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Learning from COVID-19: Connecting with the research community

Photo from the Transportation Research Board / National Academy of Sciences

This blog is part of a special series on curb management and COVID-19. A joint effort of International Parking and Mobility Institute, Transportation for America, and Institute of Transportation Engineer’s Complete Streets Council, this series strives to document the immediate curbside-related actions and responses to COVID-19, as well as create a knowledge base of strategies that communities can use to manage the curbside during future emergencies.

By Stephanie Dock, AICP, and Katherine Kortum, PhD, PE 

The research community is quickly engaging to help understand and evaluate responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. Practitioner and researcher collaboration will improve our understanding of what has worked and what has not, and how we might change our curbside in the longer term—whether for pandemic responses or for everyday operations in the coming “new normal.”

The Transportation Research Board (TRB) has coordinated and undertaken research for decades. While TRB’s completed research efforts are not specific to COVID-19, prior research is valuable for planning and responding now. Transportation in the Face of Communicable Disease details research on response strategies, transporting essential personnel, communicating clearly during a public health crisis, and more.

TRB launched its “Research Needs Statement Express” to rapidly capture the questions and research ideas generated by the COVID-19 pandemic. This call for submissions recognizes the need to engender collaboration faster than the typical formal process for developing research ideas. TRB is also partnering with the American Association of State Highway Officials (AASHTO), American Public Transportation Association (APTA), and others to develop and soon publish pandemic-related research needs for all transportation modes.

Finally, TRB is developing workshops to help determine questions (and some answers!) in specific areas. Summer 2020 will likely include a summit on scenario planning for transit and shared mobility during the COVID-19 recovery and in 2021, TRB and the European Commission will jointly hold a research summit on COVID-19 effects on transportation. 

Academic researchers bring analytical approaches and resources municipal and private sector partners can look to complement their efforts, including:

  • Peer review network to collaborate and objectively vet research.
  • Student researchers (the next generation of transportation professionals), who bring energy and ideas.
  • Capacity to conduct objective, mutli-disciplinary research and analysis through course projects or faculty research.

Examples of academic research underway or projects supporting evaluation of mobility networks during this pandemic include:

Watch for more studies in TRB’s Research in Progress database. For ideas on who to contact for collaboration, start with USDOT’s directory of University Transportation Centers.

Strong partnerships among municipalities, the private sector, and academia are key to offering support and transformative solutions in our pandemic response. 

Stephanie Dock, AICP, manages the research program for the District Department of Transportation in Washington, DC.

Katherine Kortum, PhD, PE, is a senior program officer at the Transportation Research Board in Washington, DC. 

House bill proposes $15 billion for transit. It’s not enough

Democrats in the House of Representatives only included $15 billion for transit in their next COVID-19 relief bill. That’s not enough—we need double that to ensure that transit survives this crisis.  Send a message to your congressional delegation urging them to support $32 billion for transit. 

Yesterday, Democrats in the House of Representatives released their next COVID-19 relief bill that only includes $15 billion in emergency operating support for public transportation. That’s a start, but not enough to ensure that transit agencies can keep their workers healthy and safely return to service when this pandemic subsides. We know that transit needs more. 

Take action

In March, research group TransitCenter estimated that transit agencies would experience losses between $26-$38 billion this year due to impacts from COVID-19. That range seemed huge at first, but no longer: agencies are predicting losses that far outstrip the emergency funding they received from the federal government. 

That’s why we’re asking Congress to double the amount for transit in the House bill and approve $32 billion in emergency operating support. That number is based on an estimate from a coalition of transit-related unions and the Metropolitan Transportation Association (MTA). 

We need you to send a message to your congressional delegation urging them to support $32 billion to support transit through the end of 2021. 

Are you an elected official? Or do you represent an organization? You can also sign our coalition letter to Congressional leadership. We are sending this letter this Friday before the House votes, so time is of the essence if your organization wants to join this letter.

If we don’t act now, millions of Americans—including millions of essential workers, such as nurses and grocery clerks—will lose access to jobs, healthcare, and other critical services. And any long-term economic recovery will be nearly impossible without transit service to help people safely get back to work as this unprecedented crisis subsides. 

We give $40 billion to states every year to build highways. In this moment of extraordinary need, transit requires $32 billion to keep running through 2021. That’s an investment well worth making.

We can’t afford for transit to stop running, or be unable to pick up when the economy does. We need Congress to act, but time is short. Send your message today!

Laser focused on repairing our bridges

Despite advances in technology, the standard practice for evaluating a bridge’s maintenance needs is a visual inspection, just as it was a half-century ago. To address our nation’s huge backlog in structurally deficient bridges in a more accurate and fiscally responsible way, the federal government should evaluate and speed the adoption of available technologies.

For the past 50 years, trained technicians have inspected highway bridges every two years (or more frequently) to assess the need for repairs or replacement. But in the early 2000s, a review of this practice by the Federal Highway Administration found the process “subjective,” “widely variable,” and incapable of optimizing spending.

Like so many things in transportation—the lopsided funding for roads compared to transit, our use of vehicle speed as a proxy for access, or our focus on building new infrastructure instead of repairing what we have—the way we inspect bridges is stuck in the past, decades behind the needs of the country. Transportation for America believes that we need to make repair one of our national priorities, but to do that, we also need to rethink how we evaluate what most needs to be repaired, and when. Better information can help inform a fix-it-first policy. 

Fortunately, there are proven structural monitoring technologies commercially available today that can objectively assess which bridges must be replaced, which replacements can be safely deferred, and which might be able to continue functioning effectively with only minor repairs. This would allow state DOTs or local agencies to better target their repair dollars. But nationally, the norm is still subjective visual inspections.

This is no small issue. There are over 50,000 bridges across the country that are considered structurally deficient today, according to the American Society of Civil Engineers. The rehabilitation & replacement cost for this problem is an estimated $123 billion. But using technologies that are available today could potentially shave billions off that price tag. A number of projects conducted by some transportation agencies have shown that using structural monitoring technology in lieu of relying solely on visual inspections to more precisely assess bridge conditions is highly effective and has saved hundreds of millions of dollars by avoiding unnecessary replacement projects. 

We believe that with the right policies and practices in place we can cut the national maintenance backlog in half. Part of the solution will be changing how we allocate resources, and part of the solution could be using the best available technology and data to evaluate the scale of the problem. But the federal government must lead this change for there to be widespread adoption of this technology.

The U.S. Department of Transportation should embark on an effort to evaluate the effectiveness of structural monitoring technologies to more objectively and accurately inspect bridges for safety. And Congress can be part of the solution by providing incentives and funding to spur their adoption.

Change is never easy, especially when it comes to transportation. There are decades of inertia within state departments of transportation which are already tasked with far more than their original mission of yesteryear (building the interstate highway system). But the interstate highway system is complete, the country has changed, and it’s time for U.S. DOT and state agencies to catch up. Facing deficits and uncertainty brought on by the pandemic, there has never been a better time to adopt new technologies that could yield large savings.

Curbside management in a recurring emergency scenario: A municipal perspective

A service lane in the Cleveland Park neighborhood in Washington, DC.

This post is part of a special series on curb management and COVID-19. A joint effort of the Institute for Parking and Mobility, Transportation for America, and the Institute of Transportation Engineer’s Complete Streets Council, this series strives to document the immediate curbside-related actions and responses to COVID-19, as well as create a knowledge base of strategies that communities can use to manage the curbside during future emergencies. Check out the last post. 

By Benito O. Pérez, AICP CTP, CPM; and David Carson Lipscomb, MCP

For all of us, 2020 will be the year the world changed. Seemingly overnight the hustle and bustle of life and commerce in our cities went nearly silent under government-mandated shelter-in-place orders aimed to stop the spread of COVID-19. Overwhelmed healthcare networks and essential businesses that help meet our most basic needs were thrown into crisis. This is a common reality after natural disasters like hurricanes, earthquakes, and floods. However, unlike those events, this is simultaneously a prolonged and global experience.

Municipal governments are vital to protecting our communities, tasked with coordinating resources to address this public health emergency while maintaining order and normalcy for residents. Curbside and parking professionals across the country have supported their municipal responses by ensuring prioritized, optimal transportation network operations in innovative, rapid-response ways including the following.

  • Restaurant pick-up zones. With dine-in operations banned, restaurants shifted to takeout/delivery models resulting in congestion at the curb for customers and couriers. Originating in Seattle and propagating rapidly across the country, municipalities reprogrammed segments of their curbside with temporary signage coupled with information campaigns (like the District of Columbia map) showing curbs prioritized for pick-up activity. This ensured curb turnover while supporting local restaurants.
  • Relaxed curbside enforcement. Shelter-in-place orders led to more stationary vehicles, which put them in violation of policies encouraging turnover. Cities like Miami, Pittsburgh, and others relaxed parking enforcement to discourage unnecessary community movement.
  • Suspended parking space payment. Some communities suspended parking payment, though they did not make that decision lightly. In many jurisdictions, parking revenue is the operational funding lifeblood of their organizations. For the District, it’s about 10 percent of its annual contribution to the regional transportation system. However, costs to maintain parking payment far outweighed anticipated revenue. Additionally, reducing potential sources of infection, i.e., parking payment kiosks, was also of concern for municipal operators.
  • Prioritized/designated essential service provider parking. Hospitals have been the front lines of this pandemic, with many facilities converting off-street parking lots and garages to triage and community testing sites. With limited public transportation services and scarce access to for-hire vehicles as drivers limit their exposure, some healthcare providers are resorting to private vehicles. With on-site parking gone, municipalities have designated curbsides near medical facilities for healthcare facility employees. New York City has issued healthcare provider parking permits to allow them to park wherever is most convenient. This may become an extended concern for other essential service staff in dense, urban areas with limited transit.
  • Expanded sidewalks. In urban areas in particular, sidewalks are constrained by historical rights of way. That means there may be sidewalks narrower than the minimum six feet recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s “physical distancing” guidelines. Places like New York City have cleared the curb, if not the entire roadway, to facilitate unimpeded, “physically distant” pedestrian routes.

These are but a few strategies that are part of cohesive and holistic community responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. If you have a good story, please share it with benito.perez@dc.gov. 

Benito O. Pérez is the curbside management operations planning manager at the District Department of Transportation in Washington, D.C.

David C. Lipscomb is a curbside management planner at the District Department of Transportation in Washington, D.C.

Memo: Smart transportation investments are key to future resiliency

The following is a memo published by Third Way on ensuring smart infrastructure investments, written by Third Way‘s Transportation Policy Advisor, Alex Laska. Alex recently joined T4America Director Beth Osborne on a webinar, “Responding to the Crisis: What Does US Infrastructure Look Like During the COVID-19 Recovery?” presented by Third Way, Our Daily Planet, and the University of Michigan”. You can watch the webinar here. 

The U.S. government has rightly focused first on dealing with the ongoing health crisis and minimizing the economic damage that American families and businesses are facing. Policy goals will ultimately have to broaden so we can spur economic activity and recover from the slow-down. We must focus on shoring up our economy and providing the smart funding and policy to put people back to work and make our economy more resilient to future shocks. A key component of that will be investing in our nation’s surface transportation infrastructure—but we have to do it right. Here are some principles to keep in mind if we want to get the most economic bang for our infrastructure buck:

Summary

Fix it First: Instead of focusing stimulus funds on building new infrastructure that we don’t need and can’t afford to maintain, let’s prioritize putting millions of people to work fixing the infrastructure we already have. This “fix it first” approach will create more jobs and get more money out to workers in a shorter timeframe—without needlessly encouraging extra driving and emissions.

  • Require states to tackle a significant portion of their road and bridge maintenance backlogs before they can construct new lane-miles.
  • Provide the $550 billion needed to eliminate road and bridge maintenance backlog, which will create as many as five million jobs.
  • Require states that want to use stimulus funds for new road construction to demonstrate that they can afford to maintain the new infrastructure.
  • Ensure state DOTs are equipped to spend the stimulus funds quickly by providing grants to build agency capacity and offering technical assistance on project selection and delivery.

Build it Back Stronger: Our infrastructure should be rebuilt to better withstand climate change and severe weather, keeping people and goods moving and getting our economy back up and running more quickly after future shocks.

  • Fund a comprehensive assessment of the resiliency of U.S. infrastructure, so we can determine the full extent and cost of national resiliency needs and which projects are most critical.
  • Establish a new funding stream to support projects that improve resiliency.
  • Incorporate resiliency into federal highway funding formulas and competitive grant programs.
  • Reestablish federal flood protection standards and apply them to all infrastructure spending.

Prepare for Tomorrow’s Needs: We also need to make sure we’re rebuilding our infrastructure to be relevant for the future. The federal government must make funds available to deploy the alternative fueling infrastructure needed to enable the coming transition to zero-emission vehicles. We also need to consider broadband deployment as part of our transportation infrastructure investments, ensuring the conduit is available to help underserved communities get access to broadband.

  • Establish a new funding stream of at least $2.3 billion to support the buildout of public EV chargers and other alternative refueling infrastructure.
  • Increase funding for the Alternative Fuels Corridors program to help states identify and address barriers to refueling infrastructure deployment.
  • Implement a “Dig Once” policy so that broadband conduit will be included during the construction or reconstruction of any road receiving federal funding.

Fix it first: Prioritize maintaining the assets we already have over new construction

The premise of “Fix it First” is simple: federal dollars for surface transportation infrastructure should go towards repair projects before new construction. A “Fix it First” policy will get more money out faster to hire people, create jobs, and make our infrastructure more resilient than spending the same amount on new construction projects—while at the same time avoiding needless increases in vehicle miles traveled (VMT), congestion, and carbon pollution.

The extent of our repair needs: America has over $550 billion in road and bridge repair needs. Our road maintenance backlog—projects that would lift roads currently in poor condition into a state of good repair—is now $376.4 billion. On top of that, the U.S. has approximately 47,000 structurally deficient bridges, and it could cost nearly $171 billion to make needed repairs for all 235,000 bridges in the U.S.

Congress should invest the full $550 billion over five years in order to eliminate our maintenance backlog, make our transportation network safer, and put millions of Americans back to work.

How many jobs it would create, and how quickly: Investing in fully tackling the road and bridge repair backlog could create as many as five million jobs. According to an analysis of states’ Recovery Act reports, repair work on roads and bridges generated 16 percent more jobs per dollar invested than new road and bridge construction. This is largely because repair projects are more labor intensive—for example, they don’t need to spend as much money on land or right-of-way acquisition—so more of the money can go towards hiring workers.

A “Fix it First” policy would spend money faster and create jobs more quickly. New construction projects take longer to create jobs because they often require property acquisition or lengthy environmental or design review processes. Repair projects put money into the economy faster: most repair projects can be completed in one construction season, whereas most new construction projects take up to seven years to pay out.

Time is of the essence: weekly unemployment claims have hit an all-time high, with 6.6 million Americans filing a claim in the last week of March. A “Fix It First” policy will create the most jobs, and it will create them faster.

How it’s better for climate: Despite increases in the fuel efficiency of passenger vehicles, emissions from highway transportation have increased over the past decade largely due to an increase in vehicle miles traveled (VMT). Research has shown that constructing new lane miles leads to more driving, which in turn leads to higher emissions and more congestion. Conversely, prioritizing maintenance projects will help reduce emissions by slowing that growth in driving.

It is critical that we achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 in order to avoid the worst consequences of climate change, and that includes deeply reducing emissions from highway transportation. Even as Congress focuses on the more immediate objective of economic recovery, we cannot lose sight of our need to reduce emissions: “Fix it First” will help us avoid increasing VMT and emissions even further.

How to implement it: To maximize our surface transportation infrastructure investments, Congress needs to compel states to prioritize repair projects while ensuring states have the capacity to manage the influx of stimulus dollars.

  • Stimulus funding for infrastructure should be limited only to repair projects so that states can tackle their maintenance backlog before using the funds to build something new. This idea has gotten some attention on Capitol Hill: House Democrats included a “Fix it First” policy in their January 2020 infrastructure framework, saying they would “revamp” the federal highway formula programs to prioritize maintaining and improving existing infrastructure.
  • Congress should also require that any state that wants to use federal funds for network expansion must prove it can afford to maintain the new roadway capacity. Over the past 10 years, states have spent about an equal portion of the transportation infrastructure dollars on road repair and new road construction—all while the percentage of roads in poor condition increased from 14 percent to 20 percent. This is unsustainable in the long-run, and adding new lane-miles when it isn’t absolutely necessary will only make the problem worse. Requiring states to demonstrate they can maintain new infrastructure and not let it fall into disrepair will ensure more federal funding goes toward repair projects that spend money faster, create more jobs, and avoid emissions increases.
  • To maximize our investment, we need to make sure state DOTs are equipped to handle such a large influx of new funding and get projects started quickly. Congress should provide grant funding for state DOTs that face capacity issues and should also provide funding to FHWA to provide technical assistance to state DOTs on project selection and delivery. 

Building it back stronger: Rebuild our infrastructure to be more resilient to climate change and severe weather

As we rebuild our infrastructure, we shouldn’t just rebuild it exactly the way it was before—we need to fix our infrastructure so that it’s better suited to deal with climate change and severe weather. Extreme weather events like hurricanes, flooding, and wildfires are increasing, and so is the cost of rebuilding following those events. But the U.S. has failed to integrate resiliency into our infrastructure, chronically underinvesting in projects that would help the system recover after a shock. That needs to change: resiliency must become a factor in federal infrastructure funding decisions so we can ensure our transportation network can better withstand future disruptions and reduce the cost of maintaining the system over the life of these projects.

Determining our resiliency needs: Due to decades of failing to account for resiliency in our infrastructure investments, we don’t have a good tally of exactly what’s needed. We don’t know all of the bridges that need to be raised to higher flood levels, which projects are most urgent to ensure continuity, or which parts of the network are most vulnerable to which kinds of shock. For example, the Office of Management and Budget reported in 2016 that the total cost of replacing all federally-owned assets built in flood plains would exceed $1 trillion—but that includes all federal assets such as transportation and communications infrastructure, federal buildings, national security facilities, etc. The federal government needs to lead a comprehensive effort to assess the current condition of our transportation infrastructure from a resiliency standpoint, determining which projects are most critical and how much funding is needed.

How to improve resiliency: While we still need to get the complete picture of where our infrastructure resiliency needs are the greatest, we can begin getting money out the door for projects that state and local agencies have already identified. Federal programs like FEMA’s Pre-Disaster Mitigation Grant Program and Flood Mitigation Assistance Grant Program help states and communities plan for disasters and implement mitigation measures that reduce impacts from severe events like flooding. Programs like these can serve as a model for establishing a new, transportation infrastructure-specific program that awards funding on a competitive basis to projects that can demonstrate they meet certain resiliency criteria. Congress should:

  • Establish a resiliency-specific funding stream of at least $5 billion, as included in the Senate Environment & Public Works Committee’s highway reauthorization bill. This program should be competitive so that state and local agencies must detail how the project would improve resiliency based on well-defined criteria.
  • Direct USDOT to develop definitive resiliency criteria and use those criteria in federal funding decisions, not only in the aforementioned competitive grant program but also in the highway formula programs and other competitive grant programs like BUILD and INFRA. The House Democrats’ Moving Forward Framework called for including resiliency as a decision-making factor in project selection. This will help ensure that all transportation infrastructure funding considers resiliency and that we’re rebuilding our infrastructure to last.
  • Reestablish federal flood protection standards and apply them to all infrastructure spending so that we can fully account for the future impacts of climate change and severe weather. This will ensure we’re spending taxpayer dollars wisely by directing funding away from locations that are most vulnerable like floodplains.

These policies are just a start. While we don’t yet know the entire scope or cost of our resiliency needs, there’s no question that after decades of failing to invest sufficiently in resiliency, a $5 billion grant program will not be enough. A comprehensive effort to identify and address our transportation infrastructure resiliency challenges, paired with a robust direct federal investment program, will help our network and our economy recover from future extreme events while also putting potentially millions of Americans to work making our infrastructure stronger. 

Providing for tomorrow’s needs: Build out refueling infrastructure for zero-emission vehicles and broadband infrastructure

If we are going to spend hundreds of billions of dollars in repairing and upgrading our infrastructure, we need to make sure that infrastructure will remain relevant for decades to come. That means building out the electric vehicle (EV) charging infrastructure and other alternative refueling infrastructure to enable a rapid transition to zero-emission vehicles (ZEVs) such as plug-in hybrid vehicles, battery electric vehicles, and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. It also means getting as many communities as possible “cable-ready” by deploying broadband conduit during road construction, thereby saving money by reducing redundant excavation.

How many chargers we need, and what it will cost: According to the Center for American Progress, we need to deploy 330,000 additional public EV chargers by the end of 2025 in order to accommodate the growth in EVs needed to meet our Paris Agreement commitments. While fulfilling our Paris Agreement emissions reduction targets is not enough, it will put us on a starting path towards achieving net-zero emissions by 2050. This buildout will cost us $4.7 billion over the next five years; taking existing state resources and the Volkswagon “Electrify America” settlement funds into account, that leaves us with a $2.3 billion gap.

A $2.3 billion federal investment will help build out the infrastructure we need to rapidly transition to ZEVs, while creating thousands of manufacturing and construction jobs in the near-term. It will also provide a strong signal to consumers and automakers that the infrastructure to support ZEVs will be there as more are put on the road.

How to improve federal EV infrastructure programs: Many states have tax incentives and other policies to incentivize EV infrastructure buildout, but federal action has lagged behind:

  • The Federal Highway Administration has an Alternative Fuels Corridors program that provides low-dollar grants for state and local transportation agencies to do the research and analysis work to identify and address barriers to EV infrastructure installation. We should expand funding for this program to help more transportation agencies develop alternative fueling corridors, including addressing right-of-way acquisition.
  • While there are federal programs like the Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality (CMAQ) highway formula program and the DOE State Energy Program that states can use to fund charging infrastructure, states generally use those funds for other priorities. Congress should establish a separate funding stream of at least $2.3 billion, including direct federal investment and grants to state and localities, to deploy the needed infrastructure. The House and Senate committees of jurisdiction have both called for such a program.

How to save money with a “Dig Once” policy: The COVID-19 crisis has brought the digital divide into stark relief. At a time when more and more Americans rely on an Internet connection for telehealth and virtual learning, underserved communities are getting left behind. Building out our broadband infrastructure will help get more Americans online while also creating construction jobs.

Broadband is an enormously important issue and opportunity that deserves its own list of policy recommendations. But as we focus on transportation infrastructure, we should keep in mind that the same roads we’re constructing or rebuilding now might need to be dug up again in the future to lay down broadband fiber. According to FHWA, burying fiber optic cables and conduit underground is the largest cost element for deploying broadband, responsible for up to 90 percent of deployment cost when it requires major excavation of roadway. A “Dig Once” policy minimizing excavations could save $100 billion.

In order to reduce redundant digs and save money in the long-run, Congress should:

  • Include a “Dig Once” policy requiring broadband conduit to be included during the construction or reconstruction of any road receiving federal funding, if the surrounding communities do not already have broadband access.
  • Direct state and local agencies to collaborate with the Internet Service Providers in their communities to identify where this conduit is needed and work together to minimize redundant digs.

Conclusion

The unfolding economic crisis calls for bold, swift action to put millions of Americans back to work and stimulate economic growth. Improving our infrastructure is one of the smartest investments we can make to accomplish those goals. For too long, the federal government has embraced a transportation infrastructure policy that encourages new construction where we don’t need it and can’t afford to maintain it. We have an opportunity now to reshape how we invest in our transportation infrastructure—to prioritize fixing what we have before we build anything new, to ensure we’re rebuilding our infrastructure to be more resilient to future shocks including climate change and severe weather, and to build out the infrastructure we need to support a rapid transition to zero-emission vehicles. Combined, these policies will create millions of jobs, ensure our transportation network can better withstand future shocks, and help reduce emissions.

Hundreds tell Congress that we need a new framework for transportation

As the COVID-19 crisis continues to shift the political landscape, 293 elected officials and organizations from 45 states signed Transportation for America’s letter urging Congress to reform the federal transportation program in the upcoming reauthorization. Because rethinking transportation policy matters now more than ever.

When Transportation for America first wrote this letter advocating for groundbreaking changes in the upcoming federal transportation reauthorization, COVID-19 had yet to radically alter our everyday lives. But as the effects of the virus grew more and more dire, we’ve realized that establishing a new framework for U.S. transportation policy matters more now than ever. 

We’re not alone: 293 elected officials and organizations from 45 states signed this letter, with many signatories joining as the coronavirus accelerated. While focused on reauthorization, adopting the reforms in this letter is necessary for Congress to guarantee that any future COVID-19 stimulus substantially improves American lives—not just pump more money into a broken highway program that fails to create new jobs. 

“Americans can’t afford another six years of the status quo” said Beth Osborne, director of T4America. “Our transportation needs to better connect all people to jobs and services safely, affordably, and conveniently to get us through this current crisis and to aid our economic recovery. Congress needs to use the upcoming reauthorization to finally align transportation spending with today’s national goals—not as a vehicle to funnel more money into programs that fail to improve people’s lives.”

The letter asks Congress to adopt T4America’s three principles for transportation investment: Prioritize maintenance over expansion, design for safety over speed, and connect people to jobs and services. 

Road or bridge repair and maintenance projects actually create more jobs per dollar than building new capacity. Maintenance projects spend money faster, are open to more kinds of workers, spend less money on equipment and more on wages, and spend less time on plans and permits. In fact, roadway maintenance creates 16 percent more jobs per dollar compared to roadway expansion.

Designing roadways for safety would make walking to destinations or transit stops easier and more convenient. Millions rely on transit to get to work, access healthcare, go to the grocery store. With 2.8 million essential workers relying on transit to get to work, making transit trips more feasible is more important than ever before. 

The point of transportation is to get people where they need to go, meaning we should prioritize infrastructure and transportation projects that connect people to jobs and services. Since the dawn of the modern highway era, we have used vehicle speed as a poor proxy for access to jobs and important services like healthcare, education, public services, and grocery stores. The way we build roads and design communities to achieve high vehicle speed often requires longer trips and makes shorter walking, bicycling, or transit trips unsafe, unpleasant, or impossible. New data can help to address decades of disinvestment which have disconnected communities and worsened economic outcomes. 

Regardless of whether infrastructure will be included in a future COVID-19 stimulus, it is critical that Congress establish a foundation for transportation investment that guarantees that funding goes to projects that actually improve people’s lives. The ongoing economic and health crisis is the biggest testament to why the U.S. needs a new and better framework for our investments so that we can build stronger, more prosperous communities. 

Last fall, we published our in-depth policy recommendations for the upcoming reauthorization. Read them here.

Building a better stimulus package: here’s how

With the $2 trillion rescue plan approved, Congress is already eyeing another COVID-19 relief and recovery package later this month. Based in part on what we learned from the 2009 stimulus, Transportation for America contributed infrastructure proposals to Smart Growth America’s detailed recommendations for economic stabilization and recovery. We must ensure that any further stimulus empowers communities to be economically prosperous, socially equitable, and environmentally sustainable. 

After passing the largest stimulus in United States history last week—$2 trillion, with $25 billion in aid for transit agencies and $1 billion for passenger rail—members of Congress know that more is needed to protect the country from the immediate and long-term impacts of COVID-19, and plan to work on another stimulus later this month. 

With the economy crumbling and millions of Americans’ lives at risk, the U.S. can’t afford to waste this opportunity for relief. We can’t squander our money on programs that fail to create the most new jobs or build lasting economic prosperity. It’s critical that this funding go to investments that give all Americans the opportunity to live in places that are healthy, prosperous, and resilient.

As part of Smart Growth America, we contributed to a new short SGA report outlining 20 recommendations for any economic recovery package that will boost our economy and give Americans equitable, accessible, safe and low carbon transportation options into the future. Here’s a summary of the transportation-related recommendations —read the full list here. 

Invest in projects that create the most jobs: that means maintenance, not expansion

Road or bridge repair and maintenance projects actually create more jobs than building new capacity. One reason is that with a new roadway project, a huge share of the cost goes toward buying property—an activity that has little to no stimulative or reinvestment value while also creating future liabilities (new roads) in the process. Meanwhile, maintenance projects spend money faster, are open to more kinds of workers, spend less money on equipment and more on wages, and spend less time on plans and permits. In fact, roadway maintenance creates 16 percent more jobs per dollar compared to roadway expansion.

And luckily, the U.S. is swimming with potential roadway maintenance projects, as found in our report Repair Priorities. It would be a win-win to require states to actually make progress on our repair backlog—something too few states did with 2009’s stimulus. Doing so would create the most jobs while finally addressing our “crumbling” infrastructure—instead of just using that rhetoric to approve new money that then gets spent on new roads. 

Give transit and passenger rail operating support, not just capital funds

The limited federal funds that public transportation receives are only for maintenance and construction. With ridership plummeting and costs for cleaning vehicles and protecting personnel skyrocketing—as well as the fallout from a rapidly contracting economy—transit and passenger rail need operating support now more than ever. 

The $25 billion for transit and $1 billion for passenger rail Congress provided in last week’s stimulus is a great start. But with TransitCenter estimating COVID-19-related losses to transit agencies between $26 and $38 billion, and Amtrak experiencing unprecedented drops in ridership, both public transportation and passenger rail will still need more. Congress should increase the amount of emergency operating funding in the next stimulus, and target transit agencies that need it the most. 

Expand transit and passenger rail

An economic stimulus is a rare and powerful opportunity to invest in the infrastructure that has the most potential to reduce our carbon emissions, increase access to opportunities, and make our country more equitable. But the focus of any stimulus package should be creating the most jobs per dollar, and capital funding for transit and rail creates far more jobs than road projects, according to research on the 2009 stimulus. 

Public dollars devoted to making capital improvements to public transportation systems also support thousands of manufacturing jobs, in communities small and large, in nearly every state across the country. Every $1 billion invested in public transit creates more than 50,000 jobs and economic returns of $3.7 billion over 20 years. The supply chain for public transportation touches every corner of the country and employs thousands of Americans who produce tracks, seats, windows, communications equipment, wheels, and everything else in between.

T4America has other specific recommendations for how to increase funding for expanding transit and passenger rail—including increasing the federal share of projects to 80 percent (the same as roadways). You can check those out here. 

Final thoughts

Infrastructure will be an obvious topic for any stimulus, but we need a more comprehensive solution. Smart Growth America’s proposals for housing and community development are focused on the highest-returning investments that can also give more Americans a shot at opportunity. Check out the full list here, and stay tuned for ways that you can help us get these recommendations to Capitol Hill. To get updates, subscribe to T4America’s email list and follow us on Twitter. 

Release: Senate deal provides vital $25 billion lifeline to ensure essential public transportation service can continue

WASHINGTON, DC — After news of the Senate’s tentative agreement on a $2 trillion stabilization package that included $25 billion in emergency operating assistance for transit, Beth Osborne, director of Transportation for America, released this statement:

“Public transit provides essential service for millions of Americans each day. When this deal is finalized, Congress will have provided a major lifeline for this vital public service to weather the most immediate impacts of a massive loss of ridership. After starting with zero dollars for transit in initial negotiations, we especially praise Senate leadership for negotiating the deal to ensure that transit can continue moving millions of essential workers during this crisis. Workers classified as essential during the COVID-19 emergency account for 36 percent of total transit commuters in the United States, according to research released just this week by TransitCenter. We applaud the White House, Senators Mitch McConnell and Chuck Schumer, and Representatives Nancy Pelosi and Kevin McCarthy for their work to reach this agreement. 

“Thanks to this deal, essential transit service has a better chance to survive until this unprecedented public health crisis subsides and we will need to depend on transit service to move millions of people and get the economy moving once again. 

“Transit riders, advocates, business leaders, elected leaders and the other thousands of people who wrote or called their Senators sent a clear message to Congress: transit is essential.

“Transit agencies will still face massive deficits and more will need to be done. Impacts from COVID-19 will cost U.S. transit agencies $26-$38 billion annually, according to other research also published by TransitCenter, depending on how long the crisis continues and the extent of the measures the nation undertakes to try and avoid the worst potential impacts.

“We are grateful to Congress for prioritizing the millions of people who rely on transit every day with this deal. And we are eager to continue bringing their voices to Congress as they consider further action to stabilize the economy and build a foundation for a long-term recovery.”

Release: Over 200 transit agencies, cities, and organizations urge Congress to pass emergency funding for transit

Over 220 elected officials, transit agencies, and organizations urge Congress to provide $13 billion in emergency funding for public transportation to stave off service cuts and job layoffs, and preserve service for the future. (Update, 3.23.20: Now 248 signers!)

WASHINGTON, DC: With only 24 hours’ notice, over 240 elected officials, cities and organizations signed a letter written by Transportation for America (T4America) and the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) urging Congress to provide transit agencies with nearly $13 billion in emergency funding and take other steps to ensure that transit agencies survive the COVID-19 pandemic and continue to provide safe and reliable access to jobs, schools, and services for millions of Americans. 

Due to critical social distancing practices required to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus, public transit agencies are experiencing significant decreases in ridership and farebox revenue while simultaneously incurring increased costs for additional cleaning. Without federal financial assistance, many transit agencies and paratransit service providers will be forced to dramatically reduce or eliminate critical service. 

The 248 signers include elected officials, local governments, transit agencies, businesses and organizations engaged in advocacy regarding climate, road safety, accessibility and other critical issues. Many cities have signed the letter, including Philadelphia, San Jose, Boise, as well as transit agencies that include IndyGo, SFMTA, VIA (San Antonio), Charlotte Area Transit System , Utah Transit Authority, and the Virginia Railway Express, to name a few 

“As the spread of COVID-19 continues to radically alter Americans’ daily lives and futures, guaranteeing that transit will be running through the crisis to connect people with food and health care is critical,” said Beth Osborne, the director of Transportation for America. “We also need transit to operate at full strength when this pandemic ends to support our economic recovery. Failing to support public transportation during the Great Recession left millions of Americans stranded for years afterward when people needed reliable, safe, and convenient access to jobs and services the most. It will happen again if Congress doesn’t step up to protect and preserve our country’s basic transportation infrastructure that millions depend on each day.”

The letter asks for direct financial assistance carefully targeted to the agencies impacted the most—rather than more funding funneled through the existing federal transportation program and formulas which are poorly suited to provide the kind of targeted, flexible assistance that agencies need.

The letter also asks Congress to waive the restriction barring agencies from using their capital funds on operations, so that transit agencies can fill gaps today and avoid future service cuts. But if they do this without also providing direct financial assistance, Congress will only solve one problem today while creating enormous problems tomorrow: reducing the capital funds that agencies need to keep up with mounting repair backlogs, basic maintenance, and the need to continue modernizing their fleets.

The signatories also request that FTA not use this current year’s plummeting ridership figures to determine next year’s transit funding amounts awarded through federal formulas.

The full letter is available to view here.

The Congestion Con: You’ve been played

In a new report, The Congestion Con: How more lanes and more money equals more traffic, we show how our approach to curbing congestion with new and wider highways has failed. We have spent decades and hundreds of billions of dollars on highways in the name of beating back congestion, yet in all of the 100 most populous urbanized areas examined in the report, congestion has gotten worse as a result. The Congestion Con lays out a comprehensive look at congestion data, why our “solution” has failed, and what the federal government can do to correct course.

Widening I-85 from four lanes to eight lanes. (Image: NCDOT, Flickr)

In an expensive effort to curb congestion in urban regions, the U.S. has overwhelmingly prioritized one strategy: widening and building new highways. We added 30,511 new freeway lane-miles of road in the largest 100 urbanized areas between 1993 and 2017, an increase of 42 percent. That rate of road expansion significantly outstripped the 32 percent growth in population in those regions over the same time period.

Yet this strategy has utterly failed to “solve” congestion as our new report—The Congestion Con—makes abundantly clear.

All those new lane-miles haven’t come cheap. States alone spent more than $500 billion on highway capital investments in urbanized areas between 1993-2017, with a sizeable portion going to highway expansions. And the initial construction costs are just the tip of the iceberg. For roads that are already in good condition, it still costs approximately $24,000 per year on average to maintain each lane-mile in a state of good repair, creating significant financial liabilities now and for years into the future.

We are spending billions to widen roads and seeing unimpressive, unpredictable results in return. In those 100 urbanized areas, congestion has grown by a staggering 144 percent, far outpacing population growth. Further, the urbanized areas expanding their roads more rapidly aren’t necessarily having more success curbing congestion—in fact, in many cases the opposite is true.

Download the report

Why aren’t we reducing congestion?

First, the average person drives significantly more each year in these 100 urbanized areas. Vehicle-miles traveled (VMT) per person increased by 20 percent between 1993-2017. This increase in driving is partially due to how we have allowed these urbanized areas to grow: letting development sprawl, creating greater distance between housing and other destinations, and forcing people to take longer and longer trips on a handful of regional highways to fulfill daily needs. We should be addressing those sources of congestion, but instead, we accept more driving and more traffic as unavoidable outcomes that we must address through costly highway expansion. This is a significantly more expensive and less effective approach than reducing the need to drive or length of trips. And unfortunately, spending billions to expand highways can actually make congestion worse by encouraging people to drive more than they otherwise would, a counterintuitive but well-documented phenomenon known as induced demand.

Eliminating congestion is also simply the wrong goal. While severe congestion can have real negative impacts, congestion is also generally a symptom of a successful, vibrant economy—a sign of a place people want to be. Instead, we should be focused on providing and improving access.

The core purpose of transportation infrastructure is to provide access to work, education, healthcare, groceries, recreation, and all other daily needs. Congestion can become a problem when it seriously obstructs access, but may not be a major problem if it doesn’t. Car speeds—the main proxy measure for congestion—don’t necessarily tell us anything about whether or not the transportation network is succeeding at connecting people to the things they need, as efficiently as possible. Yet a narrow emphasis on vehicle speed and delay underlies all of the regulations, procedures, and cultural norms behind transportation decisions, from the standards engineers use to design roads to the criteria states use to prioritize projects for funding. This leads us to widen freeways reflexively, almost on autopilot, perpetuating the cycle that produces yet more traffic

What needs to happen: Five policy recommendations

We need to face the music: we are doubling and tripling down on a failed strategy. We cannot keep relying on the same expensive and ineffective approach. With discussions underway about the next federal transportation legislation—a process that only happens every five years—now is the critical time to make changes before we pour billions more into a solution that doesn’t work. This report recommends five key policy changes, many of which could be incorporated into the upcoming transportation reauthorization:

1) Reorient our national program around access—connect people to jobs and services instead of focusing narrowly on speed and delay.
2) Require that transportation agencies stop favoring new roads over maintenance.
3) Make short trips walkable by making them safe. Roads surrounded by development should be designed for speeds of 35 mph or under to create safer conditions for walking and biking.
4) Remove restrictions on pricing and allow DOTs to manage congestion.
5) Reward infill development and make it easier for localities. Stop rewarding sprawl with public highway investments and instead reward localities that seek more efficient ways of moving and connecting people.

Download the full report and join the conversation online using #CongestionCon.

Download the report

What’s inside presidential candidates’ transportation plans?

Our director Beth Osborne often jokes that transportation is the first agenda item on politicians’ second to-do list—which is why it never gets done. Most presidential candidates are no different, advocating for business-as-usual transportation funding or embedding transportation across multiple plans.  Here’s what’s in them. 

Photo of an Amy Klobuchar campaign event in Des Moines by Phil Roeder on Flickr’s Creative Commons.

At Transportation for America, we believe that transportation shouldn’t play second fiddle. Rethinking transportation policy has enormous potential to solve so many of our problems, from economic inequality to climate change. But transportation is consistently glazed over by our political leaders. 

Which is why we ranked leading presidential candidates on how well their platforms meet T4America’s three guiding principles for transportation policy: prioritizing maintenance, safety over speed, and access to jobs and services.

But before we begin: If any campaign wants to reboot their transportation platform, give us a ring—we are happy to help! 

Donald Trump: Fail

Our 45th president is under the false impression that the private sector will “gift” government money to fix our infrastructure. But it will never happen. 

Both President Trump’s proposed infrastructure package and the Senate bill that POTUS endorsed during the most recent State of the Union—America’s Transportation Infrastructure Act—fails to achieve our three principles. Billions of new dollars for the existing, broken transportation program with no call to use those funds on repair first, address the unsafe design objectives of the main highway program or measure how well the transportation program connects people to jobs and services.  This failure to address the major flaws of the underlying program overshadow the Senate bill’s notable new programs, like a climate title and Complete Streets requirements. 

We appreciate that President Trump tried to eliminate the funding silos between modes and infrastructure categories and shake up the transportation program. But his administration’s hostility to transit has slowed the release of transit grants and resulted in a $500 million cut to the critical Capital Investment Grants program—the main source of federal funding to build and expand transit around the country. If President Trump wants to make a difference in transportation, he needs to grapple with the fact that transportation investment will require public dollars.

Joe Biden: Fail

Former Vice-President Joe Biden’s plan is business-as-usual. Under his infrastructure plan, federal transportation policy sticks to its storied role as a pass-through program to states and transportation departments, with no real accountability for how the money is spent. 

His plan talks about the importance of repairing roads and bridges, but there’s nothing in the proposal to guarantee that it happens. As we learned in our report Repair Priorities, many states spend more on road expansion than maintenance—which is completely legal and would continue to be kosher under the Biden proposal. 

To his credit, Biden tries to make up for the emissions and economic damage wrought by the baseline program by funding some side projects—like transit, passenger rail, and Complete Streets. But layering good programs on top of a program that causes the problems isn’t smart policy. 

Lastly, Biden’s plan makes no mention of measuring the success of the transportation program by improving people’s access to jobs and services, which is why he flunks on access.

Michael Bloomberg: Pass

There’s a lot to like in Michael Bloomberg’s infrastructure plan. The former New York City mayor is the only candidate who leads with updating and improving the structure of the transportation program itself—not just pouring more money into a broken system. He calls out the transportation program’s total lack of goals and his proposes assessing how transportation projects improve “connectivity to jobs, equity, accessibility, development efficiency, health and environmental effects,” according to his plan. 

Additionally, Bloomberg’s plan spends a lot of time detailing the importance of street design in ensuring safety for all road users, which is why he passes our safety metric. He specifically sets a safety goal of saving 20,000 lives by 2025 “by adopting safe street designs, lowering speed limits and implementing other measures.” Setting goals for improved safety at all is a step forward, as there is no federal requirement for states to set safety targets that actually call for fewer fatalities than currently occur in a state. 

We’re not thrilled that his first priority is to “fix congestion and bottlenecks.” Oftentimes people interpret this as widening highways; but as many of us know, widening highways only makes traffic worse. However, his proposal calls for addressing congestion by repairing roads and bridges as well as expanding transit.

Pete Buttigieg: Pass

Former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg would make big changes to the formulas at the heart of the transportation program. His plan would require states plan for maintenance before they’re allowed to build new or wider highways with federal funding. Requiring maintenance before expansion earns Buttigieg a ✓ by our standards.

Pete’s plan calls for instituting a national Vision Zero plan, which is radical for a country where states are allowed to set targets for pedestrian fatalities above the actual number of deaths. He would require that states “actively improve their safety records or road design processes, or else lose federal funding for other roadway projects,” according to his plan. 

Lastly, Mayor Pete’s plan scores high on access. He would require that states, metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs), and any other recipient of federal transportation funding demonstrate how projects improve access to jobs and services. That is key: requiring progress towards goals—and even setting goals—in order to receive funding is common sense. Sadly, it is not a feature of our current transportation program. 

Pete’s plan is similar to Bloomberg’s. The big difference is in how he communicates it: Buttigieg leads with funding, not what he’d do with the transportation program. We think this is a bad way to do policy. After all, in what other policy area (or facet of life, for that matter) do people tell you the price before they tell you what they’re selling? 

What isn’t clear is how funding will be shifted between modes, if at all. With a President Pete, are we still in a world where highways get 80 percent of the funding pie, leaving only 20 percent for transit? 

Elizabeth Warren: Fail

Senator Elizabeth Warren’s transportation “platform” leaves a lot to be desired. Her campaign lacks a dedicated transportation plan, embedding the proposal within other policy platforms. 

Similar to Biden, Warren proposes new grant programs designed to fix the problems caused by the traditional federal transportation program, but it doesn’t call for fixing the the program itself. She includes additional funding to electrify our vehicle fleet, but there is no mention of creating safe streets for all users and improving access for non-drivers so that people can emit less by using more efficient modes (while having more equitable, affordable access to economic opportunity).

We admire the creative thinking behind Senator Warren’s “Build Green” program, which is modeled off of USDOT’s successful TIGER program (before the Trump administration watered it down and renamed it BUILD). But without changing our current transportation program—one that builds highways we don’t need while our infrastructure crumbles—Warren’s plan wouldn’t bring about the transformation we need.

Bernie Sanders: Fail

Senator Sanders’ platform includes so much money.

But as we have learned time and time again: more money won’t solve our transportation problems. The problem is what we’re funding, not how much. In fact, more money might make the problem worse. 

Sanders’ plan includes $75 billion for the Highway Trust fund “to improve roads, bridges, and other transportation infrastructure,” based off of high 2015 Rebuild America Act. But there are no assurances in the proposal that this money would be dedicated to repair first. We know that when states are not required to repair their infrastructure, they often spend those funds on expansion first. Ribbon cuttings for new things are more fun that maintaining the things we already have, like dessert is more fun than flossing.

While he includes a laudable goal to increase transit ridership by 65 percent by 2030 with a $300 billion investment targeted toward transit-oriented development and improving transit service for seniors, people with disabilities, and and rural communities, there is no mention of investments to make our streets safer so that people can walk to the transit stop. Further, the lack of focus on improving access for all means we would be likely to continue building a program that does not provide equitable, affordable access to economic opportunity. 

Amy Klobuchar: Fail

Senator Klobuchar’s plan is even more traditional than Joe Biden’s. Her hope is that putting more money into the current program will inspire it to behave in ways it never has before. 

Klobuchar—who represents the state where the notorious 35W Mississippi River Bridge collapsed in 2007—pledges to make “smart investments” to repair our infrastructure, but doesn’t guarantee that states will be required to spend federal dollars on maintenance before expansion. This gives Amy an “F” in our book. 

Unlike Biden’s plan, however, Klobuchar doesn’t mention Complete Streets—or any safety measures, for that matter. In addition, Amy doesn’t mention measuring the success of transportation programs by how well they connect people to jobs and services. In fact, performance standards don’t come up once in her plan. 

In conclusion…

Only two of the presidential candidates—both former mayors—receive passing grades on their transportation plans, according to our three principles. Only two of the many politicians vying to be the most impactful person in the country understand what it takes to save Americans time, money, and from the dangerous effects of unchecked climate change.

Further, not one candidate speaks honestly about how to pay for their proposed funding increases. In fact, they all seem to propose that we abandon the user pays system, which in many ways we already have. If so, bye-bye, trust fund. They all seem to propose we fund this by deficit spending (as we have been for the last decade) or maybe taxing the wealthy or getting magical private funds? 

This reminds us of something former Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee once said about transportation funding: “If something is important enough to have, it’s important enough to pay for.” We’d like to add: If you aren’t willing to pay for it then you don’t believe it is important enough to have.

More money isn’t the solution to our transportation problems. It’s rethinking what we fund. But lawmakers often rely on the rules set by the outdated Highway Trust Fund to make this critical decision for them. 

“This budget is disappointing but not surprising”: T4America statement on President Trump’s 2021 budget request

Upon the release of the president’s budget request for FY2021, T4America Beth Osborne offered the following statement:

“With enormous potential to reshape the way Congress and the public think about transportation policy, the President’s FY 2021 budget follows his past budgets, cutting transit, rail and safety for those walking and biking while stressing highway funds require no accountability. It is particularly striking that the very small dedicated program for those outside of a car is eliminated, especially when we consider those who might not have access to personal vehicles: children, some seniors, people with disabilities, and low-income workers. 

“The budget fails to prioritize repair first—the number one priority for the vast majority of Americans. It actively harms safety, cutting an extremely important program for those outside of cars. And it does nothing to consider how well the transportation system connects people to jobs and services, especially those that do not have access to a personal vehicle.

“As federal transportation policy expires this September, we’re eager to work with Congress on a better proposal for investing in the country’s infrastructure. We continue to hope that the President joins the effort to address repair needs, safety for all people on our roadways and connecting all people to jobs and services.”

House principles could finally connect transportation spending to tangible outcomes

Transportation for America and the National Complete Streets Coalition released this statement regarding the principles for infrastructure released today by the House majority of the Transportation & Infrastructure Committee:

The new transportation policy framework released today by the House majority and Chairman Peter DeFazio could finally represent a long-awaited step toward aligning the billions we spend on transportation with the outcomes people care about: fixing crumbling infrastructure, prioritizing saving people’s lives on our roadways, and connecting people to jobs and daily necessities. For the last 40 years, lawmakers have largely focused on pouring more money into a broken federal program that fails to hold states accountable for maintaining our infrastructure, produces more congestion, makes safety secondary, and fails to affordably and efficiently connect us to the things we need. It’s high time to stop spending billions on a broken system, and these principles would be a transformative guide as Congress crafts a transportation law to serve the country’s greatest needs.

These structural changes to core formula programs are the highest priority, particularly:

1. Fix it first. For decades, presidents, governors, and members of Congress have decried our crumbling infrastructure with increasingly dire warnings. However, funding has gone to fund expansions that we can’t pay for rather than focusing on repair needs. Taking a fix it first approach will deliver on the age-old promise to fix what is crumbling.

2. Safety over speed through Complete Streets. Since the beginning of the highway program, the priority has been to move vehicles quickly, creating unnecessary danger on roads in cities and towns, especially for those outside of a vehicle. Implementing Complete Streets policies is an essential tool in prioritizing the safe movement of all road users, and stemming the current increase in non-motorized deaths. A forthcoming bill that focuses on Complete Streets and other safety improvements within the transportation formula funds would be a huge step in the right direction.

3. Access to jobs and services. The point of transportation is to get people where they need to go. Since the dawn of the modern highway era, we have used vehicle speed as a poor proxy for access to jobs and important services like healthcare, education, public services, and grocery stores. The way we build roads and design communities to achieve high vehicle speed often requires longer trips and makes shorter walking or bicycling trips unsafe, unpleasant, or impossible. Having transportation agencies consider how well the system connects people to the things they need whether they travel by car, transit, bike or foot would be a game changer.

We are also happy to see a focus on retrofitting vulnerable infrastructure to prepare for inevitable natural disasters, funding public transportation and getting transit projects done more quickly, and putting real funding into the country’s passenger rail network. These changes, along with proposals to address safety and access for all users, would have a very positive impact on providing economic opportunity to more people and reducing greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation sector.

As the proposal moves from an outline to full legislative draft, we will watch with interest to see how the House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee chooses to craft the program to fund projects of regional and national significance to support community investments. We are also interested to learn whether the committee believes a 80/20 split between highways and transit is still warranted considering that nearly a third of the program is paid for with general funds instead of user fees.

As long-time advocates for structural reform to the transportation program, we’re cautiously optimistic that the House majority can translate this framework into policies that are tied to clear outcomes and will leave the status quo behind.

14 cities join Transportation for America’s Smart Cities Collaborative


The roster for the Smart Cities Collaborative is set. Last December we announced the three cities that will be implementing pilot programs in this year’s Collaborative; today we’re unveiling the remaining 14 cities and agencies that will join this peer learning effort on curb management.

Transportation for America is thrilled to announce that 14 cities and municipal agencies are joining its Smart Cities Collaborative. Now in its third cohort, the Collaborative is a year-long program for public sector transportation leaders to share their experiences with new mobility technologies and develop best practices to ensure that these services improve city life.

The 14 cities and agencies joining the Collaborative today are diverse in size, geography, income, and jurisdiction. What they have in common is a commitment to reaping the benefits of new transportation technologies for residents equitably, safely, and sustainably.

Building on the work of past smart cities cohorts, T4America will work with three previously announced pilot cities (Bellevue, WA; Boston, MA; and Minneapolis, MN) to put theory into practice by implementing pilot projects in curbside management. Each pilot will serve as another opportunity for each of the 14 peer city participants to learn more about implementing pilots and managing new mobility services.

Also new to this year’s Collaborative is a steering committee made up of former Collaborative members and national leaders in implementing smart mobility projects and programs who will help shape the program. The steering committee includes members from Minneapolis, MN; Oakland, CA; Centennial, CO; Seattle, WA; and Washington, DC. Steering committee member Warren Logan, the Policy Director of Mobility and Interagency Relations at Oakland Mayor’s Office, said of the Collaborative, “The diversity of cities—blue, red, big, small, coastal, southern, Midwestern—results in a wealth of information and an incredible alumni network. It’s amazing to be able to call up someone from another city, talk about the problem you’re experiencing for 30 minutes, and then solve it, right there.”

The 14 cities and agencies are:

  • City of Ann Arbor (MI)
  • City of Birmingham, Department of Transportation (AL)
  • City of Boulder (CO)
  • City of Gainesville (FL)
  • Mobile GR, City of Grand Rapids (MI)
  • City of Gresham, Urban Design & Planning Department (OR)
  • Los Angeles Department of Transportation (CA)
  • City of Madison (WI)
  • Portland Bureau of Transportation (OR)
  • Metro (OR)
  • District Department of Transportation (DC)
  • San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (CA)
  • City of West Palm Beach (FL)
  • City of West Sacramento, Capital Projects & Transportation (CA)

TransportationCamp DC in the rearview mirror


TransportationCamp volunteer Natasha carrying many of the 60+ session proposals that were submitted.

TransportationCamp DC 2020 was last weekend, and while it was a huge success, it almost didn’t happen at all. Last fall it was announced that the previous organizers wouldn’t be able to host it again, but at the last minute Transportation for America stepped in to make it happen—the show must go on! From the date we announced that TransportationCamp 2020 was on (November 14, 2019) there was less than two months until the actual event. But campers still turned out in big numbers.

More than 500 people were there on Saturday and the waitlist topped 100. We received many more sessions proposals than we had space for, even with 12 different breakout rooms. And topics covered everything from privacy and data in transportation apps, to fare free transit, to a how-to on transportation pilot projects. The creativity and energy on display was awesome.

Recapping such a dynamic event is a challenge, but we collected some short reflections from staff who were there to help give you a feel for what we saw and felt on Saturday if you weren’t able to attend.

Our phenomenal sponsors!

Changemaking becomes a bigger focus

TransportationCamp DC 2020 was the fourth TransportationCamp I’ve attended, but the first where I felt the focus shifted from “here are all the cool developments in transportation” to taking action: “How do we make sure that transportation changes & technology benefit everybody, and how do we convince people that a future with less driving is a good idea?” Most transportation advocates/professionals could talk your ear off about the benefits of bus-only lanes, bike infrastructure, real-time transit information, and other transformative technologies that make transportation an exciting field to work in. What we need now is action to make this vision of transportation—a transportation system that actually connects everybody to jobs and services—a reality. This is a really positive development that we’ll build on next year.
– Jenna Fortunati

Equity on the agenda, but not the roster

This was my first time at TransportationCamp and I was really looking forward to listening to voices who might otherwise not make it on to a standard conference schedule. I was thrilled to see many session proposals focusing on equity. But when I looked around the (very, very full!) room, it was very white and very male. There is still lots of work to be done in transportation to be more inclusive and representative of all identities and perspectives. Earlier this year, Veronica Davis posted on twitter asking “Dear safe streets peeps… what is one thing you are going to do this year to disrupt the whiteness of the movement?” I keep thinking back to this question—and that thread, which is chock-full of great ideas—and how I can weave some of those into my own work. I’m excited to see TransportationCamp continue to grow and elevate more diverse voices.
– Mae Hanzlik

Wonky policy proposals resonate with campers

I hosted a session at TransportationCamp where we discussed the problems with traditional metrics used to assess transportation, like delay and level-of-service. Providing access between destinations (jobs, houses, grocery stores, schools, etc.) is the fundamental purpose of transportation, but narrow measures like delay don’t actually address access and obscure solutions that would improve connections as a result. At Transportation for America, we’re urging Congress to reorient our national transportation program around measuring what matters—access to jobs and services—and I was so excited to hear significant interest and support for this among the session participants! Some campers said they have been seeking to supplement or replace delay with alternatives but need guidance on what to measure. Others mentioned a need for more standardized terminology and ways of measuring access. This kind of direct feedback is invaluable and helps us better advocate for reforms at the national level.
– Rayla Bellis

Exchanging & debating ideas

The “unconference” format of TransportationCamp allows participants to get straight to what any conference is all about—exchange of ideas, and connecting with people. I participated in a session entitled “Cage Fight,” a debate about electrification versus mode shift to address the climate crisis. The initial lively debate got the blood pumping, and the serious discussion that followed generated some ideas. Participants included a few who had worked on both issues, and a member of the philanthropy community who shares our concern that donors are missing the mark by concentrating all their efforts on electric cars.
– Chris Rall

A young crowd brings high energy

Spending days in a conference space with next to no natural light and a docket of technical presentations awaiting you (i.e. most conferences) generally doesn’t get people very jazzed. But TransportationCamp was different. From 8:30 a.m. when registration opened until 5:30 p.m. people were abuzz. Making new connections, creating their session proposals, figuring out which breakouts to attend, asking questions—the energy was contagious. With affordable tickets and student discounts, TransportationCamp attracted more young passionate, optimistic, and eager folks than other conferences, though there was certainly a wide variety of ages represented. I wish more conferences had that kind of diversity.
– Sean Doyle

Hobbyists to seasoned professionals: space for everyone

I was amazed with the breadth of attendees—from mobility firms to local government staff, young and seasoned, domestic and international. Everyone demonstrated a clear desire to share and absorb new ideas and the far reaching proposals were a testament to the diverse approaches our communities need to tackle transportation issues. I also found it powerful how eager people were to make new connections, even if it was based off something simple like the 3-word phrases attendees used to introduce themselves.
– Tyler Quinn-Smith

For some of us, this was our first time at TransportationCamp while others were veterans. But after organizing a fun, energetic, and educational event we also took home a lot of lessons for next year to make TransportationCamp DC even better in 2021.

See you next year, campers.

Connecting people to jobs and services week: Hey Congress, we need your help to measure access

The Des Moines Area MPO wants to make a shift to award funding the transportation projects that do the most to improve the region’s resident’s access to jobs and services. But—like most MPOs and local governments across the country—its budget for the technology that makes this possible is small. It’s time for Congress to help local communities invest in the right projects. 

Ariels of Des Moines, Iowa from 10,000 feet May 6, 2017. USDA photo by Preston Keres

It’s “Connecting people to jobs and services” week here at Transportation for America. All week we’ll be exploring why improving access should be the goal of the federal transportation program—not vehicle speed. This guest post comes from Todd Ashby, CEO/Executive Director at the Des Moines Area MPO, which is trying hard to upend the broken status quo.

No matter how much funding a region has, there will never be enough money for every possible project. In Greater Des Moines, we want to guarantee that we spend our limited resources on projects that will do the most to connect our residents to their daily needs with affordable, efficient transportation.

Last year, Transportation for America came to Iowa to help the Des Moines Area Metropolitan Planning Organization (DMAMPO) do exactly that: create a scoring system to evaluate how proposed transportation projects work to achieve our goals, like improving people’s access to jobs and services (and not just for people driving cars). T4America inspired us to become a national leader in using performance measures to better align our project funding with regional priorities. 

To us, improving access to jobs and services is the gold standard for transportation investment, and one of the very best ways to use this relatively new idea of performance measurement. With improving access as our goal—not increasing vehicle speed or throughput— we would prioritize the projects that would do the most to improve our residents’ connections to jobs and services.  

But while very possible thanks to cloud computing and GPS, measuring access is expensive. We need data on where trips begin and end, where jobs are located, where people live, and where daily needs are located. This data is incredibly expensive. We also need additional resources and funding for models that help us process this data; the DMAMPO—like most other MPOs—has neither. 

Congress could help usher in a new era of picking projects based on how they improve access rather than on outdated 1950s measures like level of service or vehicle delay, but the federal program today is not oriented around this goal, nor around equipping states and metros to do so.

This is why the DMAMPO asked Iowa Senator Joni Ernst to cosponsor S. 654, the COMMUTE Act in Congress. This bill—an acronym for “Connecting Opportunities through Mobility Metrics and Unlocking Transportation Efficiencies”—would create a competitive pilot program at the U.S. Department of Transportation to provide states, local governments, and MPOs with data sets to calculate how many jobs and services are accessible by all modes of travel. 

Access to this data would transform how we are able to choose projects, empowering us with far better information to determine which proposed transportation projects would connect the most people to the highest quantity of jobs and services.

For a long time, ensuring high speed of travel within a corridor or minimal delay was a good enough rubric for spending billions of transportation dollars. It’s our goal to do something far better in Greater Des Moines. The COMMUTE Act would be a good start, but Congress can do so much more.

Connecting people to jobs and services week: Rethinking shared mobility to prioritize access

Transportation is fundamentally about connecting people, but America’s transportation system focuses on moving cars instead. Madlyn McAuilffe from the New Urban Mobility Alliance (NUMO) wrote this guest post about the consequences of our misguided priorities and how we can get back to focusing on building places and transportation networks for people.

It’s “Connecting people to jobs and services week” here at Transportation for America. All week we’ll be exploring why improving access should be the goal of the federal transportation program—not vehicle speed.

Transportation has always been about connection—connecting people to places, resources, experiences, and of course, other people. Moving people—facilitating access—was the original goal. Transportation was simply the means by which we reached our destinations.

We’ve journeyed a long way since the advent of the automobile, and somewhere along the way toward creating a national transportation system, our priorities shifted to focus not on moving people but on moving cars.

Living with the consequences

The consequences of American auto-centrism have been devastating and far-reaching. Despite an urgent global climate crisis, transportation is the primary source of emissions in the U.S., and a growing source as auto sales (particularly for SUVs and trucks) rise

We’re told by $40-billion worth of endless, highly-stylized auto commercials that cars represent independence, yet they often are the largest purchases many American households will ever make. 72 months of payments, thousands of dollars of high-interest debt, and economic dependence on an inefficient and dangerous mode of transport can hardly be called freedom.

Even the metrics we use to determine the success of our transportation system are off. We measure the efficacy of our roads and policies by speed traveled (i.e., level of service) rather than by the number and diversity of people who can safely and affordably access jobs, school, healthcare, grocery stores, and community centers. Yet rather than reimagine how we fund transit projects or investigate zoning land for multiple uses, we spend outrageous amounts of money on adding lanes to highways, inducing demand for driving, and then condemning commuters to become stuck in hellish congestion.

We often hear about “crumbling infrastructure,” but rarely mentioned is the fact that transportation decision-makers invariably decide and are incentivized to expand the network of roads that are already poorly maintained rather than fix what we have already built.

It doesn’t have to be this way, but how do we begin digging ourselves out of the ditch we have created?

Any roadmap forward starts with rethinking the values underlying how we do transportation, land use, infrastructure, labor, and more. Change the values, change the system; change the system, change the world. Sounds easy, right?

The principle of the thing

A tectonic transportation value shift is already underway, though—and unsurprisingly, it’s a team effort.

Early 2017 witnessed the debut of the Shared Mobility Principles for Livable Cities, a framework for policymakers, leaders, influencers, urban designers, academics, advocates—everyone—to guide stakeholders toward the best outcomes for all people. Developed by Robin Chase and a founding coalition of global NGOs including Transportation for America, the Principles encourage us to rethink how we plan not just our mobility, but also the design of both our transportation system and cities to value inclusivity, connectivity, and shared mobility that is sustainable and just.

The first three Principles—planning cities and mobility together; prioritizing people over vehicles; and supporting the shared and efficient use of vehicles, streets, and land—are key to understanding the Shared Mobility Principles as a whole. The remaining Principles stem from the core value of access, which must also serve as the metric by which any transportation, infrastructure, or other development project must be reviewed. What opportunities will this proposed transit-oriented development project provide and to which communities of people? Will this mobility hub provide first/last-mile solutions in transit deserts? Which transportation investment will create improved access to jobs, school, and other destinations for the greatest number of people: an additional lane for single-occupancy vehicles or a dedicated bus lane for thousands of passengers each day?

Admittedly, the Shared Mobility Principles are ambitious. Relearning everything we’ve come to accept as a given in planning, developing, designing, and maintaining not just our transportation system but cities themselves is daunting. To create lasting change that reaches and improves the lives of everyone, however, we must start by rethinking our values as well as what and whom we prioritize with the policies we craft and the projects we undertake. After all, cities are built for people, not cars. If people can’t access what they need where they live…we’ve failed.

Connecting people to jobs and services week: What do destination access metrics look like in action?

Academics have long pointed to a metric called destination access—called by Transportation for America “access to jobs and services”—as a better decision guide than older, conventional measures that focus mainly on the speed of cars.  But what does this new practice look like in real life, and where and how is it already being used?

A man loading a bike onto a bus in Arlington, VA. Photo from the Arlington Department of Environmental Services.

It’s “Connecting people to jobs and services week” here at Transportation for America, so Eric Sundquist, the director of our partner organization the State Smart Transportation Initiative, wrote this blog post explaining how measuring access actually works.

When we measure destination access, which takes into account distance of travel as well as speed, we can better assess how easily travelers can reach their desired destinations. And we can make predictions about how people will choose to travel. It’s long been a better theoretical way to measure success, but the data has been expensive and it’s largely remained the purview of academics.

Now destination access has broken out of the ivory tower. 

Newly available “big data,” much of it collected for use by GPS navigation software and devices—think Apple or Google Maps—has made measuring destination access possible in practice. 

Created by a 2014 bill that “revolutioniz[ed] the way transportation projects are selected,” according to then-Governor Terry McCauliffe, the Virginia DOT has been using destination access to help make investment decisions through three rounds of transportation project funding. 

How does this new system work in Virginia? VDOT assesses a wide range of projects together—highways, transit, walking, biking and demand-management projects—based on how they improve access to jobs and other common destinations, such as shopping, schools, and restaurants. After calculating destination access, VDOT then divides by cost of the project to the state, so that small, rural projects can compete with massive urban ones. In essence VDOT scores projects on destination access per dollar of investment, and this has led to a major shift in which projects they fund each year, increasing the benefits for each dollar invested.

For example, Virginia recently scored a project near the small town of Hopewell that would connect two regional bike-walk trails using a shuttle bus across a highway bridge with minimal shoulders and no sidewalks. The project scored modestly on destination access, but because it would cost only $44,000—very little by transportation infrastructure standards—it ranked first in its district and ninth out of 433 projects statewide. This is the type of small but vital project that can lose out when state agencies are so heavily focused on simply improving vehicle speed and avoiding delay.

Because we can use all this data to assess destination access across auto, transit, walking, biking modes, we can also combine those scores to predict how changes to the built environment will affect outcomes, such as mode share. Will a project lead to more or less driving, transit ridership or active transportation? Using destination access helps us make these forecasts.

More examples of measuring access to jobs and services 

Working with the State Smart Transportation Initiative (SSTI), for example, the City of Eau Claire, WI., recently used destination access to assess transit investment options, including bolstering the city’s downtown circulator, extending service to future development sites, and pairing those investments with strategic transit-oriented development (TOD). The analysis not only let Eau Claire decision-makers understand the relative benefits of different transit expansions—including which residents would be affected and how much their access to jobs and other destinations  would increase—but also showed that TOD could provide considerably larger benefits, compared to transit investments alone. This information will inform the city’s new transit plan and its recently announced climate goals. 

This new method can be used to evaluate how proposed transportation projects would impact access to jobs and services, but it can also help local leaders envision potential future scenarios as they make broader long-term plans for both transportation and land use. 

In nearby La Crosse, WI, the city leaned on destination access metrics to estimate the effects of various development scenarios. If the city directed new development to three proposed sites near downtown, would it reduce the need for auto travel and boost transit ridership? The SSTI analysis found that the answer was yes, a result that city officials will employ going forward in transportation and land use decision-making. 

Ten years ago, we never would have been able to orient federal transportation spending around the goal of improving access to jobs and services. The data and other resources just weren’t there yet. But now, as both states and localities across the country take giant steps to prove that it’s not only possible but a smarter way to choose where and how to invest in transportation, it’s time for Congress to respond by making this a priority.

Angry that speed is prioritized over safety? Here’s what to do about it

Last week was #SafetyOverSpeed week here at Transportation for America, where we took a deep dive on our second principle for transportation policy: design for safety over speed. We spent the week discussing how prioritizing speed makes it almost impossible for most Americans to reach destinations anyway other than driving. Now we need to do something about it. Heidi Simon, the Deputy Director of America Walks, discusses how you can make a difference in your community. 

LA’s ever-increasing walkability.

America Walks was disappointed—but not surprised—to learn that 6,283 friends, family members, and neighbors lost their lives while walking in 2018. As a national non-profit working to create safe, accessible, and enjoyable places to walk and move, we know all too well the immense challenge that this nation faces in addressing the devastating trend of growing fatalities among people walking and biking.

Our lack of surprise? Well, that’s because—despite a plethora of street design tactics proven to increase safety—we’re operating in a transportation system that prioritizes cars over people, and has for decades.

We know that many of the issues that plague people walking (and biking) are not new. Poor street design, improper speeds, and a culture that prioritizes cars over people have created a landscape that continues to unnecessarily endanger the most vulnerable users of the public rights of way.

Yet too often the conversation on making roads safer focuses on things that have little to no actual influence on improving safety. The distraction of the distracted walking narrative, the false notion that wearing reflective clothing will save lives, and the idea that these deaths are inevitable are all narratives that do a disservice to improving safety.

Perhaps the biggest issue is that the urgency to reduce the number of people killed while walking and biking occurs only periodically throughout the year, like when NHTSA released 2018 fatality numbers. By then, it’s too late to help those who have unnecessarily lost their lives while doing the most basic of human activities.

But it’s not too late to do something for those who are walking and biking on our streets right now. We can use data to target high crash corridors and improve spaces for our most vulnerable road users. We can make it clear that the only acceptable number of deaths on our streets is zero. And we can start today to do the work needed to make walking and biking safe for all users:

Use your voice: Tell decision-makers at all levels that funding for active transportation needs to be increased and that we need to take steps to improve safety through reduced speeds, improved road design, and policies that actually address safety concerns. This can be done at town halls, by visiting their offices, or inviting them to take a walk with you, your walking club, a walking school bus, or a main street business council. (One way you can help right now is by supporting a long-awaited federal Complete Streets bill.)

Use your head: Dive into the data related to pedestrian fatalities and use it to inform your advocacy. Learn more about the issue, stay vigilant to distractions like victim-blaming, and don’t let the issue disappear from the public debate.

Use your feet: Get out and do a walking audit with friends, neighbors, and your local elected officials to show them what’s being done well and not so well on the streets in your community. Never done one before? Check out our guide here with helpful quick tips like:

  • Inviting people from a variety of background, professions, ages, and abilities.
  • Don’t be afraid to knock on doors to get the word out about the event.
  • Build relationships with decision-makers and local elected officials early so they’re more likely to be engaged during and after the audit.

Missed Transportation for America’s Safety over Speed blog posts? Check them out.

Safety over speed: Safe streets are climate-friendly streets

Lowering speeds have more benefits besides saving lives: street designs that keep speeds low help reduce carbon emissions, too. In this blog post by our friends at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), Ann Shikany and Carter Rubin discuss how safer roads increase rates of biking, walking, and transit ridership, and enable fewer and shorter car trips.

Slow neighborhood greenways help people get around without getting in their cars. Photo via City of Seattle.

In communities across the county, our transportation system provides key linkages for commuters to jobs, kids to school and all of us to our social, family and recreational opportunities.

But the flip-side is that after decades of prioritizing transportation investments in new highways with a focus on speed above all else, we’re stuck with a transportation system that produces more carbon emissions than any other sector in the United States. Spread-out development facilitated by wide fast roads make cars all but essential for daily travel in many U.S. communities.

When you dive deeper into those carbon emissions—you’ll find that 59 percent of them come from light-duty vehicles—that includes the cars we drive around in for most daily trips. While the majority of daily trips are less than three miles, most of them are made by car. 

Even worse, transportation emissions are rising because people are driving more and making longer trips. Even with cleaner fuels (not to mention electric cars) and more efficient vehicles, the uptick in driving more is obliterating any emissions benefits. 

Why are people driving more, and using cars for even short trips? Because, with an overarching focus on vehicle speed and avoiding delay, nearly everything we’ve built for 60 years has been  designed for high speed vehicle movement, which makes getting around by any other mode—biking, public transportation, or your own two feet—dangerous and unpleasant. Our transportation system—and the federal policy that built it—forces many Americans to drive to get just about anywhere.

The good news is over 40 cities in the United States have adopted Vision Zero policies that seek to eliminate traffic fatalities and major injuries on our roads through safety policies and investment in the kind of infrastructure that will help keep everyone safe—with a priority on those who are most vulnerable. 

Some of the key strategies that cities use to meet this goal include:

  • Providing physical protection for people walking and biking, like bike lanes protected with planters, bollards and curbs.
  • Reducing vehicle speeds on routes intended for people walking and biking, so that people of all ages and abilities feel safe. 

Projects that lower speeds and make it easier to bike, walk, and use transit also compliment land use changes that bring destinations closer together. Slower speeds allow our streets to become places where people want to be, not race through. (As our own Carter Rubin said sarcastically when asked about the economic benefits of lower speeds during yesterday’s #SafetyOverSpeed tweet chat: “Brb, going to go shopping on the side of a freeway.” ) 

Improving bike and pedestrian networks is also one of the top policy priorities included in the Bloomberg American Cities Climate Challenge, and is being supported in nine challenge cities. If you’d like more detailed information on these policies, check out the Climate Action Playbook sections on bike and pedestrian infrastructure. We’ll also give you a quick snapshot of what this policy looks like in action:  

Prioritizing bikeway, sidewalk and crossing improvements (Portland, OR): Portland leads large U.S. cities in the percentage of commuters who bike to work and ranked tenth in 2016 for the percentage of commuters who walk to work. The city has 350 miles of bikeways, with more than 50 miles funded to be installed in the next few years. Portland has developed this infrastructure not just by creating bike plans, but by backing these plans up with funding. Portland is currently updating its pedestrian plan to prioritize sidewalk and crossing improvements and other investments to make walking safer and more comfortable across the city. It will identify gaps and needs in Portland’s pedestrian network, prioritize funding to locations with the greatest need first, and identify performance measures to track progress. (Read more.)

Responding to the need for safety improvements (Cincinnati, OH): After facing a record breaking year of pedestrian-involved crashes—430 in 2018—Cincinnati Councilmember Greg Landsman led the charge for safer streets. The city is now pursuing a Vision Zero strategy that included appointing new leadership and dedicated staff resources within the city’s Department of Transportation, prioritized funding for pedestrian safety improvements, and increased enforcement. Through the American Cities Climate Challenge, Cincinnati’s transportation team will also receive Vision Zero design training from the National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO).  (Read more.)

Every community deserves safe streets, clean air and action on climate. Thankfully, many cities are taking the first step by implementing Vision Zero policies locally. There is also work to be done at the federal level. On October 23, 2019, Representative Earl Blumenauer introduced the Vision Zero Act, which would make Vision Zero policies and investments eligible for federal funding. NRDC supports this legislation. Transportation for America’s push for safer streets as part of a comprehensive federal transportation investment strategy.