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BUILDing Complete Streets

By now it’s well known that the Trump administration is no friend to transit funding. (If this is news to you, see here, here, and here). Even the BUILD grant program—which was originally designed to fund complex, multimodal projects—has been warped by the administration’s focus on roads. Traditional roads and highways have received the most grant dollars since the Trump administration took control of the program in 2017.

Our Taming the TIGER analysis showed how the BUILD program changed after two years with the Trump administration in charge.

The administration recently announced the latest round of BUILD grant recipients (which would be BUILD II if added to the graph above) and the story is much of the same: traditional road projects received the largest share of funding, while transit saw a further decrease—from around 10 percent of funding in 2018 to less than 7 percent. Freight held steady at just under 20 percent.

But there is a bit of a silver lining: Complete Streets & other multimodal projects racked up almost a third of the BUILD funding, the highest percentage such projects have received under the Trump administration. This is also particularly notable given the worrying rise in pedestrian and bicycle fatalities across the country, attributable in large part to the lack of safe infrastructure on our roadways for people without cars.

Among the Complete Streets grants this year is $20 million for the Orange County Local Alternative Mobility Network Project outside Orlando. The project will upgrade existing pedestrian and bicycle paths while constructing “shared mobility lanes,” shelter and naturally shaded environments, new wayfinding, and a transit hub. It will also fund “autonomous vehicle infrastructure facilitating local adoption of AVs.” Another multimodal project, The Underpass Project at Uptown Station in Normal, IL, received a $13 million grant and builds on one of the first projects ever funded through the TIGER program. In 2009, Normal, IL received a grant to build a new Amtrak station and civic space that has been a boon for the entire city. A decade later, this new grant will excavate a path for pedestrians, bicyclists, and passengers under the train tracks and allow a second boarding platform to be constructed.

And while transit only received a tiny sliver of the overall funding, some important projects got a nod, like a new BRT line in Memphis, TN that received $12 million for 28 new stations, nine electric buses, and charging equipment.

The BUILD program is one of the only funding options for innovative, complex, or multi-jurisdictional projects that can be difficult to fund with traditional federal transportation programs. But the Trump administration has made it harder for those projects to receive funding by favoring roads over everything else. Read our full analysis—Taming the TIGER—to see how Congress can help ensure BUILD lives up to its full potential.

The Congestion Con: You’ve been played

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

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

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

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

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

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

Download the report

Why aren’t we reducing congestion?

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

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

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

What needs to happen: Five policy recommendations

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

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

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

Download the report

Four years ago, Gulf Coast rail was a dream. Now it’s closer to reality thanks to the City of Mobile, AL

At long last, the City of Mobile, AL approved a resolution that brings passenger rail to New Orleans closer to fruition. The timing is fitting: February marked the fourth anniversary of the first passenger train to roll through the Gulf Coast since Hurricane Katrina. That was just a one-time ride, but not for much longer: In 2022, there will be four trains a day. 

Mobile, Alabama. Photo by Steve Davis / T4America

This February, the City of Mobile, AL took a bold step toward restoring passenger rail service to New Orleans: the city approved the funding necessary to apply for a $8 million grant from Federal Railroad Administration’s Restoration and Enhancement (R&E) program. If the FRA awards this grant, the funding approved by Mobile will be combined with existing funding from Mississippi, Louisiana, and a previous R&E grant to provide operating support for the first three years of restored rail service. 

By a 6-1 city council vote in favor of funding, the City of Mobile demonstrated it understands the tremendous economic and mobility opportunity this passenger rail service represents. This is one of the final pieces of funding necessary to restore service, and we at T4America are thrilled to see the City of Mobile take this action.   

But none of this was imaginable four years ago. In February 2016, an Amtrak train left New Orleans and headed east towards Bay St. Louis, a beautiful town on the Mississippi coast, for the first time since Hurricane Katrina. 

Eleven years earlier, Katrina devastated many cities and towns along the Gulf Coast. By 2016, freight rail had been restored for almost a decade, but not the Amtrak service that ran between New Orleans and Mobile. Bringing the service back after so long took some convincing: the FRA conducted a feasibility study, and the Southern Rail Commission, the  University of Southern Mississippi, and the University of Alabama conducted fiscal analyses that showed the potential impact of bringing the train back. The University of Southern Mississippi study even found that for every dollar invested in restoring passenger service, $15 to $20 would be generated in the regional economy. 

These detailed studies undoubtedly played a huge role in winning a $33 million grant from the FRA to bring back passenger rail to the Gulf Coast. But sometimes, people have to see something in action to believe that it will work. That’s where the inspection train came in. 

Amtrak, in partnership with freight rail operator CSX and the Southern Rail Commission, ran a train full of elected, civic and other local leaders from the Gulf Coast and beyond from New Orleans to Jacksonville, FL to assess the feasibility of restoring passenger service, as well as the popularity of such a route. And the popularity was astounding. 

“I was on that train, and I will never forget the moment we rolled into Bay St. Louis for the first stop after departing New Orleans,” T4America’s communications director, Steve Davis, later wrote. “Conversations halted immediately as we were taken aback by the overwhelming sights and sounds of Bay St. Louis. Schools were closed, bands were playing, costumes were donned, and it seemed like the entire city had turned out to see the first passenger train in 11 years.” 

It wasn’t just Bay St. Louis. At every station between New Orleans and Jacksonville, the train was greeted by thousands of cheering supporters. Administrator Sara Feinberg of the FRA was clearly taken aback as she stepped off the train, shaking hands with excited residents lining the train platform and pulling out her phone to take pictures of her own. Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development Secretary Shawn Wilson posed for pictures with smiling and yelling residents like he was a rock star.

“I knew there was pent up enthusiasm for passenger rail, but I think all of us were astonished by the size of the crowds,” said John Robert Smith, the chair of T4America and a former Mississippi mayor.  “The crowds were so diverse: old, young, all ethnicities, and all economic abilities. Everyone on that train walked away with the sense that this passenger service will not only work but thrive, because it links two big cities with the smaller, equally important cities on the Gulf.” 

Four years later, that inspection train wasn’t just a test: it was a taste of what’s to come. Mississippi Republican Senator Roger Wicker led the creation of two important rail grant programs—the Consolidated Rail Infrastructure and Safety Improvements (CRISI) and the R&E grant that Mobile just applied for. The Southern Rail Commission won grants from both programs in 2019 to bring back Gulf Coast passenger rail, but they also needed commitments from the states and cities involved, like Mobile, to make it happen. 

Mississippi, Louisiana, and now Alabama have followed suit, with the City of Mobile committing $3 million, Mississippi matching the federal grants, and Louisiana providing priority funds. Amtrak estimates that service will be restored in two years, running four trains every day between New Orleans and Mobile. 

“Think about what this means for Mobile,” said Smith of Mobile’s recent commitment to restoring passenger rail. “The Gulf Coast is celebrating Mardi Gras right now. New Orleans gets most of the attention, but Mobile hosts a huge Mardi Gras celebration too. With passenger rail, the thousands of tourists to New Orleans can visit Mobile’s Mardi Gras celebration.”

At T4America, we’re still thrilled that the inspection train—and all of the hard work from advocates, community members, business leaders, and elected and government officials—led to something permanent. And we hope that other regions of the country can do the same.

The NTSB recommends safety standards for AVs. But Congress isn’t listening.

Update, 4/10/20: Republican staff of the House Energy and Commerce committee published a blog post arguing that the COVID-19 crisis is a great opportunity to pass automated vehicle legislation that prioritizes vehicle deployment over safety. To be clear, ventilators and personal protective equipment save lives during pandemics, not AVs. Don’t exploit a crisis to advance legislation devoid of any meaningful safety standards.

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) found in two investigations that the lack of safety standards contributed to fatal automated vehicle crashes. And polling shows that Americans overwhelmingly want these safety standards. There’s both evidence that safety standards are needed, and a desire among the public to establish them: so why isn’t Congress including safety standards in its draft automated vehicle (AV) legislation? 

A traffic jam in Texas. Photo by Open Grid Scheduler on Flickr’s Creative Commons.

To hear some in the  automotive and technology industries tell it, the only way we can ever advance as a society and develop AVs—”innovate” as they say—is to do so in a Wild West regulatory state. No basic, minimum performance standards to keep people safe. 

And that’s exactly what Congress is planning to gift to the automated vehicle industry. Congressional committees across party lines are writing legislation that allows AV manufacturers and developers to put this new technology on the road before it’s proven to be safe. 

This is incredibly disturbing in light of new findings from the National Transportation Safety Board, the U.S.’s premier transportation safety investigators. The NTSB found in not one but two investigations that the complete lack of federal safety standards contributed to fatal AV crashes. In its investigation of a fatal Tesla crash (released last week), the NTSB said that the main federal vehicle safety regulator “failed to develop a method for verifying that manufacturers … are incorporating system safeguards that are critical to ensuring the safety of the motoring public.” Translation: The federal government is doing nothing to check  that AVs are actually safe. 

The investigators at the NTSB aren’t the only ones highlighting the importance of safety standards: New polling from Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety found that Americans overwhelmingly want safety performance standards for AVs. 

Yet Congress is doing the exact opposite. For the last few months, a bicameral, bipartisan group of Congressional committee staff have been drafting pieces of a potential AV bill that deploys AVs before they are proven to be safe. In the drafts released publicly, the Secretary of Transportation has 10 years to set motor vehicle safety standards; in the interim, automakers must “self-certify” that their AVs are safe by submitting test results and data—but the Secretary is prohibited from banning AVs for sale based on any of those materials. 

These drafts directly contradict what the NTSB advises and what the public wants. The NTSB has now repeatedly recommended that the federal government verify that AV manufacturers include critical safety systems in their vehicles; but the draft AV bill sections doesn’t require that the federal government do this. The NTSB recommends that the federal government test AV technology themselves; the draft bill also doesn’t require this. The NTSB recommends that the federal government use “enforcement authority” to make automakers comply with safety rules, but the draft bill doesn’t give the federal government any imminent hazard authority—nor create any safety rules to comply with. Whether or not Congress adopts these specific proposals, it should concern us all that Congress is considering legislation which fails to include any safety standards before AVs are deployed. 

Safety standards are not a lot to ask for. Without safety standards, preventable crashes will happen; people will die. Yet it seems that Congress has fallen for the siren song of automakers and tech firms, believing the marketing tale the AVs are inherently safe. If that’s the case, then what’s the harm in enshrining that safety into law with minimum safety performance standards? 

AV technology is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to dramatically improve safety for all road users, not just people inside cars. And with more people dying while walking and biking than ever before, it’s an opportunity Congress would regret to miss. 

We’re not the only ones who want minimum performance safety standards. In August, we joined over 40 national advocacy groups to send a letter to Congress outlining what any AV legislation needs to guarantee safety and equitable access to this new technology. You can read that letter here.

Here’s how senators can turn their support for transit into real policy

At a Congressional hearing earlier this week, senators on both sides of the aisle expressed support for funding public transportation. As they begin to prepare legislation, we have six ideas on how to guarantee that transit is a priority. 

American Public Transportation Association president Paul Skoutelas testifying before the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs earlier this week. Photo credit: Banking Committee

Crafting transportation policy is a task split between four different Senate committees, and the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs is responsible for drafting the transit piece. As the current law of the land—the FAST Act—expires this September, the Banking Committee held a hearing earlier this week on “stakeholder perspectives” about public transportation policy.

It went pretty well: Both Democratic and Republican Senators on the Banking Committee spoke of their support for public transportation and their desire to improve it. We’re happy to hear it. But the Banking Committee must ensure that the final transportation bill makes transit a priority, not just a small part of a highway-centric bill. Simply maintaining the status quo is unacceptable. 

We have six policy ideas for both the House and Senate to guarantee that transit is a priority in the upcoming surface transportation reauthorization. Congress, take note:

1. Provide adequate resources for transit maintenance

Federal law allocates 20 percent of the Highway Trust Fund to public transit. Unlike in the highway program (which allows states to neglect their repair needs), these funds are primarily spent on maintenance. Unfortunately, this still underfunds our transit maintenance needs. In order to truly prioritize maintenance of public transit systems the federal government must provide the necessary resources.

Congress should substantially increase the formula public transit maintenance funds to a level that the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) estimates will reduce the maintenance backlog in half. As of the most recent conditions and performance report, the FTA estimated that the transit maintenance backlog was approximately $90 billion. 

2. Require roadway designs which provide safe and convenient access to transit

Public transit is most useful when streets are designed to provide people with safe and convenient access. Today, most roads—not just highways—are designed to move personal vehicles at the highest speeds possible, and are not designed for people walking, biking, or taking transit. Our dangerous streetscapes are a driving force behind the disturbing increase in pedestrian fatalities—occurring at the same time that the number of fatalities of people inside cars is going down. 

3. Develop a national assessment of access to jobs and services by all modes, including transit, and set national goals for improvement.

Instead of measuring success of the transportation system by looking primarily at the limited and blunt metric of congestion (which fails to measure people opting out of congestion via transit or walking and biking), we should measure access to jobs and services by all modes, including transit. This will allow an apples-to-apples comparison of the benefits of all projects and will place transit investments on equal footing with road investments. The first step toward adoption of this approach is to establish a national baseline so that we can set goals for improvement.

4. Provide operating support for public transit

While the federal government will help local governments and MPOs build new public transit, it provides limited support in rural communities and no support in urban areas to operate their systems. This is unlike some other modes of transportation where the federal government provides significant operating support. High quality operations including safe, frequent, reliable service are integral to a successful public transit.

5. Fund transit and roads equally

The federal funding distribution disincentivizes investment in transit in two ways. The first is that while funding for new roads is guaranteed to states thanks to over $40 billion annually in highway formulas (this will be over $50 billion if the Senate EPW Committee’s bill passes), transit is given just $2 billion in discretionary funds (that are not guaranteed) to build new or expand existing transit.

Second, the federal government will fund up to 80 percent of a road project (even 90 percent in limited cases), and only up to 50 percent of a transit project (though matches of less than 40 percent have been more common in recent years). This doesn’t just disincentivize investment in public transit: it creates the false perception that public transit is too expensive when compared to roads.  

6. Reform the transit Capital Investment Grant Program with more funding and new deadlines for USDOT

The Capital Investment Grant (CIG) program supports local communities that have chosen to expand or build new public transit systems. It is the primary program that transit project sponsors use to build or expand public transit. 

Funding for this program is discretionary and limited to $2.6 billion, which has failed to keep pace with increased construction costs and needs to address operational bottlenecks. Further, in recent years, the FTA has failed to communicate with Congress, project sponsors, and the public as to the status of the program and projects seeking funding, undermining the efficient operation of this program and placing a greater burden on local communities. 

There is a lot the FTA can do to improve CIG, but our big ask is this: Congress should allow the FTA to fund the same share of a new transit project as is allowed for new roadways (under current law that is 80 project), and require that the FTA provides annual assessments of projects expected to advance to the next phase of CIG project pipeline. 

Why this matters

Public transportation is key to our local, regional, and national economies and is essential to economic opportunity. But national transportation policy provides too little funding for transit, only covers half or less of the final project cost, and fails to properly integrate our transit and road networks. The federal government puts a thumb on the scale, making it near impossible for towns and cities to choose a transit solution to a transportation challenge.

It’s time for this to change. The Banking Committee can use the upcoming surface transportation reauthorization to make public transportation a national priority. The Committee can stand up for transit by working with their colleagues on EPW and in leadership to ensure our transportation network supports transit, and by approving a robust transit title that provides urban and rural transit agencies the resources they need to provide safe, efficient, and reliable service. 

We appreciate how hard Banking has fought to save transit in the Highway Trust Fund. Those fights were important. But now is the time to do more.

We’re going to need a second Infrastructure Forum

This past Sunday, four presidential candidates gathered in Las Vegas to talk about infrastructure. It was a rare opportunity to ask the politicians vying for our nation’s top office critical questions—and the moderators completely blew it. 

It could have been great. But it was not. 

This past weekend, Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar, Joe Biden, and Tom Steyer took to the stage at the University of Nevada for the Infrastructure Forum, an event organized by United for Infrastructure and a suite of transportation unions and associations. This wasn’t the first forum of the race focused on a specific issue, but it was the first—and so far the only planned—forum focused on infrastructure. We are grateful that United for Infrastructure took up the mantle to make it happen. 

The word “infrastructure” comes up in many presidential candidates’ stump speeches, but the mention doesn’t go much further than the need to “build it.” We were looking forward to hearing more about candidates’ transportation goals and the policies they would propose to get us there. (We submitted a ton of questions to the forum—thank you to United for Infrastructure for soliciting questions—but we especially wanted the candidates to answer these three.) 

Unfortunately, Infrastructure Forum moderators failed to ask anything of substance. Our questions about maintenance, safety, and access were absent as were any meaty questions about the candidates’ plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation sector. Instead of asking probing questions on these issues, the Wall Street Journal reporters who moderated the forum wanted to know what superficial fixes candidates would make to address the problems our broken federal transportation policy causes—and candidates largely kept their answers superficial. 

For example: the moderators asked every candidate if they would “prioritize maintaining the existing infrastructure or build a new, green transportation system.” The focus on fixing our infrastructure before building anything new is good (it’s the  first of our three principles for transportation policy), but this framing presents a false dichotomy. As we found in our report Repair Priorities, states often build new highways or widen existing ones with federal transportation funding instead of maintaining existing roadways. Increasing roadway capacity actually makes traffic worse, increasing driving and emissions. Maintaining our existing roadways is a step towards a new, green transportation system: maintenance and reduced emissions can go hand in hand. Unless this was meant to be a trick question, the moderators failed here.

But at least maintenance got mentioned. Our other two principles—prioritizing safety over speed and connecting people to jobs and services (two things our transportation program currently does not do)—did not come up at all in moderators’ questions or candidates’ answers. 

To their credit, the moderators did ask about climate change, but not about addressing climate in any meaningful way. As we know, federal transportation policy itself guarantees increasing greenhouse gas emissions by blindly pouring money into new roads, but if you didn’t already know that you certainly didn’t learn it watching this forum. Any transportation policy meant to reduce emissions has to reduce driving—but the moderators kept their questioning and candidates kept their answers to what kinds of electric vehicle subsidies they would propose, and if they “believe” in rail. (What is there to believe? Rail exists!) 

Another frustrating line of questioning: The moderators kept asking candidates how they would pay for their infrastructure proposals before asking what they’re even proposing. This is more than just our pet peeve—it’s why we’re no longer advocating for Congress to increase transportation funding. On what other issues are people told the price before they know what they’re buying? (It’s not just us. Polling from the infrastructure campaign Build Together found that 63 percent of voters believe that the federal governments’ lack of vision for infrastructure policy is a bigger problem than the amount spent on infrastructure.) 

Lackluster questions breed lackluster answers, but the candidates offered at least some insight into their proposals. Buttigieg was the only candidate that said the baseline transportation program needs to change, while Klobuchar and Biden think money is infinite and priorities unnecessary.  Steyer—the self-professed “climate candidate”—wants to fight climate change by bringing back Cash for Clunkers, and, well, we hate to break it to him, but that won’t be enough to reduce our emissions. 

We need a second Infrastructure Forum. One where candidates are actually asked how their infrastructure proposals align with their goals for the country, because “infrastructure” doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Infrastructure determines where you work, how healthy you are, and what your children can achieve. Infrastructure determines your quality of life. It’s time we asked presidential candidates real questions about it. 

In case you missed it: we scored every leading presidential candidates’ infrastructure proposal on how well they achieve our three principles for transportation policy. Check it out here!

Rose Lanes get love from Portland City Council

The Portland City Council is moving forward with a plan to improve transit service through a series of targeted improvements to some of the city’s most delayed bus and streetcar corridors. Known as the Rose Lane Project, it’s designed to advance equity, reduce carbon emissions, and increase transit ridership with quick-build projects. It also offers lessons to other cities struggling with sluggish transits systems mired in a sea of cars.

Yesterday, the City of Roses (Portland, OR) unanimously adopted an ambitious plan to speed up transit service by freeing it from traffic and improve racial equity across the city. Aptly named the Rose Lane Project, the adoption of this plan follows high-profile changes in New York City and San Francisco that have closed entire streets to private vehicles in order to free riders from crippling traffic and open up space for pedestrians and cyclists.

But the Rose Lane project, while sharing similar goals, is different. Instead of closing a single street to vehicles, the city is launching a series of improvements to speed multiple bus lines and streetcars through the city with a variety of treatments, including but not limited to bus lanes. And it’ll all happen fast. The Rose Lane Project is designed to be implemented as pilot projects that can be deployed quickly with low-cost materials, evaluated and tweaked over time, and then made permanent if they’re successful.

Phase 1 consists of 29 separate projects from transit queue jumps to traffic light changes to bus lanes that will be implemented this year and next. Projects in Phase 2 will bring further, tailored street improvements to a network of high-priority transit corridors in 2021 and 2022.

The scale, timeline, and explicit focus on equity and climate change makes the Rose Lane Project unlike anything else being done in the U.S. though it is based in part on the success of Seattle in implementing transit priority and the resulting increase in transit ridership.

The city takes action

In many cities, a transit agency operates the transit system—hiring drivers, collecting fares, maintaining rail lines, etc.—while the city controls the street. A transit agency may request changes to traffic lights, bus stops, or lanes but it’s ultimately up to the city to actually implement those changes on public roadways. This divided responsibility can be a huge obstacle to change; political will, more than money, can become the limiting factor in whether or not transit is truly prioritized on the street. The same truth holds in efforts to dedicate more safe infrastructure for people walking and biking.

In Portland, the unanimous adoption of the Rose Lane Project by the city council sends a clear message: transit is our priority. When fully implemented, the Rose Lane Project will reduce travel times for hundreds of thousands of riders everyday, improve access to jobs and services across the entire city—particularly for low-income households and communities of color—and help the city reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by making transit a more attractive choice to more people. Ultimately the city hopes the Rose Lane Project will help it achieve a goal of 25 percent of trips in the city made by transit.

“The Rose Lane Project demonstrates how equity and climate are interconnected. My office developed this bold, transformative vision for transit with PBOT by centering racial equity—setting a goal to reduce commute times for communities of color—and in doing so we created a powerful tool that will advance our efforts to confront climate change,” said Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT) Commissioner Chloe Eudaly. “The Rose Lane Project is a major step toward meeting our equity, climate, and transportation goals by making transit a more viable option for more Portlanders.”

PBOT has put together a full report on the Rose Lane Project that is chock full of easily digestible information and great graphics. Cities around the country should take note—inequality and climate change are issues that every community is dealing with and the Rose Lane Project offers a vision of a healthier, safer, more equitable transportation system.

Transportation is changing, but curbs are not: Lessons from the first Smart Cities Collaborative 2020 meeting

The third year of the Smart Cities Collaborative is off to a strong start. Last week, Transportation for America brought together the three pilot cities in the Collaborative to work through devising and designing strong curbside management pilots.

A break-out session at the first Smart Cities Collaborative meeting in Boston.

In 2018—when the last Smart Cities Collaborative wrapped up—electric scooter-sharing was brand new. Now, scooters, bikeshare, rideshare, and other mobility trends have gained stronger footholds in cities, becoming important features of the transportation ecosystem. 

But while these new technologies are changing transportation, one thing has stayed the same: the way we use curbs. 

Curbs are magical places where land use and transportation collide, often times making them cities’ most valuable assets. Which is why the 2020 Collaborative—which kicked off last week in Boston—is focused on developing better curbside management strategies through pilot projects. 

Three of the 17 cities participating in the 2020 Collaborative—Bellevue, WA; Boston, MA; and Minneapolis, MN—will launch curbside management pilots later this year. These cities’ teams met with us in Boston to brainstorm how they can make their pilots successful and scale what they learn across their cities. 

The current state of the curb

Managing curb space can be a work-in-progress. A city official puts “pedestrian zone” signs that had been moved back in their rightful places.

Curbs are more valuable now than ever before, according to Cityfi’s Camron Bridgeford. T4America teamed up with Cityfi to create the curriculum for the Collaborative—which inevitably began with what makes curbs so special in the first place. 

It comes down to simple economics: The fixed supply of curb space and the number of competing demands increases curbs’ value. For example, curbs are key to the movement of goods and people, as well as used for transit, storage, short-term parking, construction, streetscaping (like street trees), tactical urbanism, and snow removal, but there are only so many curbs. With the recent (and growing) number of new mobility technologies, it is a critical moment for cities to better leverage their curbs to advance the public good. 

For cities considering curbside management pilots, Camron recommends considering the following factors: pricing, design and way-finding, demand and access, operations and enforcement, partnerships, data, and performance measures. 

The importance of outreach

In many places, demands on curb space are increasing faster than public perception of what curbs are and what they could be. This poses a huge hurdle for cities considering changing their curbside management policies: explaining what they’re doing to people accustomed to traditional uses of curb space, such as on-street parking. 

Communicating the importance of rethinking streetscapes that haven’t changed in decades calls for more than just one public meeting. Cities need to show people what different uses of curb spaces look like, and for that they need creative communication strategies. 

The Collaborative came up with a few communication ideas, such as prioritizing stories over data (what’s more compelling: statistics or a tale of someone who could now get to work safely because of a protected bike lane?) and using pilots themselves as an outreach tool—because what’s a better way to explain what you want to achieve city-wide than showing people how it works on one block? 

Outreach is critical to successful pilot projects and policy implementation. If the public isn’t on board, your project will never leave the station. 

Data with a purpose

Smart Cities Collaborative co-director Emiko Atherton assists a team in a brainstorming session.

The advent of new mobility technologies is a huge opportunity for cities to learn more about how people get around by all modes of travel. But data is useless if cities don’t determine what they want to achieve with it. 

T4America’s director Beth Osborne took Bellevue, Boston, and Minneapolis on a rhetorical journey to determine why they want to collect mobility data in the first place. That journey started with identifying a problem. 

For example: many cities experience traffic back-ups that occur when a delivery vehicle double-parks. Most people take for granted that back-ups are bad, but Beth asked our three cities: why are these back-ups a problem? 

The cities answered: back-ups are bad because they increase vehicle and bus travel times and make streets unsafe for people walking and biking, as drivers double-parking or stuck in traffic might behave in unpredictable ways. That led the cities to their problem statement: We need to reduce incidences of double-parking in order to improve safety and travel times. 

By always asking “why,” cities can make sure that the data they collect aligns with their goals. 

What’s next for the Collaborative?

Between now and May, Bellevue, Boston, and Minneapolis will work on launching their curbside management pilots. This spring, we’ll gather with them and the 14 “peer” cities in the Collaborative in Bellevue to learn more about strategies for leveraging curb space. 

Step 1: Electric vehicle chargers. Step 2: Real structural reform.

Last week, Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY-14) and Andy Levin (MI-9) released the “Electric Vehicle Freedom Act,” a bill that would aim to “establish a nationwide electric vehicle charging network within five years.” The creativity behind this bill is exactly what Congress needs—we just need to focus on more than EVs.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez at SXSW 2019. Photo by NRKBeta on Flickr’s Creative Commons

You’ve (hopefully) heard it all before: transportation accounts for the largest share of carbon emissions in the United States, and those emissions are rising—even as other sectors have improved. 

Tackling those rising emissions is the goal of Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) and Andy Levin’s  new “Electric Vehicle Freedom Act.” The bill—released in tandem with the House majority’s new infrastructure framework—would build an electric vehicle charging network along the nation’s highways, according to the Hill. 

It’s rare to see a bill that uses transportation funding for something brand new, like EV charging. On that front, this bill is a clear winner. Now it’s time for Reps. AOC and Levin to completely rethink the transportation program overall—because the structure of the program itself sets the U.S. on a course to increase transportation emissions. 

Like a terrible prophecy, the federal transportation program spends billions every year to build new highways, encouraging more and more driving. With the limited funding for transit, rail, walking and biking overwhelmed by the billions spent on highways, federal policy is designed to keep us in our cars (which generates more congestion and pollution). 

More and more driving negates any emissions reductions from electric vehicles because the fleet of U.S. vehicles isn’t turning electric as quickly as vehicle miles traveled are increasing. Despite an admirable 35 percent increase in the overall fuel efficiency of our vehicle fleet from 1990-2016, emissions still rose by 21 percent because driving increased by 50 percent in that same period.

Electric vehicles are absolutely necessary to decrease our emissions, but they aren’t enough. We need to drive less. That means a complete restructuring of a federal transportation program built to increase driving. We would love to work with Reps. AOC and Levin on crafting a forward thinking transportation bill that will put the entire country on a path to truly lower carbon emissions.

What’s inside presidential candidates’ transportation plans?

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

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

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

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

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

Donald Trump: Fail

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

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

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

Joe Biden: Fail

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

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

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

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

Michael Bloomberg: Pass

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

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

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

Pete Buttigieg: Pass

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

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

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

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

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

Elizabeth Warren: Fail

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

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

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

Bernie Sanders: Fail

Senator Sanders’ platform includes so much money.

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

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

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

Amy Klobuchar: Fail

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

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

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

In conclusion…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Is this flurry of transit grants a blip or a trend?

A First Coast Flyer BRT bus in Jacksonville. USDOT recently finalized a grant for another line of this service.

The U.S. Department of Transportation has finalized five grants to expand and build new transit lines. It’s a stark departure from USDOT’s history of stonewalling grants under Trump. This surge of grants could signal a shift in the agency’s stance, but the whole mess definitely underscores both how our federal transportation system makes transit hard to fund and why Congress should increase funding and certainty for transit in new, long-term transportation policy. Transportation policy principles released in the House suggest that could be possible.

Five federal grants for transit projects around the country were announced over the last two weeks. If that sounds like a lot, that’s because it is and it’s a stark departure from the delays and obstruction that have characterized this administration’s approach to public transportation funding over the last three years. Those preventable delays have resulted in a transit backlog, with dozens of projects currently waiting for federal grants to be finalized so they can get off the ground. 

But this new flurry of activity offers some hope that perhaps the administration is changing its tune on transit funding. Albany, NY, Jacksonville, FL, Portland, OR, and Spokane, WA all received smaller (<$100 million1), one-time grants to build bus rapid transit lines. The Federal Way Link Extension received a larger, multi-year grant to extend the light rail system in the Puget Sound region.

Unfortunately, many other transit projects are still waiting for federal grants to come through. The final phase of the Purple Line subway extension in Los Angeles has been in limbo for more than 14 months—the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) has made two “allocations” to the project but inexplicably hasn’t finalized an actual grant. Minneapolis is another community facing an extraordinary delay on a federal grant for their Green Line light rail extension. Projects in Phoenix, Milwaukee, Kansas City, and other communities are all still waiting. These delays aren’t merely inconveniences: construction costs have gone up and timelines pushed back; people and businesses will have to wait longer to benefit from more transportation options.

It’s unfortunate that federal funding to build and expand public transportation has been at the mercy of a hostile administration. But this is a product of Congress treating transit like a second-class mode of transportation for decades.

A system designed to fail

The vast majority of transportation funding in the U.S. is dedicated to roads. Over $40 billion a year is automatically divvied up among states primarily to build new highways and make them wider. (In theory, this is also supposed to fund maintenance, but most states don’t.) By contrast, only about $2.6 billion is available for new public transit capital projects each year, and this funding is not guaranteed. And while the federal government will cover 80 percent of the cost of a highway project, it will only pay for up to 50 percent of the cost of a transit project. 

In essence, capital funding for transit is orphaned, kept largely separate from other federal transportation funds, while roads are treated to a geyser of funding (that includes billions in general tax revenues because the gas tax no longer brings in enough to pay what goes out). The Trump administration has been able to play games with transit funding because Congress treats it like an orphaned child, putting it in the hands of whoever happens to occupy the White House. 

While the current administration has been openly hostile to transit, even under administrations more amenable to transit, this second-class treatment has hampered its uptake. Fortunately, Congress has an opportunity to reform the federal program right now as they begin rewriting federal transportation policy. The next reauthorization should make transit a priority by funding transit at the same levels as highways, providing a higher federal cost-share for transit projects, and making operating support available. Future federal legislation should make transit safe, reliable, and convenient. 

It appears that some of this could be possible based on principles released by the House majority on the Transportation & Infrastructure Committee, but time will tell.

Cautious optimism

Building transit one grant at a time clearly isn’t working, but for right now, this is the system that we have and we’ll work to ensure it functions as intended. When it became clear that USDOT wasn’t executing grants in 2018, we sounded the alarm: our Stuck in the Station resource was born and media headlines brought the obstruction in this obscure program to light. Our advocacy on Capitol Hill resulted in an oversight hearing in the U.S. House, which did its own investigation into delays.

But in light of these five new grant announcements, we’d like to believe that the administration is done blatantly obstructing transit grants. For one, all the misleading terminology about “allocating” grants (but not actually awarding them) is gone from these recent press releases—and hopefully future press releases will only be about finalized grants and not meaningless allocations. Second, USDOT approved more grants in the past two weeks than in the first 18 months of Trump’s term. Third, as the administration begins its fourth year and priorities change, perhaps the hard-working career employees are being allowed to go about their jobs without interference from political appointees who don’t like the idea of funding transit.

That’s the optimistic view, but it’s also possible that this is only a temporary reprieve. The administration has been asking Congress to eliminate transit funding (grants or otherwise) altogether since taking office, and last year Congress made a $500 million cut to transit grants—a direct result of USDOT slow walking these funds. Rewarding a bully only emboldens them, and that cut was a reward for the Trump administration. 

So we’ll keep watching to see if USDOT is ready to get back to work helping build sorely needed transit infrastructure. If that’s the case, we may be able to retire Stuck in the Station and focus our efforts on reforming federal transportation policy in Congress instead of babysitting a federal agency.

House environment coalition demands real transportation policy reform to tackle climate change

Last week, leaders of the House Sustainable Energy and Environment Coalition (SEEC) urged Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Peter DeFazio and Ranking Member Sam Graves to use surface transportation reauthorization as an opportunity to take serious action on climate change.

“A status quo highway bill will no longer serve the needs of our country or our planet; instead, it would risk putting us at a competitive disadvantage while leaving us all more vulnerable to the dangers of climate change.” 

We couldn’t agree more. The fact that those words came from sitting members of Congress is even more stirring. In a letter, the Sustainable Energy and Environment Coalition urged the U.S. House to use surface transportation reauthorization—the process that sets federal transportation policy for the next five years—as an opportunity to change our outdated transportation policy and make real strides reducing emissions in the transportation sector. We applaud their vision. The letter was led by SEEC Co-Chairs Reps. Gerry Connolly (VA-11), Paul Tonko (NY-20), and Doris Matsui (CA-6), and SEEC Vice-Chairs Reps. Chellie Pingree (ME-1), Alan Lowenthal (CA-47), Mike Quigley (IL-5), Matt Cartwright (PA-8) and A. Donald McEachin (VA-4). 

Transportation is the single largest source of greenhouse gases (GHG), contributing 29 percent of the United States’ total greenhouse gas emissions and the majority of these emissions come from driving. As the Coalition wrote in their letter, “Our current highway policy undermines our climate goals by favoring new highways, roads, and lanes that induce more driving, over transit, biking, and walking.” Without structural reform and reducing the distance people drive, we’ll never reduce our emissions enough and create a transportation system that works for everyone. 

The letter called for the creation of performance measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, vehicle miles traveled, and “cumulative criteria pollution” (which includes carbon monoxide, lead, nitrogen dioxide, ozone, particulate matter, and sulfur dioxide) in the transportation sector, similar to the GREEN Streets Act introduced in both the House and Senate. Further, the Coalition called for the use of accessibility, or destination access, to measure whether or not people can get to their destinations, replacing the outdated, ineffective, & car-centric proxies we currently use. As we’ve written about, we think the use of accessibility as a metric of success would be transformative. 

Using access to evaluate projects may show that building and repairing sidewalks in a community would dramatically improve access to jobs and services for more residents than redesigning one intersection for cars. It may show that a new bus line would make it easier for residents in a low-income community to access healthcare. Choosing to invest in these types of projects would make better connections within communities and would reduce the distance needed to drive, and in turn reduce emissions.

The Coalition also called for the “creation of a national complete streets program to provide technical assistance and incentives for the adoption of policies that facilitate better pedestrian, bicycle, and public transit travel.” The Complete Streets Act of 2019, supported by our sister organization, the National Complete Streets Coalition, would do just that and is currently pending before the House and Senate. This bill would incentivize states and metro areas to finally design and build safer streets for everyone, and give them federal funding to do it.

We need a new vision for our transportation system, and the leadership and vision from the Sustainable Energy and Environment Coalition indicates that fixing our transportation policy is possible. We know that electrification and fuel efficiency alone will not suffice to meet our decarbonization goals by 2050. To meet our emissions reductions goals, we need to create a more equitable multimodal transportation system. We look forward to working with the Coalition to turn these principles into policy.

House principles could finally connect transportation spending to tangible outcomes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

ACT Fellows learn from local leaders in the Twin Cities

Artwork along the American Indian Cultural Corridor in Minneapolis, MN.

Transportation for America believes in hands-on learning from experienced practitioners. We put that belief into practice through programs like our Arts, Culture and Transportation (ACT) Fellowship, supported by the Kresge Foundation, where we have been able to take our fellows to different communities to experience first-hand the power of arts and culture to produce better transportation systems.

In late October, our 11 fellows participating in the fellowship visited the Twin Cities in Minnesota to learn from local practitioners using art and cultural strategies to improve transportation. We invited a few fellows to reflect on their experiences. The fellows were able to witness how community members are taking control and how transportation leadership and city government are learning from communities and becoming more responsive, and reflected on how they’ve integrated what they’ve learned into their own transportation projects at home.

Here’s what a few of our ACT Fellows had to share:

Listen to the community. They are the experts.

Sue Lambe
Manager, City of Austin Art in Public Places Program
Austin, TX

Our two days in Minneapolis-St. Paul were filled with meaningful glimpses into local culture, particularly along transportation corridors such as the Green Line in St. Paul’s Rondo neighborhood. Rondo, like communities in many American cities in the ’50s and ’60s, was divided by an interstate highway which was constructed along racial lines to divide white people from people of color.

Local activist Melvin Giles. Photo: Sue Lambe

Deeply inspiring local activist Melvin Giles narrated our walk through the Rondo neighborhood and spoke of the fight for equity that the neighborhood has waged for decades. Melvin supports peaceful interaction while working for equity. He shared one of his biggest weapons in waging peace and de-escalation of violence by gifting each of us with a vial of his ever-present bubbles with bubble wand.

Melvin shared many insights with the fellows: the need to remain present through the tough times as well as the good times, his delight in the many friends and neighbors he introduced to us throughout the Rondo neighborhood, the art installations (one featured African American railroad employees) that seek to tell important stories illuminating the history of the African American community. One tiny moment in particular sticks with me and won’t let go: a casual comment about an unassuming empty lot. As we moved along the Green Line that rainy morning, Melvin sort of threw a hand toward a space sandwiched between a restaurant parking lot and an empty storefront, stating that the unassuming grassy lot is the epicenter of neighborhood celebrations, civic events, and political campaign stops.

The “unassuming grassy lot” that hosts community events. Photo: Sue Lambe

For me, this was a revelation. Without his interpretation of this space, as an outsider I would have seen what just appeared to be there—nothing. My current work includes bringing public art to 50 miles of transportation corridors in Austin, TX and my immediate thought was: how will we be able to correctly interpret these “empty lots” in Austin as deeply meaningful spaces?

Melvin showed us one answer: planners, designers, and civic leaders embedded in a space, community, or neighborhood, must spark conversations with those living there in the process of decision making and listen to the wisdom imparted in order to ensure that valuable community resources may remain and be celebrated, possibly with public art. I’m so grateful. Thank you, Melvin!

Taking time to work with intention

Keiko Budech
Communications Manager, Transportation Choices Coalition
Seattle, WA

During our trip to the Twin Cities, our cohort met artists, activists, electeds, and community builders working in the intersection of art and urban planning. The words “community” and “belonging” came up, rooting us back to why we do this work—to create and preserve spaces where people feel a sense of connection and community belonging.

ACT Fellows from Seattle with Minneapolis Councilmember Andrea Jenkins. Photo: Keiko Budech

Community artists and activists Melvin Giles, Missy Whiteman, and Andrea Jenkins all reiterated the importance of having community members and artists as a (paid) part of a planning process (at the beginning stages), and continued to ask the question, “how do you build on assets of the community that are already here?” There’s endless collective and creative wisdom in a community that is often overlooked in urban planning.

A highlight of our visit was meeting artist, poet, and Minneapolis Councilmember Andrea Jenkins. She described a powerful community-based art project in Central and South Minneapolis called ‘This house is not for sale’ that displayed art on realty signs outside of foreclosed homes to spread awareness about displacement in the neighborhood, distributed information about what to do if someone is trying to buy your home, and explored what it means to acknowledge a home’s history. She also shared her experience transitioning as an activist/poet into elected office. She took us on a walk to the bridge over the “scar that splits our neighborhood” (the interstate highway), where she hosts an annual dinner on the bridge to connect her east and west communities. Andrea was full of ideas of ways to use art and culture to bring community together, and reminded us that art can be a powerful agent of community transformation.

Missy Whiteman and the American Indian Cultural Corridor in Minneapolis. Photo: Keiko Budech

Missy Whiteman, artist and member of the Northern Arapaho and Kickapoo tribes, guided us around the American Indian Cultural Corridor in Minneapolis along East Franklin Avenue. She explained that it’s better to take time on a project and do it right, because big land-use and transportation projects will last for generations. She also emphasized the importance of always working with indigenous community members (again, paid!) on planning projects to understand the history of the land that we are occupying, and what changes we can make to acknowledge and not repeat our oppressive history.

The Seattle fellowship team continues to explore questions around how to create public art that builds on the assets of community, and works to keep low-income communities and communities of color in place when new infrastructure is built (for example, the Puget Sound region’s current construction of our 116-mile regional light rail system). Community-informed public art can be a tool to preserve and celebrate the neighborhood’s history and culture, but if we don’t anchor community with anti-displacement tools, then who is that art work for? It was helpful to connect with experts in the Twin Cities dealing with similar questions, and explore a city with rich public art resources and multiple public art nonprofits, like Forecast Public Art, supporting community artists pursuing public art work.

Integrating on-site learning into projects at home

Erika Wilhite
Artistic Director, En Masse Arts
Springdale, AR

“Development without displacement” mural in St. Paul’s Rondo neighborhood. Photo: Sue Lambe.

My favorite day of our convening was led by Melvin Giles in the Rondo neighborhood of St. Paul. They told us the story about Rondo, which was the center of the local black community in the Twin Cities. It was heavily damaged and forever transformed in the 1960s due to the construction of a new interstate highway right through the middle of Rondo, causing the displacement of over 500 families as well as local businesses. Along the way I snapped photos of murals that state “Development Without Displacement” and signs taped to the side of buildings declaring “We will not be moved.” All around there was evidence of a community speaking up, taking their space, and directing the conversation about development.

Our final stop on the tour was the Rondo library, which is where we met with Erin Laberee of Ramsey County Public Works and artist Hawona Sullivan Janzen. They recounted a story about how the city went to the Rondo community for input on a new bridge that was to be built over I-94, but in the process city representatives learned that there was a lot of listening that first needed to be done about the negative impacts that I-94 had on Rondo. The city acknowledged that there was a need to address those wounds and give the community control of the planning process. I am especially impressed that they scrapped their original timeline and extended the community input process to listen as long as it would take. I love this story because it is an example of how community-led development can create the conditions for healing and neighborhood development.

Concept for a land bridge or cap over I-95 in St. Paul, MN.

Since the trip, I have since learned more about ReconnectRondo, an organization in place to steward the community engagement and also cast a much more ambitious vision of a “land bridge” to place a cap over I-94 at several spots to reconnect the divided neighborhood, create new meaningful gathering spaces, and “leverage the potential of the Rondo Land Bridge and the numerous innovations, partnerships and policy changes in transportation, to see a sustainable and thriving community for us all!”

I see how the current conversation about transit in my community, Springdale, Arkansas, was rushed, and how we are missing opportunities to create conditions for community cohesion. I have shared these stories from Rondo and used them to rebut the claim that the process for community engagement can’t be amended once it is underway. There were many projects and stories of collaborations in the Twin Cities that I take away as examples of community-led, artist facilitated, development processes to share with my community and the NWA Regional Planning Commission (our metropolitan planning organization) of what equitable transit planning looks like in action.

14 cities join Transportation for America’s Smart Cities Collaborative


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

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

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

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

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

The 14 cities and agencies are:

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

TransportationCamp DC in the rearview mirror


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

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

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

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

Our phenomenal sponsors!

Changemaking becomes a bigger focus

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

Equity on the agenda, but not the roster

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

Wonky policy proposals resonate with campers

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

Exchanging & debating ideas

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

A young crowd brings high energy

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

Hobbyists to seasoned professionals: space for everyone

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

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

See you next year, campers.

Member Policy Memo: Final FY2020 THUD Appropriations Bill

On December 16, 2019 House and Senate negotiators released the text of an agreement, also known as
a “conference report” on FY20 appropriations. The agreement is comprised of two bills, with the THUD
appropriations included in H.R. 1865, the Domestic Priorities and International Assistance
Appropriations Minibus. The House and Senate approved the bill, and the President signed it into law before the current continuing resolution (CR) with temporary funding levels for federal agencies expired on December 20. Here is the analysis from our policy team provided exclusively to members.

Business groups urge Congressional support for transit funding

The business community gets it—public transportation is critical for the strength and growth of local economies and federal funding for transit is needed to get projects off the ground. In a letter to Congress, members of the Chambers for Transit coalition called for fully funding the nation’s largest grant program for public transit and reorienting the entire federal transportation program around clear goals and priorities.

Ahead of striking a deal to fund the government for the next year, the business community spoke out about the need to fund transit. A letter from members of Chambers for Transit, a coalition of chambers of commerce, economic development groups, business districts, and other business groups, laid out the case for robust federal support for public transportation:

“Public transit is critically important to the economic competitiveness and vitality of our local communities. Transit provides affordable access to jobs for many workers. For businesses, transit provides access to employees on a day-to-day basis.

“Over the long-term, investing in public transit is part of an integral strategy for creating the kinds of communities where many people want to live, with vibrant walkable neighborhoods and a diversity of transportation and housing options. This is critically important to our economic competitiveness because these are the places where businesses choose to locate so they can attract and retain a talented workforce.”

Their ask was twofold. Most immediately, they called for fully funding the transit Capital Investment Grant program in the next year, a program with bipartisan support that funds the construction and expansion of bus rapid transit, light rail, commuter rail, and other forms of public transportation. The U.S. Department of Transportation—the executive agency in charge of administering the program—has also been engaged in a well-documented attempt to undermine the program and delay the signing of grants. Therefore, these business groups also urged Congress to exercise their full authority to hold the agency accountable and ensure USDOT executes the program as intended.

Unfortunately, Congress made a $500 million cut to transit funding in this program for next year. The cut is a result of the diligent work by USDOT to slow-walk transit grants and make it appear as if the program was overfunded.

Beyond the immediate policy concerns is a long-term vision for federal transportation policy. The current 5-year federal transportation policy is set to expire in 2020 and Congress has barely begun to rewrite it. The signatories wrote:

“Nearly seven decades ago the federal transportation program set out with a clear purpose: connect our cities and rural areas and states with high-speed interstates and highways for cars and trucks and make travel all about speed. These brand new highways made things like cross-country and inter-state travel easier than we ever imagined possible. We connected places that weren’t well-connected before, and many Americans reaped the economic benefits. With the interstate system now complete, we’ve never really updated those broad goals from 1956 in a meaningful way despite diminishing returns and a lack of clearly defined priorities for this century.”

Despite the clear need for an updated vision and new policy goals, what Congress has produced so far is disappointing. Instead of a more fundamental rewrite that acknowledges how dramatically transportation has changed in the last few decades, legislators are largely tweaking policy around the edges.

These business leaders asked Congress to define new goals and priorities and write policy to support those priorities in the next long-term transportation authorization. The Chambers joined Transportation for America’s call to support the following three core principles for federal transportation investment:

  1. Prioritize maintenance
  2. Design for safety over speed
  3. Connect people to jobs and services

With new federal policy structured around those principles and robust federal funding for transit in the next year, communities around the country will be better positioned to become more economically vibrant.

You can find the full letter and the signatories here and learn more about each of the three principles proposed here.