers down), pedestrians have fewer options to cross streets safely. High speeds are also more likely to result in a fatality than an injury.

Complete Streets are streets for everyone. Complete Streets is an approach to planning, designing, building, operating, and maintaining streets that enables safe access for all people who need to use them, including pedestrians, bicyclists, motorists, and transit riders of all ages and abilities.

One way to limit the risk of pedestrian fatalities is to remove pedestrians and nondrivers from the street altogether, as we do on interstates. But what about every other type of roadway, like commercial and residential streets?

In our latest video, we take a look at the design elements that enhance street safety, and you’ll notice that they all have something in common. When we install traffic signals, bike lanes, narrower lanes, and crosswalks, drivers naturally drive at slower and safer speeds.

Properly designed Complete Streets can improve safety on residential and commercial roadways. But many Complete Streets have been implemented incorrectly, cutting corners to preserve the convenience of drivers. This unfortunate trend reflects a national culture that prioritizes vehicle speed over all else, a culture that is inherently at odds with safer roadways.

If safety truly is the top priority, streets must be designed in a way that makes dangerous behavior difficult and safe behavior easy. Only then can our streets be safe for all.

Bad faith arguments continue: Another look at the #SoNotBusy Gulf Coast Corridor

Over a month ago, we explained why freight railroads CSX and Norfolk Southern (NS) were trying to halt the return of passenger rail service on the Gulf Coast—an effort that could hinder passenger rail service across the country. Well, CSX is still at it, and their easily-disputed claims are proof that freight railroads have had free rein to stand in the path of passenger rail for far too long.

*The long-anticipated return of passenger rail service on the Gulf Coast is moving forward once again. But there’s still a ways to go.*

There’s simply no better way to illustrate our point than with a video, so here’s yet another look at the supposedly “busy” (according to freight railroad CSX) Gulf Coast corridor. Amtrak only wants to run two round-trip trains on this track between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m., but this video documents train activity from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m.

Pay close attention to that bridge. In the latest Surface Transportation Board (STB) hearing, CSX claimed that the Pascagoula Bridge poses an obstacle to the return of passenger rail service because the bridge is “always down.” But from where we’re standing, the bridge is up quite a bit.

This is yet another easily contested argument presented by CSX to derail the wildly popular return of passenger rail service to the Gulf Coast. Given all the time they had to prepare, we might expect them to come up with something a bit more concrete. But unfortunately, the truth is they historically haven’t had to come up with strong arguments to get their way.

https://twitter.com/sandypsj/status/1511766019458707463

Tactics like these aren’t exclusive to CSX, and it’s important to note that freight railroads alone aren’t the only thing holding passenger rail back. But CSX’s bad faith arguments continue to show why it’s important to compile rail data and hold freight railroads accountable. Freight has been able to claim tracks like the ones running through Pascagoula are “just too busy” for far too long, and passenger rail service has suffered across the country as a result. With the new funds under the 2021 infrastructure law and climate needs only growing stronger, it’s time to make passenger rail a more available resource for all.