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Charging up EVs: Bridging the apartment gap

A woman leans against her EV while it charges outside of an apartment building

With the electric vehicle transition, access to transportation options like transit, walking and biking needs to come first. But—for smart growth and equity—equitable access to charging for apartment dwelling car-owners is an essential part of the picture.

A woman leans against her EV while it charges outside of an apartment building

In our EV blog series, we’ve shared strategies in the zero-emission fleet transition which work in concert with smart growth. These strategies can both advance the EV transition and reduce the need to drive so much. They include electric carshare services, charger-oriented development, the NEVI program, equitable access to chargers, integrating smart parking policy with EV-charging, and electric micromobility. To learn more about reducing transportation emissions, check out our report Driving Down Emissions and go here to learn more about CHARGE, the coalition we co-lead on EV issues.

Much of the group-think around the transition to electric vehicles comes from the picture in many people’s heads of the suburban built form, where every house is a detached single family home with its own garage where the electric vehicle (EV) sits charging.

Guess what? Not everyone lives in a single family home. If we’re going to integrate the EV transition with smart growth, and make it more equitable, we have to make sure people living in apartments have access to great mobility options. Apartments are good for smart growth, and low income and Black and Brown communities disproportionately rely on them for housing. So, if we want to advance smart growth and equity, there shouldn’t be a mobility penalty for living in apartments. Let’s talk about how to approach this issue.

Don’t: Require parking

For some EV enthusiasts, it’s tempting to focus on EVs first and start with the idea that apartment buildings should be required to have plenty of parking with access to an EV charger in every spot. Not so fast! Parking requirements significantly increase the cost of housing, make it difficult to create walkable environments, and incentivize car ownership and driving which increases emissions.

There is not enough space here to lay out all the problems with off-street parking requirements. Go here, here and here to learn how these outdated and misguided regulations increase housing costs, hamper efforts to create more walkable neighborhoods, generate traffic and more. Suffice to say that the best practice is to eliminate off-street parking requirements, allow the market to determine the number of parking spaces, and focus public standards and investment on biking and walking infrastructure and transit service.

Eliminating off-street parking requirements won’t change the world overnight. In most communities and particularly car-centric ones, developers will build apartments with parking even if they aren’t required to, and many residents will still own cars. Recognizing that it takes some time for communities to become less car-reliant, we need to address charging, the biggest impediment to the EV transition. 

However, we don’t need to perpetuate the misguided parking policies of the past and the sprawl they generate. There are better approaches than parking requirements for ensuring people have the mobility choices they need including access to a car. For example, incentivizing or encouraging the integration of EV carshare service with low-car development is a great way to give a lot of folks access to a car on the occasions they need it.

Do: Require parking to be EV-ready

When a municipality eliminates minimum off-street parking requirements, builders still put parking in many of their projects. These buildings will be around for 50 years or more, and we need to be at zero emissions by 2050. With EV adoption doubling every two years, we’re risking a drastic shortfall of charging options for apartment dwellers much sooner, one that could see apartment dwellers relegated to gas-powered cars.

One of the benefits of EVs (if you can charge at home) is that you never have to go somewhere to fuel up unless you are driving more than your car’s range in a single day. Since American drivers cover an average of 37 miles each day, and less than one percent of trips exceed 100 miles, EVs are much more convenient and much more affordable to fuel than ICE vehicles, if you have at-home charging. 

For EV-owners who can’t charge at home, convenient, affordable, publicly accessible neighborhood charging is really important. We’ll talk in greater detail about getting public charging right in the next blog in this series. However, it’s worth noting that of the $7.5 billion in the infrastructure law dedicated to public charging, 83 percent is dedicated to fast chargers out by the highway, leaving comparably few resources for public charging that serves those who can’t charge at home. This is very inequitable.

It’s pretty clear that all new residential parking spaces constructed from now on should have charging options. The cost of running electricity to parking as a retrofit is orders of magnitude more expensive, so we need to make sure any parking serving residential built today is EV-ready. In short, don’t require parking, but require parking to be EV-ready.

What is EV readiness?

Our partners at EV Charging for All have just released an EV Building Codes Toolkit  on this piece of the puzzle—how building codes should dictate EV readiness for parking in newly-constructed apartments:

  1. If you have parking, you should have access to charging—period. Every housing unit that has parking needs to have access to charging in at least one parking spot.
  2. Low level 2 charging is good enough, and can be provided via a receptacle/outlet. The meters need to be set up so that electric use can be easily billed directly to the resident. This prevents middlemen from charging a surcharge on apartment residents, saves the building manager from the hassle of figuring out how to bill appropriately for electricity use, and allows multi-family residents to benefit from future ‘vehicle-to-home’ resilience measures (where the EV battery can provide backup for the apartment if the grid goes down).
  3. Get the word out. Install prominent signage so residents know the spaces are EV-ready.

While this is the right approach for new buildings, remodeling existing buildings to provide access to charging is going to be challenging and necessary. Currently, multifamily property owners are eligible for the same Inflation Reduction Act 30 percent tax credit for installing charging infrastructure as home-owners. Decision-makers should keep an eye on how this program performs to determine whether the challenges of charging access for apartment dwellers warrant a bigger incentive for existing apartment buildings.

The big picture

Municipalities can aid in the EV transition by ensuring that parking is EV-ready, while also supporting other publicly accessible, equitably priced charging options, which we’ll describe in further detail in our next blog in this series. They don’t need to require that more parking be built in order to support EV users—and in fact, building more parking could take us further from our emissions goals.

Congress and the administration can do a lot to support this approach. The Joint Office on Energy and Transportation (JOET) could develop guidance and sample building codes. The Department of Housing and Urban Development could include EV readiness as a criterion when prioritizing affordable housing investments. Besides fundamentally re-orienting the transportation program from highway expansion to better support transit, walking, and biking infrastructure, Congress could support JOET’s work on guidance and provide support for low-income multifamily housing projects to incorporate clean mobility options like EV carshare and affordable EV charging.

Final grant clears the way to restore Gulf Coast passenger rail service

Last week’s announcement of a $178 million federal grant to make track and infrastructure improvements along the Gulf Coast rail corridor represents the last major funding hurdle to restoring passenger rail service from New Orleans to Mobile, AL.

Residents of Mobile welcomed the Amtrak inspection train during a stop in February 2016. They are close to getting their wish.

It’s been a long journey.

Seven years ago in February, a special Amtrak inspection train rolled along the Gulf Coast corridor to both preview the route and build support for restoring passenger service that was wiped out by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, nearly 11 years earlier. Making brief, 10-minute stops in Gulf Coast towns along the way, it was greeted by thousands of cheering residents clamoring for passenger rail to return. I was there in 2016, and—a little overwhelmed by the level of support—I wrote about seeing “rich people, poor people, black people, white people, young people, old people — all asking their elected leaders for the same thing: We want passenger rail back on the Gulf Coast.”

The last major funding barrier has been breached. Mississippi Senator Roger Wicker last week announced a $178.4 million federal grant to make a litany of infrastructure investments in the corridor, including track, sidings, signals, new platforms, and other improvements. We’re not quite at the end yet, but this grant caps off a decade of work by the Southern Rail Commission, local and state advocates, and Transportation for America.

These improvements will allow new passenger service to start up in the first quarter of 2024, hopefully in time for Mardi Gras. Once launched, there will be two trains daily between New Orleans and Mobile, with stops in: 

Bay St. Louis…

the backs of women in colorful wigs and costumes looking at amtrak train in background

Gulfport…

wide shot showing big crowd of people with parking garage behind and amtrak train at left

Biloxi…

wide shot of big crowd at railroad crossing in biloxi

and Pascagoula.

closeups of people, some with signs reading "Amtrak - welcome back to Pascagoula"

About the grant

The grant is from the Consolidated Rail Infrastructure and Safety Improvements (CRISI) grant program, which was created in the FAST Act (federal transportation authorization) in 2015. To secure federal funding for this specific project in a post-earmark world, T4America helped create a new national program to support it and other necessary infrastructure improvements for passenger service across the country. Washington state, California, Florida, and the District of Columbia also received CRISI grants in this batch.

The CRISI grant is the last major funding domino to fall, but everyone involved has committed resources along the way, which is perhaps the most important lesson from this story: The effort was both top-down and bottom-up. Partnerships across jurisdictions, state lines, and party lines made it possible.  At the very center of that effort is our work with the Southern Rail Commission, a Congressionally established tri-state rail compact with members appointed by the governors of Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi. 

Mississippi and Louisiana were out front early, committing state money to match these federal grants. Norfolk Southern, CSX, the Port of Mobile, and Amtrak also committed money to the CRISI application to complete the required match. Amtrak is training crew and preparing equipment for running the new service. This is actually not the first CRISI grant awarded to the project, and another federal grant received years ago will help cover start-up operations costs (from the Restoration and Enhancement grant program.)

What’s next for Gulf Coast rail? 

Most of this grant will go toward immediate construction on improving the right-of-way and sidings on trackage owned and used by CSX and Norfolk Southern freight railroads, improving on-time performance. Amtrak is paying for the ADA-accessible platform and siding in Mobile out of their own pocket, but if Mobile wants a proper station, they will either have to build it themselves or apply for one of the available grants for doing so. All the infrastructure work will have to be done in partnership with the freight railroads, so leaders in influential places will be leaning on them to get this vital work done as fast as possible.

These new infrastructure improvements are the last barrier standing in the way of people buying a ticket and riding the rails on the Gulf Coast once again. We expect to see trains running in spring 2024.

Win after win

The last eight years have been a tremendous success for new investments in passenger rail across the country. This effort in the Gulf Coast—and its champions like Senator Wicker—have created new opportunities and federal programs (like CRISI) that are having an impact all across the country. 

We’re looking forward to detailing the longer, full story of T4America’s decades-long quest to restore Gulf Coast passenger rail in some future posts so other regions can learn from their example. There are numerous benefits to expanding and improving passenger rail service, which is precisely why T4America (and Smart Growth America) have focused on it over the years. It’s a great way to better connect residents to opportunity, expand their economies, lower emissions and protect the climate, and provide another clean, efficient option for getting around—all things which are at the heart of our collective mission. 

All photos by Steve Davis / Transportation for America

Inverting the IIJA’s double standard

Aerial image of a complicated highway interchange in Phoenix Arizona.

The IIJA and IRA are hailed as landmark pieces of climate legislation. Unfortunately, by prioritizing the status quo of flexibility and formula status for highway projects, the IIJA is set to see the gains of any individual emissions-reducing projects go up in smoke.

Aerial image of a complicated highway interchange in Phoenix Arizona.

When the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) was passed two years ago, it was hailed as the biggest investment in our nation’s infrastructure in decades and included flexible funding that states and metro areas could use toward climate initiatives. When followed by the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) last year, the first two years of the Biden presidency were described as making monumental gains on climate policy.

Unfortunately, as illuminated by an article this summer in the Washington Post, it’s clear that—on the transportation front at least— rhetoric is falling short of reality. The laws, frequently touted by legislators and administration officials as important means to reduce greenhouse gasses and slow climate change, while also providing funding for resiliency efforts, are set to do neither. Projects for private cars are getting the most money with the fewest strings—while transit, traffic safety, ADA accessibility, and other projects that could actually reduce emissions compete to share less money with more strings.

These laws are not a newfound paragon of sustainability and resilience. It’s the same double standard that got us into a climate crisis in the first place.

Some good money after a lot of bad money

The transportation sector accounts for a plurality of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States (28%), and every single attempt to add capacity to a highway—or increase the number of cars it can carry by widening it—increases these emissions. This is because of a concept known as induced demand, which is essentially the “if you build it, they will come” of transportation. As demonstrated by Transportation for America’s jointly-produced SHIFT Calculator, even adding a single lane mile of principal arterial roadway can lead to tens of thousands of additional gallons of gas being burned per year.

Unfortunately, these are exactly the types of projects that the IIJA allows states to spend money on. Out of over $600 billion dollars set aside for surface transportation, two-thirds is reserved for traditional highway programs. This includes over $200 billion combined for the National Highway Performance Program (NHPP) and the Surface Transportation Block Grant Program (STBG). Even if the $14 billion in two climate programs cited by the Washington Post weren’t being raided by states across the country (for projects that should be funded with NHPP and STBG dollars), it would still be dwarfed several times over by funding reserved for capacity expansion projects.

Putting the cart(e Blanche) before the horse

This discrepancy between how projects for cars and projects for all other transportation modes get treated extends beyond how much funding these programs receive to how those funds are distributed. The NHPP and STBG are formula programs which means that the amount line on these checks may already be filled in, but the memo line is effectively empty. States can use these pots of money to build new roads, make resiliency improvements, and build intercity bus terminals, among a long list of potential projects that include undergrounding utilities and controlling invasive plant life. Based on what they’ve done with the money that was specifically supposed to go to reducing emissions and increasing climate resiliency, I’ll let you guess what they continue to choose to spend this money on. (Hint: most of the arterial roads I grew up driving on are lined by above-ground power lines and kudzu-covered trees.)

In contrast, localities and states aren’t given the same carte blanche to reduce emissions. With the exception of emergency COVID relief funding, transit agencies receive effectively no funding for their operations. To build streets safe enough to walk or roll on, renovate transit stations so they’re accessible to people with disabilities, or improve the infrastructure of their transit systems so they can carry more people, many local and regional governments have to go through competitive grant application processes. And even when emission reductions get money through formula programs they often contain the exact loopholes discussed in the Washington Post, allowing their money to be moved to projects that increase emissions.

Flexibility is not a climate solution

This doesn’t mean that making infrastructure funding flexible or having competitive grant programs are inherently bad policy choices. Alaska and Florida are drastically different places with drastically different transportation needs, and it’s good to verify that projects are set up to succeed before spending significant amounts of money on them.

But transportation policy that provides endless flexibility and ensures that most transit, active transportation, and accessibility projects have to compete with other proposed projects to access federal funds is incompatible with climate goals. For decades, state DOTs have been focused on building more and more infrastructure for private cars at the expense of every other possible mode of transportation—if we give them a choose-your-own-adventure program like the NHPP and STBG, the adventure they’re going to choose is more lane miles and more emissions. That’s exactly what Transportation for America feared would take place with the IIJA—despite the significant progress in areas like passenger rail—and what the Washington Post confirmed has happened to just a small portion of the money that’s made its way from USDOT to the states. 

To reduce emissions from the transportation sector, we have to recognize that flexibility alone is not a climate solution. When it comes to climate, the goal of good transportation policy must be to make it easier to complete projects that reduce emissions and more difficult to complete projects that increase emissions. That means inverting how much we fund different modes of transportation, so that transit, active transportation, and passenger rail projects get the majority of funds, instead of highways. That also means inverting how these funds are accessed, so transit, active transportation, and passenger rail projects are funded by formula dollars, and highway projects are forced to apply to competitive grant programs. 

Why NEVI needs an upgrade

The $5 billion National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) program is an important investment in the build-out of the nation’s EV charging infrastructure, but decision makers are moving forward with the same old approach. The program’s strict one-mile rule and a preference for gas stations and truck stops are a missed opportunity for investments that should prioritize flexibility, equity, and local communities.

A black sedan charges near a large building

In our EV blog series, we’ve shared strategies in the zero-emission fleet transition which work in concert with smart growth. These strategies can both advance the EV transition and reduce the need to drive so much. They include electric carshare services, charger-oriented development, the NEVI program, equitable access to chargers, integrating smart parking policy with EV-charging, and electric micromobility. To learn more about reducing transportation emissions, check out our report Driving Down Emissions and go here to learn more about CHARGE, the coalition we co-lead on EV issues.

Congress’s and the Biden administration’s down payment on electric vehicle charging 

In a previous post in this series on transportation electrification and smart growth, we talked about the concept of charger-oriented development and argued that electric vehicle (EV) charging infrastructure should be located in vibrant places that have an abundance of diverse businesses and attractions easily accessible within walking distance. Most EV drivers will be able to charge overnight and rarely need to refuel on a trip. However, when they do need to refuel mid-trip, it takes at least 20 minutes for EV vehicles to recharge, even when using DC Fast Chargers. During that time charging or waiting for a charger, travelers will only have access to their immediate surroundings within a walkable distance. While gas stations have grown efficient at serving cars stopping for 5 minutes or less, their auto-oriented environment will leave electrified travelers, stuck in places with very little to do.

Already, surveyed EV users recognize boredom while charging as an impediment to their experience, potentially slowing their adoption. By locating new EV chargers in existing downtowns, town centers, and main streets, federal policy has the chance to align equity, local economic development, and climate goals. Siting chargers at locations built for cars, like gas stations, not only introduces quality of life concerns but also safety concerns. These sites are often poorly lit and isolated from the public eye, fostering environments that lead many people to feel unsafe.

With $7.5 billion in funding for electric vehicle chargers, the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) and Charging and Fueling Infrastructure (CFI) programs represent the United States’ down payment toward a national publicly accessible EV charging network. NEVI, a new $5 billion formula program, offers $1 billion per year for states to implement their own EV Charger deployment plans. The CFI program, a smaller $2.5 billion discretionary program, was made for smaller government organizations, such as counties and cities. Half of CFI funding will go to community-based chargers, and half will go to chargers less than one mile from designated Alternative Fuel Corridor (AFC), highway routes designated for chargers.

Problematic requirements

Earlier this year, the federal government published final eligibility requirements for the NEVI and CFI programs, including rules on where NEVI chargers can be located. To be eligible for NEVI formula funding, chargers must be spaced at most 50 miles away from each other, be sited less than one mile away from an AFC, and have a minimum of four charging ports. States do not get flexibility with siting their federally funded EV Chargers until they are certified as “built out” by USDOT, meaning their entire statewide network fulfills these requirements.

Strict adherence to the one-mile rule, which prioritizes minimizing travel time to a charging site, neglects that users will spend relatively little time getting to the charger compared to the time they will spend charging. NEVI’s one-mile rule limits a state’s opportunity to place chargers in areas that could be more comfortable for users, provide sustainable local economic development benefits, and advance climate and equity goals. Unfortunately, due to guidance from the Federal Highway Administration, states are being pushed toward an approach that is highway-oriented rather than driver-oriented, let alone people-oriented.

Missed opportunities

While all states have published their NEVI deployment plans, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Colorado, and Maine are the first to provide specific locations for the initial round of federally funded EV Chargers. Hawaii has also released sites but has not finalized exact locations. Based on what these states have shared, federal requirements are already creating barriers to equitable Charger Oriented Development that supports locally-owned businesses. Approximately three out of four EV charging sites proposed in this first round of awards have gone to truck stops and gas stations.

Mahanoy City, Pennsylvania is one of many communities in the US located just outside of the NEVI program’s maximum range from the highway. Once a major coal mining town, Mahanoy City’s main street starts 2 miles west of Pennsylvania’s I-81 Alternative Fuel Corridor and has a disadvantaged census tract. The city, recognized by the state governor for its recent financial recovery, is home to dozens of small businesses and small parks along its main corridor, a newly refurbished train station, and has been recognized for its growing population.

At just a little over 2 miles away from the highway exit, this vibrant area is reasonably close to the corridor but was ineligible for federally funded chargers under the NEVI program. Instead, PennDOT has so far prioritized awarding gas stations, convenience stores, truck stops, and travel centers, with little access to services other than those provided by the gas stations and convenience stores. Instead of locating the site in an area where EV users could exit their vehicles and contribute to local economies, the site that will serve this 50-mile stretch of I-81 near Mahanoy City will be located in a gas station with an attached fast food chain, at a location that the EPA’s Walkability Index defines as “least walkable,” among the lowest of all of Pennsylvania’s selected NEVI sites. On average, Pennsylvania DOT’s NEVI sites are extremely unfriendly to pedestrians with an average Walkscore of just 35 of 100.

A google maps view of PA-54 in downtown Mahonoy City, PA
Downtown Mahanoy City, PA was passed up as a fast-charging site because, at just 2 miles, it’s too far off the highway. Google Maps
A google map aerial view of roads, trees, parking lots, and large warehouses off I-81 in Pennsylvania
The location of a conditionally awarded NEVI site off of exit 119 off I-81 in Pennsylvania, yet to be photographed, in an area where travelers can access few services while their vehicle is charging. Google maps

Distance from an interstate highway exit is not the only obstacle to the development of federally supported charger-oriented developments. In Ohio DOT’s NEVI plans, charger sites were identified by their proximity to amenities – but those amenities were defined as truck stops, gas stations, and big box stores. Sites near a greater number of local businesses that provide more options for travelers, such as the walkable downtown of Logan, Ohio, will be skipped over in favor of truck stops out by the highway. 

Aerial photo of a five lane road and historic buildings in Logan, Ogio
Aerial photo of Main Street in Logan, Ohio, a vibrant, walkable area with small locally owned businesses. Ohio DOT’s NEVI deployment plans would consider this area as undesirable compared to a separate highway exit with a gas station and big box store. Image: Logan Town Center
Google map satellite image of a large parking lot with a wallmart, fast food, and other businesses
Satellite image of a NEVI Round 2 Candidate site off US-33, with several ‘favorable amenities,’ as identified by ODOT, few of which are locally owned. Image: Google Maps

The two examples above reflect a pattern. Based on Ohio DOT’s selected sites so far, the state is not capitalizing on the unique benefits that electric vehicle chargers could confer to both drivers and local communities. On average, Ohio DOT’s Round 1 sites have a Walkscore of just 27, signaling how isolated users will be. Choices to locate these chargers in areas so dependent on cars neglect the fact that everyone is a pedestrian once they exit their vehicle. With its intense focus on alleviating range anxiety, the NEVI program is recreating a transportation system that leaves the economic benefits that these federal investments could bring to disadvantaged and rural communities off the table.

You can explore our map of states’ initial NEVI sites, along with the Walkscore, Bikescore, and Transitscore of each location below. Pennsylvania DOT, Ohio DOT,  and Colorado DOT have announced a total of $64 million in funding for these sites. $47.5 million has been awarded to sites with a gas station or truck stop at the same address, reflecting a continued preference for the status quo. 

Announced NEVI Sites

We color-coded each announced NEVI site according to each site’s Walkscore. Red means a Walkscore of 0-50, Yellow means 50-69, and scores of 70 and above are Green.

The Biden administration often states that the goal of the NEVI and CFI programs is to electrify the great American road trip, but the current implementation seems to forget that road trips are also about the journey, not just the destination. Providing greater flexibility in the NEVI program to promote Charger Oriented Development would be a powerful way for the administration to meet its equity goals, promote a superior travel experience, and support local economic development while building out a national charging network. 

Recommendations

An image showing do not walk signs with a gas station complex in the background
The state of the sidewalk near a conditionally awarded NEVI site in Washington, Pennsylvania. Google Maps

Congress can better account for the difference between charging an EV and fueling an internal combustion engine vehicle by directing the Federal Highway Administration and US Department of Transportation to loosen the one-mile requirement in the NEVI and CFI programs. This is an important opportunity for members of Congress with rural communities in their districts to make sure the EV revolution benefits their constituents. Meanwhile, the Joint Office on Energy and Transportation (JOET) should develop rules and guidance that encourage state DOTs to practice Charger Oriented Development by siting charging stations in places where travelers can access more opportunities while the car is charging.

Leave the gas station behind: How charger-oriented development can lead to a greener future

Two men stand, chatting, beside a car while it's getting plugged in to charge.

Charging an EV is fundamentally different from fueling a gas-powered car. It’s time to co-locate charging infrastructure with existing communities in an approach we call charger-oriented development.

One man charging his white EV while speaking to another man wearing glasses

In our EV blog series, we’ve shared strategies in the zero-emission fleet transition which work in concert with smart growth. These strategies can both advance the EV transition and reduce the need to drive so much. They include electric carshare services, charger-oriented development, the NEVI program, equitable access to chargers, integrating smart parking policy with EV-charging, and electric micromobility. To learn more about reducing transportation emissions, check out our report Driving Down Emissions and go here to learn more about CHARGE, the coalition we co-lead on EV issues.

With the implementation of the Inflation Reduction Act and 2021 infrastructure law in full swing, transportation electrification is taking off faster than ever. Congress is pouring billions of federal dollars into states’ National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) programs to electrify American cars, but those dollars are falling into a familiar pattern.

While electric vehicle charging infrastructure has distinct advantages over traditional gas stations, certain restrictions in NEVI standards and plans fail to imagine ways to invest in communities beyond the suburban gas station and sprawl-inducing big box store. The advantages (and even supposed disadvantages) of EV charging offer up opportunities to create vibrant, thriving places, but to unlock these benefits, policymakers need to rethink the pitstop.

Charging an electric vehicle differs significantly from the traditional fueling experience. In an internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicle, drivers start the day with the same amount of gas that they had the day before. EVs may take more time to charge, but people with home charging options can start with a full battery and charge at destinations. However, on the rare occasions you do need to stop and charge, it’s going to take 20 minutes or more—not the three-to-five minutes it takes to tank up an ICE vehicle. This has big implications for where we put charging stations and what should be around them.

Charger-oriented development (COD) is the strategy of locating charging infrastructure in vibrant places that have an abundance of diverse opportunities easily accessible within walking distance. This could be on a rural town’s Main Street, town square, or a vibrant, walkable, mixed-use urban neighborhood. In these places, the driver can do something worthwhile with their valuable time, and local businesses benefit from new patrons bolstering the local economy.

Flipping the script

Many people are familiar with the concept of transit-oriented development (TOD): build up and densify around stops and corridors as much as possible and reap the benefits of walkability around transit. To implement that same smart growth approach with EV charging, you need to flip the script. Chargers should be oriented in walkable areas, in ways that contribute to local economies.

As we’ve said, most EV owners will charge at home overnight, or at other destinations, so they will only need access to a DC fast charger (DCFC, also called a level 3 charger) on longer trips. Once they plug in, what do they do? Do they sit in their car at the truck stop out by the highway, or are there multiple businesses they can patronize like cafes, restaurants, and stores? Perhaps there is a nearby park where the kids can let off steam. Ideally, the charger is in a place they were going anyway—the museum or the arena, for example.

Charging up local economies

Charger location also has implications for the local economy, particularly in rural communities. Businesses on Main Street are much more likely to be locally owned than the truckstop or the big box store. Public investment that directs travelers’ dollars into local pockets builds local wealth and resilience.

You can see examples of this from Meeker, Colorado and Canton, New York in our Sparking Progress report, where local businesses have benefited directly from travelers stopping to charge up. Strong local businesses on a Main Street tend to support each other by creating a vibrant place that becomes attractive for more people to visit.

Invest in existing infrastructure

Everyone involved in discussions around charger infrastructure quickly learns the importance of utilities. You can’t build chargers without electric power, and level 3 chargers draw a lot of it. Fast charging, especially, takes a lot of juice. In fact, a federally compliant fast charging station with four ports can draw as much electricity as a small town. Bringing that kind of power to an area is expensive, which is why we need to think of ways to use the capacity we already have in the grid more effectively. This is a corollary to the principle we already follow with smart growth: invest in existing communities.

There are a number of strategies we can use to take advantage of existing utilities. For example, Los Angeles installs level 2 chargers where there are already streetlights. The private company ITSElectric has developed a strategy for delivering level 2 charging at the curb using excess capacity in buildings fronting the street. Power hungry level 3 chargers are more likely to require significant utility upgrades, but those upgrades could be easier to deliver in existing communities than in a remote location by the highway. In addition, electric utility upgrades today would be a valuable investment in rural communities’ electrified future.

Utilities aren’t the only essential infrastructure near EV chargers. Just as everyone is a pedestrian when they park their car, the same goes for someone charging their car. Pedestrian infrastructure is essential, and a Main Street or neighborhood is more likely to have sidewalks than the truck stop or big box store. In some cases, it might even be feasible to integrate bikeshare with a charger location, giving the traveler who has stopped to charge up a much wider range of opportunities while they wait.

Reorienting federal investment

Unfortunately, the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) program, Congress’s first stab at building a charging network, is not grounded in charger-oriented development principles. NEVI charging locations, as well as the corridor grants for the Community Fueling Infrastructure (CFI) program, are required to be within one mile of the highway they serve. This pulls opportunity away from countless rural towns a little over a mile or two off the highway. State DOTs are implementing NEVI plans for the first time and there is no guidance or incentive for them to do anything other than place chargers out at the truck stop. The next blog post in this series showcases opportunities for charger-oriented development we are already missing in Pennsylvania and Ohio.

The emphasis on the NEVI program itself, with the vast majority of federal charging infrastructure funding going to level 3 chargers placed to serve long-distance travel, comes from a gas-station mindset. American drivers typically drive only 37 miles per day on average, and less than one percent of trips are more than 100 miles. Those distances are easily covered by overnight charging. In many cases those longer trips could also be better served by passenger and high-speed rail as they are in other developed nations.

The bottom line

As we build out America’s charging infrastructure ecosystem, there’s no need to emulate the gas station. Chargers are going to be a major infrastructure investment, but in the end, it really is just an electric cord with a plug and a parking spot. Charging can be delivered in a more diffuse fashion and fit in more dense vibrant neighborhoods. If approached the right way, our charging infrastructure won’t keep people tethered to power outlets on the side of the road, but free them up to accomplish more as they leave their cars to charge.

Join us for Smart Growth Social!

A group of people in business professional attire gathers in a room talking and smiling over drinks

The Coalition for Smarter Growth’s Smart Growth Social is coming up on October 24, 2023! This year, we’re partnering with them to bring you a night of networking, community, and celebration of smart growth.

A group of people in business professional attire gathers in a room talking and smiling over drinks

The Coalition for Smarter Growth’s Smart Growth Social is back and better than ever! And, we have exciting news… Our special guest speaker this year will be David Zipper, leading thinker and commentator on transportation, technology, and cities. David is a Visiting Fellow at Harvard’s Kennedy School and a contributing writer at Bloomberg CityLab, who’s also been published in Vox, Slate, The Atlantic, and The Washington Post.

David will be talking about how we can save transit, offering thought-provoking ideas as we all work together for Metro funding and the walkable, transit-oriented communities that are key to a sustainable future.

Smart Growth Social

October 24, 2023, 6:30-9pm

Eastern Market, North Hall

Tickets $30 (includes wine, beer, food, fun!)

Register now

Smart Growth Social has always brought together our region’s most passionate urbanists, community activists, and professionals from across public service, urban planning, and transportation sectors in the DC region. We’ve been lucky to hear from amazing leaders and advocates like Jeff Speck, Katie Cristol, Beth Osborne, Jeff Tumlin, Gabe Klein, and Dan Reed.

We’ll have beer, wine, food, and lots of time for networking. There’s so much to enjoy at Smart Growth Social! So, don’t miss this opportunity to connect with friends and be inspired to action by one of the most influential people in transportation policy.

Tickets are bound to sell out quickly, so buy your tickets today!

See you on October 24th!

Two logos side-by-side: Coalition for Smarter Growth's Smart Growth Social with Transportation for America

Beyond the pump: Evaluating fresh approaches to transportation funding

An empty gas station with rows of abandoned power blue pumps glowing with neon lights in the middle of the night

Current state gasoline taxes aren’t enough to cover our transportation funding needs. Evaluating alternatives needs to involve taking five key principles into account. Read our policy evaluation framework, created by T4A Policy Associate Stephen Coleman Kenny with support from T4A Policy Director Benito Pérez, NRDC Senior Transportation Advocate Zak Accuardi, and T4A Policy Intern Julia Camacho.

An empty gas station with rows of abandoned power blue pumps glowing with neon lights in the middle of the night

Our transportation systems are largely funded by motor fuel taxes that finance the federal Highway Trust Fund. Since the 1980s, these funds have been allocated using a roughly 80/20 split between highway and transit spending under the assumption that drivers were paying a larger share and deserved to receive more investments in return. However, after a crisis in 2008 when the national fund ran out of money—requiring billions of dollars in bailouts ever since—this system has proven to be outdated and unstable.

Why the gas tax status quo needs to change

In 2008, the National Surface Transportation Infrastructure Financing Commission wrote that the United States has an “ever-expanding backlog of investment needs” that then-current transportation funding policies would only cover one third of. As of 2016, public transit systems have faced a backlog of over $105 billion for maintenance and replacement costs.

Today, this problem is only worsening. America’s reliance on gasoline taxes in order to fund roads and transit systems is proving to be unsustainable. As vehicles become increasingly efficient and electric vehicles (EVs) become more commonplace, overall levels of fuel consumption are decreasing—thus lowering gas tax revenues and further widening the infrastructure funding gap. Without a change in our revenue-raising systems, our roads and transit infrastructure will crumble. It’s critical we act now. 

As policymakers explore potential alternatives to the gas tax, a variety of options have emerged, including the following: 

  • Road pricing, or taxing by vehicle miles traveled (VMT)
  • Adding new tolls
  • Congestion pricing
  • Flat vehicle registration fees
  • Indexing the gas tax to inflation
  • Taxes on external costs of driving like emissions and accidents
  • General revenue subsidies
  • Duties on fuel sales

Many of these proposals are not new—for instance, T4A wrote about raising the gas tax or indexing it to construction fees back in 2014. But save for some VMT-based road pricing pilot programs in Oregon, Virginia, and most recently Utah, little progress has been made.

Choosing the right option

There are a variety of possibilities, but no one option fits every regional context. Rather, the process of evaluation has to be sensitive to the goals and priorities of state and federal transportation programs. With that in mind, there are five main needs that new proposals will need to address, which we compiled into a policy evaluation framework:

  • Outcomes: How the funding scheme changes road user behavior by incentivizing one of the following outcomes: electrification (EV adoption), mode shift away from personal vehicles, or maintaining the status quo.
  • Fairness: Ensuring that the funding scheme is fair to all users by having road users (including drivers of internal combustion engine (ICE) cars and EVs alike) pay user fees in accordance with the wear and tear they impose on the road system.
  • Stability: Estimating the revenue projections of the proposed system and whether or not it raises enough money to maintain the transportation system in both the short and long term.
  • Equity: Examining how the structure of the funding scheme impacts different socioeconomic groups, and how the benefits and burdens are distributed. 
  • Feasibility: Considering the administrative costs, jurisdictional issues, technology for implementation, political popularity, and public support for the proposal. 

There are tradeoffs between these goals, but looking at the possible alternatives to the gas tax through these five lenses provides a starting point for choosing a new policy. Find examples of our policy evaluation framework in action here.

Taking a closer look at a VMT tax and its implementation in Oregon

Among the options mentioned above, road pricing, or a tax on VMT, has emerged as a popular frontrunner among policymakers and thought leaders. A VMT tax would impact ICE cars and EVs equally, would include usage of all roads—not just interstates or toll roads—and would result in a precise user charge, especially if adjusted for vehicle weight, that drivers pay based on their wear and tear on the road system.  However, the shortcomings of a VMT tax lie in the other four aspects—equity, outcomes, feasibility, and revenue stability. 

A VMT tax would be regressive, penalizing people who need to drive the furthest—in other words, rural households and those who live farther from city centers—and already have to pay high transportation costs as a result. Additionally, a VMT tax only incentivizes mode shift for that same group of people, who are the most likely to not be able to shift away from driving due to a lack of transportation alternatives.

Furthermore, a simple VMT tax doesn’t incentivize EV adoption over ICE cars or even just more efficient vehicles over heavier ones that use more fuel, since all vehicles are treated the same. With regards to feasibility, VMT taxes have faced technology challenges, high administrative costs, and public opposition. And in terms of revenue stability, a VMT tax is sufficient only if we maintain high levels of driving in the long term.

Oregon, a state that has historically been especially reliant on the gas tax for transportation funding, has tested out a VMT tax. In 2001, Oregon created a Road User Fee Task Force (RUFTF) in order to evaluate possible alternatives as hybrid vehicles and EVs began to rise in popularity. RUFTF decided to try implementing a road usage charge and launched a VMT pilot program in 2012 that succeeded in four areas: policy and public acceptance, technology, operations, and cost. This led to the creation of the voluntary OReGO program in 2015 that now enables drivers of EVs and efficient vehicles to pay a per-mile charge in exchange for reduced vehicle registration fees or gas tax rebates.

It’s notable that one of the aspects that wasn’t considered was outcomes—how the funding scheme changes (or doesn’t change) the behavior of road users, incentivizing electrification or mode shift or neither. Oregon’s eventual vision is to have a dual tax system—VMT for EVs and efficient vehicles, and a gas tax for all other vehicles.

When asked whether a VMT tax for fuel-efficient vehicles punishes drivers trying to do the right thing environmentally, Jim Whitty, who led the implementation of these programs at Oregon’s DOT, said that “making the great choice to buy a less polluting vehicle doesn’t make it a great choice to let the road system crumble.” And when asked why people who will pay more under a VMT system would volunteer to participate in the program, Whitty didn’t have a clear answer.

Notably, as of 2020, only 701 drivers were actively participating—well under the 5,000 that the program had initially envisioned. Oregon is now considering making OReGO into a mandatory policy, but other states should still try out other options before rushing to commit to a VMT tax.

Reevaluating America’s transportation funding systems

It’s of course critical that we act now to resolve this growing funding gap in order to address pressing maintenance needs and invest in the future of America’s transportation systems. When choosing an alternative policy (or combination of policies) to replace the current gas tax, it will be important to consider these five aspects—outcomes, fairness, stability, equity, and feasibility.

However, federal and state leadership will be as critical as funding. Both levels of government have a crucial role in transportation funding. Much innovation is fostered in localities, but without an overarching vision and approach, this can result in a patchwork of approaches that can spur inequitable outcomes.

It’s also important that we consider the ultimate impacts of this transportation funding system: namely, how the money is actually used. In a foundational 2006 report on possible alternatives to the fuel tax, for example, the Transportation Research Board acknowledged that their analysis prioritized problems related to highway financing over public transit. 

We can’t afford to pour money into expanding highways and worsening America’s transportation woes. Even if we achieve an optimal policy that maximizes revenue raised for transportation funding, we need to ensure that the money raised by any of these proposals is actually used for projects that prioritize maintenance and repair and make advancements towards reliable, affordable, and frequent transit systems that connect people to the places they need to go.

Learn more about how to evaluate alternatives. Read our policy evaluation framework here.

Share the spark with EV carshares

A black SUV is plugged into a charger at a numbered parking spot inside a parking garage.

Electric vehicle (EV) carshare is an effective strategy in speeding the transition to zero emissions transportation, providing more affordable transportation options and syncing up with other smart growth solutions. This strategy is worthy of public investment.

In our EV blog series, we’ve shared strategies in the zero-emission fleet transition which work in concert with smart growth. These strategies can both advance the EV transition and reduce the need to drive so much. They include electric carshare services, charger-oriented development, the NEVI program, equitable access to chargers, integrating smart parking policy with EV-charging, and electric micromobility. To learn more about reducing transportation emissions, check out our report Driving Down Emissions and go here to learn more about CHARGE, the coalition we co-lead on EV issues.

Carshare is a model of car rental where people rent cars for short periods of time, such as by the hour or minute. Sometimes the car has a home base that the user brings it back to, and some carshare systems are “free-floating” so that the user can drive a car on a one-way trip, usually within a limited area such as a city, and leave it at the destination for the next user. Electric carshare simply means providing this kind of service with electric cars instead of gas-powered cars.

Our partners at Forth, which is a member of the Coalition Helping America Rebuild and Go Electric (CHARGE), recently released Community Impacts: Accessible Electric Vehicle Carshare Programs which outlines the benefits of electric carshare and the key strategies to develop an effective program.

Why is EV carshare such a powerful strategy, and how does it help on both fronts of the battle to reduce emissions?

Supporting the transition to zero emissions

First, EV carshare moves more travel from gas-powered cars to EVs. Better than one person buying one EV, multiple people get to share the use of one EV car. Since most privately owned vehicles sit idle 95 percent of the time, a carshare vehicle delivers more bang for the buck if it is well-utilized.

In addition, giving more than one household access to each EV means more people getting real-world experience using these kinds of cars. People who are more familiar with EVs are more likely to buy one if and when they make a new car purchase.

One more benefit EV carshare can deliver to the EV transition is charging infrastructure. EV carshare programs are typically designed to provide charging infrastructure for the vehicles serving the program. Depending on how the program is designed, it can also provide charging options for nearby EV owners. For example, Evie Carshare in the Twin Cities (which has seen impressive growth in usage since we last wrote about it) has four-port charging locations where two spots are dedicated to the carshare program, and the other two are available to the public.

A transportation option that supports other travel modes

Besides being an effective strategy to support fleet transition, EV carshare is paradoxically a way to invest in cars to encourage less driving instead of more. For folks who rely primarily on walking, biking, and public transit day-to-day, every once in a while a car is useful for a particular trip. If you have access to a carshare when you need it, there is no need to waste money on purchasing, insuring, and storing a car you use infrequently.

A carshare car can replace anywhere from 5 to 15 cars that the users of the service would otherwise own. Since they pay per trip, carshare users are less likely to choose driving for a trip than car owners, resulting in less traffic. Carshare can save Americans thousands of dollars annually that they might otherwise spend on car ownership costs.

Advancing equity

Transitioning America’s car fleet to electric means encouraging the purchase of new EVs. Most new car owners are wealthier and whiter. It’s hard to get around the issue that programs that subsidize the purchase of a new car for individuals, even if it is an electric car, and focus government subsidy on an already privileged group of people.

EV carshare can flip this script, delivering benefits and electric mobility to people less likely to be able to afford a car, generally lower-income and often communities of color. For example, an EV carshare program in rural California supports farmworkers and raiteros, the drivers who help get them to their jobs and essential services.

Worthy of public investment

While carshare operates in a few well-off and densely populated areas with little-to-no public subsidy, it has become clear that the infrastructure and service just doesn’t pencil as a purely private enterprise in most of the U.S. – just like every other transportation option from driving to flying. This begs the question of whether and how we should invest in carshare as a transportation option. With the IRA and IIJA investing billions in EV charging infrastructure and subsidies for EV purchase, carshare’s multiple benefits make it look like a very attractive national investment. 

The next transportation reauthorization is sure to include another tranche of funding and programs supporting the EV transition. For all the reasons outlined above, Congress should make sure EV carshare is a significant piece of the pie.

For more information on how to implement effective EV carshare programs (including insurance, procurement, pricing, tech barriers, payments & privacy, fleet management, host sites, timelines and utilization) check out Forth’s resources on the topic.

We can advance EVs and smart growth at the same time

A black EV charges on the side of a tree-lined street. In the background, a construction crew in orange vests mingles on a wide sidewalk with bike parking.

Many climate advocates and pro-climate decision-makers are focused on electrification as the primary, or even only, emissions reduction solution in the transportation sector. As smart growth advocates, we know that electrification is essential but insufficient to achieve our greenhouse gas reduction goals. How do we push transportation electrification forward in a way that supports essential smart growth goals?

A black EV charges on the side of a tree-lined street. In the background, a construction crew in orange vests mingles on a wide sidewalk with bike parking.

Electric vehicles aren’t the only way to travel in the above photo, where a vehicle charges next to a wide sidewalk with bike parking. Photo by Andrew Roberts on Unsplash.

Transportation is the largest energy-related source (38 percent) of greenhouse gas emissions. Emissions reduction models consistently show that electrification is essential to eventually get us to zero emissions on transportation. These models also show that EVs don’t get us there fast enough. Cars last on average for 15-20 years, and that means it will take time for the fleet to turn over from internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles to electric.

To draw emissions down quickly enough to meet targets, we need to remake our transportation and land use system to be less car-dominated at the same time that we electrify. Transportation for America stepped up to get involved in this intersection between the two big strategies for transportation emissions reduction—electrification and VMT reduction. Alongside the Clean Vehicles Campaign, we co-lead CHARGE, a broad-based coalition seeking to advance transportation in a way that achieves multiple goals, including advancing smart growth.

 

A graph showing percentage point years of emission reductions from 2020-2050 for fleet electrification and vehicle travel reductions. Working together, these two factors contribute to an emissions reduction of 100%, or 831 percentage point years. Alone, vehicle electrification contributes 364 percentage point years to emission reductions, whereas vehicle travel reductions contribute 467 percentage point years. More analysis in the caption directly following the figure.

Considering embodied emissions and rebound effects, electrification typically reduces emissions by about 70 percent compared with comparable fossil fuel vehicles and takes decades to achieve significant results. Many vehicle travel reductions can be implemented quickly and provide large co-benefits by reducing vehicle traffic and sprawl. As a result, travel reductions generally achieve more percentage point years (PPYs) of emission reductions and more total benefits than electrification. Chart and analysis by Victoria Transport Policy Institute.

Cross-pollination

EVs are essential but insufficient to reach climate goals, and multimodal smart growth strategies reduce emissions while delivering other benefits like equitable access to opportunity, reduced urban footprint, and less need for battery minerals, which can relieve supply chain and global security pressures.

As smart growthers in the EV-charging space, we get the opportunity to take EV enthusiasts by the hand and keep educating and reminding them about the importance of the VMT side of the equation, the co-benefits, and the strategies to accomplish it. Here are a few of our top takeaways.

1. We need to be clear that it’s not either-or. It’s both-and!

Often, rationales for reducing car dependency are misconstrued by the media as a reason to oppose the EV transition, but this is not helpful. EVs are a valuable tool for reducing emissions—they simply can’t be the only tool.

2. Learning more about how each side is approaching their issues is critical.

At first blush, electrification looks simple—just get people into EVs—while VMT reduction seems more complicated, involving land use, parking policy, street design, and transit investment. The real truth is that electrification has its complexities too. Since getting more involved in these issues, we’ve learned a lot about electric utilities, interoperability standards, tax incentives, and more.

3. Smart growth solutions can help us reach our electrification goals.

The interactions between smart growth and transportation electrification get pretty interesting. There are a few areas where we need to protect smart growth goals from misguided electrification proposals. For example, we shouldn’t require transit agencies to transition to zero-emissions in a way that undercuts transit service, and we need to be careful about subsidies for EVs that encourage car ownership or primarily benefit wealthy new car purchasers. However, education across the EV-smart growth divide has helped us to surface many powerful synergistic solutions together.

In our EV blog series, we’ve shared strategies in the zero-emission fleet transition which work in concert with smart growth. These strategies can both advance the EV transition and reduce the need to drive so much. They include electric carshare services, charger-oriented development, the NEVI program, equitable access to chargers, integrating smart parking policy with EV-charging, and electric micromobility. To learn more about reducing transportation emissions, check out our report Driving Down Emissions and go here to learn more about CHARGE, the coalition we co-lead on EV issues.

Amtrak’s path to world-class service

People in business and casual attire gather on a platform to board an AVE train in Madrid.

US passenger rail was the envy of the world at the turn of the 20th century. As global temperatures rise, and with the growing need to enhance intercity mobility options to get to economic and civic opportunities, it’s high time to look to and emulate our international peers in developing passenger rail: iterate, innovate, and don’t fall for the immediacy trap.

People in business and casual attire gather on a platform to board an AVE train in Madrid.

Frequent, reliable, and attractive high speed intercity rail service in Madrid, ES. T4A photo by Benito Pérez.

What do you imagine when you think of passenger rail service in the United States? Slow service, long delays, and flash frozen high-sodium food? Amtrak passengers nationwide will recognize these hallmarks of the company’s poorly-regarded passenger rail service. Repair and operational issues, such as equipment failure, staff shortages, and the conditions of rail infrastructure, contribute to delays. The result is a frustrated traveling public more likely to get in their car than take even the most convenient of train rides, leading to more driving and more emissions. 

But it doesn’t need to be this way. High speed rail operations in Asia (think Japan, China) or in Europe (think the TGV in France, AVE in Spain, and many other passenger rail operators), though imperfect, have made great strides where Amtrak still lags behind. Common across these systems is an enhanced state of repair, dedicated passenger rail lines, quality user experience on the trains, and traveling speeds that rival air travel and dwarf vehicle travel. These features are the result of constant iterative processes.

A passenger walks up to the platform between two AVE trains.

Approaching the rail service platform at Atocha station in Madrid, ES. T4A photo by Benito Pérez.

With strong government support, these systems are constantly improving and reinventing themselves to focus on the customer and move them in a safe and efficient manner. They are constantly exploring service expansions to new communities to enhance mobility choice beyond the car and plane, all while exploring technological advances and infrastructure improvements to continually speed up and improve their service.

This was my experience traveling in Spain several weeks ago, taking the train from Madrid to Málaga, an otherwise 6- to 7-hour car ride covered by AVE just north of 2 hours. When you factor in time waiting at the airport, this was even less time than a flight. Along the way, I had the opportunity to dine on board, getting a freshly made sandwich, while customers were able to explore other fresh food options available.

Why has Spain successfully developed high speed rail, while Amtrak’s quality of service continues to lag behind? Looking back on the Spanish history of their rail system, starting back in the 19th century, they reached their apex in the 1950s, with 19,000 km of rail lines serving passengers. The Spanish Civil War in the late 1930s did a number to the state of repair of the rail system, forcing the government to nationalize the system by 1941. But like the US, auto ownership started to take a toll on the Spanish rail system (RENFE) in the 1950s, leading to 8,000 km of rail line to be dismantled in the coming decades. 

But unlike the U.S., which took the rise in car ownership as granted and let its rail system deteriorate, Spain empowered RENFE to explore heavy investments in higher speed and capacity passenger rail starting in the 1970s. That led to a systemwide increase of rail speed to 160 kmph (100 mph, compared to Amtrak’s typical 79 mph benchmark) by 1986, and the first high speed rail line opening in 1992, followed by many more lines that have come online and are still growing across the country.

A large sandwich made of pieces of fresh ham and a baguette

Fresh Jamón Serrano sandwich aboard an AVE train. T4A photo by Benito Pérez.

Coming back stateside, I thought: why are we not emulating such a proactive iterative approach with our passenger rail system? At the dawn of railroad technology in the 1800s, the US was a world leader in passenger rail service, with frequent service along 31,000 miles of rail. But after World War II, rail companies abandoned huge segments of the rail system as the private sector turned its attention toward vehicles and aviation. Recognizing that passenger rail is a vital mobility option for many communities in the United States, Congress intervened in 1971 with the creation of Amtrak, intent on maintaining passenger rail service as an option in the United States.

Far from reversing the deterioration of national passenger rail service, the creation of Amtrak resulted in further funding cuts, which created a vicious cycle at Amtrak of poor policy and operational decisions focused solely on the bottom line versus customer experiences. As the federal government invested further into high-speed roadways for vehicles, support for passenger rail funds deteriorated, so much so that today, some members of Congress consider the mere existence of Amtrak as government waste. Detractors of passenger rail contend that millions of taxpayer dollars are pouring into passenger rail, yet are not achieving the same results as what we see with our peers abroad. Without needed funds, we see a deterioration of state of repair and safety, user experience, and eventually a loss of ridership that would help bring in needed funding.

Though the 2021 infrastructure law’s historic passenger rail funding and policy reorientation to the customer experience has the potential to interrupt that cycle, many members of Congress are intent on gutting it before those effects can take hold. The most extreme example is the  House of Representatives’ 2024 Transportation Housing and Urban Development Appropriations bill, which recommended nearly 70 percent in funding cuts to Amtrak. 

As threats to essential air service and rural mobility options abound, America can’t afford to also lose passenger rail service, which is a valuable transportation option for the 1 million rural residents that do not have access to a vehicle. And as transportation continues to contribute to U.S. climate emissions, every American needs better options for long-distance travel than hopping into a vehicle or onto a plane.

There needs to be a fundamental reset in our mindset when it comes to passenger rail. There is a culture of immediacy with results; an expectation that existing resources should be working harder, otherwise take more resources away. If we expect American passenger rail to be world class, like it was in the late 19th century, we need to be investing in a world class way, through constant and iterative funding and innovation, not throwing the towel and staying complacent with the status quo. 

A Latino man with glasses and a red coat smiles in front of rows and rows of open seats.

Policy Director Benito Pérez aboard an AVE passenger car.

AVs aren’t solving our transportation problems. They’re automating them.

A car rests just before a crosswalk on a wide roadway

Autonomous vehicles (AVs) have been dangled as a transportation “silver bullet” for decades. Now, they’re finally operating as robo-taxis in San Francisco. However, the Bay Area’s experience with these vehicles so far shows that it’s our reliance on cars—not who’s behind the wheel—that’s our most pressing problem.

A car rests just before a crosswalk on a wide roadway
A robo-taxi travels down a San Francisco street. Wikimedia Commons photo.

On August 10, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) voted to allow two autonomous vehicle (AV) companies to operate robo-taxis in San Francisco 24 hours a day and charge for the rides. This decision came despite significant, wide-ranging opposition, brought up before the hearing and highlighted during. As part of limited, fare-free pilots conducted by these companies, San Franciscans have experienced exactly the chaos that replacing imperfect humans with impartial computers was supposed to solve. 

This decision by the CPUC is a continuation of the mistakes we’ve made with our transportation systems for the past century. AVs are assumed to be the solution to dangerous streets, traffic congestion, and transportation emissions. Unfortunately, as they’re set up right now, AVs are nothing more than a distraction from the policy changes that would make our transportation system safer, more equitable, and more sustainable.

The unmet promise of automating transportation

Automating transportation isn’t a bad idea. In fact, automated transportation has existed for decades, in the form of public transit. Automated metros in places like Tokyo, Vancouver, and now even Montreal and Honolulu move millions of people every day around the globe.  At airports across the U.S. you can also find automated “people movers” helping people move between terminals and access local transportation options. These technologies are highly regulated and implemented with a clear purpose: they reduce operating costs while increasing the capacity of public transit, allowing more people to travel. 

For nearly a century now, car-makers have been arguing that automation could similarly revolutionize car travel. As historian Peter Norton has described, the automobile industry has depicted self-driving cars as a generation away for the past several decades. For people who can’t drive due to a disability, people too old to drive, people too young to drive, and people who simply don’t want to drive, this technology would be transformative. 

Unfortunately, even if this future were as close as it seems, it may not live up to its promise. According to an advertisement by Cruise—one of the two companies now operating robo-taxis in San Francisco—if their technology was behind the wheel instead of humans, we would have far fewer deaths on our roadways because their products are “designed to save lives.” 

This contrasts with reporting and data collected by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) highlighting that AVs are certainly still involved in crashes, many of which result in serious injuries and fatalities. San Francisco’s experience as an AV-guinea pig provides some data on crashes and some insight into AVs’ current flaws. There are documented cases of AVs driving away from police, cruising down sidewalks, and coming to a dead halt when cell service is bad. While AV makers say these are anomalies, without data from the companies to disprove this we can only believe what we see plainly before us.

Beyond safety, AV proponents also promise less wasted time. With our cars driving themselves, we will be able to travel everywhere we need to go while still being able to work, catch up with friends and loved ones, or just relax from inside a car. However, this argument assumes that the amount we drive stays the same, an unlikely scenario when driving no longer requires anybody actually driving. In fact, research replicating an AV future and an analysis of data from existing partially automated driving technology show that AVs will lead people to spend significantly more time on car travel. 

This additional time spent in a car also threatens to torpedo any hopes of a more sustainable transportation system. No matter whether AVs are electric or not, a future with more driving would still involve more extraction of natural resources and more pollution from tires and brakes. We will never reach ambitious climate targets with a transportation system that requires people to drive more, not less.

Promising a technological solution to a political problem—and then using political will to force their solution on society—is a consistent behavior of the auto-industry. In the 1920s, the industry knew that their products were killing children and congesting city streets. But instead of changing their products, they changed our communities. They created and supported the policies that have destroyed vibrant neighborhoods and displaced their residents, emitted huge amounts of carbon, and killed tens of thousands of us every year. That’s not innovation, it’s exploitation.

Selling us a bill of hoods

If AVs were being pursued because they were the most effective way to help people who will never be able to drive, maintain mobility for aging members of our communities, and save lives, we would all welcome them with open arms. That’s why the Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety have released a list of tenets, which Transportation for America has signed on to, to guide an introduction of AVs into our vehicle fleet. 

These guardrails aren’t an attempt to stop us from getting to a self-driving future. These policies are what’s required to ensure that the future includes everybody, including those outside of a car. That’s why individuals and advocacy organizations who exist to make transportation safer have made it clear: without changes to transportation policy, AVs aren’t set up to solve our problems, just automate them.

Right now, AV-makers would have us believe that all of our transportation concerns will go away if we simply replace human drivers with computers. But we know this is not true. Automation that leads to more driving will not reduce congestion or emissions. It will not free people from increasingly long trips to reach their essential destinations. It will not relieve people of the financial burden of car ownership. And it will not change the dangerous design of our roadways, which encourages high vehicle speeds at the cost of pedestrian safety. If we continue to give AV-makers free reign, without government regulation and data collection to understand their impact on our roadways, we will not get any closer to solving the problems AVs are supposedly ready to solve.

AV-makers—including the robo taxi companies in San Francisco —aren’t trying to solve these problems. They’re just trying to sell us cars.

How does U.S. transit support compare to our peers?

Two passengers board a night bus in Brooklyn, NY

Our Transit Report Card analyzes how states compare on transit access and support. To understand how our figures match up in the context of other countries, we took a look at one of our peers: Australia.

Two passengers board a night bus in Brooklyn, NY
Photo by Jurien Huggins

In part 1 and part 2 of this series, we compared U.S. states’ support for transit based on funding and access. Those figures are hard to understand without context, so we found ourselves asking: how do U.S. states compare to similar jurisdictions in other countries when it comes to transit policy?

But “similar jurisdictions” don’t exist in many other countries. Most other industrialized countries either control all transit policy at the national level (think the United Kingdom, France, and Japan) or cede only limited power to sub-national governments (think Germany, Mexico, and India). 

We were, however, able to find one country with sub-national governments that have primary control over transit policy. That country is Australia, which funds its transportation infrastructure much like the U.S. does. Their national government distributes transportation funding directly to states and territories in the form of block grants. States and territories, in turn, direct that funding to specific projects, including public transit. Though the Australian system is different from ours in meaningful ways (like their more streamlined federal investment approach), their structure is similar to our own, where state governments dictate the vast majority of transportation spending and policy.

So we partnered with Movement & Place Consulting, a Melbourne-based transport consulting firm, to rate Australia’s nine internal states and territories on some of the same metrics that we used to rate U.S. states.

VMT

Americans drive more miles and ride less transit than Australians. Pre-pandemic, over 76 percent of Americans drove alone to work, compared with only 62 percent of Australians. On the other hand, 5 percent of Americans used public transit to get to work, compared with 12 percent of Australians commuting by train or bus. 

To better understand this phenomenon, we measured how much Americans and Australians drive, measured in annual vehicle miles traveled (VMT) per capita in each U.S. and Australian state.

As we explained in part 2 of this series, most American states see over 10,000 miles per capita, with just a few exceptions. Washington, Oregon, Alaska, Hawaii, Illinois, New York, DC, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island all had less than 8,500 VMT per capita in 2019, the year before the pandemic changed driving patterns around the country. But how does that compare to other countries?

Map of vehicle miles traveled by state. Highlight: nearly every U.S. state has an average of more than 8,500 VMT per person. More specifics can be found in the table linked at the bottom of this post.

Map is not drawn to scale. Based on 2019 VMT data.

Australia, despite being far more sparsely populated than the U.S., does not even come close to our VMT per capita. The highest VMT Australian state, Western Australia, drives about the same amount (6,430 miles per person per year) as the lowest VMT U.S. state, New York (6,373 miles per person per year). And every Australian state fits within the lowest category of our U.S. map. So the Australian map looks stark in comparison:

Average vehicle miles traveled per person in Australia. The entire map is the same color of gray, showing that every state has less than 8,500 VMT per person. Specific highlights listed in the paragraph above

Australians are able to have a significantly reduced VMT per capita as residency is highly concentrated within a single point in each state. While in most U.S. states, 20 percent of the population lives in their largest city, approximately 67 percent of Australia’s population lives in each state’s capital city. 

These sort of dense land use strategies are proven to help reduce carbon emissions by making it easier for people to drive less. They are also proven to help grow local economies, improve access to recreation and exercise, and prevent traffic deaths (in all sorts of communities, not just urban ones).

Access

VMT per capita provides the most straightforward comparison between the U.S. and Australia, but what about access? For our U.S. analysis, we took a look at federal data to get a sense of how well transit was connecting people to their essential destinations. This gave us a transit access index, which we converted into state rankings.

Australia does not have a database equivalent to what we used in our U.S. access analysis. But we can learn a lot about Australians’ access to transit by examining its land use strategies. Land use is in fact so central to transit quality that the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) has made it a core priority.

Let’s compare two metro areas of roughly the same population: Greater Phoenix (pop. 5.01 million) and Greater Melbourne (pop. 5.03 million).  Melbourne’s transit system, Public Transport Victoria, carries around 600 million riders per year. Even prior to the COVID-19 pandemic (which reduced transit ridership across the country), the Phoenix region’s transit system, Valley Metro, carried only about 66 million people per year.

Why do Melburnians ride public transit so much more than Phoenicians? Funding is certainly part of the equation, but perhaps more importantly, Melbourne’s land use is much denser and overall more conducive to transit access. Greater Melbourne has 1,305 people per square mile, compared to Phoenix’s 332 people per square mile. Melbourne’s denser population is much easier to connect by transit. In addition, Public Transport Victoria has constructed an interconnected system of heavy rail, trams, and buses in a way that connects even the most remote suburbs. 

By comparison, Valley Metro operates only one light rail line, and while the city operates a bus network as well, frequent service is few and far between. Even the most frequent lines operate 15 minute headways during peak hours and 30 minute headways off-peak, not even close to the frequency or reliability of Melbourne’s transit network.

So the question of why Melburnians ride more public transit than Phoenicians becomes obvious: there’s more of it. Melbourne runs faster transit, of more variety, and with more frequency. And while Phoenix might be just one example, its story is all too familiar in cities across the United States.

Funding

Our funding analysis of U.S. states is much harder to compare to Australia’s, but that’s kind of the point. Australian states spend much more on transit overall, but it’s not because they have more money to work with.

The U.S. earns most of their funding for transportation through gas tax revenue. However, the vast majority of U.S. states restrict the amount of funding that their legislatures can allocate to transit systems. This creates a counterintuitive cycle. Without efficient and convenient public transit service, Americans are forced to drive more, leading to more money spent on gas taxes that then cannot be invested in alternative forms of transportation. 

Map of gas tax revenue restrictions by state. Key finding: the majority of U.S. states have a constitutional restriction on gas tax revenue. More specifics available at the table linked at the bottom of this post.

Map is not drawn to scale.

In comparison, Australia’s constitution does not explicitly discuss transportation funding—states are able to fund public transport as they deem appropriate. Furthermore, funding for Australian transport infrastructure is supported mainly by general taxation revenue and council rates rather than depending largely on gas tax.

Restrictions on usage of gas tax revenue by state in Australia. The entire map is gray, indicating that no state has a restriction on the usage of gas tax revenue.

The result: Australian states devote much more of their resources to public transit than U.S. states. Even Australia’s most remote and sparsely populated territory, the Northern Territory, spends more on public transit per capita per year ($183.48) than every U.S. state except for New York ($255.90), Massachusetts ($238.76), Hawaii ($220.98), and Maryland ($198.72).

Lessons learned

Even the best U.S. states have a long way to go in comparison to their international peers. This point became clear in our conversations with Australian experts while doing this research.

It’s easy to dismiss international transit comparisons as “apples to oranges.” But that excuse crumbles when the comparison is being made to a true peer like Australia. Both countries are large, developed, constitutional republics with low national population densities and strong sub-national governments.

While Australia’s transit system is far from perfect, the United States can learn a lot from our friends across the Pacific. We can have suburbs while still increasing density to support transit. We can have a robust highway system while still giving people other high-quality options. And we can do it by integrating transit systems to create a convenient user experience. 

We can, and we must.

Learn more about our state-by-state analysis of transit support and availability, and see a full table of results. Click here >>

We received support in writing this blog from Movement & Place Consulting, a Melbourne-based firm that conducts analysis on land use and all modes of transport planning, parking, and economic development. Follow them on LinkedIn to stay informed on their work.

Sizing up deadly vehicles

To check the ever-increasing danger on our nation’s roadways, Transportation for America joined a coalition of advocates to call for stronger federal assessments of large vehicles. Read our comment letter.

More than 6,500 people walking were struck and killed in 2020, and the Governors Highway Safety Association projects that even more were killed in 2021, a sign that our streets continue to be dangerous for people traveling outside of a vehicle. As we wrote in Dangerous by Design, deadly street design, which prioritizes vehicle speed over pedestrian safety, is a key factor to these deaths, and people of color, particularly Black and Native Americans, face the worst consequences of dangerous design.

In a contributing essay, America Walks explained how vehicle size also plays a role in the likelihood that a pedestrian will die when struck by a vehicle. Ever-larger vehicles, and increasingly aggressive drivers, have an impact on the safety on our nation’s roadways. However, federal safety ratings have long ignored how vehicle designs impact the safety of people outside of the vehicle. That will soon change.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has proposed an update to the New Car Assessment Program (NCAP) that would aim to acknowledge the danger the vehicle could pose to pedestrians and other road users outside of the car. The current five-star safety rankings, which evaluate the safety of only the people inside the vehicle, will remain in effect. However, NHTSA proposed adding a “pass” or “fail” symbol to represent danger for people outside of a vehicle.

We joined a coalition of advocates, led by the National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO), to submit comments on this proposed update, which highlighted the following suggestions to strengthen NHTSA’s update:

  • Any vehicle that receives a failing grade for pedestrian crashworthiness should be ineligible for a 5-star rating. 
  • Adopt a 5-star scoring system for pedestrian crashworthiness, rather than a pass/fail system.
  • Consider evaluating pedestrian crashworthiness at speeds higher than 25 mph in addition to at or below 25 mph.
  • Incorporate information about other vehicle safety features that are proven to protect people outside of vehicles into the rating system, and ensure no vehicle receives a 5-star rating if it doesn’t include those features. 

This update is a start, but with an ever-increasing number of traffic fatalities each year, the current proposal fails to properly communicate the danger large vehicles pose to people walking and rolling. We’ll continue to call for safer streets for all travelers, whether they’re in or out of a car.

Read our comment letter

Puget Sound’s strategy to center equity in the new normal

A Black man begins to board a King County Metro Route 48 bus after waiting at a bus shelter

Spurred on by COVID-19 disruptions, leaders of the Puget Sound Regional Council found a new way to allocate federal transit formula dollars. Their equity-focused distribution could help the most vulnerable communities while also adapting to new travel trends.

A Black man begins to board a King County Metro Route 48 bus after waiting at a bus shelter
Flickr photo by Oran Viriyincy

The COVID-19 pandemic was, and remains, one of the most influential shocks to transit systems across the country. Transit agencies struggled with lost revenue and ridership paired with escalating operating costs. The federal government intervened during the height of the pandemic by investing billions in stimulus and relief through Federal Transit Administration (FTA) formula funding. But when those funds arrived in Puget Sound, it became apparent to some leaders in the Puget Sound Regional Council (PSRC) that this funding was not flowing to disadvantaged communities that needed it most. 

Rather than continuing on as is, members of the PSRC’s Transportation Policy Board (TPB) and local transit agency leadership came together to rethink how the region uses federal formula dollars to prioritize equity and build up service for disadvantaged communities.

Traditional distributions

The FTA apportions formula funds to regions around the country based on the services and operational data provided by transit agencies in the National Transit Database. Using that data, the FTA then applies the titular “formulas” of formula funds, distributing dollars to urbanized areas (UZAs) across the country.

PSRC serves three UZAs: the Bremerton, Marysville, and Seattle-Tacoma-Everett UZAs. As the Bremerton and Marysville UZAs are each served by a single transportation agency, the local UZA apportionment is simply distributed to those agencies. In the case of the Seattle-Tacoma-Everett UZA, the FTA distributes a lump sum of funds for the PSRC to allocate to eleven transit agencies.

In PSRC’s old distribution strategy, 86 to 88 percent of funds are distributed to each local transit agency in line with the FTA’s standard earned share formulas. The remaining percentage of formula funds was then doled out through regional competitions and preservation set-asides. In practice and in line with historical transportation priorities, this method tended to award agencies and services focused on moving commuters from suburbs to downtowns.

Equity first

For people who cannot afford the high cost of car ownership, access to high-quality transit remains a valuable method to access jobs and services. 

Proposing a new, revised distribution policy, several members of the TPB, including Pierce County Councilman Ryan Mello and Tacoma Deputy Mayor Kristina Walker, pushed for a policy that would prioritize funding to equity focus areas, places where disadvantaged groups are concentrated and would benefit from better transit service. This change would allow PSRC to align their funding allocations with the region’s priorities, using a demographic lens to identify communities most in need of transit access. 

Under the new methodology, PSRC would use federal census data to identify where people in equity focus populations are located, with an emphasis on serving people with disabilities, youth, the elderly, people with low incomes, people of color, and people with limited English proficiency. 

After calculating the number of people in equity focus areas within half a mile from bus stops and a mile from rail stops, and with an adjustment to reflect the nuanced service provided by state and county ferries, the PSRC would proportionally distribute funds to the transit agencies that serve the underserved.

Funding for the new distribution formula comes out of what had previously been used for regional competitions and preservation set-asides. It represents about 14 percent of total funding, seriously boosting agencies serving equity focus areas. For Pierce Transit, the formula change resulted in a funding increase of approximately $9.8 million annually.

Preservation Set Aside Funding (in millions)Percentage of Regional Total*Equity Formula Distribution (in millions)**Percentage of Regional Total
Community Transit$2.202.90%$11.7015.00%
Everett Transit$0.200.30%$2.803.60%
King County Metro$15.9021.00%$33.6043.10%
Pierce County Ferries$0.200.30%$0.200.30%
Pierce Transit$1.201.60%$11.0014.10%
City of Seattle$0.100.10%$2.503.20%
Sound Transit$11.2014.80%$12.9016.60%
Washington State Ferries$3.104.10%$3.204.10%
TOTAL$34.10$77.90

* Not including regional competition funding ** Includes preservation set asides and former regional competition funding

Seattle-Tacoma-Everett UZA funding distributions changed significantly under the Equity Formula Distribution. Table developed using data provided by Puget Sound Regional Council.

Because these funding changes came out of a limited budget, the council had to make compromises. Since the new formula distributions came out of what had been money for regional competitions, some agencies and projects received less funding than before. 

“Working through the exercise was of great value for folks to actually see, numerically and through mapping, where the equity focus areas are and where they are or are not being served by transit,” reflected Councilmember Ryan Mello, who helped lead the change. 

In the post-pandemic “new normal,” local-level transit that connects people to everyday services maintains vital access for disadvantaged communities.

“We had the ability to have a conversation with the region. We say racial equity is a value—well, here’s an opportunity to put money into it. I had to rustle feathers to make the effort, but it pushed people hard to put the money where your values are, even at the expense of other things.” 

By reorienting funding to prioritize transit equity, while also remaining adaptive to new travel trends, the PSRC’s Equity Funding Distribution can serve as an example for governments and agencies that claim to hold equity at the core of their mission.

Thanks to Grant DuVall for contributing to this post.

VIDEO: Pedestrian fatalities continue to rise. Here’s why.

Beth Osborne talks with a CBS reporter on the side of a wide, busy roadway as a car speeds past

In a conversation with CBS Sunday Morning, T4A’s executive director Beth Osborne explains that our roads are dangerous by design.

If you watch CBS on Sunday mornings, you might have caught our own Beth Osborne talking about dangerous street design. She was joined by John Barth, who’s working on Complete Streets implementation in Indianapolis, and Latanya Byrd, a safe streets advocate in Philadelphia.

In the clip, Beth explained why more people are being hit and killed on our nation’s roadways. She noted that vehicles have gotten bigger, and streets continue to be designed for speed over safety. As we explained in our report Dangerous by Design, the combination of speed and size leads to deadly consequences for people walking, particularly people of color.

The interview follows news from the Governors Highway Safety Association that pedestrian fatalities reached a 40-year high in 2022. But people walking aren’t the only ones who pay the costs.

“It turns out when we build things unsafe for pedestrians, we build them unsafe for everybody. There’s really nobody winning in this system,” said Beth.

VIDEO: How an obscure federal measure justifies the hefty price tag of destructive, divisive roadway projects

Still shot of a busy highway with the text "Value of Time" emblazoned across it on a blue banner

Our newest video, part of Divided by Design, helps explain how federal guidance known as value of time gets used every day to justify the cost of building incredibly expensive highways (or additional highway lanes) that divide our communities, produce more congestion and pollution, and ultimately make it harder to get around in nearly every way.

Our new Divided by Design report examines how the transportation models, policies, and practices we use today took root in the highway era, and they continue to inflict the most harm on people of color. Value of time is just one example of the outdated tools transportation planners and engineers use today that perpetuate harm.

When moving vehicles quickly on all roads is the number one goal for transportation agencies, agencies focus on time savings to drivers at the expense of nearly every other type of user or activity. Value of time encourages agencies to increase speeds and eliminate congestion at all costs, but its emphasis on vehicle speed alone ultimately leads to longer trip times and divided communities.

It’s time for a more equitable approach to transportation. Watch our new video, and read our report Divided by Design.

Setting priorities at Future of Transportation Caucus Roundtable

Representative Chuy Garcia sits in the center of an oval table, surrounded by advocates and legislatures

With federal transportation funding set to be reauthorized in three years, the congressional Future of Transportation Caucus met with advocates to discuss the country’s most pressing funding priorities.

Representative Chuy Garcia sits in the center of an oval table, surrounded by advocates and legislatures
Representative Jesús “Chuy” García speaks at the Future of Transportation Caucus, with Representatives Ayanna Pressley and Mark Takano seated on either side of him.

A crucial conversation about our transportation priorities

With every passing day, reauthorization for federal surface transportation funding grows closer and closer. Our current framework, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), expires in 2026, and it’s critical that the country gets its funding priorities right by then. If our dollars don’t go towards the right initiatives and objectives, spending more money on transportation and infrastructure will only result in the same poor outcomes. With many competing priorities, discussion between policymakers and advocates about the current state—and future of—our national transportation system remains essential.

Last Wednesday, July 12th, the Future of Transportation Caucus, led by Representatives Ayanna Pressley (MA-07), Jesús “Chuy” García (IL-04), and Mark Takano (CA-39), led a roundtable discussion with advocates on transportation electrification, public transit, active transportation, public health, and road safety.  These leaders met to talk through transportation priorities and find common ground. 

What does our transportation funding need to focus on?

Advocates covered a wide range of issues, including transportation electrification, operations funding for public transit, and road safety. Advocates discussed the need to electrify public transit and medium/heavy-duty vehicles as well as affordable, safe, and equitable charging for electric vehicles (EVs). Regarding operations funding, advocates spoke about expanding and supporting operations in the face of transit fiscal cliffs, increasing service frequency, and exploring solutions to reduce barriers and increase transit ridership. Finally, road safety advocates discussed improvements for bicyclist and pedestrian safety as well as the dangers of poorly thought-out autonomous vehicle (AV) rollouts in cities.

One point in particular proved to be an underlying thread throughout the conversation: a need for the basics—the baseline infrastructure essential for cities—to be focused on people, at the very minimum. Advocates emphasized the importance of good bus systems and facilities, functional sidewalks, and more, recounting how much of a difference that investing in these essentials made in their communities and socioeconomic outcomes.

Looking ahead to the 2026 reauthorization

It’s essential that Congress gets the right transportation funding priorities in line before the next reauthorization cycle rolls around in 2026. With a massive rise in pedestrian fatalities, a focus on expansion that leaves , and a climate crisis that has only begun, America can’t afford to continue with more of the same. Instead, we need to rethink what our current funding dollars are going towards. T4A’s three key principles for transportation infrastructure investment—prioritize maintenance, design for safety over speed, and connect people to jobs and services—can serve as a guiding framework for a plan that brings the country towards safe, convenient, affordable transportation for all.

We need to move past the outdated “80/20” highway/transit funding split and resist getting distracted by fantasies that promote car dependence like smart cities dominated by AVs. Rather, our federal funding needs to prioritize the maintenance and repair of existing infrastructure, advance safer streetscapes centered on people first, and prioritize access to goods and services, including increasing operations funding for public transit so agencies can expand the crucial services that people rely on. 

At the end of the day, we need to commit to investing in our vision of an accessible and equitable transportation system that strengthens communities—one that focuses on moving people, not just vehicles.

Divided by Design: Quantifying the damage of our transportation program

Our new report examines the racist roots of our current transportation system. Most importantly, it demonstrates how today’s policies and practices were shaped by the past, leading to racial disparities today. Without a fundamental change to the overall approach to transportation, today’s leaders and transportation professionals, no matter their intent, will perpetuate and exacerbate the damage.

Beginning in the 1950s, highways devastated communities of color and changed our cities forever. But the consequences continue, even as we begin to acknowledge our past mistakes.

To create a better system, we can’t settle for small changes. We need a total shift in approach. To learn more about the report and our analysis, join our webinar on July 25 at 2 p.m. ET.

Read the report

Register for the webinar

A guide to this report

Part I examines the damage and inequities deliberately created by and in the federal transportation program from ~1950 onward. It concludes with a unique analysis of both an unbuilt and built highway segment within Atlanta and Washington, DC to quantify what was lost, who bore the brunt of the damage, and what could have been lost with highways that were never built.

Part II examines our current transportation program to demonstrate how the programs, standards, models, and measures have their roots in the previous era and exacerbate inequities—whether intentional or not.

Part III outlines what needs to change—concrete steps we can take to fundamentally reorient the program around unwinding those inequities.

Two cities divided

Divided by Design also quantifies the damage caused by highways in two U.S. cities: Atlanta, GA and Washington, DC. Like hundreds of others in the U.S., these cities are forever scarred by highways that demolished communities of color, robbing them of opportunity and potential.

Atlanta’s I-20 displaced over 7,500 people and destroyed 1,400 occupied homes. In DC, I-395/695 displaced over 5,000 people and demolished 2,200 homes. These numbers only scratch the surface of the full damage and dislocation.

More significant damage was also avoided in these cities. To understand what might exist in these communities if they hadn’t been disrupted by highways, we looked at two planned highway segments that were never built and the hundreds of businesses, office buildings, and homes that wouldn’t exist today. Click to read these stories:

The damage continues

The models, policies, and practices we use today took root in the highway era, and they continue to inflict the most harm on people of color. Our approach leads to worse health outcomes, greater congestion, and deadlier roadways. It leaves millions of Americans without access to reliable transportation options to get where they need to go. We can’t build a better system on a rotten foundation. It’s time for a paradigm shift.

We need a new approach.

Read Divided by Design

Explore the report’s full content—jump to one of the three parts with the graphics below.

report cover graphic showing a stylized highway cutting through a city.graphic showing a stylized scene of construction of a highway through a city neighborhoodgraphic showing a stylized scene a few blocks away from a highway running through a city neighborhoodgraphic showing a stylized scene of what a neighborhood could look like after tearing a highway down

Don’t miss supplemental maps, videos, and animations in the DC and Atlanta case studies which are not in the hard copy. Download a PDF version of the report.

 

The traffic forecast used to justify your road widening is bogus

Highway lanes crisscross across an otherwise barren landscape. Rows of tightly clustered cars dot the lanes

The predicted traffic levels on which transportation planners base their decisions are erroneous and rooted in obsolete methods. Here’s how transportation models fail to accurately predict future traffic, and how you can call out their misuse.

Highway lanes crisscross across an otherwise barren landscape. Rows of tightly clustered cars dot the lanes
The 26-lane Katy Freeway in Houston had worse traffic after its widening than before. Were the traffic models wrong? Photo: Wikimedia Commons

You’ve seen it before. A state DOT claims they must widen a highway through your community to reduce congestion and accommodate future traffic. The transportation agency points to traffic projections that we all take at face value. They might even claim that widening the highway will improve traffic flow thereby reducing emissions. You don’t want the highway widening in your community, but what can you do in the face of experts saying it is necessary and pointing to data that “proves” their case?

Transportation agencies use transportation models to predict future traffic and plan the roadway system accordingly. But the underlying algorithm for these models was developed in the 1980s when the computers in use were less powerful than today’s smartphones. Due to this past limitation in computing power, travel demand models use a simplified approach that doesn’t accurately represent how people make travel decisions.

T4America experts collaborated with our partners to look inside the black box of transportation models (also sometimes called travel demand models or traffic models). We submitted a memo to the US Department of Transportation asking them to apply more accountability to agencies using these models to correct them.

Some of the transportation models’ specific flaws

The proof that transportation models are failing us is plain to see in the long term trends. Over the last 20 years, congestion has increased in every single U.S. metropolitan area regardless of how much they’ve expanded their highways and regardless of whether their population grew or shrank.

Graphic showing increase in population, lane-miles, and delay from the Congestion Con report
From the Congestion Con

In what way have transportation models misled us? It largely has to do with the underlying approach which is too simple, chosen because of limited 1980s computing power. Transportation models use a Static Traffic Assignment (STA) algorithm which is a sort of snapshot in time of how much traffic is on each roadway in a region at a given moment. This static algorithm is problematic, since people make decisions on different factors every day, often in the moment. People are dynamic not static.

What’s more, STAs do not properly account for bottlenecks, or constrain forecasts based on roadway capacity. No roadway can ever carry more cars than its maximum capacity, any more than a coffee mug can hold 110% of its coffee capacity. Yet agencies routinely and confidently make claims like, “without this expansion, the roadway will be at 110% capacity.” If you point out that a roadway can’t handle more cars than it has capacity for, they say that extra 10 percent is “latent demand.” In other words, they are certain that there’s exactly 10 percent more cars and trips out there that must be served. 

We call this induced demand—demand created by the new road itself—a concept those same agencies often claim doesn’t exist. (But which the public absolutely understands, as our brand new national polling shows.) By trying to sell the project on all that “latent” demand, they can claim a traffic nightmare if nothing is done without admitting that the project will actually create more traffic—and more greenhouse gas emissions, fine particulates, etc. [USDOT and the Environmental Protection Agency support that approach for some unfathomable reason, never asking if the models used to justify federally funded projects have been right.]

In reality, as congestion increases toward that 100% capacity mark, people make different travel decisions, change their routes, choose to travel at a different time, use a different mode or choose a closer destination to fulfill the same need. If there is a crash, people delay their trip or consult Google maps and choose a different route. But transportation models using the STA approach unrealistically assume people will blindly keep driving a congested roadway, no matter what is happening or how long their trip will take.

Not only does the model assume no changes in behavior, but it will also output results that show drivers stuck at one bottleneck, while simultaneously allowing them to magically pass through that one to also be stuck at another bottleneck downstream.

Compounding these issues, planners rarely, if ever, look back at their past work to see if their predictions were correct. Did the traffic materialize? We’re stuck with decades-old models that are never tested or upgraded to reflect reality, as shown here:

graphic combining 20+ increasing projections of VMT
This graphic from the Frontier Group combines past federal projections of future growth in vehicle miles traveled. Every year a new optimistic projection was made that ultimately didn’t pan out, but they kept on predicting the same thing.

How to question your region’s model

We’re hopeful that USDOT will eventually provide accountability to upgrade the state of practice on transportation modeling, but you can also ask questions about the transportation models used to promote road widenings in your community. Here are some things you can ask your local transportation planners to illustrate the flaws of using transportation model results to justify road widenings:

  1. Does your model use Static Traffic Assignment?
  2. What is the maximum volume to capacity in your model runs, and how is that realistic? (If they give a volume over 100%, ask how a road can carry more than its capacity. And ask if latent demand will fill the new capacity they are building then what good will this investment do?)
  3. How does your model account for dynamic changes in commuting patterns, responses to crashes, or the threshold at which people shift to other modes?
  4. What is your protocol for evaluating the accuracy of your past traffic projections and using that to improve upon the model? Where is it published?

Getting our transportation models to better reflect reality will help planners make better decisions about where to invest our tax dollars. Calling on USDOT to upgrade standards for transportation models, and calling out their misuse locally in the meantime will help us turn the corner to more sensible improvements to transportation in our nation.

Will EPA’s proposed emissions rule go up in smoke?

A cloudy haze of smoke surrounds back-to-back vehicles in stand-still traffic

The EPA’s proposed tailpipe regulations could reduce carbon emissions across all types of vehicles over the coming decades. While reducing emissions produced on the road can only be part of our national climate strategy, the EPA’s rule could be a boon for communities thanks to the benefits of zero emissions vehicles. However, recent opposition means this rule’s future could be at risk.

A cloudy haze of smoke surrounds back-to-back vehicles in stand-still traffic
Photo from Transportation & Environment

On April 12th, 2023, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced an update to federal vehicle emissions standards that could accelerate the ongoing transition to a clean vehicle future. While these new measures are an essential step forward, addressing vehicle emissions at the exhaust pipe alone is no silver bullet. As we found in our Driving Down Emissions report, we need to combine vehicle electrification strategies with transportation alternatives, like transit, walking, and biking, to make the most of the clean vehicle switch. The EPA has since released the text of the proposed rule, with comments closing soon—July 5, 2023.

When combined with another proposed rule that closed comments in mid-June, this rule would require that by 2032, two-thirds of cars and light trucks, 46 percent of medium-duty vehicles (such as delivery vans), half of all buses, and a quarter of all heavy-duty trucks sold would need to be zero-emission vehicles. The rule does not specify the fuel source to reach zero emissions, leaving the industry room to experiment with new solutions. 

The EPA estimates that just the new light-duty tailpipe regulations alone could cut down the U.S.’s carbon emissions by 15.5 percent. These sweeping regulations on new vehicles would take effect in 2027 and build off a decade of standards implemented by the EPA. 

The third and final phase

This recent regulation is the last phase of a three-step strategy to support the United States’ international commitments to limit emissions and slow the progress of climate change. The first two phases of the EPA’s tailpipe emission standards focused specifically on medium- and heavy-duty vehicles. Phase One (2011) of the greenhouse gas emission standards targeted medium- and heavy-duty vehicle (MHDVs) models to be made in the years 2014-2018 and set fuel efficiency and emissions standards for manufacturers, while Phase Two (2016) set even stricter standards for MHDVs for the model years 2019-2027. 

With the years of lead time provided, these regulations gave automotive manufacturers adequate time to slowly ramp up the production of cleaner vehicles. At the same time, they introduced standards that reduced both CO2 emissions and consumers’ fuel costs by increasing efficiency within the physical limits of traditional internal combustion engines.

Understanding the impact

Phase Three standards are heavily influenced by the rapid uptake of electric vehicles. Recent innovations in electric vehicle technology and the record federal investments in EV infrastructure in the 2021 infrastructure law and Inflation Reduction Act make the ambitious new standards a viable goal. 

The EPA estimates that Phase Three standards could save 7.3 billion tons of CO2 emissions from light duty vehicles between 2027 and 2055 and avoid 1.8 billion tons of CO2 from heavy-duty vehicles through 2055. That’s the equivalent of eliminating all greenhouse gas emissions from the entire current U.S. transportation sector for an entire year. Overall, the EPA estimates that the value of benefits, such as improved health outcomes and mitigated emissions, would exceed total costs by at least $1 trillion over the course of its existence. These improvements could only be made possible through widespread adoption and production of electric and other zero-emission vehicles, which the rule functionally requires.

The ongoing electrification transition is an opportunity to make equitable investments across all communities. You can take a look at our vision for America’s electric future in Sparking Progress, our report produced in collaboration with the Coalition Helping America Rebuild and Go Electric (CHARGE).

Let EPA know if you support cleaner vehicles

Despite the benefits these changes could bring to the nation’s overall health, air quality, climate, and communities disadvantaged by heavy-duty vehicle emissions, some powerful interests oppose the new rule. In May, 151 members of the majority party in the US House of Representatives signed on to a letter to denounce the new standards. Later, on June 7, 2023, Florida Senator Marco Rubio sent a letter to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission referencing the rule and arguing, contrary to the evidence, that EVs could pose a threat to the electric grid.

These attacks on clean air come at a crucial time, as the EPA is seeking comment on the rule through July 5, 2023. A strong tailpipe emissions rule, coupled with our recommendations to reduce vehicle miles traveled in the Driving Down Emissions report, could be a powerful force to combat climate change and increase the efficiency of the transportation system.

Ready to submit comments, but not sure what to say? Take a look at sample comments from NUMO and the California Air Resource Board.