Over a month ago, we explained why freight railroads CSX and Norfolk Southern (NS) were trying to halt the return of passenger rail service on the Gulf Coast—an effort that could hinder passenger rail service across the country. Well, CSX is still at it, and their easily-disputed claims are proof that freight railroads have had free rein to stand in the path of passenger rail for far too long.
The long-anticipated return of passenger rail service on the Gulf Coast is moving forward once again. But there’s still a ways to go.
There’s simply no better way to illustrate our point than with a video, so here’s yet another look at the supposedly “busy” (according to freight railroad CSX) Gulf Coast corridor. Amtrak only wants to run two round-trip trains on this track between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m., but this video documents train activity from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m.
Pay close attention to that bridge. In the latest Surface Transportation Board (STB) hearing, CSX claimed that the Pascagoula Bridge poses an obstacle to the return of passenger rail service because the bridge is “always down.” But from where we’re standing, the bridge is up quite a bit.
This is yet another easily contested argument presented by CSX to derail the wildly popular return of passenger rail service to the Gulf Coast. Given all the time they had to prepare, we might expect them to come up with something a bit more concrete. But unfortunately, the truth is they historically haven’t had to come up with strong arguments to get their way.
Tactics like these aren’t exclusive to CSX, and it’s important to note that freight railroads alone aren’t the only thing holding passenger rail back. But CSX’s bad faith arguments continue to show why it’s important to compile rail data and hold freight railroads accountable. Freight has been able to claim tracks like the ones running through Pascagoula are “just too busy” for far too long, and passenger rail service has suffered across the country as a result. With the new funds under the 2021 infrastructure law and climate needs only growing stronger, it’s time to make passenger rail a more available resource for all.
The Seattle area’s busiest transit agency released their “playbook” for better transit through smart incremental improvements and community partnerships. Focusing on bus speed and reliability, this guidebook is a valuable resource for any transit agency looking to build trust with riders.
In King County, WA (Seattle and its surroundings), transit demand is booming. The region has made forward-thinking investment and policy decisions that support smart development decisions, allowing them to maintain a high quality of life amid rapid growth. They’ve made a serious commitment to transit—not only through expansion, but through bolstering existing services—and built efficient infrastructure while incentivizing ridership. As a result, King County has grown a strong transit user base, reduced single-occupancy driving downtown, and cultivated stronger and healthier communities.
King County Metro (or just Metro) was one of America’s ten most-ridden transit agencies in 2019, and the busiest not to operate any rail services. They achieved this high ridership through smart comprehensive planning (and funding!) for services that run to the places where people actually go. They’re the core provider of local buses in King County, with a strong network of frequent routes in dense core neighborhoods, rapid routes that take riders between communities, and freeway express routes that run on dedicated lanes. Together with the regional agency Sound Transit, as well as agencies in neighboring Pierce and Snohomish Counties, Metro is a national leader in smart transportation planning.
What strategies does the report propose?
In the report, Metro details the incremental infrastructure strategies they implemented to gradually improve street-level bus systems. They provide design initiatives that help buses skip past traffic, including changes to street and intersection design, bus stops and routing, traffic flow alterations, and signaling improvements. The advantages and costs of each are outlined in a digestible format, along with guidelines and extensive examples from the region.
Street design improvements involve physical changes to the street itself, prioritizing buses in areas where cars often get in the way. Metro proposes dedicated bus lanes and short bypass lanes as projects where buses get their own space. Relatedly, changes to road channelization—that is, the flow of traffic, particularly approaching intersections and the size and design of turns—can have a tremendous impact on bus speed.
Metro also took a look at bus stop planning. The location and design of bus stops can inhibit the stopping and boarding process, slowing down the ride. The report explains how lengthening bus stops—to accommodate more than one bus at a stop at the same time—makes boarding quicker and more convenient for riders, as well as how lengthening stops can be integrated with other design strategies like bulb-outs that slow traffic and enhance pedestrian crossings. Thoughtful bus routes are integrated with these stops and avoid unnecessary turns and choke points.
Changing traffic control through regulations and signaling is another strategy. Turn restrictions can work alone or go hand-in-hand with street design improvements to move buses faster through intersections, and strategically altering or removing parking frees up lane space and makes it easier for buses to access stops along a sidewalk. Metro explains a few ways that reprogramming traffic signals can also help. The timing of green lights on a street can be adjusted to match the pace of a bus as opposed to car traffic. And technology allows Metro buses to directly change signals, so buses don’t need to wait at red lights or behind cars at intersections.
With a roadmap for physical design in place, Metro also plans to bring communities to the table. Metro operates in many cities throughout King County. The roles of Metro and the appropriate jurisdiction are included in the report alongside key tasks for the planning, design and implementation, and performance management steps for both Metro- and jurisdiction-led projects. Metro lays out several principles for a general cooperation process and timeline, making the report an excellent starting point for other agencies to reference in planning their own partnerships.
“It’s important to build trust and a great working relationship with city staff,” says Irin Limargo, capital planning supervisor at King County Metro. “This effort can start with projects that offer a win/win for transit and traffic, then try to move to higher transit priority treatments.”
Why is it important?
King County may be among the first to publish such a report, but other transit agencies looking to increase reliability and ridership should take notice. Although its examples are centered around the Seattle region, its practices are applicable anywhere.
“In our observation, improvements implemented in Downtown Seattle, even if providing just a few seconds of delay-reduction per trip, can rack up thousands of operating hours savings each year due to the large number of trips operating through that area. That said, our suburban and smaller city partners are equally important because transit operates as a system and routes cross city boundaries,” says Limargo.
The report offers tried-and-true strategies that go hand-in-hand with the core principles of smart transportation policy, safety, and accessibility. Coordination is a persistent theme in this report, and it goes beyond the six jurisdictions that worked together in its publishing. Their incremental approach gives new life to existing infrastructure and makes it more useful and long-lasting than a continued dedication to unsustainable driving patterns. It prioritizes safety by proposing improvements that intentionally slow down or decrease the influence of cars in a given area, and it makes pedestrian and transit infrastructure more publicly visible than it is today. And improving speed and reliability through small improvements can help riders reach more places more consistently.
Special thanks to Peter Heffernan, government relations administrator at King County, for getting us at T4A in touch with Irin Limargo.
Despite the rhetoric, the infrastructure law falls well short of truly addressing the decades of harm our transportation system has inflicted on marginalized communities, and could even exacerbate existing inequities. However, it does provide some notable opportunities to restore and invest in these communities’ infrastructure needs.
This post is part of T4America’s suite of materials explaining the 2021 $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), which governs all federal transportation policy and funding through 2026. What do you need to know about the new infrastructure law? We know that federal transportation policy can be intimidating and confusing. Our hub for the new law will walk you through it, from the basics all the way to more complex details.
Our transportation system should be designed to connect all people to essential jobs and services through affordable and accessible transportation options. However, our system has largely prioritized access and options for wealthier and whiter communities while creating barriers and dividing Black and brown communities in the process.
Of the $643 billion in the infrastructure law, there are few dedicated programs that directly address equity in our transportation system. However, there are steps in the right direction, including historic funding for transit infrastructure ($109 billion), new programs such as the Reconnecting Communities Pilot Program, and changes to the local match requirements for certain competitive grants for projects in areas of persistent poverty.
The Biden administration and Congress missed an opportunity to create an underlying standard for equity in the infrastructure law. Sure, the administration’s Justice 40 initiative aims to invest federal money equitably, but this is not a permanent solution as it can be easily undone by future administrations. And as we wrote about in our posts on climate, access, or other similar priorities, the freedom and ability to prioritize advancing equity and undoing past harm in communities lies with the states and metro areas who control the lion’s share of the law’s funding. And it’s up to them what they choose to prioritize.
What’s in the law?
First, each of the largest formula grant programs (like the NHPP and STBG) and every other program with broad eligibility can and should be used to promote equity by undoing the damage to marginalized communities.Check out our IIJA hub for guides on how to make sure equity underlies all spending, category by category. But here are some categories worth noting in particular:
The infrastructure law authorizes $109 billion, an increase in federal funding by nearly 80 percent for public transit projects through formula and competitive grant programs. Expanding and improving transit is the best way to serve and improve access to jobs and opportunity for marginalized communities, especially when it’s low-cost and high frequency. For low-income and communities of color who often rely on public transportation the most, making the right investments that improve accessibility and reliability, that connect people to food, health care, educational services and jobs, can have immense financial and quality of life impacts.
The Reconnecting Communities Pilot Program and the Healthy Streets Programs are two new competitive programs that go directly toward undoing past damage or addressing disparities created by our transportation investments in Black and brown communities. However, if states use their formula funds as they historically have, these smaller programs will be overwhelmed by the damage that is still being created by highway projects that just keep hurting these same communities.
The Reconnecting Communities Program was funded at $1 billion over five years for the planning and construction of projects that reconnect communities divided by viaducts, highways, and other principal arterials. For the people who call these communities home, these divisions continue to have catastrophic impacts on health outcomes, safety, and local economies. The restorative projects funded by this new program, which T4America helped create and introduce in Congress in late 2020, will help undo this damage by removing, retrofitting, or replacing an infrastructure barrier to restore community connectivity.
This is a good starting point, but it’s important to note that $1 billion over five years only begins to address the decades of “urban renewal” projects built to divide communities. The cost of dismantling divisive highways rivals, and in some cases even surpasses, the billions of dollars spent over decades to build these highways in the first place. Remember that while the Reconnecting Communities Pilot Program is small compared to the amount of work that needs to be done to restore historically marginalized communities, states have the ability to use their highway formula funds to complete highway teardown projects. They do not need this specialized program in order to do highway removal projects. The limited funds for the new pilot program should not be used as an excuse to continue to ignore these communities that have experienced decades of harm.
The Healthy Streets Program is a competitive grant program authorized at $100 million annually but is subject to congressional discretion for funding year after year. This program was created to fund projects that address the urban heat island effect that has disproportionate negative health impacts on low-income as well as Black and brown communities. In a harbinger of what could happen in future years for these sorts of helpful but small programs that Congress created in the IIJA (which the administration touts as their effort to eliminate inequities), this program did not receive funding from Congress for FY22, while states received all the funding they could possibly need to continue to harm these communities.
In addition to these programs that were designed to directly address inequities within our transportation system, the infrastructure law revised the federal cost share requirements in the existing Local and Regional Project Assistance Program. For most competitive grant programs the federal cost share is capped at 80 percent, which means the eligible applicant(s) must come up with 20 percent of the grant award for the project (also known as the local match). But for the $3 billion per year available in the Local and Regional Project Assistance Program, projects in rural areas, historically disadvantaged communities, or areas of persistent poverty can receive up to 100 percent of the cost of the project from the federal government, requiring no local match.
On the topic of more equitable grant distribution, the infrastructure law also requires certain criteria the Secretary should use when selecting projects for competitive grant awards. The National Infrastructure Project Assistance Program directs the Secretary to consider how a project would benefit a historically disadvantaged community or population or an area of persistent poverty when awarding grants. The Safe Streets and Roads for All Grant Program instructs the Secretary to consider if the applicant ensures equitable investment in the safety needs of underserved communities in preventing transportation-related fatalities and injuries.
The Corridor Identification and Development Program directs the Secretary to outline the process and criteria to facilitate the development of intercity passenger rail corridors. The law directs the Secretary to consider whether the corridor serves historically unserved or underserved and low-income communities or areas of persistent poverty when selecting a corridor for development.
What can the administration do to promote equitable outcomes?
Black and brown communities have suffered from harmful and dangerous transportation projects for far too long, and there are great opportunities beyond those programs with equity as their central purpose for the administration to restore and rejuvenate these communities. One clear way the administration can do that is to use as many competitive grant programs as possible to fund projects that remove barriers, revitalize marginalized communities, and prioritize projects with strong anti-displacement actions in place.
The administration also has a lot of flexibility and leeway in the guidance and models that are used in transportation. Many of these models contribute to worsening conditions and exacerbate the equity issues from our transportation system. The administration should reconsider their models to measure access to jobs and services for drivers and nondrivers alike. The administration should also provide technical assistance to state DOTs, MPOs, and transit agencies on how to measure multimodal access to jobs, essential services, fresh food access, and public health.
In addition, USDOT should also replace the value of time guidance, which primarily focuses on the impact that transportation decisions will have on the limited number of people who are driving, ignoring the impacts on all other travel. Read our recommendations for the administration in this post about value of time and how it can be improved.
Another way the administration can improve equitable outcomes is to define “reasonable cost” and how it applies objectively and equitably across the federal transportation program. Reasonable cost is used to estimate an infrastructure project’s cost that includes construction, engineering, acquisition of right-of-way and other related costs. What often happens is that when a project is deemed “too expensive” and the project includes bike and pedestrian elements, decision makers will use “reasonable cost” as an excuse to ignore or remove these elements from a proposal. Reasonable cost gives heavy preference to the infrastructure needs of cars, when it should instead better include and prioritize other road users and nondrivers, who are disproportionately people of color.
How can the new money advance other goals?
Climate
The built environment exacerbates the negative impacts of climate change on low-income and communities of color. Marginalized communities have suffered from higher air pollution levels, energy costs, and heat-related health effects as a result of urban heat islands. Investing in infrastructure that protects our most vulnerable communities from the impacts of climate change will have positive impacts for these communities and our environment. We wrote about how the infrastructure bill can be used to lower emissions and address resiliency here.
So what?
There was a missed opportunity to embed equity into the fabric of the infrastructure law, so it is now up to USDOT to use all of their tools to ensure equitable outcomes for our most vulnerable communities. States also have an opportunity now to reevaluate and change the way they spend their formula dollars. Congress and the administration will have utterly failed if this historically huge infusion of infrastructure funding just results in more projects that place excessive burdens on the same historically marginalized communities. Expanding highways to serve more affluent communities who can afford to own a car cannot continue as the status quo.
We must center the desires and lived experiences of the communities we are restoring to reverse the transportation planning trends that continue to lead to injustices. This means improved outreach to these communities to understand the problem inclusively, especially through the lens and perspective of marginalized communities that are most negatively affected by our infrastructure investments.
The flexibility in the formula programs allow for states, cities, and MPOs to conduct community outreach and public engagement in the planning process for projects. These entities should be using these funds to conduct robust public engagement to ensure any transportation project meets the needs of marginalized communities. That will mean truly engaging the community to define the problem, taking full stock of the tools in the practitioners’ toolbox to address the problem, and looking at strategies to integrate community feedback into how those tools are used. From tabletop exercises to outright pilot projects that allow communities to touch and feel potential solutions, there are plenty of opportunities to create community buy-in and ownership of transformative transportation solutions, rather than impose transportation investments on the communities who need their voices heard most.
If we’re going to ensure that the historic amount of transit funding in the infrastructure law actually results in good, usable, high quality transit that improves access to jobs and services, Congress is going to need to do a better job of oversight and thinking through the very real and difficult issues at hand for transit, not just arguing about whether or not transit is a vital part of transportation and mobility in communities small and large.
Vital topics like how to use the IIJA to institute more practical improvements to transit like Richmond’s were not on the docket during this week’s Senate Banking Committee hearing. GRTC bus rapid transit photo by BeyondDC on Flickr
Nearly two weeks ago, Secretary Buttigieg testified before the Senate Committee on the Environment and Public Works. On paper, the purpose was to discuss implementation of the infrastructure bill. However they instead wasted much of the hearing arguing about a harmless Federal Highways Administration memo calling for investment in repair and safety projects, improving equity, and reducing emissions. One side didn’t like the existence of these priorities on a piece of paper while the other side tried to point out that these priorities are all clearly laid out in the bill (even if the bill does little to further them). There was no real conversation about implementation ideas or needs, and the very real challenges of spending this money in a way that improves the state of our country’s infrastructure and helps connect people to opportunity.
Unfortunately, that trend continued this week during a Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee hearing about public transit and the infrastructure law.
While the majority showed a willingness to ignore bad faith arguments from the minority and certain invited guests about whether or not transit should even exist, they will need to do far more in the future to address very real concerns about ensuring that transit money get appropriated in a timely way, that USDOT advance new capital projects smoothly, how to handle very real workforce challenges in the transit industry, aligning transit investments with equitable transit-oriented development, and positioning transit to be a reliable and competitive mode for people to use within their community. In fact, the Federal Transit Administration is currently seeking input on their rules surrounding the Capital Investment Grants, like New Starts—a topic that would have been good to discuss.
Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) described the vital service that public transit provides in our communities, highlighting the example of a worker spending a day’s wage on Uber or Lyft to get to/from work on a Sunday to keep their job, because there isn’t any transit service. The Senator painted a clear picture why transit needs more investment to improve the experience of existing transit riders and make the service viable for millions of new riders, connecting this need to the current pain of high gas prices, saying “if people had reliable public transportation then they don’t need to decide between gas and rent.”
Senator Brown during the hearing
Unfortunately, ranking member Senator Pat Toomey (R-PA) seems to have no real interest in ensuring that transit serves Americans well. He derided past investments in public transit, including the COVID relief funds that continued to connect essential workers to work during the pandemic, as wasteful spending and for not “paying its fair share. The senator incorrectly noted how vehicles pay gas tax to pay their fair share of the transportation system, seemingly unaware that the gas tax hasn’t come close to paying its share in 15 years or more. (Tens of billions in general tax dollars have been transferred into the highway trust fund after the gas tax declined in value and failed to cover what Congress was still sending out to states.)
Senator Toomey
Rather than getting into the specifics of what all of the speakers said, it is frustrating that we have now finished the second Senate hearing about implementation of the infrastructure bill with little-to-no substantive conversation about implementation. How is this money going to be spent? What kinds of transit projects are going to be funded? How is USDOT going to speed up the dreadfully slow pipeline of transit capital projects (especially compared with relative ease for highway projects)? What’s wrong with the measures that the Federal Transit Administration uses to score projects for funding, and how could those measures be improved to prioritize access? These kinds of questions were completely absent from the day.
Congress has a vital role in oversight and accountability, and prodding the administration to update old vehicle-centric rules and standards and empower transportation agencies to reduce the impact of the system on the environment and communities and better connect people to jobs and necessities. (Many of our recommendations are listed here.)
While the rest of the speakers were a stark display of contrasts, the committee never really probed the implementation steps that USDOT or Federal Transit Administration could take to fill any holes in the legislation or better support the goals of the witnesses and needs of transit systems and riders. They didn’t even acknowledge that they exist.
Going forward, we need Congressional committees to lead oversight efforts that focus on specific implementation steps needed, any problems in implementation, and especially the results. To do that, the members will have to be an active participant and bring a probing skepticism to ensure we are doing all we can to get the most out of the law. And unfortunately, there will need to be a discussion about how to sideline histrionics about unenforceable memos as well as members or witnesses who are totally out of step with the mainstream and seemingly have no interest in delivering a strong transportation system for drivers and non-drivers alike.
Workforce recruitment and retention issues that plagued the transportation industry long before the pandemic now threaten the industry’s ability to implement and get the most out of the 2021 infrastructure bill. Though there are workforce development programs in the infrastructure bill, the administration still needs to take action to make these programs a reality.
This post is part of T4America’s suite of materials explaining the 2021 $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), which governs all federal transportation policy and funding through 2026. What do you need to know about the new infrastructure law? We know that federal transportation policy can be intimidating and confusing. Our hub for the new law will walk you through it, from the basics all the way to more complex details.
In every sector of the transportation industry, whether the graying workforce is resulting in high levels of retirement or workers are resigning due to stress caused by the pandemic, transportation workers are leaving large numbers of vacancies that can’t be filled fast enough.
Filling the growing number of vacancies is no easy task. A lack of awareness of the transportation sector coupled with a lack of vocational training for a diversity of transportation needed skills makes qualified applicants hard to find and attract. An overly burdensome hiring process means that hiring can take months, and sometimes qualified applicants are kept from moving forward due to many layers of applicant review for federal employees.
There are other recruitment and retainment issues. Wages aren’t keeping up with the private sector. Rural areas and communities with the least amount of resources struggle to pull in qualified applicants and keep them long-term, especially when they have to compete with neighboring communities for finite talent.
There’s a shortage of good jobs in the transportation industry. Stagnant growth potential, inflexible and unsafe work conditions, and a lack of leadership development already made it difficult for the industry to maintain a strong workforce. When the pandemic came along, it only exacerbated these retainment issues.
Without knowledge retention systems in place, the loss isn’t just about workers; it’s about institutional industry knowledge that isn’t easily replaced. After the long, arduous process of recruiting and hiring, even more time passes before new hires are operating at an equal level to the staff they’ve replaced. Unless the transportation industry invests properly in its workforce, they’ll be unable to use the full potential of the infrastructure bill to benefit communities.
What’s in the law?
The core highway formula programs (NHPP, CMAQ, STBG, and HSIP) allow their funds to be used for workforce development programs. This includes tuition and educational expenses, employee professional development, student internships, apprenticeships, college support, educational outreach activities, and more. States are free to use their existing funds to beef up these efforts
Overall, the federal government is aware of the need to develop the transportation workforce, which is why the infrastructure bill encourages states to create human capital plans, but these plans aren’t required and there’s no funding available to implement the plans once they’re created. Not surprisingly, without an incentive, few states take the federal government’s advice.
The major source of workforce development funds will come from the five percent set-aside for workforce development training related to zero emission vehicles. Specifically the funds can be used to fund workforce development training, including apprenticeships and other labor-management training programs as recipients make the transition to zero emission vehicles.
The infrastructure bill also includes some other workforce development programs, but there’s no dedicated funding for these programs, and most programs have no specific funding item at all, meaning the Secretary of Transportation, Pete Buttigieg, will need to carry out these programs using administrative funds.
Below are programs created by the infrastructure bill with no dedicated funding.
To improve awareness of the transportation sector and help with recruitment problems, Secretary Buttigieg must create a motor carrier driver apprenticeship program for people under the age of 21. The pilot program would include 3,000 apprentices and last three years.
To help diversify the transportation workforce, the federal motor carrier safety administrator has to create an advisory board to educate, mentor, and train women in the trucking industry.
Secretary Buttigieg needs to create an agreement with the National Academy of Sciences to carry out a workforce needs assessment.
To develop a transportation technologies and systems industry workforce development implementation plan, Secretary Buttigieg must establish a working group made up of the Secretary of Energy, Secretary of Labor, and other federal agency heads.
With no more than $5 million per year, Secretary Buttigieg is also asked to establish a transportation workforce outreach program to increase awareness of transportation career opportunities especially for diverse populations.
How else could the administration improve workforce development?
Clearly, the administration has a lot of work to do to develop the transportation workforce to realize the full benefit of this historic investment in infrastructure. In the grand scheme of implementation, it might feel easy to overlook workforce development needs, but without human capital, on-the-ground change will be difficult, in some cases even impossible, to achieve.
The Build Back Better Act (BBBA), on ice in Congress, included $20 billion to help build that national workforce. Though not targeted at transportation, these programs, which included expanding apprenticeships and investing in increased enforcement of labor law and civil rights violations to help diversify the workforce, would have undoubtedly helped the transportation industry. Though the BBBA is unlikely to pass as a whole, it’s possible that Congress could still pass this provision, and the administration should encourage them to do so.
How can these programs help achieve our goals?
Equity
There are clear equity implications for ignoring workforce development concerns. In failing to invest in the transportation workforce, the administration will perpetuate existing equity concerns across the professional sphere. Plus, without a strong, well-supported, diverse workforce with staff that reflects the communities they serve, it will be even harder to find equitable solutions to today’s transportation problems. In the end, communities with the least resources will suffer most if we fail to increase their capacity.
So what?
The infrastructure law sets up several avenues to support and develop the transportation workforce, but these programs are underfunded and place the onus on states to take initiative. They will stay that way without administrative action. Advocates can and should work with their local governments to make sure these programs are created at the local level. They can also push their federal representatives to pass additional funding for workforce development.
Note: There are ample opportunities for the infrastructure law to support good projects and better outcomes. We also produced memos to explain the available federal programs for funding various types of projects. Read our memo about available funding opportunities for workforce development.
Though distinctly not serious about fighting climate change, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA, the infrastructure law) can still help lead to some decent climate outcomes if states and metro areas make the choice to prioritize doing so with their flexible funding.
This post is part of T4America’s suite of materials explaining the 2021 $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), which governs all federal transportation policy and funding through 2026. What do you need to know about the new infrastructure law? We know that federal transportation policy can be intimidating and confusing. Our hub for the new law will walk you through it, from the basics all the way to more complex details.
The most recent report from the International Panel on Climate Change warns us that even with the most aggressive emissions reduction strategies, global warming will more than likely exceed 1.5°C in the near term. So emissions reduction strategies that can prevent even more destructive consequences from greater global warming are urgently needed, but we also need to prepare our communities for the disastrous effects of climate change that are already hitting much of the country.
That is why this post will focus on how the federal government and its state and local grant recipients can use money from the infrastructure law to:
reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation sector, and
make our transportation infrastructure, especially in our most vulnerable communities, adaptive and resilient to the all-but-inevitable effects of global climate change.
Both of these strategies are essential to reach the Biden administration’s climate goals and save Americans from the worst of climate change.
Emissions reduction
How and where the infrastructure law money is spent will have a massive impact on whether it is able to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In addition to the bill’s separate $46+ billion dedicated toward resiliency and new climate-focused programs outlined below, states and metro areas are free to spend much of the law’s $650 billion in surface transportation money on climate-friendly projects like transit, active transportation, or repair, thanks to the broad flexibility built into the law. But it could just as well be spent on expanding roadways, inducing more demand for driving and thus increasing greenhouse gas emissions.
It all comes down to what states choose to prioritize, and how they direct their money. Here’s what we mean, via two potential future scenarios of IIJA spending, courtesy of the Georgetown Climate Center (GCC):
In the high-emissions scenario (left), highway expansion outpaces highway repair, encouraging yet more driving and doubling down on a system where a car is required just to participate in the economy. But the low-emissions scenario (right) heavily prioritizes repair and shifts five percent of funds toward transit, providing room for communities to provide for multimodal accessibility and move away from a dependence on cars. (According to the GCC, our recent spending/priorities are somewhere in between these two scenarios.) Both scenarios are legal and valid uses of infrastructure law money, but represent two radically different spending approaches.
But only one of these scenarios will bring a net decrease in transportation emissions:
The change in transportation emissions over the next 20 years, with zero representing the levels we were set to hit without the new infrastructure law. The vertical axis is measured in cumulative million metric tons (MMT) of CO2. Analysis and chart by the Georgetown Climate Center
When one-tenth of a degree of warming could make the difference in extreme weather events, the difference between these two scenarios is massive. Especially when the GCC’s model predicts that the high-emissions scenario would in fact substantially increase emissions above where we would be without the infrastructure law.1
Each of the largest formula grant programs (like the NHPP and STBG) and every other program with broad eligibility can and should be used to reduce emissions by enabling modes of travel other than cars.In fact, most of the infrastructure law’s funding could be marshaled toward either of the scenarios, so we will not list every specific program in this post. Check out our IIJA hub for guides on how to make sure the low-emissions scenario wins out, category by category. But three climate-focused programs are worth noting:
The Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Improvement (CMAQ) Program: This formula grant program is funded annually at about $2.6 billion (up from $2.4 billion) and can be used for a wide range of projects that reduce congestion and therefore air quality. The IIJA allows states to spend CMAQ funds for operating public transit and shared micromobility, including bike share and shared scooter systems, as well as for the purchase of medium- or heavy-duty zero emission vehicles and related charging equipment.
The Carbon Reduction Program: States receive more money overall under the IIJA, but this new program requires them to set aside about 2.56 percent of their total apportionment toward reducing transportation emissions. There is a loophole, though: states can redirect this money into their highly flexible STBG funds if the Secretary certifies that the state has reduced transportation emissions on a per capita and per unit of economic output basis. (More about fixing this loophole under “what the administration can do” below.) Of the new carve-out, 65 percent of the program’s funds are to be allocated by population in the state, whereas the remaining 35 percent is at the discretion of states. For areas with populations over 200,000, the metropolitan planning organization (MPO) administers that 65 percent local share of program funding for eligible projects. These can include planning, designing, and building on- and off-road active transportation facilities and improvements to the roadway right-of-way to facilitate reductions in transportation emissions and congestion.
Reduction of Truck Emissions at Port Facilities Program: This new discretionary grant program, funded at $400 million over five years, will be distributed to America’s ports so they can invest in technology and operational efficiencies to reduce emissions from idling trucks. They can also use the money to electrify their operations and conduct the required workforce development and training therein.
Adaptation and resilience
Catastrophic hurricanes, heat waves, flooding, and other extreme weather events devastating American communities have become more frequent due to climate change and will happen more often as global warming worsens. So while we reduce emissions, we must also work to protect people from these events, with a focus on the disproportionate impact of climate-related disasters and public health hazards (like urban heat islands) on marginalized communities. The kinds of adaptation and resilience resources outlined below should focus first and foremost on these communities. The EPA’s action on clean water justice is a good model for environmental justice in climate resilience.
The National Highway Performance Program (NHPP), which accounts for over half of all Highway Trust Fund formula program spending, expanded its mission to address resilience, clearing the way to use these highway dollars to upgrade or repair existing assets to make them more resilient. It is still only an option on a menu of uses, but advocates can now pressure states to use NHPP funding for this newly stated purpose: “mitigate the cost of damages from sea level rise, extreme weather events, flooding, wildfires, or other natural disasters.”
The most direct funding mechanism for adaptation and resilience is the Promoting Resilient Operations for Transformative, Efficient, and Cost-saving Transportation (PROTECT) Program. Split between competitive and formula grants, the program is designed to help communities anticipate, prepare for, and adapt their transportation systems to natural disasters. The $7.3 billion (over five years) formula portion can be used by states and MPOs to build more resilient roads, transit, or ports, such as through the elevation or hardening of key infrastructure, as well as adjacent infrastructure like flood gates and culverts. The competitive grants, funded at $1.4 billion over the next five years, can be used for many of the same purposes, with more of a focus on access to services and evacuation routes.
The Healthy Streets Program is a competitive grant program that dedicates $100 million a year (subject to annual appropriations) to address the urban heat island effect. Local, regional, tribal, and state governments can apply for funding to make improvements to tree canopies, porous pavement, and other cooling projects.
Many states like Rhode Island have found federal flood mapping inadequate to capture evolving risk, so the law provides the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) with $492 million to develop improved flood mapping and water modeling which could inform critical areas for future resilience investment. This will improve existing resources like the Sea Level Rise Viewer (which you should check out if you have not).
Finally, USDOT will provide for the establishment of 10 regional Centers of Excellence for Resilience and Adaptation and one national Center of Excellence for Resilience and Adaptation, each receiving $5 million annual grants to research resilience and adaptation technology, support data collection, and develop new approaches to keeping our communities safe.
How else could the administration advance our climate goals?
Other than prioritizing projects that do the most to lower emissions when awarding competitive grants, the Biden administration can pull a couple other administrative levers to make sure that federal action is oriented toward a lower-emission future.
As noted above about the Carbon Reduction Program, the Secretary of Transportation can allow states to divert CRP money to their highly flexible STBG pot, likely resulting in projects that will lead to much higher transportation emissions. So USDOT needs to codify strict guidelines for determining sufficient emissions reductions before allowing states to shift these funds—protecting against a future administration allowing states to fund projects that do not actually lower emissions.
Any efforts to address climate change should focus on those who are and will be most burdened by its effects. Some essential steps include focusing on communities with a history of underinvestment, addressing comorbidities like asthma and heart disease, and accounting for flooding vulnerabilities in marginalized communities (and conversely, climate change-induced gentrification in marginalized communities). The administration should continue to push guidance to include those strategies in formula and discretionary grant distribution.
USDOT should require clearer and more robust data for the public on transportation emissions. For one, induced demand should be included in transportation growth modeling. Also, USDOT should track transportation emissions per capita by state and publish results and trends online. They should include emissions reduction from the system, not just vehicles.
So what?
Many of the Biden administration’s most serious emissions reduction policies were in the (stalled) Build Back Better Act, but the future of that bill is uncertain and advocates should continue to push for emissions-slashing transportation policies not only at the federal level, but state, regional, and local level.
The infrastructure law largely gives states the flexibility to do what they like with climate-related money. So now, the onus of lowering greenhouse gas emissions and making our communities more resilient falls to states and localities. Whether you are a planner, a legislator, an advocate, or a concerned citizen, now is the time to raise the alarm and make sure infrastructure money is spent in a way that minimizes the impact of climate change on American communities.
Transit agencies across the United States have struggled with decreased ridership, safety hazards, and low morale as a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet some have responded by changing their approach to better serve everyday riders, make transit free or more affordable, and rethink what the future of transit should look like to reduce emissions and provide access for those who need it most.
This post was written by Devin Willis, program associate at Smart Growth America. It is the fourth of a series of posts on this topic—find the full set here. Some of the agencies profiled in this piece were interviewed with support from the Kresge Foundation.
This series has explored how public transit is an essential part of mitigating climate change by reducing emissions. Connecting more people to their everyday destinations via public transit offers a way to cut back on vehicle miles traveled (VMT) and transportation emissions.
We’ve been writing this series against the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has presented unprecedented challenges for transit agencies and the millions of riders they serve. Transit providers all over the country are struggling with revenue loss due to the massive ridership drop in 2020, service cuts, driver shortages and illness, vaccine skepticism, and low morale. Although the funds for transit in the 2021 infrastructure bill will help, those funds can’t help fund operations for most transit agencies or undo the damage caused by the pandemic. (The American Rescue Plan, passed during the pandemic, does specifically provide emergency operations support for transit agencies.)
This is a slight detour from our series about the potential of reducing emissions with more transit, but we wanted to profile a few transit agencies that shifted their approach during this historic pandemic to provide better access for their riders and rethink the future of transit in their communities—both of which are stepping stones to more significant improvements that can help reduce emissions.
Richmond, VA preserved ridership levels with fare-free transit and a past network redesign
Unlike many transit agencies nationwide, Richmond’s public transit only suffered a relatively modest drop in ridership, and has already recovered local bus ridership to pre-pandemic levels. This is likely due in part to a handful of bold actions on the part of the city government and the Greater Richmond Transit Company (GRTC). GRTC CEO Julie Timm, hired just six months before the pandemic, attributes their success to three main steps taken:
1) The strength of the 2018 network redesign connecting essential workers to jobs; 2) the extensive COVID protective measures enacted early and throughout the pandemic to protect staff and riders; and 3) the ongoing commitment to Zero Fare operations to protect the health and financial stability of our riders. GRTC’s focus on connecting people to essential resources resulted in higher sustained ridership.
As Timm notes, before the pandemic in 2018, GRTC implemented a significant redesign of its bus routes to improve access and produce faster, more consistent service. Their redesign includes new route names and numbers (routes are now named after major roads that are well known to locals like Hull Street), increased bus frequency, and easier connections. This service redesign successfully produced an increase in ridership every month between June 2018 and February 2020, reaching a full 29 percent increase over that time period and providing a solid foundation to build upon during the difficulties of the pandemic.
The most notable change that GRTC made during the pandemic was the decision by the GRTC and Mayor Levar Stoney in March of 2020 to suspend all fare collection from bus riders. In Richmond, the majority of the bus service ridership and revenue comes from the often economically distressed households of essential and low-income riders. This shift to 100 percent free transit spared many families and workers from having to choose between their bus fare and other needs like food, medicine, and employment access.
While Richmond was not the only city to introduce fare-free policies during the pandemic, GRTC is among the more successful cities to do so, effectively preserving the city’s bus ridership and maintaining the zero fare policy longer term. And two years later, GRTC is continuing to offer fare-free transit while most other cities that did so have since returned to their previous fare policies. The GRTC was awarded $8 million in state grant funding from the Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation to continue experimenting with the effects of zero fare policy over the next three years through June of 2025. The City of Richmond and Virginia Commonwealth University have agreed to match this funding in support of the zero fare policy and its positive effect on bus riders.
Atlanta, GA looks to restructure service to respond to changing needs
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Agency (MARTA) had approximately 110 bus routes with over four million passengers per month. In the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic MARTA, like many other US transit agencies, watched ridership crater. And in the intervening two years of the pandemic, they have struggled to bring their ridership back to pre-pandemic levels. At present, MARTA’s ridership is approximately 65 percent of pre-pandemic levels.
Similar to Richmond’s 2018 redesign but taking place during the pandemic, MARTA launched a major initiative to restructure bus service as a response to the pandemic and to better address the needs of residents. MARTA is currently leading a major online and in-person community engagement effort, soliciting feedback and ideas regarding new potential bus routes and service types. MARTA is posing key questions to its riders directly about the tradeoffs between service frequency and breadth of coverage directly: do riders want to see fewer routes with more reliable, frequent service between highly-trafficked areas (similar to the changes Richmond made, as well as Columbus and Houston) or more routes in more neighborhoods but less convenient service on those routes? Following the engagement, the proposed redesign concept will be released in the spring of 2022.
In addition to the bus network redesign, MARTA has also begun to experiment with mobile ticketing and fare collection to ensure the wellbeing of transit operators and riders. The agency added a mobile ticketing system in order to make transit use more contactless and limit the spread of coronavirus. MARTA hopes to make these changes permanent.
Pittsburgh, PA reroutes buses to better serve low-income riders
Pittsburgh’s Port Authority of Allegheny County lost 80 percent of its ridership during the coronavirus pandemic. Prior to the pandemic, the Port Authority’s transit network was historically focused on connecting suburban commuters to downtown Pittsburgh from residential and suburban areas in the surrounding region. When the pandemic hit and many of those office jobs switched temporarily or permanently to remote work, this type of commuter ridership dried up almost completely.
The Port Authority also implemented changes in the fare system to encourage different types of riders to use the bus system. They recently introduced a modest fare proposal that would restructure the bus fare pass from a calendar-based weekly and monthly pass system to a more flexible 7- and 31-day pass system. This move is a good first step as it removes the bus pass from the commuter-centric five-day week and allows the bus system to better serve non-commuters such as persons traveling on the weekend or outside of rush hours. Locals have pushed for even more significant changes, including fare-free service or a similar policy. One proposal recommends that fares be limited for low-income passengers who are SNAP/EBT beneficiaries.
What’s next
The steps these agencies have taken are examples of what other agencies can do to increase ridership and safety in the pandemic. While the challenges faced by transit agencies during the COVID-19 crisis are very real and there are not easy solutions, the agencies profiled here were able to respond to the changing needs that they observed, focusing on providing access for those who need it most, potentially reducing emissions in the process by improving access and ridership. This type of responsive, nimble approach to transportation infrastructure will help make transit a viable alternative to driving and will help us reach our climate goals.
Congress and states love to create small, discrete programs to solve big transportation problems. They don’t like to stop the types of investments that are causing the problems, even when far more money is perpetuating the issues those new programs are meant to solve. With historic amounts of infrastructure funding headed into states’ hands even as streets are growing more dangerous and we urgently need environmental solutions, it’s time to change that strategy.
Illustration produced for T4America by visual artist Jean Wei. IG/@weisanboo
Our transportation system has a problem. Every time Congress tries to solve a big transportation challenge, they’re only willing to invest in a small solution.
Take the new infrastructure law (the IIJA). To help fix today’s issues related to climate, safety, equity, and repair, Congress set aside small pots of cash. Then they dumped the rest of their cash into a whole lot more of the same.
Congress doesn’t seem to realize that they’re just feeding the beast, as seen in our latest illustration by visual artist Jean Wei. Flexible formula funds, their favorite one-size-fits-all solution to infrastructure woes, are making our climate, safety, equity, and repair needs worse.
Illustration produced for T4America by Jean Wei
It’s true that states don’t have to use these flexible dollars this way. In fact, they can easily use these funds to address the problems that they claim are priorities. But that’s not what they’ve historically done. Instead, they’ve used formula funds to build more and more dangerous roads. And they’re willing to go to bat over their right to use these funds to make their problems worse. At a recent Senate committee hearing, Senator Capito made this cyclical argument:
This is a bipartisan bill that we passed. There is a climate title in there. There is an emphasis on funding resiliency, greenhouse gas mitigation, carbon emissions, healthy streets. This is an area that we are deeply committed to. But these are grant programs, these are not the formula dollars that go out. So I want to make the distinction and, would you agree, these are two separate programs, or pots of money so to speak? So the discussion that I’m having with you on this guide, doesn’t really apply to the climate title parts of the bill.
She’s saying that all of the new, little grant programs they created in the IIJA are designed to solve those (enormous!) problems. But the enormous piles of formula dollars are sacrosanct and they are for roads, bridges, or whatever each state decides is most important—not those other issues.
It’s clear that the small climate title alone isn’t going to be able to do the heavy lifting to reduce emissions and improve resiliency. The same is true for money set aside for safety, repair, and equity. To address these priorities, states can and should use their flexibility and dip into the historic levels of formula funds that are readily at their disposal. The longer they continue to pretend that these smaller programs are enough, all while going all-in on building more dangerous roads, the larger the beast will grow.
Congress and states love to create small, discrete programs to solve big transportation problems. But there's something wrong with this picture. pic.twitter.com/8RvhXSdYt6
— Transportation for America (@T4America) March 15, 2022
T4America director Beth Osborne joined Wall Street Journal correspondent George Downs to explain why one controversial method for setting speed limits results in higher and higher speeds.
There’s been a lot of talk in the news lately about the increasing danger of U.S. roadways, and recently, USDOT released their road safety strategy, which included advice for updated guidance on setting safe speeds and the 85th percentile rule. To explain why this outdated rule for setting speed limits actually leads to higher speeds, Beth Osborne sat down with George Downs. The visuals really nail it!
“A lot of people believe we say, ‘Let’s set the speed limit there and design the road around it.’ We actually do the exact reverse.”
The ultimate point of transportation spending should be to connect people to jobs and services. But that’s not what we primarily use as a measure of success and the new infrastructure law maintains the status quo of focusing on moving vehicles quickly as a (poor) proxy for access. This means that, absent some changes that USDOT can still make, states and communities will need to make the most of the flexibilities within the infrastructure law to advance multimodal access to jobs and services.
This post is part of T4America’s suite of materials explaining the 2021 $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), which governs all federal transportation policy and funding through 2026. What do you need to know about the new infrastructure law? We know that federal transportation policy can be intimidating and confusing. Our hub for the new law will walk you through it, from the basics all the way to more complex details.
For decades, America has failed to accomplish the most foundational transportation policy goal: movingpeople (and goods) from one place to another. As it stands today, too many people are driving too far to reach jobs and essential services like schools or fresh food because we fail to measure access and all of our policies and measures incentivize speed of travel. American cities largely build infrastructure to movevehiclesas far as possible, as fast as possible. Instead, we ought to measure success as “access.”2 At a base level, this just involves finding ways to measure the jobs and services people can access within a certain distance by any mode. And just as crucially, this approach isn’t just limited to measuring vehicles and considers all of the members of a community, regardless of how they get around or any limits to their mobility.
Prioritizing access to destinations in transportation planning will help reduce emissions, make our roads safer, promote public health through more walking, biking or rolling, connect more people to opportunity, and get more for our infrastructure dollars. However, despite the influx of cash and promises of innovation brought on by the 2021 infrastructure law, its programs remain painfully status-quo in their focus on vehicular movement and their lack of accountability. But even with that said, the law’s broad flexibility still allows state and local agencies that want to prioritize access to do so through the range of programs at their disposal.
What’s in the law?
Within the infrastructure law, there’s one dedicated program that directly addresses access to jobs and services in a significant way: USDOT will use the Transportation Access Pilot Program to work with a select number of states and metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) to measure the potential changes in accessibility to jobs and services for a wide spectrum of people and goods from transportation investments.3 This is a good starting point, and T4America strongly encourages USDOT to maximize the opportunities from this program to create a cultural shift in transportation planning and decision-making toward focusing on access.
But this point should be made very clearly: Special programs or funds are NOT required to start prioritizing and improving access.
Nearly every single other large flexible formula program permits states, MPOs and localities to shift their emphasis toward improving access and make the best use of the available funding toward this end. If your state or agency plans to make this a priority, then all of your very flexible funding should be used to support that priority.4
The Transportation Alternatives Program (TAP) sets aside 10 percent of a state’s second biggest pot of funding (The Surface Transportation Block Grant Program) for projects that enable accessibility through modes other than driving. The Safe Routes to School program is designed to boost access to public primary and secondary schools (and can be funded through the flexibility provided in the core highway formula programs like NHPP, STBG, HSIP, CRP, CMAQ). The Reconnecting Communities Pilot and Active Transportation Infrastructure Investment competitive grant programs are both valuable resources that can be used to bring multimodal accessibility to areas fractured by divisive or vehicle-dependent infrastructure.
Since the formula-based programs below are not competitive, they are perhaps the best opportunities for states, MPOs and local governments to prioritize accessibility. Until USDOT makes some fundamental shifts away from the counterproductive measures that they currently use to measure success on specific projects, the onus will be on these state and local agencies to maximize these programs to improve access.
Formula programs
Program
Authorized funding
Can be used for:
Should be used to:
Complete Streets set-aside
Minimum 2.5% of state and MPO apportionments
Multimodal streets and designated networks for active transportation (walking, cycling).
Directly and comprehensively connect people with jobs, schools, housing, healthcare, childcare and community centers.
Transportation Alternatives Program (TAP)
$7.2 billion over five years. (10% of each state’s Surface Transportation Block Grant program funds)
Recreational trails, bike/ped projects, micromobility, and other types of transportation alternatives.
Expand and make accessible active transportation and micromobility networks centered around essential and popular destinations and integrate them with public transit.
Safe Routes to School
Minimum $1 million apportionment to states (subject to appropriations), funding based on enrollment numbers for primary and secondary schools. States can leverage core highway formula funds to fund the program.
Projects that enhance students’ ability to walk and bike to school.
Connect schools with residential areas and community centers with active transportation networks.
Carbon Reduction Program
$6.4 billion
Planning, designing, and building on- and off-road active transportation facilities; roadway right-of-way improvements.
Fund complete street designs that allow communities to access essential and popular destinations and integrate into public transit.
Promoting Resilient Operations for Transformative, Efficient, and Cost-saving Transportation (PROTECT)
$7.3 billion (formula grant portion)
Extreme weather resilience and emergency response infrastructure.
Provide evacuation and recovery mobility to all road users. Build biking, walking, and rolling infrastructure into all resiliency plans and evacuation routes.
Bridge Formula Program
$26.5 billion
Replacing, rehabilitating, preserving, protecting, and construction highway and off-network bridges.
Make sure that every bridge repaired under this program includes active transportation infrastructure, not just to check a box, but to connect to adjacent active transportation networks.
Competitive grant programs
The following programs are competitively funded (discretionary). Winning these grants is tied to strong local matching funds (at 20–50 percent of the project cost).
Program
Authorized funding
Can be used for:
Should be used to:
Reconnecting Communities Pilot Program
$200 million annually
Planning and construction grants to reconnect communities divided by viaducts, highways or other principal arterials. (Highway teardowns, and other types of projects.)
Make improving access the primary consideration as connections are rebuilt between communities, improve active transportation and transit access.
Active Transportation Infrastructure Investment Program
$200 million annually, subject to appropriations
Active transportation projects and planning grants that build upon a local/regional/state network.
Focus networks around essential and popular community destinations and integrate them with transit facilities.
Transportation Access Pilot Program
No specified amount, funded by USDOT’s operating budget
Developing an accessibility data set, making that data set available, and establishing evaluation measures for states, MPOs and regional transportation organizations.
Set accessibility measures centered around equitable outcomes.
Carbon Reduction Program
$6.4 billion
Planning, designing, and building on- and off-road active transportation facilities; roadway right-of-way improvements.
Fund complete street designs that allow communities to access essential and popular destinations and integrate into public transit.
Promoting Resilient Operations for Transformative, Efficient, and Cost-saving Transportation (PROTECT)
$7.3 billion (formula grant portion)
Extreme weather resilience and emergency response infrastructure.
Provide evacuation and recovery mobility to all road users. Build biking, walking, and rolling infrastructure into all resiliency plans and evacuation routes.
Bridge Formula Program
$26.5 billion
Replacing, rehabilitating, preserving, protecting, and construction highway and off-network bridges.
Make sure that every bridge repaired under this program includes active transportation infrastructure, not just to check a box, but to connect to adjacent active transportation networks.
Outside of its funding streams, the infrastructure law introduces several policy changes that positively impact accessibility within existing laws. The Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (TIFIA) loan program now more explicitly calls for the inclusion of projects that are within walking distance and are accessible to public transit systems. The State and Metropolitan Transportation Planning Act now calls for statewide and metropolitan agencies to coordinate transportation, housing, and economic development within their federally mandated plans.
What can the administration do to improve access?
The most important thing the administration needs to do on this count is to repeal their guidance for the value of time, which every agency uses to evaluate most transportation projects. This outdated measure incorrectly assumes that increased traffic speeds lead to time savings, when in fact it mostly just incentivizes sprawling development that spreads people and destinations apart, negating time savings as travel distances grow and grow. Instead, the administration should push for the adoption of data-driven accessibility-focused measures. We dive deep into this specific measure and offer four concrete recommendations for USDOT to follow in our blog post here.
Because Congress chose to make the new $3.2 billion Rural Surface Transportation program a competitive grant program, USDOT can shape this program to prioritize rural projects that actually improve access for more people rather than just the speed of travel for some people driving. This new program is designed to increase connectivity, improve safety, and facilitate the movement of goods and people, but many state DOTs just put forward simple highway expansion projects for rural areas that fail to measurably improve access in those communities. Rural communities deserve a better approach, as we’ve written. USDOT’s guidance for these rural competitive grants should require a multimodal approach and define connectivity, safety/reliability, economic growth and quality of life for drivers and nondrivers alike.
The administration can also revise the Eligibility of Pedestrian and Bicycle Improvements Under Federal Transit Law to allow for bikeshare eligibility (and all shared micromobility for that matter) within the Section 5311 (rural transportation) program. While there are significant transit needs in rural communities, we should allow rural communities to decide for themselves about the best ways to improve access within their communities.
How can the new money advance our goals?
Climate
Assessing new transportation projects based on their accessibility benefits, rather than by travel time or level of service, could significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions.5 Today’s predominant practices exacerbate sprawl and lead to longer trips overall, which is directly tied to increasing emissions. And while most road expansion projects are justified because of their supposed ability to reduce congestion and because of improvements to the “value of time” noted above, in the end they actually just produce more congestion on our roads. Since transportation and land use are so interconnected, integrating transportation and land use measures that combat sprawl and reduce vehicle miles traveled (and emissions) requires assessing projects for their effects on accessibility.
Equity
More often than not, disadvantaged communities bear the brunt of the safety and climate issues brought about by our focus on vehicle speed. As we noted in our post on the value of time measure above, “a highway that destroys a community (see I-49 in Shreveport) is easily justified on the grounds of time savings, even if locals lose 15 minutes having to walk out of their way to cross a now-dangerous street or can no longer walk to their destination at all because a new highway blocks their path. The impact to their time is literally never considered as part of the process of developing such a project.” This is just one example of how focusing instead on access would improve outcomes for more people, especially those who are most harmed by today’s current practices. Our focus should be on bringing more jobs and essential services within reach to those disadvantaged by today’s practices.
So what?
As is the case with many of our other goals, it’s now up to the state, regional or local governments receiving this funding to use it responsibly and to be held accountable for their projects. And there’s no reason why we can’t start to pivot to measuring access instead of leaning on outdated 1950s measures like vehicle speed. With the amount of data currently available that can be used to measure the accessibility benefits of projects, there is no excuse not to start transitioning toward this goal as our guiding light for transportation decisions. And local advocates should start pushing their agencies in this direction.
Despite a fundamental lack of understanding by some members of Congress about the program they’re responsible for overseeing, the law sets states free to spend their federal transportation cash on eligible expenses, however they see fit. Our repair needs will never get addressed until we change this approach.
Illustration produced for T4America by visual artist Jean Wei. IG/@weisanboo
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Every time that we’ve polled voters over the years, we hear that taking good care of our existing infrastructure—repair and maintenance—should be priority #1 for our transportation dollars. Ask any member of Congress and they’ll tell you it’s absolutely a top priority. 6 And every state DOT will tell you that keeping things in a state of good repair is either their top priority or second only to safety.
Everyone seems to agree about the importance of repair, yet everyone in charge seems to recoil when anyone suggests creating hard and fast requirements that states prioritize their repair needs before building new infrastructure they will also have to maintain for decades to come.
After seeing Virginia leaders touting the infrastructure law’s $530+ million to address Virginia’s deficient bridges, Wyatt Gordon in the Virginia Mercury recently asked the obvious question: “Why did more than one in 25 bridges deteriorate into a ‘poor or worse condition’ in a state with a nearly $7 billion annual budget for its Department of Transportation?” T4America director Beth Osborne weighed in:
The more you fail in transportation—the more people die, the more expenses increase, the more bridges collapse, the louder the calls to put more money into the programs that produced that failure in the first place. There is no accountability. These senators who voted for [the IIJA] promise us results every time, but I just heard a bridge fell down in Pittsburgh. How many times do they promise the same results without changing the program that is producing these same failures?
Look, it’s worth noting that not every state performs equally when it comes to prioritizing repair with their flexibility, and some states have made sizable shifts from expansion to repair in the last few years. As the above piece notes, states like Pennsylvania and Massachusetts are already devoting the lion’s share of their budgets toward repair. They’re doing their best to ignore that second voice in the background of the comic pushing the sexy new expansion project.
But most states are not choosing to do this.
This reminds me of what Mississippi DOT commissioner Dick Hall said during a repair-focused event we held in DC in 2019, where he made a plea for Congress to step in and require repair first. “If you want us to prioritize maintenance, then you’re going to have to tell us ‘you gotta do it,” he said. Until Congress does, some states will do well and other states will just punt questions about paying for all the things they’ve built off to their grandkids to figure out.
“We invested all that money to build a 4-lane highway with absolutely no provision for maintaining what we built. Not a dime. And that has come back to haunt us.”
Consider the new $43 billion bridge repair formula program that Congress created in the infrastructure law. Even though this money is doled out proportionately to the states with the greatest bridge repair needs and Congress just supercharged the funding to the massive flexible programs that all states can use to build new highways, Congress still decided to allow states to use this dedicated “repair” money to build brand new bridges. USDOT’s guidance on the legislative language made it clear that the law allows “the construction of a new highway bridge on a new alignment” as an eligible project, though USDOT gently encouraged states to focus on bridges in poor or fair condition.
We’ll once again just have to hope that all states can deliver on all the repair promises. And in five years, after the IIJA’s $643 billion has been exhausted, we’ll be right back here lamenting the state of our infrastructure and wondering where all the money went, even as we renew the pleas for more funds to “repair our crumbling infrastructure.”
Whose time are we saving? T4America photo by Steve Davis.
Despite its name, the federal “value of time” guidance doesn’t actually value travelers’ time at all. Instead, this arcane but influential measure focuses on one thing: vehicle speed. The result is more dangerous, less convenient travel for everyone.
Bear with us for this one.
This may seem completely arcane, but the federal value of time guidance has monumental implications because assigning a value to time gained or lost guides nearly every transportation decision. This guidance instructs transportation agencies on how to measure (1) the current performance of the existing transportation system and (2) the cost and benefit of future projects. In other words, when agencies are deciding whether to add a crosswalk or expand a highway, they use this guidance to help inform their decision. Unfortunately, current guidance is flawed, costing taxpayers’ time, money, and safety.
“Time savings” are mainly determined by vehicle speed
When modeling for time savings, agencies focus on only one thing: getting and keeping vehicles moving. As long as vehicles are moving faster, agencies predict that their new project will save time. It doesn’t matter if, to speed up vehicles, daily trips end up being longer and taking more time overall.
Imagine you’re driving to a grocery store located on the left side of a busy street. But allowing cars to turn left safely on this intersection would halt the flow of oncoming traffic and slow down car travel through the corridor. Instead, you have to drive to the next intersection and make three right turns to reach the grocery store. Your trip is longer, but overall, vehicle speeds stay high. This would be considered a time savings win under the current system.
Expensive roadway expansions justified by projected time savings because they’ll result in less traffic—promises that often never materialize thanks to induced demand—are another example. As the State Smart Transportation Initiative recently pointed out, as roadways expand and speeds increase, people just tend to spread out more. “So, while the distance a traveler is able to reach in a given amount of time is increased, there are not necessarily additional destinations available to them,” as Aaron Westling at SSTI noted. Even if added lanes miraculously solve traffic and cars can go twice as fast, people will still find themselves taking longer trips as destinations move further apart.
Illustration produced for T4America by visual artist Jean Wei. IG/@weisanboo
How do agencies get their numbers anyway?
For vehicles and transit, agencies measure end-to-end travel times on a segment of roadway. Yes, you read that right—they aren’t measuring how fast people are able to travel from their origin to their destination but how fast people can travel on individual segments of road.
Agencies can often believe they’ll help cars move faster, even though they’re relying on outdated or flawed models. Failure to account for induced demand is a great example of this. The result: time and money are wasted on projects that make travel longer, more dangerous, and in some cases, even slower.
Whose time is considered worth saving? Whose time isn’t even being measured?
The value of time guidance puts heavy value on the “nine-to-five” (or peak period) business trip. Travel to and from work is given greater importance than what the guidance refers to as “personal” or “leisure” trips like travel to schools, daycares, and doctors’ offices, let alone off-peak/non-traditional work trips that are more common for low-income workers. To explain this imbalance, the guidance claims that the schedule of work, dictated by the employer, creates more structure for measurement, even though schools and daycares track late arrivals and doctors can cancel appointments when patients arrive late.
Local travelers get the worst of this bias. While agencies focus on making it easier for cars to move quickly, a highway that destroys a community (see I-49 in Shreveport) is easily justified on the grounds of time savings, even if locals lose 15 minutes having to walk out of their way to cross a now-dangerous street or can no longer walk to their destination at all because a new highway blocks their path. The impact to their time is literally never considered as part of the process of developing such a project.
As another example, the small changes that result in faster car travel often make travel for other people more dangerous, which is never considered. Look no further than slip lanes, which exist solely to keep vehicles flowing quickly through intersections, directly through marked pedestrian crossings. These projects have a disproportionate impact on the time and safety of the people walking who have to cross bigger distances and make extra crossings. In most metro areas, low-income people of color are more likely to be pedestrians, while the white and wealthy are more likely to be driving and enjoying the “time savings” this deadly design feature provides.
On top of this, in traditional travel modeling processes, pedestrians and cyclists aren’t even considered. Federal guidance assigns a possible value for active transportation, but only if agencies can figure out on their own how they’ll measure it. Transportation agencies end up being able to assign a value to driver time savings, however inaccurate, but not to cyclist and pedestrian time savings. Active transportation is a cheaper, healthier way to travel that’s far better for the environment than vehicle travel, but we stack the deck against realizing those benefits.
You know why we don't total miles traveled by foot or bike? Because in the US, people traveling by foot or bike (or wheelchair or scooter) do not count. Do you know how I know that? We don't count them. https://t.co/cQ5bWpWsQN
The value of time savings of longer distance trips is also worth more, so a ten-minute saving for a business traveler from DC to Miami is given more weight than saving ten minutes on a daily, local commute.
Worse still, value of time is scaled to household income. A wealthy person with more choice on where they live and more ability to pay is valued higher when they save time. Meanwhile, someone who works minimum wage, who has fewer options for places to live, is valued less in time savings.
Recommendations
The Biden administration should repeal the current value of time guidance and replace it, taking into account the advice below. Current federal guidance accomplishes little in actual time savings, and what little time it does save often benefits only a privileged few at the expense of the safety and convenience of all other travelers. All travelers deserve quick, safe, and convenient access to the goods and services they need. This is true no matter how you travel, no matter where you travel, and no matter when you travel.
Stop overestimating the value of time
One issue is that the models overestimate how exactly much travelers truly value time savings. One of the easiest ways to determine this is to look at drivers’ willingness to pay tolls to travel faster. Surveys find little evidence that people are willing to pay for time savings. Among others, there are examples of people in Texas sitting in traffic to avoid tolls, or drivers avoiding a new tolled bridge in Louisville which undermines the very basis of monetizing this benefit.
Establish a minimum threshold for time savings
If a person saves five minutes on their commute each day, that won’t translate to sufficient time for work or a hobby or some other new, productive use. That’s why economists dismiss any time savings less than 10 minutes as “noise,” but under federal guidance, time savings as low as 10 seconds are considered valuable. Establishing a time savings minimum would ensure that costly projects result in real benefits to taxpayers.
Calculate the true time-saving value of other forms of transportation
People also value their time differently. Someone who bikes to work might prefer this method of travel over sitting in traffic. If getting some exercise during their commute means they can avoid a trip to the gym, a person might even feel that they’ve saved time—even though these time savings wouldn’t show up in agencies’ calculations. Agencies also ignore the benefits of forms of transportation like public transit that allow people to be productive by working, reading, or relaxing more on their trip than someone driving a car.
Calculating these benefits wouldn’t be difficult and could result in better transportation for everyone. If guidance included clearer and equally promoted value on health benefits and credited multitask transit riding as higher time savings over single task driving, agencies could better prioritize other modes of travel.
Stop tipping the scales for nine-to-five commuters
As teleworking during the pandemic altered travel schedules, agencies should also take advantage of the opportunity to reevaluate their emphasis on the nine-to-five business trip and give nontraditional work schedules, as well as necessary trips outside of work, more consideration.
Remember: it’s about time, not about speed
There are more ways to reduce time than simply increase vehicle speed. Take freight as an example. To save time, freight logistics experts don’t wait five years for a capital project as agencies do for roadways (and the benefits for these road expansion projects are quickly eroded by induced demand). In that time, freight companies make hundreds if not thousands of changes to their operations and practices that earn them more benefit than merely moving trains faster. They create redundancies in their system, which translates to choice for consumers. Furthermore, they recognize that the real time savings comes from warehousing and positioning needed goods closer to the customer, so that their trips become shorter overall. Yet nearly every model and metric we use ignores the growing length of our trips.
To actually save travelers’ time, agencies need to take local travelers into account and consider how projects impact the length of trips, not just how quickly cars can go.
Screen grab from our recent video “Not just a way to get from A to B”, a look at Tucson, AZ’s attempts to expand Complete Streets while centering equity.
When done right, active transportation infrastructure can cut greenhouse gas emissions, improve public health, keep people safer, and promote equity. But how will the new infrastructure law’s $650 billion in formula and competitive grant programs help to build safer, Complete Streets? What policies changed to prioritize active transportation investments? Here’s what you need to know, and how you can make these programs and policies work for you.
This post is part of T4America’s suite of materials explaining the 2021 $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), which governs all federal transportation policy and funding through 2026. What do you need to know about the new infrastructure law? We know that federal transportation policy can be intimidating and confusing. Our hub for the new law will walk you through it, from the basics all the way to more complex details.
For the purposes of this piece, active transportation refers to bicycling, walking, and rolling, like on scooters, wheelchairs, segways, and other personal mobility devices—as well as the infrastructure that supports those activities, like bike lanes, trails, and safe sidewalks. These types of bike- and walk-friendly infrastructure are usually present in Complete Streets, which we define as streets for everyone—designed and managed to prioritize safety, comfort, and access to destinations for all people who need to use a street.
Getting more people out walking, biking, and rolling can have enormous benefits to public health, climate, economic growth, and equity. But encouraging more routine trips on these modes requires providing safe and convenient facilities in which more people feel comfortable and safe walking, biking, scooting, or rolling. While the infrastructure law preserves the state’s wide flexibility that most use to prioritize moving vehicles quickly over other forms of transportation, it does create new opportunities to expand and improve active transportation through Complete Streets and other projects.
What’s in the law?
Special programs or funds are NOT required for states to make sizable investments in active transportation. If improving safety and providing other travel options are important to your state or agency, the broad flexibility of the biggest federal programs allows them to shift their funding accordingly.
Active transportation and Complete Streets advocates did manage to get some key provisions into the infrastructure law in the form of both policy changes and new or improved funding opportunities. One new funding opportunity is the new $7.3 billion formula and $1.4 billion competitive PROTECT program for at-risk coastal infrastructure grants, where bike/pedestrian facilities were included as eligible projects.
Within the largest pot of funding that states and metro areas control (the Surface Transportation Block Grant program), the amount set aside for smaller but vital transportation projects like bikeways, new sidewalks, safe routes to school, and micromobility was increased from 1.5 percent up to 10 percent. The law also lets local municipalities control more of that funding directly by increasing the share of that 10 percent that they directly control from 50 up to 59 percent. Note: the other largest formula programs with which you may be familiar (the alphabet soup of NHPP, STBG, CMAQ, HSIP) have flexibility for active transportation and Complete Streets projects, but states are responsible for flexing those formula dollars for those purposes versus the status quo of valuing vehicles and their speed.
As is reflected in the table below, states and regional metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) now have to spend at minimum 2.5 percent of their federal planning funds to adopt Complete Streets standards, policies, and prioritization plans as well as to plan for active transportation, among other goals like transit-oriented development that make active transportation easier.
The new Bridge Formula Program, meant to fix many of the nation’s worst bridges, will be evaluated based on “benefits to non vehicular and public transportation users.” Some groups are optimistic about the active transportation infrastructure that could emerge from these bridge repair projects, but there are numerous loopholes that will allow states to continue leaving these accommodations off as they repair or replace bridges. We want to see USDOT release clear guidance that these bridge projects shall provide benefits to those who bike, walk, and roll.
Most of the new opportunities in the infrastructure law come through discretionary or competitive funding programs. Here’s a brief guide to the funding programs that can be most easily used for active transportation and Complete Streets projects:
Competitive programs applicable to active transportation
Program name
Authorized funding (over five years)
Can be used for:
Should be used to:
Transportation Alternatives Program (TAP)
$7.2 billion over five years. (10% of each state’s Surface Transportation Block Grant program funds)
Projects that promote modes of transportation other than driving, with notable inclusions being anything eligible under the SRTS program and newly defined “vulnerable road user safety assessments”
Build well-planned active transportation networks that provide enough connectivity and access to induce drivers to switch their mode of travel to walking, biking, and/or rolling.
Active Transportation Infrastructure Investment Program
$1 billion, subject to annual appropriations of $200 million each year.
“Active transportation” networks (within communities) and spine (between communities) projects.
Build well-planned active transportation networks that provide enough connectivity and access to induce drivers to switch their mode of travel to walking and biking
Protect pedestrians and bicyclists not by moving them away from roads, but by making roads safer.
Promoting Resilient Operations for Transformative, Efficient, and Cost-saving Transportation (PROTECT)
$1.4 billion (competitive grant portion)
Extreme weather resilience and emergency response infrastructure.
Provide evacuation and recovery mobility to all road users. Build biking, walking, and rolling infrastructure into all resiliency plans and evacuation routes.
Local and Regional Infrastructure Project Assistance (a.k.a RAISE competitive grants)
$15 billion, up from only $4 billion spent from 2009-2020
Local or regional projects that improve safety, environmental sustainability, quality of life, economic competitiveness, state of good repair, and connectivity.
Build projects that promote active transportation. Capital projects like in Rockford, IL and northwest Indiana as well as planning projects like in Charleston, WV serve as models for successful complete streets RAISE projects.
State and regional formula programs applicable to active transportation
Program name
Authorized funding (over five years)
Can be used for:
Should be used to:
Complete Streets set-aside
2.5 percent of each MPO’s federal planning funds
Producing Complete Streets standards, facilitating planning for Complete Streets project prioritization plans, and developing active transportation plans.
$1 million minimum to states, formula based on primary and secondary school enrollment numbers. States can leverage core highway formula funds to fund the program.
Active transportation and complete streets projects, plus education or enforcement activities that allow students to walk, bike, and roll to school safely.
Build complete streets and active transportation facilities that access as many residential and commercial zones as possible.
Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality (CMAQ) program
$13.2 billion
Any transportation project that reduces emissions from vehicles, from traffic alleviation to micromobility (bike or scooter share) and electric vehicles.
Focus emissions mitigation efforts on mode-shift away from driving, specifically toward enabling active transportation.
Carbon Reduction Program
About 2.56% of each state’s total apportionment from the federal transportation program
Projects that support the reduction of transportation greenhouse gas emissions.
Give people safe and convenient options to bike, walk, or roll instead of driving by planning, designing, and building active transportation facilities.
Promoting Resilient Operations for Transformative, Efficient, and Cost-saving Transportation (PROTECT)
$7.3 billion (formula grant portion)
Extreme weather resilience and emergency response infrastructure.
Provide evacuation and recovery mobility to all road users. Build biking, walking, and rolling infrastructure into all resiliency plans and evacuation routes.
Bridge Formula Program
$26.5 billion
Replacing, rehabilitating, preserving, protecting, and construction highway and off-network bridges.
Make sure that every bridge repaired under this program includes active transportation infrastructure, not just to check a box, but to connect to adjacent active transportation networks.
How else could the administration promote active transportation?
America’s roads are increasingly dangerous for pedestrians and other vulnerable users. Without addressing that reality, biking, walking, and rolling will remain dangerous and therefore unattractive options.
Though the infrastructure law overall provides a pittance to active transportation while dumping money into the status quo, there are things USDOT can do to improve access to active transportation. For one, they can give teeth to their Safe System approach, encouraging and guiding State DOTs to develop projects that promote safe roads at low speeds. USDOT already has a statutory obligation on the books to prevent projects that “have significant adverse impact on the safety for nonmotorized transportation traffic” (23 U.S. Code 109(m)). USDOT has never enforced or codified internal procedures for that provision, so the department is actually out of compliance with the law and should rectify that with urgency.
In addition, USDOT should update the MUTCD (the street design manual that all traffic engineers use) to build active transportation priorities into road design from the start.7 USDOT should also release clear guidance on how to best utilize the 2.5 percent Complete Streets planning funds set-aside mentioned above. States and MPOs should look to enhance and improve Complete Streets networks with this funding, not just use this new funding stream for work already underway.
On a positive note, the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) released a memo that, among other things, urged states to simplify the review process for carbon-cutting safety and multimodal projects like bike lanes and sidewalks. This swift language from the administration is encouraging but not binding, and states can still spend the money however they’d like.
USDOT should immediately pursue all avenues for institutionalizing their new road safety strategy which included a full section on the importance of street design and the role it plays in unsafe speeds and safety. Their guidance on revising our broken process for setting speed limits, including moving away from the 85th percentile rule, is powerful, but will fail to have an impact if states ignore it. FHWA should be trying to enshrine this practice with their division administrators and engage state and local traffic engineers in better training.
How can the new money advance our goals?
It can be hard to measure and assess the benefits of increasing active transportation and building safer, Complete Streets. That’s one reason why we at Smart Growth America produced a Benefits of Complete Streets tool to help local communities better measure the potential benefits to health, safety, environment, and economy (using an equity approach) of Complete Streets in your community. Let’s zoom in on how we can maximize climate and equity benefits from the new infrastructure money.
Climate
Vehicle travel is a key contributor to U.S. emissions, so providing people and goods with mobility alternatives is a clear win for climate. But this is a challenge for such a vehicle-dependent country. A 2018 survey found that travel distance and fatigue were the two main reasons why many vehicle trips were not replaced with bike trips. As such, new federally-funded projects should make walking, biking, and rolling as easy, safe, and fast as possible. Walkability audits and assessments, like this survey conducted by the City of Milwaukee in 2021, can help cities plan for Complete Streets and active transportation facilities in the places where they will have the most impact and shift as many trips as possible away from vehicles.
Equity
Biking, walking, and rolling in low-income communities are often hazardous, unpleasant, and inconvenient modes of travel. Good multi-use paths are often located in the wealthy enclaves of many American cities rather than more marginalized communities. This is a major factor contributing to the higher incidence of pedestrian deaths among BIPOC and low-income people. Cities with equitable active transportation plans use two key strategies: data collection and community engagement. Two good examples: Baltimore, MD models equitable data collection in their Complete Streets performance measures and Huntsville, AL has done great community engagement for their demonstration projects. With these strategies in place, every active transportation project has a stronger chance of creating positive equity outcomes and being strong contenders for competitive grant funding from the infrastructure law.
So what?
A new bike lane won’t have much impact if it just connects to dangerous roads on each end. As former Pittsburgh DOT head Karina Ricks said in this terrific video about their city’s Complete Streets policy, it really requires a complete network approach to build Complete Streets and create safe connections that connect many people to many destinations. Despite all the new funding programs, eligibility, and carve-outs, federal funding for active transportation and Complete Streets is still dwarfed by the hundreds of billions of dollars in funding for roads and bridges. Many of those projects will expand roads and increase vehicle speed, making walking, biking, and rolling more dangerous and inconvenient.
States and localities should be ready to combat this by utilizing their limited active transportation funding in the most effective way possible. And states should use their considerable formula money flexibility to advance active transportation and Complete Streets (they have the authority to do so.) This will include utilizing the above strategies to maximize benefits, but it will also mean positioning for competitive grant application success. Local leaders will benefit from understanding the flexibilities within each funding program so they can make sure they get their share from their state and MPO, whether those entities are friendly to active transportation or not.
The deep irony here is that for all the promises made by Congress about improving safety and providing more options for people to get around, it will be up to state and local leaders to do the heavy lifting to deliver on those promises and get the most out of this law’s modest provisions for active transportation and Complete Streets.
(For more information on active transportation and Complete Streets funding in the infrastructure law, check out our funding brief on the topic.)
After the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and USDOT issued a report to Congress this week about Complete Streets, Beth Osborne, Vice President of Transportation at Smart Growth America—the home of the National Complete Streets Coalition—issued this statement:
“This simple but critical concept of Complete Streets—designing our streets so that everyone can use them safely—was created within our National Complete Streets Coalition almost 20 years ago. After years of working tirelessly to encourage towns, cities, counties, states and the federal government to adopt this approach, we are deeply encouraged to see the concept enshrined and institutionalized within official USDOT documents, including this report. FHWA has done an excellent job in clearly laying out and describing the actions that are needed throughout the entire federal transportation program to truly build safe streets and roads for all people, including getting better safety data, assessing safety in project development, and making safety the primary goal and Complete Streets the default design.
“The title of this report is also telling. There are certainly ‘Opportunities and Challenges’ when it comes to making our streets safer and more convenient. Now we need to turn those challenges into opportunities and opportunities into reality. Every day the status quo approach stands and transportation agencies are allowed to design, build, or maintain their streets only for cars is a day where we allow the historic levels of death on those roadways to continue. This report gives us a path forward—one that needs to be acted on in the immediate future.
“The National Complete Streets Coalition will continue our hands-on work with states and localities to advance Complete Streets policies and upend our country’s outdated paradigm for street design that has produced a historic increase in traffic injuries and fatalities. We look forward to working closely with FHWA to turn their excellent recommendations into action.”
The National Complete Streets Coalition and Transportation for America are programs of Smart Growth America.
Senator Capito uses visual aids to criticize the FHWA memo. Still from the hearing.
A Senate committee called Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg to testify about implementing the new infrastructure law, but much of the day was spent criticizing or defending FHWA’s nonbinding memo encouraging states to prioritize state of good repair, safety, and climate mitigation—displaying a deep confusion in some members of Congress about the limits of USDOT’s authority.
On the heels of the president’s State of the Union address the night before, the Senate Committee on the Environment and Public Works (EPW) convened a hearing on March 2, 2022 to talk about the infrastructure law.
Senator Carper (D-DE) opened with a discussion of the pivotal work the Committee took in formulating and passing the infrastructure law last year, and continued to underscore the need to take action on climate change (with Senator Carper noting 28 percent of emissions coming from transportation) as well as safety (after an alarming increase in fatalities, especially for vulnerable road users).
Over the course of the hearing, various senators chimed in to check on the implementation status of various programs or projects, whether the electrification of the transportation system versus alternative fuel options, truck parking, reconnecting communities, Carbon Reduction and PROTECT formula programs, transportation accessibility, Buy America, or port infrastructure. But a considerable amount of discussion from a number of senators—most notably by ranking member Senator Capito (R-WV)—focused on the nonbinding FHWA memo released on December 16 (which T4America supported as a strong statement about how states should absolutely choose to spend this historic influx of cash).
In her opening remarks, Senator Capito deemed the FHWA memo a threat to the policy framework of the infrastructure law that the committee worked so hard to put together, advancing a partisan Biden administration agenda and creating a system of winners and losers depending on the project. Using large visual aids, Senator Capito accused FHWA of plagiarizing language in the memo about fix-it-first over capacity expansion from the House’s INVEST Act. The crux of Capito’s opposition to the memo is the suggestion of a (non-existent) mandate (and a one-size-fits-all context) in the fix-it-first language over capacity expansion. In later commentary, Senator Cramer (R-ND) went further by noting that the memo was threatening the concept of federalism and the powers that states have.
As Jeff Davis at Eno noted on Twitter, this is completely false:
The ability of @USDOT to establish criterion for project approval beyond what is written in law is arguably limited by section 145 of title 23, the wording of which has not been amended since it was enacted in 1973: pic.twitter.com/VGXdPHPcUl
As Secretary Buttigieg pointed out during the hearing, the memo serves as a values document (not a mandate or part of the infrastructure law), incorporating what USDOT is hearing from states and previous transportation reauthorizations. He also noted it would be a disservice to not remind the states of their flexibility to pursue goals like repair, safety, climate change, and equity.
Secretary Buttigieg at the EPW hearing
Senator Carper jumped into the conversation at this point to provide a core history lesson regarding state of good repair from (1) Congressional values in the federal transportation program that are codified into law and (2) values shared by a previous Republican administration, underscoring how the FHWA memo is entirely consistent with pre-established values. Senator Cardin (D-MD) also added that these values expressed in the FHWA memo are key priorities that are also reflected in the infrastructure law and shouldn’t be surprising.
Senator Cardin at the EPW hearing
Overall, the day was full of much fury, signifying very little.
Republicans on the committee fiercely claimed that this unenforceable, nonbinding memo was in fact enforceable. They claimed that encouraging states to improve the state of repair, improve safety, and reduce the negative impacts of the transportation system goes against Congressional intent, that it will block projects like highway expansions, and that it lays out how competitive grant applications will be reviewed.
Let us be clear: an unenforceable memo cannot stop anything or make any state choose to spend their money more responsibly. We agree that the language of the law failed to move the needle enough on topics like safety, repair, climate, etc. But we’re frankly shocked to hear the memo’s critics admit their preference for the broken status quo so boldly. This administration will and should evaluate projects for competitive, discretionary funding that they control using their priorities, which is how competitive grant programs have always been implemented by all administrations.
Those who spent the day vociferously criticizing this memo are either ignorant to the law and how the program works, or they are just boldly stating their lack of interest in the outcomes they promised the American people when they passed the IIJA. Both are really bad news. It’s disconcerting that the bulk of this hearing was spent fighting about a priority statement—an utter waste of time. The lesson we hope USDOT gets from this is to be bold and not waste time with little plans. This modest action they took got all the blow back of a truly controversial move while in fact accomplishing nothing. As we move forward on the implementation of the IIJA, we hope USDOT and the EPW Committee reflects on the words of the architect and planner Daniel Burnham:
Make no little plans. They have no magic to stir men’s blood and probably will not themselves be realized. Make big plans, aim high in hope and work, remembering that a noble, logical diagram once recorded will never die, but long after we are gone will be a living thing, asserting itself with ever growing insistency.
A year in, the Biden administration helped pass historic investments in infrastructure and spoke out about safety, repair, and equity, but a lot of potential improvements have been left on the table. Congress passes the laws but the administration has to implement them. Here’s our update on their progress and the opportunities still left on the table for them to advance their stated goals.
The bottom line: A full year into the administration, we are still waiting for a lot of action on the various priorities we produced a year ago as they were taking office. Any new progress on our wish list since that six-month review has been meager, at best. This lack of progress makes the next year even more challenging. The massive, new infrastructure bill is missing the updates and reforms needed to promote the administration’s priorities while creating a mammoth workload for USDOT. The administration needs to make major progress soon if they want to impact how the IIJA’s funds—already being committed by state DOTs!—are spent.
Here’s what you need to know:
The good: Vocal support for safety, repair, and climate
Encouraging states to make smart investments
Shortly after the passage of the infrastructure bill, the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) released a memo urging states to prioritize federal funds for repair projects and simplify the review process for carbon-cutting safety and multimodal projects like bike lanes and rapid transit lanes. While it isn’t binding (states retain all the flexibility in the world to use federal dollars for expansion instead of repair), we were encouraged to see the administration swiftly and directly speak out about the nation’s repair needs.
Unfortunately, several states and members of Congress have criticized this and even claimed it has some binding authority. We wish! It is possible this backlash comes from ignorance of the program overall and the fact that DOTs retain full discretion over their funding. It is also possible that they are hoping to discourage the administration from taking more meaningful steps. If the administration cowers in the face of this somewhat performative backlash from DOTs—especially after they used “crumbling roads and bridges” as a central justification for the infrastructure bill’s high price tag—progress will halt with this memo.
94 percent of traffic crashes are NOT caused by human error
In January, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) took the misleading and oft-cited statistic that “94 percent of crashes are caused by human error” off of their website. Some examples of the types of “human error” this statistic refers to:
A pedestrian without access to a crosswalk for a mile in either direction attempts to cross the street and is hit by a driver going the speed limit, which happens to be too fast to yield.
A driver is traveling down a wide open road at the 60 mph speed limit. The speed limit changes from 60 mph to 30 mph, but the driver doesn’t see the sign and no design changes signal a need to slow down. The driver continues traveling at 60 mph.
A driver in a large SUV turns right on a curved slip lane, indicating that they need not slow down on the turn. At that speed, there is no time to react to a pedestrian in the marked crosswalk. The high front end of their vehicle obscures their view of the road, and they collide with a five-foot-tall pedestrian that has just begun to cross the street.
These are all failures of design, not evidence of human errors.
This false statistic has misdirected attention away from the dangerous design of roadways, which fails to include adequate space for pedestrians and cyclists and makes safe driving unintuitive. While this statistic has been around so long and has been so frequently cited by transportation agencies, removing it from federal materials will help bring the focus back to the dangerous design decisions that often put nondrivers in harm’s way.
The new USDOT safety strategy calls out dangerous design and unsafe speeds
In January the USDOT released a new road safety strategy which included a full section on the importance of street design and a second section on the role it plays in unsafe speeds and safety for the very first time. The strategy also encouraged revisiting speed limits and our broken process for setting them, including moving away from the 85th percentile rule. They go further to state that USDOT is considering prohibiting state DOTs and MPOs from setting performance targets to do worse (e.g., increase fatalities), which would be welcome news.
Like the FHWA memo, this strategy cannot deliver on-the-ground changes by itself. Revising and reframing the handbook of engineering standards (the MUTCD), which engineers rely on to design roads, would be a more effective way to bring about safe street designs. But as we said in our statement in January, this strategy can work well if paired with that sort of administrative action.
The incomplete: Less talk, more action
However encouraging these moves above are, federal strategies and memos have no real bearing on state decision-making. Regardless of what the USDOT advises, states can take full advantage of the flexibility in the infrastructure bill to spend their new dollars however they would like to.
But FHWA hasn’t added teeth to this request. Though their memo referenced above encourages states to invest in repair first, FHWA also recently released guidance clearly letting states know they can use bridge repair dollars to construct new bridges, even if this construction has nothing to do with repair needs. This is an example of the roadblocks the administration will face now because of policy changes they failed to negotiate for the infrastructure bill, and it’s all the more reason that the administration must take action now to meet their goals. The law alone cannot help them make repair a priority, because it specifically allowed states to ignore repair needs.
The administration continues to brag about the IIJA’s exciting-but-overmatched new programs focused on improving safety, reducing emissions, advancing equity and improving state of repair. But the funding for many of these new programs is not yet out the door because Congress has not approved a budget for the next year. This means that all brand new programs are in limbo and existing programs’ funding levels are currently frozen at FAST Act levels. So programs like the new Carbon Reduction program or increased funding for transit capital grants that the administration has been bragging about can’t go forward. The administration needs to put their political heft into pushing Congress forward on a budget.
The opportunity: Actions the administration can take right now
Our list of specific actions are listed in the table below, tracking the progress the Biden administration has made since taking office. Since our last update, not much has changed (and there’s a notable lack of progress on value of time guidance and ensuring models account for induced demand, both of which we highlighted in our six-month update). We have also added two high priority actions that we will track going forward.
Issue area
Department
Status
Detail
Action
Access to federal funds
USDOT
Simplify applications for discretionary grant programs (like the Better Utilizing Investments to Leverage Development (BUILD) program) by creating an online application and benefit-cost analysis (BCA) process so that small, rural and limited-capacity agencies can more easily access federal funds.
Climate change
USDOT
In progress
Started rulemaking process
We only measure what we treasure. Re-establish the greenhouse gas (GHG) performance measure for transportation abandoned by the last administration, follow this up with annual state GHG rankings, and provide guidance for projecting GHG emissions at the project level.
Climate change
USDOT
Done
Repeal the June 29, 2018, Federal Transit Administration (FTA) Dear Colleague to public transit agencies regarding the Capital Investment Grant program, specifically the treatment of federal loans as not part of the local match, inclusion of a geographic diversity factor in grant awards, and encouraging a low federal cost share.
Climate change
USDOT
Allow rural transit systems to receive funding from the Low and No Emission bus program.
Equity
USDOT
Identify infrastructure that creates barriers to mobility (such as highways or rail beds that divide a community). Then prioritize resources to address those barriers and the disparities they create (e.g., by removing infrastructure barriers or creating new connectivity).
Passenger rail
White House, USDOT
The board is functionally empty, with all members serving on expired terms and no-showing for meetings.
Appoint new members to the Amtrak Board of Directors and assess the balance of the board with respect to support for and experience with vital long distance, state-supported, and Northeast Corridor routes, as well as civic and elected leaders from local communities actually served by the existing network.
Safety
USDOT
Limited progress
Called out in Roadway Strategy release, but they did not include or mention consideration of the visibility issues.
Revise the New Car Assessment Program to consider and prioritize the risk that increasingly larger automobile designs pose to pedestrians and cyclists and the driver’s ability to see pedestrians (particularly children and people using wheelchairs and other assistive devices).
Safety
USDOT
Limited progress
Comments reopened and then closed in May 2021. Limited revisions underway
Admin not rewriting or reframing the guide, per their Roadway Strategy release.
Reopen the comment period on the handbook of street engineering standards (the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices or MUTCD) used by transportation agencies to design streets, and reframe and rewrite it to remove standards and guidance that lead to streets that are hostile to or dangerous for those outside of a vehicle.
Technical guidance
White House, HUD, USDOT, GSA
Re-activate the Location Affordability Portal created by DOT and HUD and establish a location efficiency and equitable development scoring criteria to be applied to decisions involving location of new federal facilities, particularly those that serve the public.
Re-activate the Location Affordability Portal created by DOT and HUD and establish a location efficiency and equitable development scoring criteria to be applied to decisions involving location of new federal facilities, particularly those that serve the public.
NEW
Ensure more accurate traffic and emissions modeling
USDOT
Require the measurement of induced demand and a review of the accuracy of current travel demand models by comparing past projections with actual outcomes, reporting their findings, and updating the models when there are discrepancies.
NEW
Replace value of time guidance with more equitable, multimodal approach
USDOT
Help states and metro areas accurately calculate the benefit of their projects by updating the value of time guidance and its focus on vehicle speed with consideration of actual projected time savings for all people, whether they travel by car or use other modes of travel.
In addition to the actions we called for above, there are additional steps the Biden administration can take now to help guide the implementation process:
Administer clear and firm guidance and discretionary funding opportunities that aligns with their goals
The Biden team can deliver guidance and craft discretionary grant funding notices that significantly shape the impact of this bill. They should do all they can to ensure states don’t abuse their flexibility in a way that ignores rising crash rates, increases the repair backlog, and over-invests in projects that are inequitable or unsustainable, like wide roads and highways with limited crossings that can make local travel dangerous for those outside of a car.
FHWA has issued a memo calling for states to invest in repair projects and lowering the impact of transportation projects on the communities adjacent and the environment, and we hope states will follow that guidance, in spite of the fact that it isn’t a directive.. But that’s really the bare minimum. They can send a clear message to other applicants by awarding competitive grants only to projects that strongly align with their repair, safety, equity, and climate goals, and send powerful messages by rewarding the states that are spending their formula dollars in productive ways toward those same goals.
1/2 Sen. McConnell has fired off a letter to governors in response to FHWA's guidance encouraging states to prioritize repair and safety over expansion. He writes that the guidance “has no effect of law…” This is true.
Though the infrastructure bill allotted a lot of money for capital work, it will require a major investment in human capital, especially the new passenger rail program. For example, the Biden team will need to support opportunities to help solve staffing issues at the local and state levels, including the bus operator shortage and other workforce issues. They will also need to help states, most of which do have experienced staff for developing and building rail projects, stand up these new programs.
While the infrastructure law contains a generational investment in passenger rail, that potential will be squandered without sufficient staff in place to create and implement these new programs. Hiring in the federal government takes time, while these programs are expected to be running very soon. Additionally, USDOT nominees still haven’t been confirmed (some still haven’t been nominated), and the Amtrak board is functionally empty with all members serving expired terms. The board is in urgent and immediate need of new appointments, particularly those that can provide perspective outside of the Northeast Corridor.
Reevaluate the metrics and definitions that will help determine how goals are reached
The administration should audit and quantifiably measure how the nation is making progress on infrastructure goals. But the metrics and models that we use matter. States rely on flawed and outdated models to determine the need or effectiveness of projects. The Biden administration can and should deliver guidance on measuring time savings benefits, emissions reductions, and transit access to ensure that projects meant to achieve these goals are set up to succeed. Data on state DOT projects should also be more readily available to the public (and more current), so that taxpayers can better hold their local leaders accountable.
The expansion of grant and formula eligibility in the infrastructure law to include micromobility will give communities and states additional options for providing more transportation options, but those that are doing the most to make their streets safe and convenient stand to gain the most as well.
Photo courtesy of Lyft
This post is part of T4America’s suite of materials explaining the 2021 $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), which governs all federal transportation policy and funding through 2026. What do you need to know about the new infrastructure law? We know that federal transportation policy can be intimidating and confusing. Our hub for the new law will walk you through it, from the basics all the way to more complex details.
Micromobility—local travel on smaller vehicles like bikes, scooters, or other personal mobility devices—has become a vital part of our mobility landscape in just a few short years. The recent growth of shared micromobility networks owned and maintained by either cities or private companies has made such vehicles accessible and popular in urbanized areas. For example, Citi Bike in New York City grew 38 percent year-over-year, with a total of 28 million rides taken in 2021; based on ride volume, Citi Bike would be ranked as the 25th largest transit system in the US.
When these networks are integrated into public transit systems, like in Los Angeles, they act as extensions to trains and buses that allow passengers to make valuable first- and last-mile connections. During major disruptions in transit service, such as in New York or Washington D.C., they can act as vital reinforcements.
The most notable change in the infrastructure law on this count was to expand the eligibility of numerous programs to include micromobility. Below, T4America breaks down those policy changes, funding opportunities, and how best to advance micromobility in your community.
What’s in the law?
The 2021 infrastructure law is the first to authorize shared micromobility infrastructure—which can include vehicles, docking stations, protected lanes for bikes and scooters, or apps and websites for public access to shared networks—and operations funding. The most notable change comes from expanding the eligibility within the existing Transportation Alternatives Program, which “sets aside” 10 percent of each state’s Surface Transportation Block Grant Program—a state’s second biggest pot of federal funds—for transportation alternatives.8 Since 2015 this program has included projects to make walking or biking safer and more convenient; now, shared micromobility is an eligible project type.
This is a small but notable step to recognize the dramatic changes in our mobility landscape over the last decade, but whether or not any of this funding encourages greater shared micromobility will be left up to the states and metro areas who decide how to spend these funds.
Micromobility projects can also be advanced by new and revised infrastructure programs dedicated to climate change mitigation, transit improvements, safety, and disaster resilience. Other highlights include the new Carbon Reduction Program and the Active Transportation Infrastructure Investment Program, which funds projects under $15 million that focus on safety, are designed to increase pedestrian and cyclist activity, and build active transportation networks. Also notable is the new Safe Streets and Roads for All program, which is intended for initiatives that reduce traffic fatalities, including “complete streets” projects that foster active transportation use.
The formula-based programs below are perhaps the best opportunities for states, MPOs and local governments to leverage funding for micromobility. These programs are not competitive, so it is up to these governments to use this money effectively as outlined.
Formula
Program Name
Authorized funding
Can be used for:
Should be used to:
Transportation Alternatives Program (TAP)
$7.2 billion over five years. (10% of each state’s Surface Transportation Block Grant program funds)
Recreational trails, bike/ped projects, micromobility, and other types of transportation alternatives.
Expand useful micromobility options and build connective networks in communities that address demand.
Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality (CMAQ) Improvement Program
$2.745 billion
Transportation projects or programs that reduce congestion and improve air quality. CMAQ funding can be used for both capital and operating expenses.
Maximize MPO provisions for bike- and scooter-share capital projects and operations. Use funding to support operations that increase equity and program reach.
Carbon Reduction Program
$6.4 billion
Planning, designing, and building on- and off-road active transportation facilities; roadway right-of-way improvements.
Fund complete street designs that integrate micromobility infrastructure such as protected lanes and docking stations.
National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) Formula Program
$5 billion
Implement electric vehicle charging on designated Alternative Fuel Corridors, with remaining funds being spent at discretion of state governments.
Implement electric bike/scooter charging facilities as part of integrated micromobility networks.
Promoting Resilient Operations for Transformative, Efficient, and Cost-saving Transportation (PROTECT)
Extreme weather resilience and emergency response infrastructure.
Implement micromobility vehicles and stations as a redundancy measure for evacuation or recovery mobility processes.
Urbanized Area Formula Grant Program
$33.5 billion
Planning, operation, and capital improvement for public transportation systems.
Build micromobility infrastructure at and nearby public transportation facilities and promote integration of bike- and scooter-share systems with local transit fares and services.
The following programs are competitively funded (discretionary), and winning these grants is tied to strong local matching (at 20–50% of the project cost).
Competitive program name
Authorized funding
Can be used for:
Should be used to:
Active Transportation Infrastructure Investment Program
$200 million, subject to annual appropriations and the whims of Congress
“Active transportation” projects.
Finance micromobility stations and vehicles as part of useful active transportation networks.
Safe Streets and Roads for All
$6 billion
“Vision Zero” plans and implementation projects.
Incorporate micromobility stations and protected lanes into complete streets projects.
Rural Surface Transportation Program
At least $25 million to each eligible project
Most projects on rural roads, including projects that protect all road users but also highway projects with adverse effects.
Introduce micromobility infrastructure to streets in rural areas; prioritize electric micromobility funding to achieve longer-distance trips. This should be framed so rural areas do not only have one choice in spending these funds.
Local and Regional Infrastructure Project Assistance (a.k.a RAISE)
$15 billion (not a new program, but this funding is substantially more than in the past)
Local or regional projects that improve safety, environmental sustainability, quality of life, economic competitiveness, state of good repair, and community connectivity.
Prioritize shared micromobility infrastructure that benefits surrounding communities, improves bike/pedestrian safety, and serves communities equitably.
How else could the administration improve micromobility?
To further aid the development and expansion of shared micromobility infrastructure, there are several steps the administration could take.
Further study and guidance is needed on how micromobility can be integrated with transit to better support ridership and access. Micromobility options work best when they circulate short distance trips within communities and connect them to transit facilities for longer-distance travel. In Washington, D.C., for example, 82 percent of Capital Bikeshare riders have used shared micromobility services to get to or from public transit. Best practices in design, both national and international, should inform more pointed recommendations and project eligibility standards for shared vehicle infrastructure.
The administration needs to provide guidance and technical support so everyone can fully understand how their projects can be made eligible for each grant. Many agencies won’t know much about micromobility eligibility, and USDOT can and should help fill those knowledge gaps.
In light of these suggestions, it is important for local and state governments to also consider every point of flexibility within the infrastructure law to fund micromobility infrastructure. For example, funding for electric vehicle infrastructure can be used to support electric scooter and bicycle charging facilities. The administration should also evaluate grantees based on how they will protect and connect disadvantaged users and communities. Colorado is establishing an emissions budget for new highway projects that requires corresponding investment in greener modes, which could be a good model for a cross-program policy.
How can the new money advance our goals?
Safety
The most significant constraint on the expansion of shared micromobility is the supportive infrastructure that makes riding on a bike or scooter feel safe, in both perception and reality. This can include fully protected bike lanes, visible and enforced curbside pickup/dropoff zones, complete signage and wayfinding standards for bicycles and other shared mobility options, and traffic control improvements such as signal retimings that allow micromobility users to safely traverse streets. Places that will realize the greatest benefits of expanded shared mobility options are those that also make safety the fundamental consideration of every other dollar spent.
Climate
Micromobility is a valuable tool in helping to decrease driving (and emissions) for short-distance trips, which are the bulk of all trips taken each day. Good micromobility service can also increase transit ridership by improving access and expanding the catchment area around stations, helping to lower emissions with greater transit use at the same time. Moreover, a 2021 report by Lyft states that 41 percent of its micromobility customers are weekly users of public transit and 54 percent do not own or lease a personal vehicle. The design of micromobility access points and networks is also important. Incorporating shade into station and protected lane designs can go a long way toward reducing the disastrous urban heat island effect, which can come from trees or in the form of solar panels.
Equity
When administered and implemented thoughtfully, micromobility makes car-free transportation accessible in areas that are underserved by our current road network. Localities will need to plan the location, price, and other features of bike- and scooter-share in a way that is viable across all communities. In particular, micromobility must address the fact that Black, Hispanic, and Native American pedestrians are disproportionately killed on America’s roads, and safety improvements should be prioritized where they are most needed. Furthermore, low-income communities experience the brunt of the urban heat island effect. When planned equitably, incorporating shade and landscaping into micromobility stations can be a step toward making such communities more resilient to high temperatures.
So what?
States, regions, and communities now have several avenues through which federal funding for micromobility is available. But micromobility is one of many applications from an already small funding pool, and without a thoughtful overarching plan for implementation, new initiatives will have limited and inequitable benefits. As such, advocates must work with their governments to pursue a detailed, equitable vision for micromobility so they can build a strong case for federal funding and the local matches needed to secure it.
Note: There are ample opportunities for the infrastructure law to support good projects and better outcomes. We have also produced short memos explaining the available federal programs for funding various types of projects. Read our memo about available funding opportunities for micromobility projects.
Smart Growth America and the National Complete Streets Coalition, with partnership and support from CityHealth, produced a series of videos telling the story of Complete Streets policies in three U.S. cities. These videos provide insight into what Complete Streets policies can accomplish, what makes for an effective policy, and strategies for complete streets implementation.
Don’t miss our videos about three cities that have passed a policy and are now doing the work to make the transportation system safer and more accessible for all members of their community.
About Complete Streets and these videos
Complete Streets are streets for everyone—designed and managed to prioritize safety, comfort, and access to destinations for all people who need to use a street. Complete Streets policies can help cities transform how they make decisions about their streets. Done right, these policies can help cities improve public health and address longstanding inequities in the transportation system. The National Complete Streets Coalition at Smart Growth America has been advancing the adoption and implementation of Complete Streets policies for two decades to ensure that everyone who needs to use our streets—no matter how they get around—can safely and comfortably do so.
CityHealth and the National Complete Streets Coalition at Smart Growth America recognize cities with exemplary Complete Streets policies—a key step in producing safer streets that can be used by everyone. Learn more at cityhealth.org and completestreets.org.
Pittsburgh, PA
In Pittsburgh, the need and demand for modes of transportation beyond car travel was clear when former Mayor Bill Peduto and the City Council passed the 2015 Complete Streets ordinance, creating the Department of Mobility and Infrastructure (DOMI), and starting the ongoing process of creating space for transportation modes beyond car travel. Though a Complete Streets policy didn’t change Pittsburgh overnight, the policy serves as a blueprint that will outlast individual mayors and DOMI directors and continue guiding Pittsburgh towards safer streets.
If you are a mayor, look at your population. And if your population needs multiple different ways to get from point A to point B, then you have a responsibility. Because mobility not only affects being able to get to work, it affects being able to get to the doctor, it affects being able to get food. And in fact, the greatest factor in economic mobility is the ability to get from point A to point B.
Bill Peduto, mayor of Pittsburgh, 2014-2022
Hear from
Mayor Ed Gainey
Bill Peduto, mayor 2014-2022
Kim Lucas, acting director of DOMI
Karina Ricks, former director of DOMI
Erika Strassburger, City Councilmember, District 8
Louisville, KY
“A lot of our high-intensity traffic areas are also in the same areas that our poorest health outcomes are occuring at. Now we have the opportunity to try and correct that.” —David James, City Councilchair & co-sponsor of the Louisville Complete Streets ordinance
Adopted in 2019, the Louisville, KY Complete Streets policy is newer, but some changes are already underway in the city, including simple design changes to Bardstown Road, a neighborhood main street that was instead engineered to move as many cars as possible as fast as possible, at the expense of moving all people safely and enhancing a valuable destination. In the video, city council members, city transportation staffers, and a Louisville resident describe the changes they’ve observed in the city and why they are excited to see implementation continue.
Hear from
David James, City Council Chair & co-sponsor of Complete Streets ordinance
Cassie Armstrong, City Councilmember
Dirk Gowin, City of Louisville, Transportation Division Manager
Amanda Deatherage, City of Louisville, Transportation Planner Supervisor
Jackie Cobb, Louisville resident
Tucson, AZ
For three years, local groups, including the Living Streets Alliance, advocated for a Complete Streets policy in Tucson in response to the city’s pedestrian injury and fatality rate. The policy was adopted unanimously in 2019. Now, the city is focused on implementing the policy in the communities that need safety and public health investments most.
We’re using safety as a key driver…as well as investing in areas of our community that have historically seen lower levels in investment…where you see residents that are going to be more dependent on walking, biking, taking transit as their primary means of transportation, and they’re gonna face [street safety] risks at higher levels.
Patrick Hartley, City of Tucson, Complete Streets Coordinator
Right now, the city is building hundreds of miles of bike boulevards throughout the city, and as they restripe streets, they’ve found opportunities to expand bike lanes, narrow car lanes, and even drop travel lanes on larger roadways that don’t have much traffic. Residents look forward to a safer, healthier, and more equitable city.
Hear from
Mayor Regina Romero
Patrick Hartley, City of Tucson, Complete Streets Coordinator
Evren Sönmez, Living Streets Alliance, Director of Strategic Policy and Practice
Image from Vignesh Swaminathan, a keynote speaker at this year’s SGA Equity Summit, of his quick-build bike lanes in Emeryville, California
The new infrastructure law authorizes around $650 billion to fund transportation infrastructure through formula and competitive grant programs, some of which have safety as a core emphasis. Here’s what you need to know about the new money and (modest) policy changes to the safety program, as well as how you can make them work for you.
This post is part of T4America’s suite of materials explaining the 2021 $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), which governs all federal transportation policy and funding through 2026. What do you need to know about the new infrastructure law? We know that federal transportation policy can be intimidating and confusing. Our hub for the new law will walk you through it, from the basics all the way to more complex details.
Update March 3, 2022: This post was updated to reflect that Safe Routes to School funding is subject to appropriations (see the formula safety programs for details).
We are facing an astonishing safety crisis on our roads. The first nine months of 2021 were the deadliest first nine months of a year on America’s roads since 2006, with an estimated 31,720 fatalities. There’s no reason to think that 2022 won’t continue this same trend, which prompted Secretary Buttigieg to present a National Roadway Safety Strategy to set a goal of zero deaths and end this crisis.9
One reason we are facing this crisis of preventable deaths is that within most transportation agencies, prioritizing vehicle speed over safety for all users is a deeply embedded priority. Our priority is different, and we need to start there if we’re ever going to make good on USDOT’s new stated goal of zero deaths:
The new infrastructure law does include some bright spots for holding states and localities more responsible for improving safety, which we discuss below. But overall, Congress largely decided to uphold the status quo, failing to reorient the giant formula programs around safety. Now it’s up to USDOT to do all they can to prioritize safety within their program guidance and grant programs, and for applicants to submit projects that improve safety.
Note: this explainer and webinar from America Walks is full of practical advice about “how volunteer advocacy groups, or local governments without a full-time planner” can steer these funds into improving safety.
What’s in the law?
The new infrastructure law does include funding for safety improvement projects like road diets and Complete Streets, but these are spoonfuls compared to the giant excavator of overall road funding where safety is just one of many considerations as we illustrated here:
This illustration was produced for T4America by visual artist Jean Wei. IG/@weisanboo
The new bill does not reorient the transportation program around safety. It allows funding to be used to build safer roads but doesn’t require it. Dedicated safety funding remains a relatively minor amount of the entire program. But the new law does make some alterations to safety policy. One is how we measure state performance and then hold them accountable. If 15 percent or more of a state’s fatal crashes involve vulnerable road users (i.e. pedestrians, cyclists), then a minimum of 15 percent of their Highway Safety Improvement (HSIP) dollars must go toward making those vulnerable users safer.
We’re giving states a small amount of money to improve a problem that transportation agencies can continue to create or exacerbate with a much larger amount of money.
The law also made several other important changes to how USDOT will evaluate safety. It updates standards for the mandatory Highway Safety Plans to change the word for vehicle collisions from “accident” to “crash” (a small but meaningful shift) and to include more public participation and feedback. It updates uniform standards to acknowledge the role of human error in new vehicle technologies. The law allows USDOT to reapportion (i.e., give away) state funding to other states if a state continuously fails to improve their safety outcomes and prevents states from setting worse/lower safety performance targets than the year before. 10
And the law requires USDOT to set minimum performance targets for states in consultation with the Governors Highway Safety Association. This is not an exhaustive list, but overall USDOT does have several more policy levers to create safer roads across the U.S.—if they use their new powers effectively.
Formula safety programs
Program name
Authorized funding (over five years)
Can be used for:
Should be used to:
Transportation Alternatives Program
$7.2 billion (10% of STBG funding), up from a flat $4.2 billion in the FAST Act, with 41% going to state DOTs and 59% going to MPOs and localities.
Projects that promote modes of transportation other than driving, with notable inclusions being anything eligible under the SRTS program and newly defined “vulnerable road user safety assessments”.
Make roads safer for all users by planning for and building facilities for walking, biking, and other modes that protect those users from high-speed vehicles.
Safe Routes to School (SRTS) Program
$1 million minimum to states by formula (subject to appropriations), based on primary and secondary school enrollment numbers.
Active transportation and complete streets projects, plus education or enforcement activities that allow students to walk and bike to school safely.
Give students safe, convenient routes to school by prioritizing their travel over the speed of cars.
Highway Safety Improvement Program (HSIP)
$16.8 billion, apportioned to states by formula.
Highway safety improvement projects, which are defined very broadly, from rumble strips and widened shoulders to data collection and safety planning.
Re-orient highway safety spending toward traffic calming and projects that protect all road users, not just drivers.
Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality (CMAQ) program
$13.2 billion
Any transportation project that reduces emissions from vehicles, including micromobility (bike or scooter share) and electric vehicles.
Focus emissions mitigation efforts on mode-shift away from driving, not on increasing vehicle speed. Specifically, states and localities should use CMAQ funding for micromobility projects.
Competitive programs applicable to safety
Some of the safety funding in the infrastructure law is split between several programs, many of which are made available directly to states or localities as competitive grants (more here on best practices for applying to those).
Program name
Authorized funding (over five years)
Can be used for:
Should be used to:
Active Transportation Infrastructure Investment Program
$1 billion, subject to annual appropriations of $200 million each year.
“Active transportation” projects.
Provide safe and integrated road facilities for pedestrians and bicyclists to access community destinations.
Rural Surface Transportation Program
$3.25 billion, with $1.5 billion set aside for Appalachian highways.
Most projects on rural roads, including projects that protect all road users but also highway projects with adverse effects.
Retrofit roadways to serve the community’s road users vs speed.
Expand upon road diets, sneckdowns, and other treatments to improve vulnerable road user facilities (through directness to destinations, level of comfort, and intersection visibility).
National Infrastructure Project Assistance
$60 billion
Projects that provide economic, mobility, or safety benefits.
Build safety infrastructure to protect all users on highways (like traffic calming) and across highways (like pedestrian bridges that reconnect communities). But those uses are likely to face headwinds in delivering true safety benefits without accountability.
RAISE competitive grants. (This is the former TIGER and then BUILD program, so is not a new program, but is now funded at a much higher level)
$30 billion, up from only $4 billion spent from 2009-2020.
Local or regional projects that improve safety, environmental sustainability, quality of life, economic competitiveness, state of good repair, and connectivity
Build projects that accomplish numerous goals including safety. Many of the best TIGER projects over the years made major safety improvements while ticking off other goals.
How else could the administration improve the safety program?
In addition to creating robust guidance for administering all of the programs listed above, the Biden administration should modernize the traffic engineer’s go-to guidance (the MUTCD) to reorient it completely around safety and people, and away from its outdated focus on vehicle speed and flow. Unfortunately, the indication from USDOT is that they are punting more substantial edits to a future revision. USDOT closed comments in May 2021 and have suggested that only modest revisions will be forthcoming, but what they choose to change will still matter.11
In addition, the FHWA Administrator’s vulnerable road user research should make sure the agency’s very good recommended safety countermeasures have teeth and recommend substantial design changes, not just behavioral suggestions.
How can the new money advance our goals?
Equity
The safety of all road users is closely tied advancing racial equity and addressing climate change, among many other goals. Our research in Dangerous by Design indicates that low-income and people of color make up a disproportionate amount of the people struck and killed while walking. So providing safe ways for all people to use our streets is critical for advancing our communities’ goals of being more inclusive and connected.
Climate
There is incredible interest and demand in switching more trips from cars to bikes or other modes (an important strategy for cutting down on carbon emissions) but if Americans do not feel safe enough to bike or walk regularly, the ones who have the option to do so will continue to drive.
If you currently don’t bike, what are the main barriers holding you back from doing so? Your answer could be lack of safe infrastructure, perception of safety, ability level, and so on.
Translating federal funding into projects that advance safety is more complicated. As outlined above, formula grants are mostly controlled by state and regional governments who have other top priorities other than safety, no matter how much they profess that safety is #1. Approaching them with projects that have wide and deep support within a community usually gives you the best chance for success. For the highly flexible competitive grants, the America Walks’ explainer contained some concrete advice:
Ken McLeod of the League of American Bicyclists gave a great breakdown of the biggest opportunities in competitive grants for active transportation. First, he said, start by looking at your existing transportation plans. “If you have a plan that is a 20 year plan, and if you are in phase 3, this is like a perfect grant program to get your phase 4 or phase 5 funded in a quicker timeline than you might working through other federally funded programs,” explained Ken.
National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO)’s Sindhu Bharadwaj underscored the importance of coalition building for competitive grants. Advocates in small towns or very car-centered regions might be able to acquire some additional funding. The key to their success, though, is focusing and working together. As Sindhu said, funding opportunities can be a chance to bring together a number of organizations and advocates to pick one big goal, like adopting a new design plan. She suggested that the pursuit of funding can be a galvanizing point for a governing body or advocacy group.
So what?
The most important thing to remember is that every single one of the federal transportation programs can be used to improve safety. Safety is always an eligible use. So as you engage with local, metro, and state decisionmakers, you can remind them: If safety is the top priority then every dollar from every program that they have at their disposal can and should go to improve safety for all users. And then hold them accountable: Congress has given them the complete freedom to prioritize safety, so if safety is getting worse, there is no one else to blame.
Considering the crisis of roadway deaths and the limited funding available for safety, it’s critical that we ensure that 1) the safety funding is spent in the best way possible, and 2) that states and metro areas feel the pressure to tangibly improve safety with their bigger, flexible pots of road funding. Creating a vision for what you want to do is a great first step. More from America Walks:
‘I think the most important thing is to have a strong vision locally, and worry about resources next,’ [Beth Osborne of Transportation for America] stated. ‘With good commitment and vision, you can find resources. And…there are tons of places to go for money! You do not have to stay in one tiny pod, you also do not need to make every active transportation effort its own project.’ With that vision, ask your state and local transportation officials how they are planning to seek federal dollars. They ultimately write the grants or propose budgets to elected officials. You need to know if they are working to fund a walkable equitable vision for the community, or are they trying to fund projects envisioned in a prior era. With prompting from community leaders you can help break the inertia of the past.
For planners, engineers, local officials, and other decision-makers, you will be competing with other states, MPOs, and localities for these competitive grants. Understanding the programs in and out will be critical for mustering the financial and vocal support needed to put forth a strong application. That’s how you learn, for instance, that National Infrastructure Project Assistance grants can be used for safety projects.
One last important note we addressed in our competitive grants blog post: Strong local matching funds (ranging from 20 to 50 percent of project cost) are critical to winning these grants, and the process to raise these funds starts by engaging in state and local budget processes far in advance (6-9 months before the start of the fiscal year.) So advocates, this means you should engage agencies early and often on resource prioritization to realize transit projects.
(Note: For the more policy-minded, read our pre-existing funding memos on the programs that the IIJA can fund. Many of them have the possibility to improve safety if used well, but the active transportation memo contains the programs that can be most easily flexed to fund safety projects.)
If you have additional ideas for how to utilize these expanded programs, or have questions about the content listed here, please contact us. Our policy staff is eager to hear from you.
Two freight railroads have been waging a bad-faith effort to kill the incredibly popular, fully funded, multi-state effort to restore long-awaited passenger rail service along the Gulf Coast, in part because the precedent could stall the infrastructure law’s historic investment in the country’s passenger rail network which would give millions more Americans access to regular rail service.
We’ll start this story with a video. Take a minute and watch this short video of a day of freight trains passing through “busy” Mobile, AL:
Freight companies Norfolk Southern (NS) and CSX are hoping that no one looks too closely or counts how many freight trains are actually passing through Mobile each day. Why? Because they are trying to convince the federal Surface Transportation Board that Amtrak adding just two passenger trains per day between New Orleans and Mobile would “unreasonably impair” their (uh, “bustling”?) freight operations here. They’re trying to make the case that adding just two passenger trains per day will require an astonishing $440 million in upgrades to their existing rail infrastructure. (That’s after previously telling local officials privately in MS and AL that they only needed $140-160 million.)
So Amtrak pulled out of negotiations and petitioned the Surface Transportation Board to arbitrate the conflict.
At least on the surface, this fight would appear to be about the long-running effort to bring back new and improved passenger rail service along the Gulf Coast which was wiped out by Hurricane Katrina nearly 17 years ago. $66 million has already been committed by the states and the federal government to upgrade the corridor’s infrastructure and get these trains rolling. Stations are being renovated. Almost every hurdle has been cleared to give residents a valuable new connection and boost tourism and economic development along the entire corridor from Mobile to New Orleans.
But the freight railroads are standing in the way of those residents, trying to either delay the project to death, or take advantage of the federal government and taxpayers with far more public money than they should receive for the necessary upgrades.
What’s the fight all about here?
CSX and Norfolk Southern are fighting two meager trains per day here because they know that the precedent set by stopping this new service will make future passenger expansions elsewhere—the kind promised by the infrastructure law—more difficult.
Although freight railroads are required by federal law to share their tracks with passenger railroads—this was the deal struck to consolidate the old passenger companies, create Amtrak, and turn the trackage over to freight companies—freight railroads have to work together with Amtrak to invest in rail infrastructure and balance their operations. But CSX and NS have been negotiating in incredibly bad faith all along the way, producing wildly fluctuating numbers (from $140 million up to $2.3 billion depending on which day you ask them) about the level of investment required to add just two short passenger trains per day. Federal law says that freight railroads can only seek the infrastructure improvements required to facilitate passenger service. (Otherwise, they’d be fleecing American taxpayers, taking public money for their own private gain.)
T4America chair John Robert Smith, a former Amtrak board chair and Mayor of Meridian, MS, testified before the STB this week about the level of misbehavior from the freight companies. It’s worth excerpting heavily:
I take no pleasure in telling you that throughout the effort to restore passenger rail, CSX railroad has been neither transparent nor completely honest in dealing with the SRC, Amtrak and the Federal Railroad Administration as you heard from the FRA earlier today. CSX withheld even the most basic information about their operations from all involved, even from the FRA. …CSX grossly inflated infrastructure costs providing no supporting documentation or transparency in the development of these costs. As lack of facts and misrepresentation failed them, CSX has resorted to intimidation and fear to ports and shippers alike, as we have seen demonstrated today. I believe this has all been an effort by CSX to kill any additional passenger rail service along the Gulf by torturous delay.
Death by delay must not become the order of the day, for to do so would extinguish any aspiration for expanded passenger rail connecting our country and its people.
What’s at stake with this decision?
The Surface Transportation Board is an independent federal agency that regulates some surface transportation modes including freight rail. When private interests bump up against the public in decisions like this, the STB hears and decides the disputes, like a private arbitrator.
If the freight railroads lose this decision, which is looking increasingly likely, one reason will be the diverse coalition of public, private, and political support lining up behind the popular Gulf Coast project and making persuasive arguments to the STB.
Senator Roger Wicker (R-MS) has been this project’s biggest champion from day one. He teamed up with Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) to include rail policy and funding in a long-term federal transportation law for the first time in 2015’s FAST Act. He has since appropriated money to support the Southern Rail Commission which has done the legwork to get all three states on board with matching state funds to operate the new rail line. Other political leaders from all three states have been instrumental. The local business community is ecstatic. Residents lined up by the thousands to see the inspection train roll through in 2016. Rep. Peter DeFazio, who chairs the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee in the House, also provided testimony during this week’s public hearing.
But perhaps most notably, the USDOT and Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) itself have gotten heavily involved. Their own filing urged the STB to rule against the railroads because CSX and NS are asking the STB “for an unduly restrictive interpretation…that lowers the bar for demonstrating ‘unreasonable impairment’ [of freight service] below what Congress required.” FRA Administrator Amit Bose testified this week about the importance of the STB continuing to require freight railroads to follow federal law and provide Amtrak the use of their track for passenger service.
“The outcome of this proceeding will be pivotal to the future development of inner-city passenger rail in this country. The Gulf Coast has been without passenger rail service for nearly two decades and in this case, service delayed is service denied,” said Administrator Bose.
Other than CSX and NS, the Port of Mobile has been opposed to this project, supposedly on the grounds that it would impact their operations—concerns which have been repeatedly proven false as the train won’t even enter port property. Alabama Senator Richard Shelby may think he’s only carrying the water for the unhappy Port of Mobile, but his letter to the FRA on the port’s behalf asking them to rule in favor of the freight railroads lays out what the freight railroads are truly concerned about and what’s at stake with this decision. (bold ours)
“In sum, a decision by the Board to mandate Amtrak service in this case will have significant consequences for the national rail network and supply chain, as well as set a precedent for expansion of Amtrak service. We urge you to uphold the Board’s long-standing commitment to an efficient and reliable rail network.”
A collection of monied status quo interests do not want residents of the Gulf Coast to say “Y’all Aboard!” They definitely do not want to see a precedent that would clear the way for the bipartisan plan to pump $102 billion into passenger rail service across the country. They absolutely do not want to see more groups like the Southern Rail Commission on the Gulf Coast created and encouraged to cast a vision, tap into latent demand from residents for new transportation options, and build public/private and political support for new service on other corridors across the country, which was one of the IIJA’s best provisions on passenger rail. From our explainer about the rail provisions in the infrastructure law:
It creates a new program that incentivizes up to ten interstate rail compacts—like the Southern Rail Commission at the center of Gulf Coast expansion—that are vital for developing and realizing a regional and national rail network. Interstate rail compacts are made up of contiguous states that want to establish a vision for and seek investments for intercity passenger rail in their region. …The bill allows for these ten commissions to apply for up to $1 million annually to operate their respective commissions.
What’s next?
The Surface Transportation Board is likely to reach a final decision in March or April. Stay tuned.
Their decision will have far reaching consequences.
As Mayor John Robert Smith closed his testimony to the STB earlier this week, “send a strong message that it is time that passenger rail became an important part of America’s future. That it is time to reconnect our cities of the Gulf with passenger rail and the economic opportunities that it brings.”
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