The White House film crew talked to T4 America co-chair and President of Reconnecting America John Robert Smith last week about the need to invest in transportation, following our recent meeting with the President and other groups. Check out the short video below.
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Summary of the Senate MAP-21 transportation bill proposal
The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee released a draft of the transportation bill late last Friday. The EPW committee’s portion of the bill covers what’s known as the “highway” title. (The Banking Committee is responsible for writing the “transit” title and the Commerce Committee covers rail and safety. Those sections of the bill have not been released yet.)
We’ve prepared a short few pages on what MAP-21 means for the federal transportation program. This top-line analysis is a bit on the wonky side, but hopefully it’ll be helpful if you’ve been trying to summarize the 600 pages of bill text.
One of the most visible changes MAP-21 makes is to restructure seven core highway programs and 13+ formula programs into just five core highway programs. This graphic below illustrates those changes. Read on for the full summary, which you can also download here. (pdf)
MAP-21 consolidates numerous FHWA programs into five core programs. The new program structure is as follows.
National Highway Performance Program (NHPP): ~$20.6 billion
This new program focuses on repairing and improving an expanded National Highway System (NHS). The NHS is expanded from ~160,000 miles to ~220,000 miles. States are required to develop asset management plans and as a part of these plans establish performance targets for the condition of roads and bridges and the performance of the system. In addition, the program includes provisions to hold states accountable for the repair of Interstate pavement and NHS bridges by requiring that they spend a certain amount of funding on the repair of those facilities if they fall below minimum standards established by USDOT.
Transportation Mobility Program (TMP): ~$10.4 billion
TMP replaces the existing Surface Transportation Program (STP) and allows states and regions to invest flexible dollars in a broad set of highways, transit projects, freight rail projects, and bicycle and pedestrian projects, as well as other activities like travel demand management. Fifty percent of these funds are suballocated to areas in the state based on their population. While this percentage is lower than the current 62.5 percent, the absolute amount of funding to be suballocated will remain the same due to an increase in program size.
Highway Safety Improvement Program (HSIP): – $2.5 billion
Funding is provided to states to improve safety for all road users on all public roads. A road user is defined as both motorists and non-motorized users. States are required to collect extensive data on crashes and create a database containing information on safety issues for all public roads including identification of hazard locations. (8% of all funds in this program are set-aside for data collection.) States must also develop a strategic highway safety plan using the data collected. If states do not develop a strategic highway safety plan within a year using a process approved by USDOT, they are required to spend additional funding on safety projects. States are also required to develop performance targets on fatalities and serious injuries.
Congestion Mitigation Air Quality Program (CMAQ): ~$3.3 billion
In the CMAQ program there are two pots of funding – one that funds typical CMAQ projects and another “reserved” fund.
CMAQ pot. Funds are provided to states and tier I Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs) to address the impacts of the transportation system on national ambient air quality standards. In states with non-attainment or maintenance areas, 50 percent of the funds are suballocated to tier I MPOs based on the area’s status with national ambient air quality standards. Funds cannot be used to construct new travel lanes except for HOV or HOT lanes. USDOT is required to develop performance measures for air quality and congestion reduction. Tier I MPOs that receive funds under this program are required to develop a performance plan that outlines baseline conditions, targets for each of the performance measures developed by USDOT, and a description of projects to be funded, including how those projects will help meet the targets.
“Reserved” pot. This pot of funding is equal to the amount of funds provided for the Transportation Enhancements set-aside in FY09. Eligible activities under this pot include the following: transportation enhancements, safe routes to school, recreational trails, environmental mitigation, and certain types of road projects (including street redesigns and HOV lanes). States are allowed to use these funds for CMAQ projects (the first pot) if they build up an unspent balance of year and a half worth of funds.
National Freight Program: ~$2 billion
USDOT is directed to establish a primary freight network consisting of 27,000 miles of key freight corridors. States can use funds for highway projects that improve freight movement with a focus on the primary freight network and key rural freight corridors. A state may use up to 5 percent of funds for rail or maritime projects subject to certain conditions. USDOT must also develop a National Freight Strategic Plan, which will analyze performance and conditions on the primary freight network, identify bottlenecks, estimate future freight volumes and identify best practices for mitigating impacts of freight movement on communities. USDOT shall publish a Freight Condition and Performance Report on a biennial basis. States must establish performance targets and report on progress every two years.
Other key components
TIFIA program – $1 billion. MAP-21 expands the TIFIA program from $122 million to $1 billion and modifies the program from a competitive application process to a rolling application process. Provisions have been added that allow for applicants to enter into master credit agreements to provide funding for a suite of projects at once. In addition, there are modifications that make it easier for public transportation agencies with dedicated revenue sources to apply for TIFIA loans.
Planning and Performance. MAP-21 creates performance measures for conditions on the National Highway System (NHS), NHS performance, safety, freight, congestion mitigation and air quality. As part of the development of the plan, states and large MPOs shall analyze the baseline conditions for the performance measures and establish performance targets for each performance measure. The plan must include the future performance of their transportation system with regards to these performance measures including whether or not they will achieve their performance targets. Large MPOs may undertake scenario planning as a part of the development of their long-range plans. Smaller MPOs are required to develop long-range plans and USDOT will establish rules that provide for the standards they must meet regarding the performance measures required for the larger MPOs.
Statewide transportation improvement programs (STIPs) and metropolitan transportation improvement programs (TIPs) must include performance measures and targets used in assessing the existing and future performance of the transportation system. A system performance report must include progress toward achieving state performance targets.
Project Delivery. MAP-21 includes numerous provisions intended to accelerate project delivery. Most of these provisions relate to administrative actions to be taken by USDOT. There are also provisions that relate to expanding the types of projects that can be undertaken through a categorical exclusion (a more limited environmental review). In addition, it allows for the earlier acquisition of right-of-way.
Senate EPW Committee releases their bill text
The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee released text of their portion of the transportation bill late last Friday evening. Our staff is still chewing through the details of the 600 pages and we hope to have some sort of analysis and statement ready later today.
It’s a good time to remember that this committee is responsible only for what’s known as the “highway” title of the bill. While it does contain a funding amount, proper details on revenue and revenue sources are the jurisdiction of the Finance Committee, and any information about rail or transit will come from what the Banking Committee, when they write that title. So this is just one part of the full bill — albeit the part that sets policy for spending the majority of the money.
Check back later today for more information, or follow us on twitter. This bill is scheduled for a markup in committee in two days, on Wednesday, November 9th.
- EPW press release
- MAP-21 bill text (600 pages, pdf)
- MAP-21 bill summary (pdf)
Here’s what the the EPW committee pulled out as highlights in their bill summary document.
Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century (MAP-21) reauthorizes the Federal-aid highway program at the Congressional Budget Office’s baseline level—equal to current funding levels plus inflation—for two fiscal years.
MAP-21 consolidates the number of Federal programs by two-thirds, from about 90 programs down to less than 30, to focus resources on key national goals and reduce duplicative programs.
Eliminates earmarks.
Expedites project delivery while protecting the environment.
Creates a new title called “America Fast Forward,” which strengthens the Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Program (TIFIA) program to leverage federal dollars further than they have been stretched before.
Consolidates certain programs into a focused freight program to improve the movement of goods
T4 partners meet President Obama, talk about transportation and infrastructure
Three T4 America partners were invited to join us at the White House Monday to meet the President of the United States and talk about transportation funding, specifically the infrastructure portion of the President’s American Jobs Act. The President’s plan, which failed to make it to a final vote yesterday in the Senate, would have invested $60 billion into infrastructure.
White House staff contacted T4 America to invite a few of our local partners out there with boots on the ground working hard to get their local, state and congressional leaders to start making smart, solid investments in transportation to help boost the economy and get people back to work.
Brian Imus of Illinois PIRG, Scott Wolf of Grow Smart Rhode Island, and Arnold Weinfeld of the Michigan Municipal League (pictured, standing right) were invited guests of the President for his Monday working group meeting in the White House to talk about the urgent need for America to invest more dollars, wisely, in our aging transportation system.
Arnold Weinfeld got a chance to stand up at his front row table a few feet from the President and tell him the same thing that we highlighted on our blog last week, that fixing bridges and building transit and passenger rail are bipartisan issues in Michigan. Tired of waiting on Washington to act — similar to the President’s motivation for the jobs bill — Governor Rick Snyder has put forth an ambitious plan to invest in all kinds of transportation for the state.
Michigan citizens and local partners like the Michigan Municipal League or the Michigan Suburbs Alliance know that a successful future for Michigan hinges on making smart investments in transportation to keep people and goods moving quickly and safely, whether in a car over a repaired bridge, on foot to the corner store, or in a new light rail vehicle on the Woodward light rail line underway in Detroit.
We desperately need the fresh infusion of money into our deficient bridges and aging transit systems that the American Jobs Act would have provided. Unfortunately, the Senate failed to get the necessary 60 votes for cloture in the Senate to vote on the transportation portion of the American Jobs Act. But that doesn’t mean that it’s the end of the road for transportation funding. Far from it.
Attention in the Senate will now turn to the long-term transportation bill that’s seemingly been just over the horizon for months now. The Environment and Public Works Committee is expected to release their part of the bill this afternoon, for markup next Wednesday.
Though we do need the kind of infusion that the jobs act would have provided to get things rolling today and put people to work, we really need the certainty of a long-term reauthorization bill, new policies and clear reforms to make sure that we make the best use of our transportation dollars.
A real plan to fix bridges, or a reprise of attacks on pedestrian safety?
Our reports calling attention to our nation’s deficient bridges have gained enormous traction in recent weeks, to the point that members of Congress and the White House are citing our data in demonstrating the need for infrastructure investment. Unfortunately, some are using them to make disingenuous attempts to eliminate a small program they’ve been trying to put on the chopping block for years.
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| A New Trail Originally uploaded by M.V. Jantzen to Flickr. |
| Safe travels for people on foot, on bike and in cars on the new Wilson Bridge in Washington, D.C. Should we really have to choose? |
The small Transportation Enhancements program represents less than 2 percent of all transportation funding, and more than half of that 2 percent is used to help make walking and biking safer — a worthy expenditure considering 10 percent of trips are taken on foot and 47,700 people on foot were killed from 2000-2009.
Senator Rand Paul is expected to offer an amendment next week to take all of the TE money and put it toward bridge repair. And a handful of others in Congress have been trying to kill this program for years, well before the current talk of austerity.
Sen. Paul’s proposal doesn’t represent a sincere plan to repair our bridges, but unfortunately, a handful in the media are still taking the bait.
The question is this: With the nation facing a transportation crisis that has gotten little attention outside of policy wonks and Washington, should the federal government continue to mandate that states spend federal dollars on pedestrian safety, bicycling trails, landscaping and historic preservation?
When you ask the wrong question, you often get the wrong answer. And this question in particular has been manufactured by those who would capitalize on the sense of urgency about our bridges to eliminate a program they’ve been after for years.
We’ve covered before how the money spent on walking and biking safety won’t actually do anything to address the bridge backlog. It would take Kentucky 66 years of bike/ped money to fix all of the bridges that are deficient today. And as we wrote in National Journal, “So what if we decided to ignore the significant safety issues faced daily by pedestrians and cyclists, and spent that money instead on bridge repair as some have suggested? We could indeed fix all the currently deficient bridges in the state of Missouri, for example. We’d just need to be patient because it would take 82 years. The State of Washington could get to its backlog in 164 years. And Pennsylvania could finish up with its deficient bridge list at the start of the 24th century.”
Raiding these safety funds to fix our bridges is like trying to stop a freight train with a BB gun. Beyond that, it’s false — and cruel — to suggest that we have to even decide between safety on our bridges and safety on our streets.
We have often pointed out the fact that states have the flexibility to spend up to half of their bridge repair money elsewhere, regardless of the condition of their bridges. But they also have the flexibility to spend most of their Surface Transportation Program dollars, usually the biggest pot of transportation funding, on almost anything they want. They could fix bridges, build transit, highways, bridges, sidewalks; it’s all eligible, and totally up to the states for how they spend it. No mandates from Washington.
Despite false assertions that we require states to build museums or turtle tunnels instead of repairing their bridges, there’s nothing stopping states from getting on top of their deficient bridges. Just like nothing has stopped Florida from spending their TE money each year while also setting up a bridge repair program to target funds first and foremost to bridges that need attention, resulting in some of the best bridges in the country. Meanwhile, Senator Paul’s state of Kentucky, with more than 2,700 deficient bridges, spends $6.50 on new highway capacity for every dollar they spend on bridge repair.
We don’t have to choose between being safe when we walk or being safe when we drive over a bridge. Anyone who tells you otherwise has their own agenda; an agenda that has very little to do with actually repairing our bridges.
It’s time for serious proposals from Congress to fix our crumbling bridges and infrastructure, rather than making a large percentage of people less safe in the name of grabbing a few extra bucks for our bridges.
Along these lines, a good step would be Senator Cardin’s “Preservation and Renewal of Federal-Aid Highways Act.” Tell your Senators to support this important piece of legislation.
Update on Raquel Nelson: petition delivered to Cobb County
UPDATE below. More than 5,200 of you signed our petition to push for freedom for the Atlanta mother who was charged in her son’s death when he was killed by a hit-and-run driver while crossing a street in front of their apartment complex. Raquel Nelson is due back in court next week, but we wanted to let you know — especially those of you who signed that petition — that we were able to deliver that petition to the Cobb County Solicitor’s Office a few weeks ago.
With the help of a terrific partner group in Atlanta called PEDS, we had the petition delivered to the Solicitor’s office. Sally Flocks, the executive director, and Liz Coyle with PEDS were kind enough to take a trip out to Cobb County to deliver your names in person.
Unfortunately, Solicitor General Barry Morgan refused to take a few moments to meet with PEDS, a well-respected group in Atlanta, to accept the petition and hear a little more about the underlying problem of streets that aren’t safe for people on foot or bike.
Here is a few notable thoughts from Sally Flocks and PEDS about delivering the petition.
Solicitor General Barry Morgan’s refusal to meet with representatives of PEDS to accept the Transportation for America petition disappointed us. By meeting with us, Morgan could have learned why members of Transportation for America – as well as over 5,000 petitioners, believe Raquel Nelson should be pardoned of all charges. When we arrived in Marietta, the receptionist would not allow us to enter Morgan’s office to hand the petition to his assistant. Instead, she came to the receptionist’s desk to pick up the petition we had handed him.
On our way to the Solicitor General’s office, we drove by the Marietta [bus] Transfer Center (pictured below), where fences block access to the street for over ¼ mile. The closest signalized intersections are over a half mile apart. Victory Drive intersects South Marietta Parkway between the signalized intersections, which means it’s legal for pedestrians to cross anywhere they want. Yet “no pedestrian” signs have been installed to discourage pedestrians from crossing a high-speed five-lane street.
If I could wave a magic wand, the Solicitor General would have joined me for a bus ride to visit the location where Raquel Nelson and her family had attempted to cross the street. To catch a bus back to his office, we would have had to cross the street. Perhaps then the Solicitor General would understood why Cobb County needs to stop treating pedestrians as second class citizens.
Well said, Sally. We especially want to recognize all of you who added your names to this petition. Though we wish we could have gotten that meeting and bus ride with the Solicitor General and put your names directly in his hand, you can be sure that the calls and emails and petitions that have flooded into that office in the last few months have made a significant difference in this case, and helped to publicize the larger issues at hand nationally.
We can’t thank you enough for your support. We’ll continue to keep tabs on this story in the coming weeks.
UPDATED 10/24/11 2:30 p.m.: The Atlanta Journal Constitution reports that her second trial is starting tomorrow. It also includes that apt nugget to describe her situation:
With interviews on ABC’s Good Morning America and news outlets CNN, Reuters and the BBC covering her initial trial and sentencing, Nelson became the face of public transit users and perpetual pedestrians whom a sprawling suburbia has left behind.
Oklahoma mayor stands up for investing in infrastructure
Oklahoma City mayor voices his support for the President’s efforts to bring the condition of U.S. infrastructure into the spotlight.
John Robert Smith, our T4 America co-chair and former Mayor of Meridian, Miss., is fond of saying that there are no Republican or Democrat potholes or bridges or roads. Fixing and updating our country’s transportation system is something that should have broad support, no matter what party is listed after a name. With nearly 12 percent of all U.S. bridges requiring replacement or repair, there’s plenty of work to be done in districts of all parties.
Oklahoma City Mayor Mick Cornett, one of Mayor Smith’s former compatriots leading an American city, was in Washington, D.C. this week for a gathering of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, and as it turned out, the lone Republican in the group. Perhaps this made him an obvious interview subject since the President’s American Jobs Act, which would invest billions in infrastructure, has been largely panned by Republicans for the most part in Congress.
Despite that, Mayor Cornett is supportive of the President’s efforts to raise the profile of infrastructure investment and the fact that the American Jobs Act would invest billions in our transportation system. He gave an enlightening interview on NPR’s Morning Edition this week.
GREENE: You’re going to face some heat when you go home after a visit like this to the White House?
CORNETT: Always do. And, you know, and some of it gets misconstrued. You know, some people will hear what I said at the steps of the White House and say that I endorsed the president’s plan, which I didn’t do. I think there are some elements of it that are good. And I probably disagree greatly on how we’re going to pay for it. I don’t necessarily think we ought to be raising taxes to do it. But if the president’s going to draw some attention to infrastructure, then I want to be there for him, because that voice doesn’t get spoken loudly enough. And although Oklahoma City doesn’t have the infrastructure needs of a lot of cities, if I can be a voice for these large eastern cities that have this deferred maintenance, then I’m going to do so because I think the future of our country relies on it.
For all the political posturing over the President’s $47 billion plan or the House draft transportation bill that would cut transportation spending by 35 percent, when you get down on the ground in our cities and communities, people know that spending money on our infrastructure and transportation system is a good idea. It creates jobs, boosts local economies, and makes us safer as deficient bridges are repaired or replaced.
As an aside, the mayor does suggest that he’s standing up for “large eastern cities,” but crumbling bridges unfortunately aren’t a problem limited to one region of the country or one type of city. Oklahoma is actually third worst in our ranking of states by percentage of deficient bridges and in fact, there are more midwestern states in the top 10 than there are states east of the Mississippi River.
In wake of Ohio River bridge closure, NBC Nightly News examines the sorry state of U.S. bridges
Over the weekend, NBC Nightly News ran a sharp piece on our country’s structurally deficient bridges, focusing on the data in the T4 America bridge report.
At least one person somewhere in the U.S. is driving over a structurally deficient bridge every minute, according to T4 America director James Corless in a report on the woeful condition of our nation’s bridges on NBC Nightly News Sunday evening.
Brought into the national spotlight because of the recent closure of a highly-trafficked interstate bridge over the Ohio River in Louisville, Kentucky and the President’s scheduled appearance at a Cincinnati-area bridge this Thursday, more national media outlets (and Americans and their leaders in Congress, one would hope) are paying attention to the real-life impacts of underinvestment in infrastructure.
Though years of underfunding, neglect and a failure to prioritize repair of the existing system have led us to this critical juncture, that doesn’t mean that we can’t choose a better future for our country. As the NBC piece (and the counter at the top of our website) shows us, Congress has failed for two years to write and pass a comprehensive transportation bill that could get us moving in the right direction.
But just putting more money into transportation won’t automatically solve the problem of deficient bridges. We need to make sure that money is spent wisely, which means making sure that money gets targeted first and foremost to taking care of what we’ve already built. Some instructive comments from our statement last week on the closure of the Sherman Minton Bridge in Louisville:
“States also need to be held accountable to address the growing backlog of structurally deficient bridges with their federal transportation dollars,” Corless added. “States can currently spend half of their money dedicated to bridge repair on almost any other type of project. Today the federal program lacks a system to ensure that federal money goes to repair the worst bridges or address the backlog before new highways are built…”
“One logical step forward would be Senator Ben Cardin’s Preservation and Renewal of Federal-Aid Highways Act, which would require the Secretary of Transportation to establish “state of good repair” standards for highways that receive federal funding, ensuring that federal dollars are targeted toward the most pressing needs first and holding states accountable for improving the condition of their systems.”
In case you’re new to T4 America, don’t miss our report on the country’s deficient bridges: The Fix We’re In For. State-by-state statistics are available, as well as a tool that allows you to find all of the deficient bridges in your area.
Correcting some misinformation on bicycle and pedestrian spending
Bike and pedestrian projects get less than 1.5 percent of federal transportation funding — despite recent misinformation to the contrary.
There’s some misinformation percolating about the size of the transportation enhancements program — the small dedicated program that has funded projects to make biking and walking safer and more convenient for 20 years. Some misleading data has been shared and then propagated in news stories, so we wanted to put up this very simple explainer to help set the record straight — and equip you to help us set the record straight.
There have been news stories and press releases saying that states are required to set aside 10 percent of their transportation funds for things like “like transportation museums, educational programs for pedestrians and the operation of historic transportation facilities.” Two things are incorrect and misleading here.
- The purpose of the program: Though there are 12 eligible uses in the transportation enhancements program — including the others mentioned above — more than half of TE funds are spent to make people on foot or bike safer. People who oppose this program like to cite some of the other eligible uses like highway beautification and transportation museums while neglecting to mention that the majority of the funding is used for just one purpose: making walking and biking safer.
- The size of the program: Most deceptively, this program does NOT make up 10 percent of a state’s transportation dollars that they get from the federal government. Not even close. Each state gets their transportation money from several pots, and one of them — about a quarter of the total — is called the “surface transportation program” (STP). Ten percent of that pot is set aside for enhancements, and about half of that total is spent on biking and walking. Local governments apply for this money, and there are far more applications than there are funds. While TE only accounts for 1.5 percent of transportation funding, it is the largest source of funding for biking and walking facilities– which carry 12 percent of all trips in the United States.
This chart below from our Transportation 101 document should help.
The bars below show the core federal program funding levels for 2009. The bar in red is the surface transportation program. 10 percent of that single bar is where enhancements come from, or about 1.5 percent of all transportation spending. About half of that TE program is spent on biking and walking, and a small bit of funding from a few other programs (Recreational Trails and Safe Routes to School) adds up to the total of a little more than one percent of all transportation dollars spent to make walking and biking safer — though pedestrians make up about 14 percent of all traffic fatalities.
Structurally deficient bridges and President Obama’s jobs bill
Last night after President Obama’s speech to Congress, attention turned to analysis of the speech and the President’s plan to take it on the road to the districts of key Representatives and Senators. Chris Matthews of MSNBC referenced Transportation for America and our data on structurally deficient bridges as an important part of making the very local case for more federal transportation spending.
Click to view if you can’t see the embedded video
Will he take this all the way home? To people like Eric Cantor — he won’t get his vote probably — but bring it home? We now have a list from Transportation For America of thousands and thousands of bridges bridges across the country that are recognized to be structurally deficient. Will he go into the face of Eric Cantor, into the media market of Richmond, Virginia, and in the suburbs and list the bridges below safety code that Eric Cantor will have to vote to keep below safety code if he refuses for vote for this bill? How local will they make this fight?
It’s worth clarifying very quickly that structurally deficient bridges aren’t necessarily below any type of safety code. Yes, the I-35W Minneapolis bridge was rated structurally deficient when it collapsed, but state DOTs will tell you that they close bridges that are unsafe. Deficient bridges urgently require replacement or repair. Neglecting repairs to these bridges now will cost us millions more down the road and increase the chance that they have to be closed or limited to traffic one day, also costing money in lost time and productivity.
But the point Chris Matthews makes is a salient one.
The case for more federal transportation spending is best made at the local district level. A lot of House members have voted against spending more federal dollars on transportation, but aren’t shy about inserting their own earmarks for new roads or bridges or vying for stimulus dollars to address glaring transportation needs back home.
Talking about structurally deficient bridges takes on a different tone when one talks about the numbers of bridges in a particular member’s district that will remain deficient if spending isn’t increased or targeted to improve their condition.
Making a federal issue a local one could turn out to be a smart strategy to win support for a proposal that is “ambitious and pragmatic,” in the words of T4 Director James Corless.
House appropriators make deep cuts to transportation for 2012
The House Appropriations Committee released their draft bill for 2012 spending in the transportation program, and the cuts are severe, with some key programs facing more of a reduction than others.
The Transportation, Housing and Urban Development spending bill, or THUD, as its called, contained similar cuts for transit and road/bridge spending that we saw in Rep. Ryan’s budget earlier this year. Transit and highway spending both get cut proportionally, around 34 percent.
While cuts are proportional in those main two areas, other areas and innovative programs face deeper cuts.The innovative TIGER grants, TIGGER grants and high-speed rail programs are cut entirely.
The New Starts transit program, which essentially funds all new transit system construction, gets cut to $1.55 billion down from $2 billion in FY10. In addition, a policy tweak is made that requires state or local funds to make up more than 50 percent of any new grant agreements. Or put another way, the feds will no longer cover more than half of any New Starts transit project, exacerbating an existing gap between the share the government will pay for transit vs. highway projects. (Highway projects get around 80 percent of their funds from the federal government.)
Existing passenger rail service faces deep cuts of its own. Amtrak’s capital budget (new rolling stock, new lines, equipment, etc.) is cut by $24 million, but the operations budget is where Amtrak takes a big hit, going from $563 million to $227 million. On top of that, an important policy change will prevent Amtrak from using any of their operating funds on state-supported lines — lines where a state has partnered with Amtrak to increase passenger rail service and ridership. To put that change in perspective, in 2010 9 million rides were taken on state-supported routes.
Amtrak State-Supported routes, from the T&I Committee “A New Direction” report (pdf).
Another notable policy change is for the Department of Housing and Urban Development. The bill prohibits HUD from using any funding for anything related to the Sustainable Communities Partnership with DOT and the EPA. Essentially, this bill would require HUD to stop coordinating with the other two agencies and go back to the outdated siloed approach on housing, ignoring the effects on and the impacts of transportation and the environment.
The silver lining is that it’s unlikely that this appropriations bill will make it through the full process to passage anytime soon. Instead, Congress will likely pass a continuing resolution (CR) before September 30 to stop the government from shutting down — which means at least for a while, the 2012 funding levels could be more in line with last year’s levels, preventing some of these cuts. Whether it passes or not, it’s important to note that this is the House appropriators opening position on transportation funding for next year.
Here’s a full list with details on the cuts.
- Cuts highway funding from ~$41B to $27B
- Cuts transit funding (excluding New Starts) from $8.3B to $5.3B
- Cuts New Starts from $1.6B to $1.55B and requires that any new grant agreement include at least at 50% non-federal share; Note, FY10 New Starts funding was $2B, separate cuts were made last year.
- Includes funding for Washington’s Metro system – $150M
- No funding for TIGER, HSR, or TIGGER (transit energy efficiency grants)
- Prohibits any new RRIF (a loan program like TIFIA for rail projects) loans or loan guarantees.
- Cuts Amtrak capital funding from $922M to $898M; FY10 funding was $1,002M
- Cuts Amtrak operating funding from $563M to $227M
700 days since expiration of last transportation bill, Congress urged to pass an extension
President Obama gave a short speech in the Rose Garden this morning calling on Congress to come together quickly to pass a “clean” extension of the federal transportation bill to ensure that there’s no interruption in federal funding for transportation projects while they debate a longer-term reauthorization.
At the end of September, if Congress doesn’t act, the transportation bill will expire. This bill provides funding for highway construction, bridge repair, mass transit systems and other essential projects that keep our people and our commerce moving quickly and safely. And for construction workers and their families across the country, it represents the difference between making ends meet or not making ends meet.
If we allow the transportation bill to expire, over 4,000 workers will be immediately furloughed without pay. If it’s delayed for just 10 days, it will lose nearly $1 billion in highway funding — that’s money we can never get back. And if it’s delayed even longer, almost one million workers could lose their jobs over the course of the next year.
As a refresher, we’re currently on the 7th extension of the 2005 transportation bill (which incidentally expired exactly 700 days ago today in September of 2009.) The current extension of federal law expires at the end of September, leaving only a narrow window of time for the House and Senate — currently far apart on policy and funding levels — to come together on a new long-term transportation bill.
A “clean” extension would mean extending the old policy without making policy changes or tweaks — changes that don’t have time to be properly considered or debated. T4 America Director James Corless said in our statement earlier today:
Extending the gas tax and the current law that allocates transportation funds ought to be the bipartisan no-brainer it has been historically. To play politics with the extension would deliver a gratuitous shock to a struggling economy and to families relying on infrastructure-related paychecks.
Extending the old policy is urgently needed, but it’s still a band-aid. The bigger need will still remain: passing a robust, long-term transportation bill with updated policy and purpose that matches the needs of the 21st century in America. Corless continued:
Beyond that, the President is right to urge Congress to break the gridlock and adopt a fully funded, long-term authorization that will protect and create jobs while supporting a full-fledged economic recovery. To be most effective, the updated transportation bill needs to ensure timely project approvals, as the President noted; but more importantly, it needs to set clear priorities to avoid misspending our precious dollars. Those priorities should include holding states and localities accountable for smart investment strategies and for repairing and updating existing infrastructure, while expanding the network to provide more convenient, safe and affordable travel options for all Americans.
Rep. John Mica, the chair of the House committee responsible for writing the bill, released his own statement expressing his support for passing an extension, in which he said, “I will agree to one additional highway program extension,” seemingly acknowledging the reality that it will extremely difficult to pass a full six year bill in the short month of September.
The bigger questions still lingering from all of this news today are whether or not the extension will be “clean” — without policy riders of any kind — and what impact this will have on the long-term transportation bill being considered by each chamber. The House draft bill has already been released, and rumor has it that the Senate is planning to release theirs in just a few weeks. But the two versions are far apart on funding and length for certain, and possibly with regard to policy.
Stay tuned, September will be a busy month. The legislative calendar will get rolling when Congress gets back in session on the day after Labor Day.
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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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
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| Sidewalk Infill_ 82nd 022 Originally uploaded by Transportation for America to Flickr. |
| Credit to April Bertelsen Pedestrian Coordinator Portland Bureau of Transportation |
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| image003 Originally uploaded by Transportation for America to Flickr. |
| (Please credit photos to Dr. Scott Crawford. Posted here with his permission) |
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| Walking & Roads Originally uploaded by Transportation for America to Flickr. |
| Credit to Stephen Lee Davis/Transportation for America |
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| 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.
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.
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.