Michael Russell, Author at Transportation For America

Stories worth reading – July 23, 2015

Here are a few curated stories we’re reading and talking about this week:

First, here’s a few recent stories from the T4A blog:

Bipartisan duo of senators offer new plan to send more transportation dollars to local communities
From the T4A blog
Two Senators championing the cause of giving local communities more control over their transportation dollars have introduced a modified plan to steer more federal transportation dollars directly to local communities of all sizes — reaching a compromise that they hope to incorporate into the Senate’s transportation bill as it heads to the floor.

Senate reaches preliminary agreement on a long-term transportation bill
From the T4A blog
Late Wednesday, the Senate reached cloture on the transportation reauthorization bill. It got just the required number of votes to pass, 60-38. They’re moving on to discussing and debating the bill today.

Transportation for America takes a look at the options for funding transit in St. Louis
From the T4A blog
St. Louis’s economic prospects are directly related to the quality of access to transportation for their residents — making new investments in public transportation essential. A new T4America report analyzes the possible ways that the St. Louis region could fund an expansion of their public transportation network.

Headlines

How railroads, highways and other man-made lines racially divide America’s cities
Washington Post
Look at racial maps of many American cities, and stark boundaries between neighboring black and white communities frequently denote an impassable railroad or highway, or a historically uncrossable avenue. Infrastructure has long played this role: reinforcing unspoken divides, walling off communities, containing their expansion, physically isolating them from schools or parks or neighbors nearby.

With American transportation in crisis, why are we spending our money on massive new roads?
Politico
The Marquette Interchange is an engineering marvel, a steel and concrete symphony of girders and flyovers at the edge of downtown Milwaukee, harmonizing traffic from three intersecting interstates with 29 bridges and 200,000 tons of asphalt. It looks like a wheat-and-blue roller coaster sculpted by a surrealist, one of those loop-de-loop highway hells where tourists are always getting lost in New Yorker cartoons. It’s basically a 21st-century vehicle distribution system the size of a city neighborhood, financed by $800 million from state and federal taxpayers.

A Highway Bill Jammed With 2016 Jockeying
National Journal
The senators—particularly Rand Paul of Kentucky and Ted Cruz of Texas—are seeking to burnish their conservative credentials and separate themselves from a 15-strong group of GOP candidates. But in the process, they could slow down the debate over highway funding just as Congress races to pass a bill before a key July 31 deadline.

Can Bill De Blasio Turn Uber Into The NRA?
BuzzFeed News
So will Bill de Blasio pry the Uber app from his constituents’ cold, dead hands? That is the experiment the New York mayor will start running on Tuesday, when he imposes a cap on the growth of what is one of the fastest-growing businesses in the world and sets up a high-stakes confrontation that will absorb his mayoralty and define the politics of Uber and its lesser-known siblings in the flexible, insecure new economy.

For more, check out the New York Times’s package on the debate between New York City and Uber on whether or not app-based car services are clogging New York City’s streets.

Patchwork highway fund fixes the ‘new normal’ in Congress
McClatchy DC
Everybody, from business groups to governors to lawmakers in both parties on Capitol Hill, hates the patchwork approach Congress has taken for the past six years to the federal highway trust fund. Yet it’s become the new normal.

Trying to Win the Public’s Trust With Autonomous Cars, at 120 M.P.H.
New York Times
With that, a computer in the trunk twitched the steering wheel into position, and Robby took off. “I’m doing nothing except holding the kill switch down,” Mr. Hoffmann told his passenger, somewhat reassuringly. As the Audi RS7 negotiated hairpin turns on the road course at top speed and came within inches of the raceway’s walls, it became clear after some tense moments: This car knew what it was doing.

Is Gov. Inslee Getting Ready to Swallow the Poison Pill?
Seattle Transit Blog
At the time, the Governor said he would accept the poison pills as part of the deal, and I think many of us assumed that that would be that: the low-carbon fuel standard was dead. As Jim Brunner reports in the Times today, the Governor is actively mulling taking the pill and enacting the fuel standard anyway.

Why Wal-Mart, an icon of suburbia, had to urbanize its hometown
Washington Post
“In order for us to compete for the type of talent it’s going to take to allow these companies to remain competitive in the global economy, we have to be a place where people want to live, where they can spend their free time doing things they enjoy,” said Troy Galloway, Community and Economic Development Director for the City of Bentonville. “There’s a major effort regionally and locally to step up our game.”

T4America in the news

Jacksonville looks to spend more on bridges after years of penny-pinching
The Florida Times-Union
When a large section of downtown Jacksonville’s Liberty Street crashed into the St. Johns River in the middle of the night last February, Chris Ricketson awoke to a shaking house and a roaring noise that sounded like an explosion.

Stories worth reading – July 16, 2015

Here are a few curated stories we’re reading and talking about this week:

First, it’s another busy week in Congress. We wanted to make sure that you saw that we had a big win yesterday in the Commerce Committee. Read on for our take on what happened yesterday and what to expect as the July 31 deadline nears.

Senate committee responds to outcry, restores competitive TIGER grant program in final bill
From the T4A blog
After many of you combined to send in over 1,700 letters to your Senators over the last 48 hours and we organized a letter of more than 150 elected officials, DOTs, MPOs, chambers of commerce and others, Senate Committee Chairman John Thune (R-SD) amended the bill late yesterday before the committee markup and removed the language that eliminated the TIGER program as we know it.

Other stories on the T4A blog.

Join us on Thursday for an inside look at transportation reauthorization in Congress
From the T4A blog
Join Smart Growth America and Transportation for America for a special open conversation about what’s happening right now in transportation policy this Thursday, July 16, 2015 at 4:00 PM EDT.

Over 150 elected officials, DOTs, MPOs, chambers of commerce and others voice strong support for restoring TIGER program
From the T4A blog
With the the Senate Commerce Committee due to mark up their portion of a long-term transportation bill that will eliminate the competitive TIGER grant program and refocus its funds on a multimodal freight program, more than 150 organizations and elected officials signed a letter urging the committee to restore and authorize the TIGER program.

Headlines

Streets Experiments Made This City Engineer a Celebrity Bureaucrat
Next City
In responding so positively to DIY activists, Chang propelled himself into the consciousness of Seattle’s bike and ped-loving urbanist crowd and gave them hope that perhaps some SDOT engineers “got it” and might actually bring Seattle’s lagging infrastructure into the 21st century.

No Silver Bullet for Creating More Accessible Transportation Networks
Living Cities
Today, these “shared mobility” services connect many people to their destinations, while others—namely, low-income communities of color—have often been left behind. […] Like many complex urban issues, no one system or policy will be the silver bullet. Rather, cities need to provide a range of progressive policies and transportation choices, both public and private, to limit barriers and provide an array of opportunities for safe, efficient and inclusive transportation.

MARTA makes an $8 billion pitch to change the face of metro Atlanta
Atlanta Journal Constitution
Over the next seven months, the people at MARTA will quietly button-hole local leaders and state lawmakers — top Republicans included — with the aim of building support for an $8 billion expansion of heavy, commuter rail that would transform the region. The future of metro Atlanta could become startlingly linear — a single file of major economic development up and down what is now Georgia 400, built along a rail line that would link Alpharetta with downtown Atlanta and its airport beyond.

A researcher studied common claims of bikeshare benefits. Among those that held up: it’s good for health and for the local economy
Next City
It turns out that bike-share supporters aren’t grounded in hyperbole. [Study author Miriam] Ricci found evidence that supported many of the claimed benefits including economic and health impact, new cyclist creation, and more. But there’s also a serious lack of proof that bike-sharing programs reduce congestion (in some cases, they may even increase congestion), get people out of their cars or help the environment.

Zipcar, Google and why the carsharing wars are just beginning
GreenBiz
Now, however, the carsharing industry is at a turning point where evolving business models — round trip or one way? free-floating vehicles or cars docked at specific stations? — are poised to collide with parallel breakthroughs in ridesharing, electric vehicles and self-driving cars.

We can’t cross that bridge when we come to it if the bridge itself is in disrepair
Fast Lane (USDOT’s blog)
Today, we released a set of Fact Sheets showing the condition of transportation in all 50 states. It’s not a pretty picture.

The Clearest Explanation Yet for Why Millennials Are Driving Less
CityLab
Two theories lead the charge. The first is that demographic or economic factors are primarily to blame. Since so many Millennials are out of work or delaying the start of family life, they have less daily need to drive. That certainly makes sense. The second idea suggests that young people fundamentally have a different attitude toward cars than previous generations did at that age, instead preferring to live in the city longer and travel by multiple alternative modes. That’s also a logical conclusion, if a bit harder to quantify. The truth might be a little of this, a little of that, and even some of the other.

Advocates in Prince George’s County, Maryland, hope the Purple Line light rail line will spur greater economic development
The Washington Post
When finally built, the Purple Line will stitch together two jurisdictions with dramatically different needs, priorities and resources. Its 16-mile route crosses a stark east-west economic divide in the Maryland suburbs, from the cramped, immigrant-occupied apartments of Riverdale Park and Langley Park in Prince George’s to Silver Spring’s thriving business district and the multimillion-dollar condos rising in downtown Bethesda.

Hamilton County, north of Indianapolis, crafting tax-funded transit plan
Indianapolis Business Journal
Elected officials are wary to support a massive transit project, arguing public dollars shouldn’t be spent on a system that might fail to attract riders. But business and economic development representatives are welcoming the idea as some employees struggle to find transportation to and from work.

Over 150 elected officials, DOTs, MPOs, chambers of commerce and others voice strong support for restoring TIGER program

With the the Senate Commerce Committee due to mark up their portion of a long-term transportation bill that will eliminate the competitive TIGER grant program and refocus its funds on a multimodal freight program, more than 150 organizations and elected officials signed a letter urging the committee to restore and authorize the TIGER program.

In the full letter (pdf) delivered to Commerce Committee offices just a few moments ago, more than 150 organizations and individuals supported the simple ask of preserving (and permanently authorizing) the TIGER program while also keeping the committee’s smart multimodal grant program for freight projects:

We request that the Commerce Committee authorize a strong, multimodal freight policy and freight investment grant program, as well as pass a complementary, authorization of the TIGER grant program separate from the multimodal freight discretionary grant program at or near equal funding levels.

Without moving both of these critical investment programs forward, the Comprehensive Transportation and Consumer Protection Act removes local leaders’ access to one of the only federal transportation programs open to them today and miss an opportunity to establish transportation investment programs that both promotes the efficient movement of goods and provides affordable mobility and access to opportunity for all Americans.

The groups represented on the letter included 30 mayors/cities, over 30 chambers of commerce, businesses, metropolitan planning organizations, advocacy groups of all stripes, a few universities, and a few city departments of transportation.

Want to join them? It’s not too late to send a letter of your own to your Senator urging them to keep TIGER alive.

Here’s why some of the letter’s signatories say they support this effort:

TIGER has been incredibly important to supporting economic development in our thriving region. Here that means strong freight connections as well as connections to high tech and aerospace jobs in growing job centers in our cities – quality jobs that are supported by all sorts of transportation connections. – Rick Olson, Director of Government Relations, Puget Sound Regional Council (Seattle).

A flexible TIGER grant program is essential to ensuring the economic mobility and prosperity of communities across our country. America is great for the individuality that each of our community possesses. Our local diversity is our national strength. Preserving this invaluable transportation program in the flexible form it now stands ensures that the progress and momentum we are now experiencing is sustained as we emerge from the Great Recession into the future. – Paul F. Morris, President and CEO, Atlanta BeltLine, Inc.

Access to programs like TIGER to fund multi-modal improvements to our transportation system is critical to the future of our community. Please keep TIGER flexible and useful as a tool to meet the transportation goals of individual communities. – Bruce Knight, Planning and Development Director, City of Champaign, Illinois

The TIGER program has been invaluable to the City of Indianapolis. From the construction of our world-class and unique Cultural Trail, to the deployment of 22 all electric buses, to the planning and design of our first rapid transit corridor – TIGER has been there and made our dollars go farther, faster. Changing one of the most successful federal programs to restrict uses would be a mistake. – Gregory A. Ballard, Mayor, City of Indianapolis

As the only USDOT initiative that specifically recognizes the vital link between transportation & economic development, it is imperative that the Congress continue the TIGER program, allowing communities across the country to promote sustainable investments that not only maintain, but actually improve our transportation system. – Rick Dunne, Executive Director, NVCOG – Naugatuck Valley Council of Governments (Connecticut)

The TIGER grants have made some very important alternative transportation projects possible. The smartest way to solve congestion and pollution is to offer people alternatives to sitting in traffic jams. This is one of the most important ways the federal government can assist the local governments. It should not only be continued, but it should be increased. —Mark Gamba, Mayor of Milwaukie, Oregon

The TIGER program is a vital tool for local governments to enhance multimodal options, provide repairs to key pieces of infrastructure, and improve transit service. While the Broward MPO supports a national freight grant program, such a program should not be created at the expense of TIGER, especially when more and more Americans are demanding alternative transportation options. – Gregory Stuart, Executive Director, Broward Metropolitan Planning Organization (Florida)

TIGER is a tremendous program that allows communities to create the kind of 21st century transportation infrastructure that is the foundation for a robust economy. I strong urge all Members of Congress to continue to support this important program. – Dawn Zimmer, Mayor, City of Hoboken (New Jersey)

The Commerce Committee’s markup takes place at 4:45 p.m. (eastern) today.

Keep those letters to your Senators coming and help preserve TIGER and the good it does for local communities.

Join us on Thursday for an inside look at transportation reauthorization in Congress

The current federal transportation bill will expire on July 31, 2015, with the nation’s transportation fund reaching insolvency near the same time. Join us Thursday for a public conversation about what’s likely to happen in Washington and what it all means for your community.

In the coming weeks Congress will likely be negotiating an extension to MAP-21 before its July 31 expiration while also debating the policies in a long-term transportation bill — a process that has already started. How will the decisions made in Congress and the current political landscape impact local transportation projects, Complete Streets, and transit-oriented development?

Join Smart Growth America and Transportation for America for a special open conversation about what’s happening right now in transportation policy this Thursday, July 16, 2015 at 4:00 PM EDT.

You can register for the event here.

Hear from Joe McAndrew, Policy Director at Transportation for America; Christopher Coes, Director of LOCUS; and Stefanie Seskin, Deputy Director of the National Complete Streets Coalition. Each speaker will focus on a different aspect of the current negotiations.

The federal transportation bill will have huge implications for development across the country. Join us on Thursday to learn more about where Congress currently stands and what you can do to help shape the debate.

Stories worth reading – July 9, 2015

Here are a few curated stories we’re reading and talking about this week:

Congress has no good way to fund a long-term transportation bill, will likely have to settle for another short-term extension
Forbes
“There is zero chance Congress will fully bankroll a six-year bill—at a cost of at least $90 billion—any time soon.”

As Uber becomes a ridesharing behemoth, should Lyft settle for being #2?
New York Magazine
Can Lyft survive as No. 2? What could make it No. 1? Or should it become a different product altogether? Those are the kinds of existential questions being hashed out in Lyft’s San Francisco headquarters, and among investors wondering whether to bet on the underdog. To better compete, Lyft is adding new services, refining its image, trying to position itself as the more lovable brand for riders and drivers.

Several states have found ways to raise new transportation revenue as federal money declines
Pew
Tired of waiting for federal transportation dollars, eight states, all but one of them headed by Republican governors, either hiked gas taxes or scaled back a planned cut to bring in more money.

Must-Pass Highway Bill Dominates Jammed July
National Journal
With a month-long recess looming in August, Congress is going to try to pack as much as possible into July. In the next three weeks, members will have to contend with several pieces of must-pass legislation, meet a July 31 deadline to fill the nation’s Highway Trust Fund, and lay the groundwork for even more critical legislation due in the early fall.

We can make our roads a lot more bike-friendly. Here’s how
Greater Greater Washington
For the past 40 years, planners have thought the best way to deal with cyclists was to treat them like vehicles. But that policy has left only “fearless” cyclists using the roads. Bikes don’t have to remain a rarely-used alternative. We can change the paradigm.

When Transit Goes Down at the Polls, Here’s Some Advice on How to Regroup
Streetsblog
In a postmortem, Jarrett Walker at Human Transit says public perception of [Vancouver’s] TransLink is at odds with its cost-effective performance. Regional transit agencies, he writes, are generally in a difficult political position, susceptible to blame-shifting from elected leaders with more power than the agency wields itself.

Uber, but for carpooling: Google jumps into the ridesharing business with an upgrade to Waze
The Washington Post
Unlike Uber, Google’s entry into ridesharing will be more limited. You won’t be able to just call up a ride wherever you are; according to Haaretz, drivers will only be able to offer two rides a day, and they have to begin either near where they work or near where they live.

Sound Transit planning heats up for light-rail expansion and public vote
The Seattle Times
But when the euphoria wears off, Sound Transit leaders, and perhaps the public, will face the fact they’re a long way from having a clear plan. What they can guarantee is that it is miserable getting around right now.

Stories worth reading – July 2, 2015

Here are a few curated stories we’re reading and talking about this week:

First, last week was a busy week in Congress. Did you catch these stories on the T4A blog?

Join us for the third online discussion of the Innovative MPO on July 8th
From the T4A blog
With your guidebook now in hand, join us next Wednesday (July 8) for our third online discussion on the content of the guidebook. This time out, we’ll be focusing on a range of tools and techniques that MPOs can use to get to or stay on the leading edge of smart transportation planning in regions small and large.

Farewell from a smart growth communications veteran
From the T4A blog
Our friend and colleague David Goldberg, who was the founding communications director for Smart Growth America in 2002 and helped get Transportation for America off the ground in 2008-2009 as communications director, says goodbye.

Three changes could dramatically improve the Senate’s draft transportation bill
From the T4A blog
Giving local communities of all sizes the resources they need to realize their ambitious plans to stay economically competitive should be a primary goal of this bill, and several Senators have prepared several amendments to help change that.

Senate Committee rolls forward with speedy markup of six-year transportation bill
From the T4A blog
One thing was abundantly clear from the beginning of this morning’s committee markup of the DRIVE Act: the EPW Committee members are eager to get their portion of the bill completed and moved forward as soon as possible.

Congress kicks into high gear on transportation — let’s summarize the action
From the T4A blog
During an extremely busy week in Congress in several key committees, a long-term transportation bill and a multi-year passenger rail authorization were introduced and passed committees, along with hearings on possible ways to keep our nation’s transportation fund afloat, rural transportation issues, rail safety, and autonomous vehicles.

Compromise in Washington State clears the way for a transportation funding package
From the T4A blog
The deal looked almost dead last week, but a last-ditch compromise could give Seattle-area residents a little more control over their transportation future.

Other Headlines

Cities are realizing why Complete Streets are good for their economies and for safety [featuring SGA’s own Complete Streets coalition]
Washington Post
Nationwide, government leaders are reconsidering decades-old policies that have prioritized car traffic. Instead of making streets fast, they want to make them welcoming — to kids on tricycles, seniors with canes and everyone in between.

Uber buys mapping assets from Microsoft Bing
ZDNet
For Uber, the deal is not surprising. The unicorn startup has honed in on other mapping technologies in the past and has made no secret of its ambitions to move beyond being a mere on-demand car service.

[Related] Bill Gates Thinks Uber Has the Best Shot at Self-driving Cars
Time
Gates said a real tipping point for change in driving will come from self-driving cars, calling it “the real rubicon.” And Uber is primed to take the lead, he added.

Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Misses an Opportunity for Reform
Center For American Progress
While the DRIVE Act would deliver desperately needed infrastructure funding, the bill represents a missed opportunity to provide balanced investment to expand safe, affordable, and efficient alternatives to driving.

A vision of high-speed rail in America: Time for a national conversation?
Brookings
The vision is compelling because high-speed rail can help merge key urban hubs in America, creating the possibility of a new type of megalopolis that other modes of transportation are unable to support – and will serve as a new foundation for growth in the future.

Urban transit systems struggle to keep pace as demand grows
SFGate/Associated Press
Urban planners have long considered public transportation the best remedy for traffic congestion, but many of the nation’s largest mass-transit systems simply aren’t up to the task.

Study: UTA rail projects helped fuel economic growth
The Salt Lake Tribune
Mass transit may aim mostly to move people efficiently and reduce traffic congestion and pollution. But a new study looking at Utah says rail expansion also attracted plenty of firms and development that created hundreds of jobs.

As Part Of Multibillion-Dollar Package For Roads, Hogan Says ‘Yes’ To Purple Line
WAMU
Maryland Governor Larry Hogan announced a major shift in state transportation spending to prioritize the maintenance and expansion of roads and bridges over investment in mass transit projects.

Three changes could dramatically improve the Senate’s draft transportation bill

Ahead of the looming July 31 deadline to pass a new bill (or extend the current law), the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee in late June introduced and marked up a full six-year transportation bill. While we think it’s a good starting point, there are some promising amendments that could improve the bill dramatically as it goes forward in the Senate.

Mayors and other local elected leaders are the ones who face the music from citizens when bridges need repair, when mounting congestion makes commutes unpredictable, and when families can’t safely walk their kids to school — yet those same leaders are too often left out of the discussions over what gets built and where.

Giving local communities of all sizes the resources they need to realize their ambitious plans to stay economically competitive should be a primary goal of this bill, and several Senators have prepared several amendments to help change that.

Several of these were discussed or offered and withdrawn during the markup, and will hopefully be debated on the floor of the Senate.

First, Senators Wicker (R-MS) and Booker (D-NJ) are offering their Innovation in Surface Transportation Act as an amendment, to create a competitive grant program in each state to give local communities more access to federal funds — but only for the smartest, most innovative projects judged on their merits. A second amendment from Senators Booker and Wicker would increase the amount of flexible transportation dollars directly provided to local communities by ten percent of the program’s share.

Lastly, an amendment from Senator Cardin (D-MD) would increase funding for the program that cities, towns and regions use to invest in projects to make biking and walking safer — restoring the Transportation Alternatives Program to its previous funding level before being slashed in the last reauthorization in 2012.

Can you urge your Senators to support these amendments that will help give local communities like yours more access to and control over transportation dollars?

With a new competitive grant program for local projects in each state, more communities could find success like Normal, IL, found with its Uptown Station. Normal used a grant from the competitive national TIGER program to complete the funding picture for a multimodal station and central plaza that brought new life and economic activity to its town’s core. But the TIGER program is one of the only ways local communities can directly access federal funds, and it’s wildly oversubscribed.

Though the bill has cleared committee, it will still have to be considered in the full Senate, so we need all Senators to hear your support for these amendments. Don’t delay — send a message to your Senators and urge them to support these key amendments to improve this bill.

Logged-in members can read our full summary of the EPW bill below.

[member_content] Feature graphic - epw drive act June 24, 2015 — The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee (EPW) released its six-year MAP-21 reauthorization proposal on June 22, 2015. The DRIVE Act is a start, but needs much more work to reform — and reinvigorate — the federal transportation program in ways that will boost today’s economy and ensure future prosperity. This memo provides an overview of the key provisions included in the proposal, as well as funding levels for key programs.

Read the full members-only memo here.[/member_content]

The economic development potential of passenger rail for downtowns

In a Next City piece, T4America board chair John Robert Smith discussed strong public investment in downtowns in smaller cities — especially those with passenger rail connections — as a smart way to signal to the market that the public sector is committed to downtown.

The article explores the story of Opa-locka, Florida, a town of 15,000 people in Miami-Dade County, where town officials moved City Hall into an 80,000-square-foot mixed-use building in the city’s downtown partially to save money. How do they expect to save money? The city only plans to use 40 percent of the property, leaving the rest for other offices and ground-floor retail — thanks to the area’s mixed-use zoning. With the passenger/commuter rail line expected to expand or add service, they’re hoping to capitalize on the increase in property values.

On the one hand, its value is expected to appreciate because, located near the Tri-Rail station, it’s in the heart of a recently created overlay district. And more connectivity is expected in the future: A Tri-Rail commuter train already runs through that station, but several lines expected to come through Miami, including a private high(ish)-speed rail line, could eventually connect those commuters with more of southeast Florida.

“The district has more flexibility for developers,” Chiverton says, explaining that the city changed zoning in the area to encourage mixed residential and commercial uses.

“It’s a perfect moment for us to purchase prior to values going up,” he says.

T4America’s John Robert Smith — no stranger to the economic development potential of passenger rail connections — pointed to other cities that have moved their city offices to downtown locations and the value of those moves for their cities:

Smith also points to the city of Normal, Illinois, which he says included many of its city offices within the same walls as its multimodal facility when it went up. He adds that older cities often already have established city halls within their downtown core, located near historic transit hubs (and likely, already long-ago paid off). Decentralized cities that were built later are more probable candidates for a move.

But whether or not it makes sense as a cost-saver, Smith says that being centrally located is a good long-range strategy for city offices.

“If we’re expecting the private sector to move in, then the public sector has to be the first to maintain its presence in the downtown,” he says. “We talk a lot about [public-private partnerships], but the truth is that the public sector always needs to go first.”

You can read the rest of the article here, and you can read more about Normal, IL, in our can-do profile.

Stories worth reading – June 25, 2015

Here are a few curated stories we’re reading and talking about this week:

First, did you catch these stories on the T4A blog?

Statement in response to introduction of the Railroad Reform, Enhancement and Efficiency Act
From the T4A blog
Senators Roger Wicker (R-MS) and Cory Booker (D-NJ) today introduced a multi-year bill to authorize funding to Amtrak and support passenger rail, dubbed the Railroad Reform, Enhancement and Efficiency Act. It would be the successor to the existing rail authorization, the Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act.

Statement on the release of the Senate’s long-term transportation reauthorization proposal
From the T4A blog
Senate EPW bill represents progress toward passage of a long-term bill and a good starting point for debate and improvements.

Senate’s new transportation bill is a good start, but more should be done for local communities
From the T4A blog
At long last, there’s finally some progress to report on a new long-term federal transportation bill. Today, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee released their draft six-year transportation bill. While we think it’s a good starting point, there are some promising proposals to improve it dramatically during a planned markup tomorrow.

Other headlines

When City Hall Is Part of Transit-Oriented Development
Next City
“If we’re expecting the private sector to move in, then the public sector has to be the first to maintain its presence in the downtown,” [John Robert Smith, co-chair of Transportation for America,] says. “We talk a lot about PPPs, but the truth is that the public sector always needs to go first.”

How Uber and Lyft Are Trying to Solve America’s Carpooling Problem
Time
Popular tech companies Lyft and Uber are leading a wave of new services that have the potential to revive shared rides. “What fascinates me about these things is: can they move us closer toward a vision of an integrated public transit system?” asks Susan Shaheen, co-director of the Transportation Sustainability Research Center at the University of California, Berkeley. “And can it move us closer to filling empty seats in vehicles?”

D.C.’s new identity? A hub for transportation innovation.
The Washington Post
Washington may be considered to be a government town by many — it is the nation’s capital, after all — but it’s also moonlighting as a laboratory for companies experimenting with new ways to move people around.

The Problem with the Gas Tax in Three Charts
Brookings
A recent U.S. House Ways and Means Committee hearing focused on the long-term sustainability of the nation’s transportation program. Most of the attention went to the federal gasoline tax, its role in supporting the overall program, and the fact that it hasn’t been raised—even to keep pace with inflation—in two decades.

Many Utah cities pushing for election this year to hike sales tax
The Salt Lake Tribune
Scores of cities statewide are passing resolutions asking counties to place on the ballot this year a proposed sales-tax increase for local roads and mass transit. Widespread city support could give county leaders political cover if they choose to take the never-popular step of seeking higher taxes, and do it sooner rather than later.

Did you see The Pope’s wise advice on traffic, parking and public transit
The Washington Post
The way we design communities, he argues — and this is basically the central tenet of urban planning — is vital to the kind of lives people experience within them. And so sprawling, car-dependent places force us to spend our lives unhappily idling in traffic. Expensive and overcrowded places rob residents of the dignity of having a good home. Great public spaces, by contrast, bring us together.

Stories worth reading – June 18, 2015

Here are a few curated stories we’re reading and talking about this week:

New Smart Growth America report details why so many companies are moving downtown
From the T4America blog
Launched at a terrific event at Washington, DC’s Newseum just this morning, Core Values, a first-of-its-kind report, is stuffed with useful data on nearly 500 companies that have decided to either move from the suburbs to a downtown location, or that have decided to expand or open a new branch in a downtown core.

House takes first step in process to keep the nation’s transportation fund solvent
From the T4America blog
For the first time since 2012, the House of Representatives held a hearing focused on funding the nation’s transportation system. Today’s hearing focused on the elephant in the room: how to adequately fund a transportation bill that’s longer than just a few months. While it’s a relief to see the funding issue finally getting airtime in the House, keeping the nation’s transportation fund solvent is only half of the problem — we also need to update the broken federal program that isn’t meeting our country’s needs.

SC gas-tax opponents say fight just beginning
The State
When lawmakers return to work in January to finish out a two-year legislative session, proposals to raise the gas tax while providing tax relief will be at the top of the agenda.

Coastal officials want passenger rail service back on track
AL.com
“This isn’t about nostalgia or rail fans, it’s about economic development and it’s about commerce,” said John Robert Smith, chairman of the board with Transportation for America.

“It’s about security and evacuation and movement of goods in and out before and after tropical storms and hurricanes,” Smith, a former long-time mayor of Meridian, Miss., added. “It impacts southerner’s lives on many different levels.”

Did you get stuck in traffic this morning? They’re trying to find out why
Public Radio International
Wolshon is one of many traffic engineers to acknowledge our roads are inefficient. People sometimes ask him why it’s hard to improve something as low tech as a painted strip of asphalt. The truth is that traffic engineers already know pretty well why our roads are inefficient. The reasons are habit, design, and data.

Green Line LRT: Job Accessibility Impacts in Minneapolis and Saint Paul
Streets MN
Overall, we find that residents of Saint Paul experience the greatest increase in access to jobs: a year after the opening of the Green Line, workers in Saint Paul can, on average, reach over 2,000 more jobs than they could previously — a 5.3% increase. Because this city-wide average includes areas that are far from the Green Line, it can obscure the fact that in locations near Green Line stations and connecting transit routes, accessibility often increased by over 50%, and in a few locations more than doubled.

Sidewalk Labs, a Start-Up Created by Google, Has Bold Aims to Improve City Living
New York Times
The founders describe Sidewalk Labs as an “urban innovation company” that will pursue technologies to cut pollution, curb energy use, streamline transportation and reduce the cost of city living. To achieve that goal, Mr. Doctoroff said Sidewalk Labs planned to build technology itself, buy it and invest in partnerships.

U.S. is locked in to an aging highway system
MarketPlace
By now, it’s also become a cliché to point out that [America’s highway system is] falling apart. In fact, the massive size of the highway systems is also its weak link. We built it, we’re dependent on it, and like all things made by man, now it is breaking, crumbling, and in some cases, falling down.

Insightful, in-depth article details efforts to restore & expand passenger rail service in the deep South

A terrific in-depth article examines T4America’s partnership with a group of southern leaders pushing to restore and expand passenger rail service through the Gulf Coast states — something that mayors and other civic leaders in towns small and large are clamoring for.

Flickr photo by Kurt Haubrich /photos/kphaubrich/8417825227/

AL.com wrote a terrific, in-depth overview of the partnership between T4America and the Southern Rail Commission to restore the Gulf Coast passenger rail service lost after Hurricane Katrina and also expand other daily, reliable passenger rail service through Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. The 2,500-word piece is filled with details on our joint efforts to secure funding and build a strong local coalition, and how the looming reauthorization of federal passenger rail law could support or hinder those efforts:

The eyes of passenger rail supporters will be fixed on the U.S. Senate on June 24, when its version of a passenger rail reauthorization bill surfaces. A House version, approved earlier this year, requires the Federal Railroad Administration to conduct a study into what kind of service can be restored east of New Orleans, what markets could be served, how much it costs and how it could be financed.

The House version of the Passenger Rail Reform and Investment Act of 2015 calls for a working group to evaluate restoring service between New Orleans and Orlando. A similar group is expected to be included in the Senate version.

There’s strong support to bring back the passenger service lost after Katrina, and scores of local communities throughout the three states also see the economic development possibilities presented by restored or expanded service:

Bob Campbell, mayor of DeFuniak Springs, Fla. – about a two-hour drive east from Mobile, or 75 minutes south of Dothan – wants his city to benefit as well. He said his community’s downtown revival would be enhanced with the presence of passenger rail.

Campbell said there would be interest from Louisiana residents who want easy access to a Florida beach. Conversely, he said that Florida panhandle residents would utilize the train for trips to the casinos in Mississippi.

A train depot, which currently serves as a museum, could be restored into a train station with little cost, Campbell said.

“It wouldn’t take much at all to bring it up-to-date,” he said.

Our board chair John Robert Smith recently toured two northeastern Amtrak services with a group from the Southern Rail Commission to learn a few lessons about how those lines have spurred growth and development in the communities they connect. This in-depth AL.com story is a great follow-up to that trip, laying out exactly what’s happening down south, so don’t miss it.

Stories worth reading – June 11, 2015

Here are a few curated stories we’re reading and talking about this week:

Louisiana legislature makes a paradigm shift to better prioritize transportation dollars and restore public confidence
From the T4America blog
Louisiana passed a bill through the state House and Senate by unanimous votes last week that will make the process for spending transportation dollars more transparent and accountable to the public — a smart first step to increase public support for raising any new transportation funding.

Worth checking out: NYTimes’s Bits column’s special section on transportation

Virginia in the midst of making an important decision about how to measure and weight congestion in their project selection process
Greater Greater Washington
When Virginia chooses transportation projects, should it narrowly look only at what makes cars move faster? Or should it consider how each project will transform the region, and pick the ones that do the most for residents, the economy, safety, and quality of life? A state board will soon tip the scales one way or the other.

3 Key Developments for Autonomous Cars
The Motley Fool
As the mobility revolution gains momentum, the average investor is not aware of the magnitude of the change bearing down on the automotive industry — a pillar of American manufacturing. The resulting landscape will deliver outsized returns to a few companies as others fight for survival. Here are recent stories that deserve closer watching.

Salt Lake City success
Railway Age
Now that its FrontLines 2015 program, a group of five Utah Transit Authority rail projects that added 70 miles to the existing 64-mile rail network, has been completed $300 million under budget and two years ahead of schedule, UTA’s main focus is on increasing frequency of service and better connections. And it’s well on its way.

7 Cities Get $375,000 to Work on Bike-Share Equity
Next City
Since modern bike-share’s introduction to the United States in 2008, the nonprofits, the departments of transportation, advocacy organizations and businesses behind the systems have been asking two key questions: How do you make bike-share financially sustainable and how do you make it equitable?

How our cars, our neighborhoods, and our schools are pulling us apart
The Washington Post
The shared experiences and communal spaces where our lives intersect — even if just for a ride to a work, or a monthly PTA meeting — have grown seemingly more sparse. And all of this isolation means that the wealthy have little idea what the lives of the poor look like, that people who count on private resources shy away from spending on public ones, that misconceptions about groups unlike ourselves are broadly held.

One Iconoclast’s Blunt Message on Transportation Funding
Governing
What the system needs, Marohn says, isn’t a big infusion of cash, but a thorough examination of what it ought to be doing in the first place. Barring such an examination, he wouldn’t give the transportation system a dime.

The Baltimore Sun agrees: Baltimore needs the Red Line

Yesterday, The Baltimore Sun editorial board heartily affirmed the necessity of the Red Line for Baltimore’s future, calling it “the economic shot in the arm” that the city needs and urging Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan to approve both it and the Purple Line project in the DC suburbs.

The editorial talks about the benefits of building the light rail line through west Baltimore — cleaner air, less cars on the road, access to jobs for the city’s low-income residents — and asks Gov. Hogan the question: “Why worsen the outlook for Baltimore area business growth by canceling the Red Line?”

Baltimore residents have already made considerable sacrifice to pave the way for the Red Line, the 14.1-mile-long east-west line that would connect Woodlawn with Johns Hopkins Bayview by way of downtown Baltimore. City lawmakers agreed to a higher gas tax, local governments have committed to $280 million in combined contributions, and soon, Maryland Transit Administration systems will be charging higher fares as required by the state legislature.

This city needs the economic shot in the arm that would come from the addition of the Red Line. West Baltimore, ground zero for the recent protests and unrest that arose after Freddie Gray’s death, would stand to benefit from the multi-billion-dollar investment in transportation infrastructure. Thousands of jobs would be created. What a vast improvement over the yawning “road to nowhere” canyon that continues to haunt that side of the city, the result of a failed freeway project.

The editorial mentions the success of the MARC commuter rail service as an example of the potential benefits that can come from expanded transit service. The MARC trains used to operate only on weekdays between DC and Baltimore, but the rail line recently started running trains on weekends, taking cars off the busy Baltimore-Washington Parkway and Interstate 95 during the weekends and providing another travel option.

The editorial closes with some figures from T4America’s Maryland transit report released last week, as well as an overall reason why the Red Line is so important to Baltimore:

But don’t take our word for it, ask the business community. The Greater Baltimore Committee and others have been leading the charge for the Red Line for years. They don’t want a handout, they want a level playing field. …What would the Red Line do for Baltimore? A recent Transportation for America report estimates 15,000 jobs and $2.1 billion in increased economic activity. The Purple Line exceeds that with 20,000 jobs and $7 billion in economic activity, according to the non-profit organization of business, elected and civic leaders. The timing could hardly be better. For a city at risk of drowning in despair, Mr. Hogan’s approval of the Red Line looks like a real life preserver.

Read the rest of the Sun editorial here, and if you missed it, download the full Maryland report.

Michigan ballot measure to raise transportation & education funds goes down by a large margin

A Michigan bill that would have raised new money and overhauled how the state pays for transportation was defeated by huge margin Tuesday with 80 percent of voters rejecting the complicated proposal.

The bill would have eliminated the state’s fuel sales tax and raised the tax on wholesale gasoline sales to 41.7 cents per gallon (or 14.9 percent of a gallon of fuel’s base value, whichever is higher). This maneuver would have ensured that the entirety of the wholesale gas tax would have gone to transportation, compared to the current gas sales which does not.

To compensate for the loss of gasoline sales tax revenues currently going to municipalities and schools, the bill increased the sales tax on everything else statewide from six to seven percent and allocated the additional revenues to schools, local municipalities, and a tax break for low-income families.

The proposal would have also increased vehicle registration fees, commercial truck registration fees and would have instated a fee on electric vehicles.

While certainly disappointing to the supporters in Michigan, it reinforces the same lesson we’ve shared here regularly: transportation-related ballot measures have the best chance of passage when they are simple, specific and transparent about the money that will be raised and exactly where and how it will be spent. Voters have proven over and over again that they’ll support transportation ballot measures — if they meet some of those basic qualifications. Michigan’s measure surely suffered from the complexity and from the combination of education and transportation funding together into one proposal.

Some of the states still in play in 2015

Though there have been no new statewide funding packages passed since our last update here, other states are trying to bring transparency to the process of selecting transportation projects. Texas’s HB 20 tasks the TxDOT with creating “a performance-based planning and programming process” that would evaluate which transportation projects receive state money. Similarly, Louisiana’s HB 742 would require the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development to rank projects according to a series of measures that highlight which projects are most vital to the state.

Also in Louisiana, the House’s tax committee approved two funding bills. The first would raise the state’s sales tax by one cent, with the proceeds going towards 16 designated transportation projects. The second bill would increase the gas tax ten cents, from 20 cents per gallon to 30.

The Missouri Senate gave initial approval to a 1.5-cents-per-gallon gas tax increase (3.5 cents per gallon for diesel). The state’s gas tax has been 17.3 cents per gallon since 1992. The bill stills needs one more vote in the Senate before going to the House. There are only two weeks left in the state’s legislative session and it is unclear whether they will vote on the bill before then.

In Minnesota, where we recently documented the state’s prevalence of structurally deficient bridges, both the House and the Senate have passed transportation-funding bills, but the two differ greatly. The Senate proposal raises new funds via a gas tax increase and a Twin Cities regional sales tax increase. The House’s version mostly shifts dollars around or borrows funds for transportation. The issue has been pushed aside as legislators must also hash out a state budget before the May 18^th deadline.

May 31st transportation funding deadline looming over lawmakers

We’re only three weeks away from the expiration of MAP-21, the transportation law of the land, and Congress still does not have a solid plan for renewing or extending it — or for keeping the nation’s transportation fund solvent past the first days of summer.

Well, we’re here. Seems like just yesterday we were writing the news that Congress had finally passed a new transportation law. But that law, MAP-21, the Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21^st Century Act, was only two years in length instead of the customary six, and it will expire at the end of the month after its first short-term extension concludes. Congress is no closer to agreeing on a multi-year replacement than they were when they kicked the can down the road last summer. To complicate matters, the temporary funding patch that Congress passed in 2014 to keep the Highway Trust Fund solvent will run dry by mid-July, according to USDOT projections.

So far, Congress has not hatched a concrete plan to reauthorize MAP-21 and find a long-term stable funding source, but lawmakers do have some ideas.

In February, Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) introduced a bill that would nearly double the federal gas tax over the next three years to help fund a long-term transportation bill.

Last month, a bipartisan group of Representatives led by Reps. Renacci (R-OH) and Pascrell (D- NJ) introduced The Bridge to Sustainable Infrastructure Act, which seeks to raise the gas tax by indexing it to inflation by January 2016. The gas tax would then rise every three years unless Congress finds another funding source for the Highway Trust Fund, ultimately guaranteeing 10 years of funding for the transportation program. This bill is the only plan with any bipartisan support that proposes to raise user fees (i.e., the gas tax) in any way. It currently has 20 cosponsors: eight Republicans and 12 Democrats.

Several lawmakers and the Obama Administration have proposed using a one-time repatriation of corporate profits as a source of funding. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Rand Paul (R-KY) introduced a bill that would encourage corporations holding profits overseas to return these profits to the US through voluntary “tax holiday” at a decreased tax rate of 6.5 percent. The Obama Administration’s plan would force companies to return their overseas money to the U.S. and pay a 14 percent tax rate on that money. Both repatriation proposals would transfer a portion of the earnings from the tax on returned corporate profits to the transportation trust fund.

Reps. John Delaney (D-MD) and Richard Hanna (R-NY) introduced a bill that would tax overseas profits by 8.75 percent, and would potentially raise $170 billion for the Highway Trust Fund.

What will happen before May 31?

Several lawmakers have sounded the alarm on finding a plan to reauthorize MAP-21 and keep the Highway Trust Fund solvent before the May 31^st deadline passes.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx called the short-term extensions that several lawmakers have proposed an “outrage,” saying that a long-term plan was necessary so transportation planners could be sure that they’d have the funding needed to move forward with long-term plans.

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) is rallying fellow Democrats in the Senate to block a Republican-backed trade deal until the Senate deals with funding the Highway Trust Fund (and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act). Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), meanwhile, also cited the need to address MAP-21, calling it a “must-do” item that needs to be completed by Memorial Day.

Over in the House, Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) sent a memo to his fellow House Republicans that urged them to act to keep the Highway Trust Fund solvent, which is set to go broke by midsummer. He said that any proposals to increase the gas tax, however, would be dead on arrival this Congress.

Next year’s budget

Whether Congress reauthorizes MAP-21 and extends the Highway Trust Fund will affect funding for next year’s budget for all transportation and housing programs. The House’s Transportation, Housing and Urban Development subcommittee released a transportation budget that proposes heavy cuts to TIGER, New Starts and Amtrak capital funding while holding steady funding levels for highways and other programs. The full House is expected to consider the Committee’s transportation appropriation bill upon return from a weeklong recess. The Senate Appropriations Committee has yet to release their proposed fiscal year 2016 transportation budget. While slow on the uptick, we expect this Congress to be more active on transportation items over the coming summer months. Stay tuned.

Iowa was the first to successfully raise new state transportation funding in 2015 – and they did it with bipartisan support

Iowa in February became the first state in 2015 to pass a transportation-funding bill when legislators moved to raise the state’s gasoline and diesel taxes by 10 cents per gallon.

Though seven states have now successfully moved to raise new transportation funding in 2015, Iowa made it to the finish line first. On February 25^th, Republican Iowa Governor Terry Branstad signed a bill into law that increased the state’s gasoline and diesel fuel taxes by 10 cents per gallon, raising new funding to help maintain the roads and bridges crisscrossing one of the most important states for freight and agriculture in the U.S.

Iowa governor Terry Branstad.

In signing the bill, Branstad said: “This is a great example — on a difficult and controversial issue — of the kind of bipartisan cooperation that really makes Iowa stand out as a state, where we work together and we get things done on behalf of the citizens of our state. This is important for economic development. This is important for our farmers to be able to get their crops to market. I know that many people have been waiting a long time for the legislature to act.”

The increased gas tax — the rate on regular gas rose from 21 to 31 cents per gallon, and the rate for diesel rose from 22.5 to 32.5 cents per gallon — and other associated fees took effect on March 1^st. Last week, Iowa’s Department of Transportation stated their plans to use the new funds toward $700 million in road maintenance and construction projects.

“I feel Iowa took a huge step forward by addressing our aging infrastructure,” State Rep. Josh Byrnes (R-Osage), chairman of the House Transportation Committee, told AgriNews. “It shows that Iowa is truly open for business and we have the leadership to make difficult decisions. Iowa is a net exporter of goods and these funds will help ensure that Iowa continues to have the needed infrastructure to transport people and products.”

HISTORY LESSON

At the start of the legislative session, Iowa was facing an estimated $215 million annual gap between revenues and needs, according to the state Department of Transportation. The state’s gas tax was last raised in 1989 to 19 cents per gallon, during current governor Terry Branstad’s first foray as governor of the Hawkeye State.

For years, key legislators and business leaders pushed for meaningful legislation to bolster transportation funding, but they never gained enough momentum to pass it, said Senator Tod Bowman (D-Clinton), chair of the Senate Transportation Committee. “We couldn’t drum up enough support. We didn’t really have the leadership from the Governor,” he said.

This year would prove to be different, however.

Iowa state representative Jim Lykam.

Gov. Branstad’s vocal support was critical in convincing Republican lawmakers that this was a must-pass piece of legislation for the state, said State Rep. Jim Lykam (D-Davenport), the ranking member of the House Transportation Committee. “We were in constant communication with the governor’s office,” he said. “You always run the risk of sending the bill down and having the governor veto it, and we needed to make sure this wouldn’t happen.”

The bill had to jump an atypical hurdle before it passed. The Senate minority leader and the House speaker required that the bill garner “yes” votes from the majority of each minority party in each chamber. This unusual requirement meant that the bill would not move without widespread consensus.

“This consumed me for the first six weeks of the session,” said State Rep. Lykam. “It was just back and forth negotiations. You try and do something — you pick up votes, but then you lose votes over here — so it was a give and take.”

IOWANS GETTING INSPIRED IN DENVER

Just before their work began in the new legislative session in January, Rep. Lykam and Senator Bowman attended Transportation for America’s Capital Ideas Conference in Denver in November 2014, which helped them find focus and fresh ideas that they brought back to Iowa. Senator Bowman learned from a group of attendees from Massachusetts about the pros and cons of tying any future gas tax increases to inflation.

Scott VanDeWoestyne, the government affairs director for the Quad Cities Chamber of Commerce — another Capital Ideas attendee — said the conference helped light a fire under him and the two legislators.

“They were able to come back from Denver, and come here to the Quad Cities region and engage in good conversation,” VanDeWoestyne said. “Good comprehensive discussions with their colleagues about, ‘Hey, these are some of the other things states are doing, and we need to be focused on this.’”

VanDeWoestyne also stressed the importance of Iowa’s transportation funding bill to the Quad Cities metro area.

“Our economy in the Quad Cities region is growing fast,” he added, “and the state’s transportation investments have had a tough time keeping pace. This is one of the reasons we have championed greater federal and state transportation investments in Iowa. So, it was very heartening to see this year that Iowa moved towards a solution, and we’re happy to be a part of the compromise.”

EDUCATING THE MASSES

As with any piece of legislation that involves new taxes, not all Iowans were on board. A coalition of stakeholders from across the state focused on educating legislators and the general public and establishing consensus that the transportation package was necessary to support economic development and provide better quality of life to the state’s residents.

Iowa state senator Todd Bowman.

“The more that people know about the issue, the easier it is to push a difficult thing like a tax increase,” said Senator Bowman. “Nobody wants to pay more taxes for their fuel. But nobody wants their roads and bridges to deteriorate, and so it becomes a point of education.”

THE GOVERNOR’S SUPPORT

Rep. Lykam cites the governor’s continuous support as one of the critical reasons why this bill gained the broad agreement needed to pass the legislature. “When the Governor grabs the microphone, you know he’s got the bullhorn for the full state,” said Lykam. “It was very, very important that we had his support.”

It took a few years, a broad coalition of stakeholders and bipartisan consensus, but Iowans have shown what can be accomplished when partisan politics are set aside to raise the necessary revenue to maintain and enhance their transportation system to support the state’s economy.

As we note here often, the Iowa legislature acted to expand their capacity to match and stretch the dollars they expect from the federal program. Congress needs to act, in turn, to stabilize and increase that funding, to ensure that the bold moves in state houses this year are not undermined by a wobbly federal partner.

House proposes cuts to TIGER and transit construction, stable funding for other programs for fiscal 2016

The House Appropriations Committee introduced a Transportation, Housing and Urban Development (T-HUD) bill for fiscal 2016 that, as in years past, features heavy cuts to TIGER, New Starts and Amtrak.

The bill, approved by the T-HUD subcommittee and headed back to the full Appropriations Committee for markup and a vote, maintains funding rates for federal highway and mass transit formula dollars, $40.3 billion and $8.6 billion respectively. Of course, these funding levels assume that Congress is going to act to find enough money to keep the Highway Trust Fund solvent past this June or July, and also move to either reauthorize or extend MAP-21 after its May 31^stexpiration. Without either action, there won’t be any money for transportation past that deadline, much less for the entire next fiscal year.

Meanwhile, other key programs are facing heavy cuts.

TIGER: The overwhelmingly popular TIGER program would shrink from $500 million to $100 million. In addition, the size of grants would be far smaller, within a range of $2-15 million, down from last year’s range of $10-200 million. This year’s T-HUD also reduces the share that the federal government will cover for TIGER projects, from 60 percent to 50 percent, requiring more local or state money to be brought to the table.

The silver lining in all this is that the House did not repeat last year’s attempt to limit eligibility to only road and port projects, a move that would have left out the wide range of multimodal projects that have benefited the most from this innovative program.

New Starts & Small Starts: These programs that fund new rail, rapid bus and streetcar construction would receive $1.92 billion in funding, down from last year’s $2.12 billion in the final budget. The new bill would also reduce the federal government’s share of New Starts projects from 60 percent to 50 percent.

Amtrak: Amtrak would have a budget of $1.1 billion. The bill actually adds $39 million to the rail service’s operational costs, but cuts $290 million from its capital budget.

The Senate has yet to release its own budget, but for the last few years, the Senate has prioritized funding for many of these important programs. However, with the change in leadership in the Senate in this Congress, it’s unclear if things could play out similarly this year compared to years past.

Members can read our full summary memo on the THUD bill below.

[member_content] Members, you can read our full members-only THUD summary here. (pdf)

And, have you been to the new portal for all members-only content? https://t4america.org/members [/member_content]

Hold states accountable for repairing roads and bridges – send a letter to USDOT

The U.S. Department of Transportation is in the process of writing new rules to hold states accountable for the condition of their roads and bridges. USDOT’s strong first draft rule was a step in the right direction, and we want to thank them — and ensure they don’t bow to pressure to soften these requirements.

Can you take just one minute to sign this letter to USDOT? We’ll hand-deliver a copy straight to USDOT for you.

Did you already take action? Share this action with others:

The 2012 transportation law (MAP-21) requires transportation agencies to begin using a new system of performance measures to govern how federal dollars are spent. USDOT is working to establish these new metrics for safety, the state of repair, congestion (coming soon!), air emissions and other aspects of our transportation system through an iterative process of draft rules, feedback, refined drafts and final rules.

Look, we get it: this is a wonky and arcane affair. So why should you take action and provide a comment on this pavement and bridge proposed rule? Because USDOT is truly listening to comments and making changes as a result.

USDOT’s first rule on roadway safety wasn’t a good one, to put it bluntly, and it failed to ensure that safety would improve. Yet the thousands of comments we delivered played a part in improving it.

In that draft, states were allowed to fail half of the fatality and injury targets and still receive a passing grade. But after receiving more than 1,500 comments, USDOT incorporated that feedback into this improved draft for roads and bridges, requiring progress on all targets — not just 50 percent of them.

Now USDOT is going to hear from the other side, those that don’t want states to be held to such high standards. We need to let USDOT know that we support the changes they made and that requiring progress across the board is just as essential for evaluating the condition of our roads and bridges.

Between 2009 and 2011, all U.S. states collectively spent $20.4 billion annually to build new roadways and add lanes to existing roads, and just $16.5 billion annually repairing and preserving existing roads and bridges. But by 2011, after spending more than half of all highway dollars on expansion projects, just 37 percent of our nation’s roadways were in ‘good’ condition. And today, more than 260 million trips are taken each year on the country’s structurally deficient bridges.

That’s not good enough. We need to hold states accountable to meet measurable targets with our tax dollars. USDOT has drafted a better rule to make that happen, and we need your help to ensure it stays that way.

Read and sign this letter today, and we’ll deliver it to USDOT before the May 8 deadline.

Join us for a discussion on the TIGER grant program and what you need to know before applying

T4America is hosting a webinar this Thursday at 3 p.m. to help municipalities and states interested in applying for this year’s $500 million in grants available in the latest round of TIGER grant funding.

Join us on Thursday, April 23, at 2 p.m. for a discussion with Beth Osborne, T4America’s Senior Policy Advisor, on the ins and outs of the federal TIGER grant program, examples of past winners, and how to best craft a winning application. Communities across the country have benefitted from over $4 billion in grants for innovative, multimodal projects over the last six rounds of funding dating back to February 2010, and you can see them all here on our TIGER map.

Before coming to T4America, Osborne was Deputy Assistant Secretary for Transportation Policy at USDOT, where she ran the TIGER program. Almost no one inside or outside of USDOT knows more about the program or how it works, and she will outline the basic information, show examples of previous winners and share tips you need to put together a smart application.

The 7th round of the TIGER competitive grant application period is currently open, which includes a pre-application deadline of May 4, 2015 and a final application deadline of June 5, 2015.

And then there were seven: April update on state transportation funding legislation

A total of seven states have now successfully passed legislation in 2015 to raise new money to invest in transportation, avoid budget shortfalls from declining revenue sources and keep up with growing needs — mostly by voting to raise their state fuel taxes.

Georgia passed a bill that will raise approximately $900 million annually mostly for state highway projects. The bill changes how the state taxes gas, switching from a sales tax on gas purchases to a 26-cents-per-gallon excise tax, indexed to both the change in the average fuel efficiency of all vehicles registered in the state and to inflation (measured by the Consumer Price Index). That double indexing will ensure the new per-gallon tax doesn’t lose future value due to inflation or improved fuel efficiency. The bill also places fees on other services, including a $5-per-night hotel fee, $300 annually in fees for electric cars and $100 annually in fees for heavy trucks. In light of this switch from a sales tax to per-gallon taxes on gasoline, it’s worth noting that Georgia is one of dozens of states with a constitutional prohibition on spending per-gallon gas tax revenues on public transportation.

Georgia counties and cities also won a modified option to raise funds for local transportation needs via additional sales taxes of up to one percent if approved by the county commission and voter referendum. Before this modification, a local option sales tax referendum could only be held on dates and in regions determined by the legislature.

Also worth noting is the passage of a separate bill that finally removes the onerous requirement that MARTA (Atlanta’s regional transit system) could spend no more than 50 percent of its locally-raised revenue to fund operations — essentially the state telling them what they could or couldn’t do with their locally-raised revenues. At one point during negotiations there was a provision that would have allowed the cities and counties that contribute to MARTA to increase the sales tax dedicated to the system by 0.5 percent via ballot measures, but this provision was removed from the final bill.

In North Carolina, legislators passed a bill to raise the minimum gas tax rate of their variable tax to 36 cents per gallon. The gas tax was previously 37.5 cents per gallon but would have dropped below 30 cents per gallon in July, which would have cost the state an estimated $266 million in funding for transportation over the next year.

Kentucky, with a variable tax rate similar to North Carolina, passed a similar bill. The state established a new gas tax minimum of 26 cents per gallon. The new minimum will prevent an estimated $250 million drop in contributions to their transportation fund for the year.

The House and Senate in Idaho both approved raising their gas tax from 25 cents per gallon to 32 cents along with increases to the state’s vehicle fees. The bill will raise an estimated $94 million for maintenance of the state’s roads and bridges. The bill is sitting on Governor Butch Otter’s desk waiting for his signature.

Those states join Iowa, Utah and South Dakota as the seven states that have successfully raised new funds in 2015. With legislative sessions and active proposals still moving in a handful of states, more could still follow this year.

Louisiana legislators have filed several bills to address the state’s transportation issues. One bill would raise the state fuel tax by 4 cents per gallon with new revenue dedicated to parish governments. Another proposal would temporarily raise the state fuel tax by 4 cents per gallon for the next three years. A separate bill would reform the way the state selects highway projects, improving the potential for return on transportation investments while adding transparency and accountability that could boost the prospects of the plans to raise new revenue.

Nebraska’s legislature has advanced a bill to increase their state gas tax by 6 cents per gallon, but Governor Ricketts said he opposes the increase and has called for a study committee to assess the state’s transportation need instead.

Lastly, for any Minnesota funding proposals to have a chance this year, they must pass out of their committees by April 24^th. Check back then for results.