Steve Davis, Author at Transportation For America

About Steve Davis

Stephen Lee Davis is the AVP for Transportation Strategy at Smart Growth America.

Photos of dangerous streets have been streaming in

After putting out the call far and wide for pictures of streets designed for speeding traffic at the expense of safe travel by people on foot or bike, we’ve been getting some great — and by great, we mean frightening and terrible — photos of inconvenient, poorly-planned, dangerous and downright hostile conditions for pedestrians.

Here is a sampling of some of what we’ve received so far.

Bladensburg-22 Originally uploaded by wtrecat to Flickr.

MD 450 just west of junction with MD 202. Very busy road with no pedestrian crossing at this spot across from El Primo international market, 5403 Annapolis Rd.

Note that this photo from Maryland just outside D.C. is taken at a Metro bus stop. And there appears to be no safe crossing immediately nearby.

Incomplete Street Originally uploaded by Boenau to Flickr.

No sidewalks? No problem!

There’s no sidewalk at all along this road. And the overgrowth forces anyone trying to walk out into the roadway. If there is a crosswalk at the light up ahead, pedestrians have to cross at least 8 lanes of traffic and a median to make it across.

Incomplete Street Originally uploaded by Boenau to Flickr.

As if walking on the goat path isn’t bad enough, rainfall drains and collects on the grass, forcing pedestrians into the street.

Just because there aren’t any sidewalks doesn’t mean that people won’t or aren’t walking. It has to be terrifying to walk on this narrow strip of grass next to 3 straight lanes of high speed traffic. And once again, if there is a crosswalk 200-400 yards down behind this pedestrian, people on foot will have to cross at least 6 lanes of traffic and a median in one light cycle.

elkton_rd3 Originally uploaded by Transportation for America to Flickr.

Submitted photo by Frank Warnock of Bike Delaware. www.bikede.org/ (Please credit photographer, not T4 America.)

Smooth, graduated turning radii like this are especially dangerous to pedestrians. Turns are engineered like this so traffic can make a right turn while only having to barely slow their speed, making it extremely hazardous for people on foot to cross from the island back to the side of the road.

IMG_6603 Originally uploaded by Transportation for America to Flickr.

Bee Caves Rd/RM 2244 west of Walsh Tarlton Lane in Austin, Texas. Roadway under TxDOT jurisdiction. Submitted photo by Joan Hudson, P.E., of the Texas Transportation Institute. (Please credit photographer, not T4 America.)

The photos we got from this supporter in Texas were all taken on roads managed by the Texas DOT. Pedestrians here have to walk in a ditch with nowhere to escape to if a car veers slightly out of the lane.

Photos like these could be taken in almost any place in the country. These conditions are far too common and much too accepted by the people who plan and design our streets and roads. Two-thirds of all pedestrian fatalities in the last 10 years occurred on roads much like these — high-speed arterials designed first and foremost for moving speeding traffic as fast as possible with little consideration for the needs or safety of people on foot or bike. Federal dollars and design guidelines have helped create these dangerous situations across the country, and the federal government shouldn’t be able to walk away and pin the problem on the states.

Simple policy changes and priorities for spending at the federal level can help save lives immediately.

We’re not finished collecting these photos — we want to see yours! When you send them in (click here for instructions), feel free to include location information as well and we’ll plot and share the location. And bonus points for photos that show people in them.

Thank you so much to the dozens of people who sent us photos or submitted them to our Flickr group. Keep it up!

Raquel Nelson’s story may be rare, but the dangerous conditions are not — show us

Many of you were shocked by the story of Raquel Nelson, the single mom in Atlanta charged with vehicular homicide when her son was killed while crossing an unsafe street with her. While shocking, head-scratching stories like hers are thankfully rare, it’s emblematic of the road design in many places that we live, and we want to make sure that Congress gets that picture loud and clear.

We want to show them that roads like Austell Road by Raquel Nelson’s apartment — 4 lane speedways with few considerations for pedestrians — are far too common.

So send us your photos of dangerous, unsafe and poorly planned streets out there across America.

We want to see what streets look like out there for people trying to walk. We want to see the missing crosswalks, the 1/2 mile treks to the nearest crosswalk along a 50 mph highway, and dangerous roads designed for speeding traffic rather than safe walking. More than 47,000 people were killed while walking from 2000-2009, and a large majority of them occurred on roads fitting these descriptions.

A few details about how to send in photos or video:

Email: You can email photos to us at photos@t4america.org. When you send them, please let us know if we can upload these to our Flickr account (with your credit information in caption like this one.) Anywhere we use your photos, we’ll always give you credit.
Flickr: Add photos to the T4 America Flickr group, and tag them with “dangerous by design” so we’re sure to see them. If you have photos but don’t want to add them to the group, you can just add the tag “dangerous by design”. We always prefer photos licensed with Creative Commons, so we can use these photos in meetings with Congress or on the blog with credit given to the source.
Video: You can upload videos directly to our Facebook page, but Youtube or other video sharing sites are fine. Send us a link. If you send in videos directly to the email address, they need to be under 10 mb.
If you’ve got another way to show us your photos other than these, drop us a line at photos@t4america.org

Over the next few weeks we’ll highlight some of the most heinous conditions and worst design here on the blog.

Poorly designed streets — often built or designed with federal dollars — endanger pedestrians, cyclists and drivers alike. Too many people are walking in these places where they’re likely to become the next statistic because of streets that are dangerous by design. Show Congress what this looks like and help us paint a compelling picture of why we need to invest in safer streets in the next transportation bill.

Your photos will help us in our meetings with Congress and other transportation officials as we press for policies and funding in a transportation bill that will help make walking and biking safer on streets around the country.

Here are some examples of the dangerous and inconvenient conditions pedestrians face in our cities and communities every day.

The New York Times photo by Chip Litherland

New York Times photo by Chip Litherland

Sidewalk Infill_ 82nd 022 Originally uploaded by Transportation for America to Flickr.

Credit to April Bertelsen
Pedestrian Coordinator
Portland Bureau of Transportation

image003 Originally uploaded by Transportation for America to Flickr.

(Please credit photos to Dr. Scott Crawford. Posted here with his permission)

Walking & Roads Originally uploaded by Transportation for America to Flickr.

Credit to Stephen Lee Davis/Transportation for America

Walking in the ditch Originally uploaded by Transportation for America to Flickr.

Photograph by Stephen Lee Davis/Transportation for America.

Ensuring economic prosperity for the future by investing in transportation

We’ve fallen behind the world on investing in transportation and our physical infrastructure, but Building America’s Future lays out a clear path forward to help restore America’s prominence and lay a strong foundation for our economic future.

Falling Apart and Falling Behind lays out the economic challenges posed by our ailing infrastructure, provides a comparative look at the smart investments being made by our international competitors, and suggests a series of recommendations for crafting new innovative transportation policies in the U.S. This report frames the state of our infrastructure in terms of the new economic realities of the 21st-century economy and presents the challenges we currently face.

America’s railroads — once the fastest and most comprehensive in the world — opened up the interior of the country but America truly forged its status as a world economic superpower in the decades following World War II as our booming country awash with wealth embarked upon building new infrastructure, airports and an interstate system that was the envy of the world.

There was a time when we led the world in the very real physical infrastructure that drives economic success in our cities and states but those days are behind us as we’re failing not only to build the next generation of transportation systems, but failing to even properly maintain our past investments to ensure they continue serving us and our economy.

The last great vision for transportation our country rallied behind was a national interstate system laid out in the 1950s, but we’ve been rudderless for the last 20 years since completing that system with no grand vision. While we’ve been treading water and spinning our wheels, other countries have been investing the kind of money we once did in their transportation systems, positioning them to succeed for years to come.

This report from BAF is a concise summary of the problem we face and the perhaps obvious solution staring us in the face: If we want to continue leading the world in economic dominance, we’ve got to lead the world in investing in our transportation networks — and casting a vision for the next 50 years of investment.

Read the report here, and you can see an interview with two of the BAF co-chairs, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Governor Ed Rendell yesterday on MSNBC’s Morning Joe.

What does the debt ceiling deal mean for transportation?

With just hours to spare before the deadline, the House, Senate and President Obama have agreed (in principle) on an agreement to raise the debt ceiling. While the details of that agreement are circulating in the media, the implications for the ongoing efforts to reauthorize the transportation bill — as well as funding for current programs over the next year or two — are a bit murky.

Here are a few things we know:

The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee won’t be able to move their transportation bill this week, which means it won’t get introduced or marked up before the August recess. The delay caused by the debt ceiling debate and the scheduled recess in August will likely move the introduction of the Senate bill and markup into September.

The Senate Finance Committee, currently tasked with finding an additional $12 billion to fund the Senate’s plan for a two-year bill, might be preoccupied with examining the details of the cuts in the debt deal. The Senate would need $12 billion to keep the HTF solvent over the length of its two-year bill.

Perhaps restating the obvious, but at a time when Congress is trying to establish or decide what will or won’t be cut, it could be more difficult to find the $12 billion needed for the Senate’s plan. That said, don’t count out Sen. Baucus just yet and his ability to find this amount of money for the EPW Committee.

Other than the cuts to defense spending, the bulk of the initial cuts will come from discretionary programs (and caps on discretionary spending.) In the past, the Highway Trust Fund has never been treated as discretionary spending by Congress, which could lead to a problem if that is the case in this instance. If there are discretionary cuts to transportation, they will primarily hit the transportation programs that get funded out of general fund revenues. This could include things like high speed rail, TIGER and New Starts, among others.

The upshot is that it’s still too early to determine the specific impacts, but this deal will have definite impacts on transportation over the coming two years and beyond.

Also: Read Streetsblog Capitol Hill on the same topic

Tell your story: 15.5 million seniors will have poor or non-existent transit access in 2015. How will it affect you?

By 2015, more than 15.5 million Americans 65 and older will live in communities where public transportation service is poor or non-existent. That number will continue to grow rapidly as the baby boom generation “ages in place” in suburbs and exurbs with few mobility options for those who do not drive.

How will we address the shrinking mobility options of baby boomers who wish to stay in their homes and “age in place?” What happens when people in the largest generation in American history outlive their ability to drive for everything?

We want to know how the lack of transit access or other options affects you. Whether you’re a senior or have a parent or grandparent getting older in places with poor transportation options, we want to hear real stories of how this will affect real people in the coming years. We’re partnering with AARP to gather stories about how you or someone you know is or will be affected by the lack of transportation options.

Share your story with AARP today, which is joining with T4 America to gather compelling stories to share with Congress.

With Congress set to introduce a transportation bill that will determine how to spend our transportation money for the next 6 years, we need to make it clear to Congress how their decisions will impact real people.

Senate committee due to release bill next week, must prioritize repair

We’ve heard that the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee is releasing their portion of the transportation bill next week. (Though as Tanya Snyder at Streetsblog pointed out, they promised it would be released in two weeks, three weeks ago.)

There’s a vital piece of policy that must be included in the Senate bill next week, and there’s not much time to make sure the EPW committee members hear about it.

Earlier this week, Senator Cardin introduced a bill that would make the upkeep of our roads and bridges a top national priority. Now we need to make sure this priority is actually adopted as part of the full transportation bill. With the Senate EPW committee expected to release their draft bill next week, time is short to signal our support for this important legislation. Tell your Senators to sponsor this important bill.

We continue spending limited transportation dollars to build roads we can’t afford to maintain — all while our existing infrastructure cracks and rusts and crumbles due to deferred maintenance. Our next transportation bill needs to ensure that we first and foremost take care of our existing investments, saving us money over the long-term.

Send an email to your Senators and make sure they know that their bill absolutely must prioritize repair.

New report and map chronicles the visceral reality of 47,000 preventable pedestrian deaths

The 2011 edition of our pedestrian safety report is out today, looking back on the 47,000 people that were killed and 688,000 injured while walking our nation’s streets in the ten years from 2000-2009. Dangerous by Design 2011 examines the problem and several solutions for the epidemic of preventable deaths that far too many have simply accepted as matter of course.

This edition of our national report, along with data and a report or factsheet for all 50 states, comes with a powerful visual: this year, we’ve taken the pedestrian fatalities from 2001 to 2009 that have location data (all but about 5 percent) and plotted them on an interactive map, allowing you to take a look at the streets and roads near you to see how safe or unsafe they may be. Test it out.

https://t4america.org/resources/dangerousbydesign2011/map/

Type an address and once the map draws, click on any point to see the available information about the victim, the date, the location, the street type and even what the road looks like via Google Street View. Here’s a sample from Orlando, rated the #1 most dangerous metro area in the country.

The visual is striking. Shown on a map like this, it’s shockingly easy to pick out the busy arterial roads where fatalities are strung out in a tidy little line following the path of the road. Nationally speaking, the majority of these deaths occurred along these “arterial” roadways that are dangerous by design — streets engineered for speeding traffic with little or no provision for people on foot, in wheelchairs or on bicycles.

Our federal tax dollars actually go to build these streets that are designed to be perilous to children, older adults and everyone else. And yet, right now, some in Congress are considering the total elimination of funding for projects to make it safer to walk and bicycle.

The highways-only lobby insists that pedestrian safety is a “frill” and a local responsibility. But 67 percent of these fatalities over the last 10 years occurred on federal-aid roads — roads eligible to receive federal funding or with federal guidelines or oversight for their design.

That’s right: Federal programs have encouraged state departments of transportation to prioritize speeding traffic over the safety of people in our neighborhoods and shopping districts. Shouldn’t our tax dollars be used to build streets that are safe for all users, and not deadly for those on foot?

The irony is that fixing these conditions is relatively cheap: Existing funds for that purpose — now targeted for elimination — amount to less than 1.5 percent of the current federal transportation outlay. A policy of giving federal support only to “complete streets” that are designed for the safety of people on foot or bicycle as well as in cars would cost next to nothing.

Tell Congress: it’s no time to start cutting funding keeps pedestrians safe.

UPDATE: Within hours of the report’s release, Senator Tom Harkin and eleven co-sponsors formally introduced the Complete Streets Act of 2011, which mirrors its House counterpart — sponsored by Republican Steve LaTourette and Democrat Doris Matsui — in calling for streets that are safe and accessible for all users, whether on foot, in a wheelchair, on a bike or using public transit. The Iowa Democrat, who has introduced similar legislation in the past, mentioned the Dangerous by Design report in his statement this afternoon.

DOT chronicles the inspiring success story of United Streetcar

There’s been a resurgence of streetcars in the United States, with dozens of cities from Washington, D.C. to Tucson, Arizona and Cincinnati, Ohio competing each year for federal dollars to build new streetcar systems to help fill gaps in the existing transit network, bring new development to neglected corridors, and provide another travel option for folks to get from A to B.

Washington, D.C.’s new streetcars were built in Europe, because frankly, most of the expertise on building transit vehicles has been concentrated in countries other than the United States for the last few decades. But now, at least one American company has entered the market and written their own success story.

Streetcars are coming back to the United States in a big way, and United Streetcar, a company based in Portland, is taking advantage by producing Streetcars here in the United States, hiring American workers and boosting the local economy. (Ed note: we profiled United Streetcar in this 2009 post)

It’s a good reminder that our federal transportation priorities and spending have real implications for jobs and the economy here in the U.S. More money for streetcars in the transportation bill not only means better transit options for more people in our cities and communities — it also means more money flowing to companies like United Streetcar; companies that are creating jobs for Oregon residents with trickle-down effects to hundreds of other vendors and suppliers.

More money for transit means more success stories like United Streetcar.

Watch the DOT video below, and read the original post on Secretary LaHood’s blog.

Newspaper editorial boards urge action on repairing bridges

Pittsburgh Bridge Originally uploaded by mikeyexists to Flickr.

In the days since our comprehensive bridge report (The Fix We’re In For) was released, at least one governor has promised action and several newspaper editorials have urged their states to prioritize repair and address the growing backlog of deficient bridges.

In Pennsylvania, with the worst bridges in the country, there was little surprise that the report would make big headlines. New Governor Tom Corbett told the Pittsburgh Post Gazette that his transportation secretary will be creating a task force to look at the issue and come up with funding strategies to repair bridges — even telling the Tribune Review he’d consider selling state-owned liquor stores to pay for it. He’s also pledging to continue an accelerated bridge repair program created under former Governor Ed Rendell that has helped in recent years.

Today, the Post Gazette published an editorial on the issue focusing on what the state can do to help move Pennsylvania down the rankings in the coming years.

As if Gov. Tom Corbett doesn’t have enough financial challenges, last week brought a reminder of another problem that is not going away and will only get worse. According to Transportation for America, a coalition of groups working for national transportation reform, Pennsylvania still leads the nation in structurally deficient highway bridges.

What is depressing about this finding issued last Wednesday is that Gov. Ed Rendell made a priority of fixing bridges. By selling bonds and using federal stimulus funding, the Rendell administration did a lot of good work on bridges, without which the situation would be more dire. But, as this report shows, it’s hard to make up for years of neglect…

…The fact that Pennsylvania remains No. 1 in bad bridges can’t be blamed on Mr. Corbett, but the headlines that would come if a Minneapolis-type bridge disaster happened here would be part of his legacy. This latest report is a reminder that finding creative funding for bridges isn’t just a challenge — it’s a necessity.

As the Post Gazette hints at, states have a lot of power within the federal framework to do a better job with repairing their bridges. As our report notes, states aren’t even required to spend all of their bridge repair money on bridges. But a large part of the solution to this problem will come from Congress and the next multi-year transportation bill. That bill must provide more funding for bridge repair and it should hold states accountable for fixing their bridges with that money.

Until then, states with older infrastructure and a large backlog of deficient bridges, like Pennsylvania, will be fighting this battle at a bit of a disadvantage.

(Ed. note: The Times-Picayune in New Orleans offered a similar editorial)

National report and interactive map shows the state of our nation’s bridges

69,223 bridges – representing more than 11 percent of all U.S. highway bridges – are classified as “structurally deficient,” requiring significant maintenance, rehabilitation or replacement, according to a new T4 America report released today, The Fix We’re In: The State of Our Nation’s Bridges.

Those are the facts, and 69,000 bridges sure sounds like a lot, but what does that look like in real terms? Where are these bridges? Does your city or state have a lot of deficient bridges, or does the state do a good job taking care of them? Those questions are going to be much easier to answer with our online tools accompanying the report, launching today at t4america.org/resources/bridges.

We’ve taken the whole federal bridge database and put it online in a map, so you can type your address, and see all the bridges within a ten-mile radius. Structurally deficient bridges will show up as red icons. Click any bridge and you’ll get more information about it, including its rating in a box on the right.

Curious about how your state stacks up? Click on “By State” and click your state to see a quick overview of their performance, including the best and worst five counties, as well as their rank nationally and total percentage of structurally deficient bridges.

The national report and all 51 state reports are being officially released today at noon with a national telebriefing, but you can go ahead and check out the map and data now on our site. (Media members? Contact david.goldberg@t4america.org if you want information on the telebriefing.)

Check out the map today and please spread the word about it. We’ll be posting several times throughout the day with more information about the national report, which is available for download now — as well as reports for all 50 states and D.C.

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New report assessing the condition of our nation’s bridges coming Wednesday

A report being released Wednesday by T4 America chronicles the state of our nation’s bridges, with accompanying data and reports for all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Our country is facing a backlog of deficient bridges that need repairs and maintenance to stay open and safe, with needs far greater than what we’re currently spending.

If you’ve been paying attention to stories about our infrastructure at any time in the last few years, it won’t come as a surprise to you that our transportation infrastructure isn’t in the best shape. Every year, headlines are made when the American Society of Civil Engineers rates our roads or bridges with grades that we’d ground our children for bringing home on their report cards. Most of the year, though, transportation infrastructure isn’t at the forefront of our minds, even though we depend on it every day.

But no event in recent memory jolted us into paying attention quite like the collapse of the I-35W bridge in Minneapolis three years ago this summer. After that event, there was renewed interest in assessing the condition of our bridges from governors demanding audits down to everyday drivers avoiding deficient bridges. But as the months went by, we went right back to taking these vital pieces of infrastructure for granted. So where do we stand today, almost three years later?

Wednesday’s report will answer questions such as:

How many bridges are in urgent need of repairs or maintenance?
What states are the best and worst when it comes to the condition of their bridges?
What counties in each state are the best and worst?
How much money are we spending on repairing our bridges, and is it enough?
Are we fixing our existing bridges before we spend money on new roads and highways?

We’ve already released the state-level reports in California, Florida, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota and South Dakota. The rest of the states will be released on Wednesday with the national report, as well as a nifty interactive mapping tool that will allow you to find all the bridges near you and see how they rate. Check right here on Wednesday morning first thing for the report and the interactive mapping tools. Follow us on Twitter to get a stream of statistics about bridges throughout the week.

Reporter or media? Email David Goldberg for information about the national telebriefing and report details.

Americans want Congress to ‘fix it first’, invest in and improve our transportation system

I-5 Repair Originally uploaded by WSDOT to Flickr.

In the midst of the fervor about the House’s budget resolution for 2011 released Friday, and the President’s budget proposal for 2012 dominating the news today, a new bipartisan poll from the Rockefeller Foundation contains compelling arguments from a majority of Americans in favor of increased and accountable investment in transportation.

The poll shows unequivocally that voters from across the political spectrum are tired of bickering and want Congress to seek compromise. And almost nowhere else is their desire for cooperation and solutions greater than with the issue of transportation infrastructure.

Americans largely see investments in transportation as a way to improve the economy and make communities safer, while improving the quality of life for more people. They clearly see a need for reform when it comes to paying for and choosing the transportation projects we need, according to the results.

This poll shows that we believe strongly that providing a safe transportation systems that works is a primary role of our government, and that it should be above partisan divisions, more than most other issues. The Administration’s budget proposal, released this morning, also delivers on the desire reflected in the poll to prioritize the maintenance of what we’ve already built, and for giving local communities more say in how they solve their transportation issues and build for the future.

It’s fitting that the release of this poll is sandwiched between the House’s 2011 plan to gut transportation spending and the Administration’s 2012 plan to invest more money in transportation (within a budget laced with overall cuts). This poll makes it abundantly clear that the House 2011 budget resolution – which would cut support for communities that want better public transportation and safer streets — is at dramatic odds with the desires of a majority of Americans.

Here are some of the detailed top-line findings from the poll:

Should Congress find some way to work together on the issue of transportation? 71 percent of voters say there should be common ground on this issue — higher than other major issues — while 19 percent say leaders should hold fast to their positions, which is lower than other major issues.

The connection between investing and building the economy: Four in five (80 percent) voters agree that federal funding to improve and modernize transportation “will boost local economies and create millions of jobs from construction to manufacturing to engineering.” Just 19 percent disagree with this. 79 percent agree that “in order for the United States to remain the world’s top economic superpower, we need to modernize our transportation infrastructure and keep it up to date.” Only 19 percent disagree.

What should greater investment on transportation net us in the end? What would the benefits be? Voters’ top goal by far is “safer streets for our communities and children.” 57 percent say this should be one of the top-two priorities if more money is invested in infrastructure. The second-highest priority for voters overall (32 percent) is “more transportation options.” In addition, 85 percent agree that “spending less time in traffic would improve quality of life, make communities safer, and reduce stress in people’s daily lives.” Moreover, the vast majority also believe the country (80 percent) and their own community (66 percent) would benefit from an expanded and improved public transportation system.

What should we change about how we invest money in transportation? Two-thirds of respondents favored 9 of 10 reforms offered, with 90 percent supporting more accountability and certification that projects are delivered on time and fit into a national plan. Among the specific reforms to the system that were proposed, 86 percent supported a “fix it first” policy that focuses on maintaining existing transportation systems before building new ones.

This poll was conducted by two Republican and Democratic polling firms from Jan. 29-Feb 6 2011. Disclosure: T4 America is a grantee of the Rockefeller Foundation.

House budget for the rest of 2011 has deep cuts for transportation

On the Friday before the President releases his budget for 2012 (forthcoming sometime this morning), the House Appropriations Committee, led by Chairman Hal Rogers (R-Ky.) released their funding proposal to carry the government through the rest of 2011.

Quick refresher: The government is currently operating under what’s known as a Continuing Resolution (CR) that expires in March. Congress has been under pressure since late in 2010 to pass a full budget, but have been passing Continuing Resolutions due to an inability to agree on and pass a budget. These CRs basically continue funding levels from the 2010 fiscal year until Congress manages to pass a budget for 2011. Or they pass a CR with cuts and lower funding, which is what the House has proposed.

The 2011 budget that passed out of the Appropriations Committee Friday afternoon has some significant cuts for transportation, and some of them mirror the proposal that came from the Republican Study Committee a few weeks ago. There are a lot of cuts to very worthwhile programs across the board, but here are some of the highlights (lowlights?) for transportation:

New Starts, the program that funds new transit construction, gets cut by $430 million. There is also a rescission of about $300 million in unspent 2010 (fiscal year) funds.
High-speed rail is cut completely and the CR would rescind essentially all funds from 2010. Other than the money already spent, this entire program is eliminated.
The innovative TIGER program is eliminated completely and the unspent/unobligated FY10 funds are rescinded.
Amtrak appears to be mostly intact, avoiding the cuts that were proposed by the GOP study committee.

These cuts target exactly the kinds of projects that can create the most jobs and can help get our economy moving. Costs for labor and material are low right now, making it a prime time to spend on infrastructure, and we know that spending on public transportation creates more jobs than other types of transportation spending.

While these cuts are indeed severe and may get some support in the House, this proposal will still have to make it through the Senate.

We’ll be back later today with some information on how you can contact your Representative and urge them to reject these cuts to critical transportation projects.

Proposed budget would gut transit spending, passenger rail funding

Sound Transit underground Originally uploaded by Transportation for America to Flickr.

A Seattle Sound transit light rail car moves through a tunnel south of downtown. Sound Transit’s new line was funded in part by the federal New Starts transit program.

The budget proposal from the Republican Study Committee, which consists of 165 of the 242 GOP House members, released a week or so ago, calls for completely eliminating the main federal transit program, zeroes out Amtrak, cuts all funding for the metro system in the nation’s capital and slashes $2.5 billion in high-speed rail grants.

This shortsighted proposal would derail with uncanny precision exactly the kind of investments that are most critical for creating jobs and developing a 21st Century transportation infrastructure. And as far as transportation spending goes, these are some of the investments that create the most jobs per dollar spent.

The proposal eliminates New Starts, the transportation program that funds all new transit projects in the country, and slashes high-speed rail funding — the same program touted by President Obama to great fanfare in last week’s State of the Union.

It even chops all federal funding for Washington DC’s transit authority, the very transit system that these legislators’ staff and neighbors rely on every day to get to and from work.

This budget is a trial-balloon for the budget fight to come. We need to waste no time making it clear that these kinds of cuts are short-sighted and unacceptable.

Sign our petition objecting to this assault on public transportation funding. We’ll deliver the petition with your signature along with a letter from us and our partners to lawmakers. (Are you a T4 America partner who wants to sign your org onto the letter? Contact Heather Brutz for more info.)

The lawmakers who crafted this budget clearly aren’t aware that millions of Americans — including their own constituents — rely on passenger rail and the types of transit projects these programs fund.

These are also the very projects that pay some of the most far-reaching economic dividends. Study after study has shown that every dollar spent on public transportation generates more jobs than any other form of transportation spending. This proposed budget cuts the investments that create the most jobs – an especially poor decision in the face of a recovering economy.

We can keep this proposal from becoming law if we speak up now and make it clear that Americans aren’t going to sit by as federal investments in transit are gutted.

Sign our petition to protect federal support for transportation and jobs!

So what do you want from transportation?

We noticed that the folks at AASHTO are asking all their visitors to weigh in and “tell Congress” what they want to see in a transportation bill, and more broadly, what they think we need to be building and doing with our transportation dollars.

During the six-week campaign, people can use AASHTO’s Facebook page to post YouTube videos and written comments about their transportation priorities, ideas, and personal stories. Already a number of people have weighed-in on their concerns, from traffic congestion and safety, to high-speed rail and job creation through greater investment in transportation projects.

To view or post your comment, go to http://www.transportation.org/IToldCongress.

We like their idea and encourage you to weigh in with them.

As some of our polls and other groups’ polling have shown, Americans have a pretty good idea what we want to spend our money on. We want to have more options for getting around. Nobody wants to be stuck with only one way to get where they need to go. We need to do a better job of fixing what we’ve already got before we spend money on a lot of expensive new things. Travel should be safe, no matter whether we’re in a car, on a train or on foot or bike. Our communities need to have the power to build what we need to get us where we need to go.

So go and tell AASTHO: What do you want?

Blaming the pedestrian won’t solve the problem

Walking in the ditch Originally uploaded by Transportation for America to Flickr.

If this woman got hit by car, it’s probably her fault, right? Photograph by Stephen Lee Davis/Transportation for America.

We noted on Twitter this morning a story in the USA Today about pedestrian deaths increasing in 2010, halting a decline that had been going on for quite a few years. The USA Today story took the angle offered from the head of a state safety association (Governors Highway Safety Association) that pedestrians are at fault for the increase in deaths. The Washington Examiner, not to be outdone, took some comments from the head of the association to baselessly suggest that more pedestrians are being killed because of the First Lady’s “Let’s Move” campaign to get more people active and walking to stem the obesity epidemic.

That’s right, it has nothing to do with things like 4 -and 6- and 8- lane arterials with no sidewalks and crosswalks a mile apart running through our communities. Or streets built without sidewalks. Or 55 mile per hour speed limits on roads where people need to walk. Or curved right turn lanes that allow cars to make turns at intersections at 30 mph. It has nothing to do with roads that are dangerous by design, leading to thousands of avoidable fatalities every year.

Automatically blaming the pedestrian is shameful and the GHSA should take their time to study the issue more carefully. Pedestrians are dying by the thousands, and it’s not because they’re using an ipod while crossing the street or trying to get more exercise at the First Lady’s urging. It’s because our basic choices about road design have left far too many without a safe place to walk, putting too many pedestrians in harm’s way.

We’d laugh at the GHSA’s silly suggestion, but we’re talking about a crisis that’s resulted in 76,000 deaths in the last 15 years. It’s no laughing matter.

UPDATE: The GHSA told the Atlantic that they were misquoted by the Examiner. They don’t refute a possible link, but they do say they support Michelle Obama’s program, adding that if more people are walking, they need to be aware.

Harsha said her primary concern for pedestrians was the increased use of electronic devices like iPods that can block out sound and make walkers unaware of oncoming traffic. The organization has received anecdotal evidence of pedestrian injuries caused by people walking into traffic.

It’s good they clarified, but it still sounds like they don’t quite grasp the main cause of death for pedestrians: Roads that are dangerous by design and unsafe for pedestrians. “Distracted” pedestrians aren’t the real culprit here.

TBD, a local DC news site, shared the pitch that they got from the GHSA, which is likely where the “Let’s Move” connection originated:

“Why the increase? We don’t really know but speculate that it could be a couple factors. One is the possible increase in distracted pedestrians and distracted drivers. We’ve been focusing on the drivers, but perhaps we need to focus some attention on distracted walkers! Additionally, Mrs. Obama and others have been bringing attention to ‘get moving’ programs, so perhaps pedestrian exposure has increased.”

Do you know a good job-creation story from the stimulus?

The $787 billion stimulus from 2009 included roughly $30 billion for transportation, and $8 billion specifically for transit. Also, large transit agencies had the flexibility to use a portion of their stimulus money to operate trains and buses, in many cases keeping already painful cuts and fare increases from getting any worse.

So here’s the call: Did you get a job or keep a job by virtue of the spending on transit in the stimulus? We want to hear from you and hear your story. Are you building railcars or buses? Some other part of the supply chain for transit?

Share your story with us directly at info@t4america.org. And pass this along to anyone you know who might have a story to share with us.

What do the House rule changes mean for transportation spending?

Earlier this week the House adopted rules for this new session of Congress. It’s a bit of inside baseball that can be hard to decipher, but these rules determine how bills are considered by lawmakers and what bills can and cannot do. Streetsblog Capitol Hill covered this issue on Monday and today, but it’s worth a closer examination.

One of the new rules will definitely have two significant impacts on transportation spending.

First, it would subject transportation spending to the annual appropriations process. Basically this means that instead of having transportation funding be more or less automatically tied to spending determined by the six-year transportation law, appropriators in Congress would decide funding levels each year — likely lower than what the transportation bill “authorized” and potentially leaving money unspent in the highway trust fund each year.

Since 1998 during the last two transportation laws (SAFETEA-LU and TEA-21), appropriators have been required by House rules to fund overall transportation programs at the aggregate levels written into the authorization, like current law SAFETEA-LU. This change will allow congressional appropriators to fund transportation below funding levels authorized in the transportation law or even below gas tax receipts.

While the new rule won’t actually allow diversions of transportation dollars to non-transportation uses as some highway advocacy groups claimed last week, it nevertheless poses some significant issues. It would have an impact on the economy and on local projects that rely on the certainty of guaranteed funding to bid out contracts and build projects. It could create even more uncertainty than we already have with the continued stopgap extensions.

There’s no doubt that the highway trust fund isn’t covering what we need to spend as general funds have been used to shore up the trust fund in the past few years. But cutting transportation spending even further won’t solve the real problems, namely that the money — whether it’s more or less than before — is too often given out to states with no strings attached and no accountability for what that money should accomplish.

We need a better program that spends money wisely to meet the needs we have in 2010, not just a cheaper one.

Second, the new rule would prohibit the Appropriations Committee from funding any program not specifically authorized in law. This means that innovative programs that were created outside the six-year transportation authorization like TIGER or the Bush Administration’s Urban Partnership Program wouldn’t receive funding from the trust fund because they were new programs not included in the transportation authorization. (The UP program was the source of funding for congestion pricing in New York, before that project fell apart locally.)

In the last 8 years, both Republican and Democratic presidents have developed creative programs like these to better address our nation’s transportation needs. If this rule had been in place these two programs would not have been funded and projects like the Norfolk-Southern’s Crescent Corridor and Minneapolis’s I-35 multimodal corridor improvements among others could not have moved forward.

Could another new passenger rail line be facing the ax?

An Amtrak passenger train heads back to Chicago with a heavy load of passengers. Photo by David Johnson/NARP

UPDATE (1/21/11): The Iowa House approved a measure to cut the funding. It will likely move to the Senate. If you live in Iowa, use this link to contact your Rep and Senator today to tell them you support this important line.

Potentially following in the footsteps of Wisconsin and Ohio, the Republicans in the state legislature are considering the possibility of killing Iowa’s portion of a planned higher speed passenger rail line from Chicago to Iowa City that would pass through the Quad Cities and the new Moline (Ill.) multimodal transportation hub funded by a TIGER grant.

Just after the last round of TIGER grants were announced, Iowa and Illinois received a joint $230 million grant from the Federal Railroad Administration — separately from the DOT’s high-speed rail program — to start new 110 mph service from Chicago to Iowa City; service that could eventually connect to Des Moines and Omaha and lay the groundwork for a true 220 mph high-speed system connecting Iowa to the hub (Chicago) of the midwest’s high speed network.

The feds have committed $230 million of the $310 million that the two states were asking for on this project, leaving the states to come up with the rest. Iowa had committed around $10 million toward the gap, but state Republicans are currently working on a budget that would cancel that funding and result in all sorts of dilemmas for the project. From the Des Moines Register:

The Republican-sponsored budget package would not provide any state money needed to establish and subsidize operations for the route, almost certainly forcing the Iowa Department of Transportation to return a federal grant of $81.4 million already awarded for the passenger train project.

Where the story on this project differs from similar recent stories in Wisconsin and Ohio of grants going back to Washington is that this project spans two states for an interstate rail line. Illinois will be able to keep their share of the grant, which is larger since the bulk of the route spans their state, but what will happen to the route? Will it simply stop at the border at the new Moline multimodal hub? What about the future of a Omaha/Des Moines/Iowa City connection to Chicago? Will it bypass important Iowa cities?

It’s imperative that the Iowa legislature and Governor Branstad follow through on their state’s commitment to build this valuable new service. Following the path of I-80 and I-88, it would hit all the major population centers of Iowa on it’s way to and from Chicago.

Could this be the new terminal of the line intended to travel into Iowa? Photo of the planned Moline (Illinois) multimodal center.

The silliest comment of the day comes from Senate Minority Leader Paul McKinley, who somehow manages to compare the benefits of a ditch being dug and filled in to an invaluable direct transportation connection to the economic engine of the Midwest.

“I can hire someone to dig a ditch, hire somebody to fill it in, and somebody would claim it creates a job, but does it really accomplish anything?” McKinley said. “I think that’s the question we have to ask ourselves about passenger rail to Chicago.”

The legislative session hasn’t started yet, so it may be premature to jump to any conclusions yet as the Iowa Chamber said, but as the recent cuts in Wisconsin and Ohio showed us, it’s important that these leaders hear from supporters early and often — long before a decision is made. And incoming Governor Terry Branstad has thus far pledged to keep the issue nonpartisan and examine the project fairly and honestly. He needs to be held to that promise.

Iowa residents: Call and write your state legislators and Governor Branstad and tell them that this project is crucially important to Iowa’s future. You can use this page to look up their phone numbers and emails.

Smarter transportation case studies — innovation from around the world

When a resource is scarce, the first step is always to make sure that you’re using that resource to its fullest. A quick glance at a congested road, a street with no parking or a jam-packed rush hour train might tell you that there’s no excess capacity going unused, but is that really true? While we continue to push for a greater investment in transportation overall to expand options for all Americans, are there ways to better use the resources that we’ve already got?

Our new report on smarter mobility released today demonstrates how existing and emerging technologies can squeeze more capacity from over-burdened highways, help commuters avoid traffic delays and expand and improve transportation options, all while saving money and creating jobs.

Many of these smart transportation solutions are already fueling innovation throughout the country, through both the public and private sector. These 14 case studies from around the U.S. and the world demonstrate the community benefits smart mobility solutions are giving regions, cities, and businesses. You can read all of these examples immediately by downloading the full report, but for those of you who find a 38-page report a little intimidating, we’re going to publish the case studies as a series so you can get them in bite-sized chunks one day at a time. Check back each day for a new story.

These 14 examples are classified into five broad areas of innovation, which can be identified with the colored banners at the top of each page to help quickly see what kind of innovation this case study demonstrates.

1. Making transportation systems more efficient. Ensuring that the resources we’ve already invested in are fully utilized is the first step. Already, many regions use digital technologies to collect information about highway networks and manage the flow on and off of major road facilities. For example, by controlling “ramp meters” and synchronizing traffic lights, Minneapolis-St. Paul was able to increase freeway volume nine percent and increase peak period throughput 14 percent.

In Detroit, Michigan, advanced traveler information systems, highway advisory radio, ramp metering, and variable message signs increased average vehicle speeds by 5.4 mph, decreased trip times by 4.6 minutes, and reduced commuter delay by 22 percent. Technologies that pre-empt traffic signals can also improve travel times for bus rapid transit and light rail. More broadly, IT systems are beginning to integrate transportation networks and services.

2. Providing more travel options. Before the Internet, providing services to help people share cars or rides was cumbersome, if not impossible. Now, on-line databases can be used to match riders to van pools and car pools, and to support car-sharing and bicycle-sharing services that allow one person access to a variety of cars or bikes any time of the day or night.

These allow for on-demand reservation of the vehicle type needed, at just the moment they are needed. In the Denver metropolitan area, vanpools offer an alternative to driving for groups of commuters who live and work near each other, and who travel more than 15 miles to work. Vanpooling also allows an opportunity to save money by splitting a low monthly fare.

3. Providing travelers with better, more accurate, and more connected information. The more information people have, the more efficiently they can plan their travel and choose and connect the modes and services and routes that best suit their circumstances. Computerized vehicle tracking and information delivery can let public transportation riders know in real time — via electronic signs, smart phones or other means — exactly when to expect their bus or train.

Users of the Advanced Traveler Information Service in the Washington, DC region were able to reduce the frequency of early and late arrivals by 56 and 52 percent, respectively. Bicyclists too can use personal technology to find safe and efficient bike routes in unfamiliar places, and to connect up with a wider range of transportation options door-to-door.

4. Making pricing and payments more convenient and efficient. When resources are scarce or in high demand, pricing is one of the best ways to allocate their use. This is true of parking, where smart meters can vary prices by demand to always keep a minimum of spaces vacant, and collect fees using a wide variety of payment media. Variable tolls can help to regulate the flow on freeway lanes. The New Jersey Turnpike Authority reports that their EZ Pass system reduces toll station traffic delay by 85 percent.

Electronic benefit cards can be a convenient way for low-income people to pay for a variety of subsidized goods, including public transportation, with a single card or their phone.

5. Reducing trips and traffic. Sometimes the smartest trip is the one not taken. A growing number of Americans use technology to work from a variety of remote locations, allowing them to shift their commutes to times when there is less traffic or avoid traveling to an office altogether. Employers at the national retailer Best Buy famously increased company savings by letting employees set their own hours and decide when, where, and how to get their jobs done. An infinite variety of work arrangements are now available to many Americans, who may use more than one in any given week.

Eliminating trips is not only limited to work. You can now access banks, shopping, medicine, and education services online or over the phone, which can help us do things without going out the door. Smart technology helps users make wise choices about when, where, how and whether to travel.

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Read the full series here: Smart Transportation Case Studies