News and Blog - Page 56 of 78 - Transportation For America

Second proposed performance measure from USDOT makes some important improvements

You may have missed it amidst the flurry of holidays and the beginning of a new year, but after a long wait, the U.S. Department of Transportation finally released the second of three proposed rules to measure the performance of our nation’s transportation investments. Unlike the first proposed rule for safety, the news is much better this time around.

USDOT listened to the feedback offered by the public during the comment period following the first proposed rule — including more than 1,500 T4America and Complete Streets Coalition supporters — and made some important changes to this second proposed rule for measuring road and bridge conditions to increase accountability and transparency of our limited transportation dollars. (This follows on the heels of the small but incredibly meaningful change for non-motorized transportation users included in the omnibus budget passed just a few weeks ago.)

The first proposed performance measure for safety was “too weak to be effective,” allowing states to avoid taking any action to improve safety by giving them a passing grade even when they failed to meet half of the targets required in law — contrary to congressional intent in MAP-21. The American taxpayer wouldn’t accept failing grades for our schools, nor should they accept them for our transportation system.

At that point Transportation for America was worried that one of the few key reforms made by MAP-21 – performance measures and national goals – was going to become another paper-stapling exercise that would do little to actually improve how our dollars get spent.

But USDOT took the public’s advice and agreed that state DOTs and MPOs should be held accountable for meeting performance targets. Even better, USDOT makes it clear in the rule that they intend to share all performance reports submitted by state DOTs with the public — an important step toward improving the public’s trust and accountability in the nation’s transportation system.

We thank USDOT for their inclusiveness and willingness to engage the public. Along with our partners across the country, we want to build on this and ensure the public’s trust and accountability is guaranteed with the final rule.

We’ll have more details on this proposed rule and a full summary in the next few days.

Last-minute budget deal holds good news for the safety of all who use our roads

In a rare weekend session, the U.S. Senate finally passed the FY2015 Omnibus Appropriations Act, sending it to the President and avoiding a government shutdown. Buried deep within the legislation – far from the controversial provisions that kept the Senate working late – was a simple paragraph enacting a proposal that Transportation for America and many others have long advocated for: a directive to the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) to make the safety of people on foot or bicycle a criterion for measuring the performance of our transportation system.

By way of background, two years ago MAP-21 created a framework for measuring the performance of the transportation system, to begin to hold agencies accountable for results. The U.S. DOT this year proposed the first of three related rules to implement the program. That first proposed rule dealt with measuring safety (see our original post for more details). One of several major flaws in that proposal was that it lumped in people in vehicles with those using non-motorized modes.

By that measure, significant improvements in vehicle safety could obscure the opposite trend in the safety of people on foot or bicycle. In truth, some safety projects designed to protect those driving at higher speeds can be hazardous to those who are not in cars. Allowing states and metropolitan planning organizations to avoid accounting for the safety of non-motorized users would allow them to focus on motor vehicle traffic even at the expense of other users.

Advocates for roadway safety for all users have been carrying that message to Congress since June, and those efforts have now borne fruit. The transportation portion of the Omnibus, directs the Secretary of Transportation to establish separate safety performance measures for non-motorized travelers and publish a final rule by September 30, 2015.

Inclusion of this language is a positive move by the House and Senate negotiators on the Omnibus, and we commend them for understanding that roadway safety is about everyone who uses the roadways, not just people in cars.

Chalk that up as a victory, but there is more work to be done to fix the safety rule. Another flaw in the proposal was that states and MPOs are allowed to meet only two of four performance targets – a 50% pass rate – and still be deemed successful. Under the proposed rule, traffic fatalities or serious injuries could be going up and a state could still be found to be making significant progress on safety. In our comments to USDOT, Transportation for America proposed a simpler, more effective method for measuring progress – one that could be applied not just in the safety context, but across all of the performance measures MAP-21 requires.

As yet, we have heard nothing in response from USDOT. According to the schedule posted on the agency’s website, the next proposed rule in the series, having to do with infrastructure conditions, should have been released a month ago (nearly a year after the original deadline MAP-21 set for completion of all three performance measure rules). We are still waiting.

Will the next rule adopt our recommendations and those of hundreds of other commenters and establish a meaningful structure for measuring performance, one that ensures better outcomes for the traveling public? Or will the next rule also be too weak to be effective? Stay tuned.

Transportation for America’s year in review

As 2014 draws to a close, we are taking a look back at our five most popular posts over the last year.

It has been a busy 12 months: We stood up an advisory board of prominent mayors, business leaders and others as we continued to make local funding and latitude our top priority. We brought people from 30 states together as we launched our new state advocacy network and followed it immediately with a new guidebook for innovative metropolitan regions. We dogged the implementation of MAP-21, and won a victory on a proposed safety rule. We tracked the progress of smart transportation plans at the ballot box, and demonstrated that nearly all state legislators lived on after to voting to increase their state’s gasoline tax.

Here are T4America’s most-clicked posts over the past year:

5. Important transportation ballot measures decided yesterday

“Despite the defeat Tuesday of some high-profile measures, transportation funding asks continue to be approved at very high rates – and a few key wins may have impact for years to come.”

4. Inclusive planning, bipartisan support and ambitious investments are fueling economic prosperity

“With stories of partisan gridlock making headlines every day, Utah stands out as a model of collaborative planning for a better future. State leaders and citizens have managed to stare down a recession while making transportation investments that accommodate projected population growth and bolster the economy and quality of life.”

3. States stepping up to raise transportation revenue

Since the start of 2013, major new proposals from governors, state legislatures and blue ribbon commissions galore have sparked a new debate over the ways we collect revenue for transportation at every level.

2. The Innovative MPO

America today is a metropolitan nation: More than 85 percent of us live in metro areas large and small. That makes planning for how people and goods move within and through these metropolitan areas more critical than ever. You may never even consider the fact, but chances, your commute this morning was shaped by the work of a metropolitan planning organization – and not only your commute, but also your entire metro region, to some degree. The organizations who are tasked with providing that guidance are known as metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs).

1. T4America launches new state transportation network during ‘historic’ gathering in Denver

Representative from 30 states – business leaders, legislators, local elected leaders, advocates and others – gathered in Denver’s historic Oxford Hotel and its newly reopened Union Station for our Capital Ideas conference to learn how states can raise money for smart, 21^st century investments in transportation. Judging by the enthusiastic engagement over two days last Thursday and Friday, it felt like the start of something big.

As Michigan legislators race the clock on a transportation deal, other states plan initiatives

We tapped a nerve in November with the Capital Ideas conference in Denver. More than 30 states sent representatives – some of whom went right back to their states and got to work helping their communities make progress.

Folks in Michigan are working with Gov. Rick Snyder to adopt a long-term, stable funding source for infrastructure. As their session winds to a close this week, legislative leaders are working in a House-Senate conference committee to hammer out a compromise that could bring as much as $1 billion a year in additional funding to repair and improve transportation infrastructure.

Gov. Snyder, who has been pushing for money to fix roads and bridges since coming into office, has seen the lame duck session as an opportunity for the GOP-controlled legislature to adopt a plan to raise additional transportation revenue, according to The Detroit News.

“The money I’m talking about is to get us to fair-to-good roads,” Snyder said, after taking a tour of Detroit’s highways. “They’re not even going to be great roads, folks. … We were the state to put America on wheels. Now we’re also widely known as a state with some of the worst roads in the country, and that’s just unacceptable.”

Over the summer, House Republicans responded by passing a much more modest plan to help fund the road upkeep. The $450 million a year would have come mostly from the general fund rather than a gas tax increase, while converting the 19 cents-per-gallon tax to a 6 percent tax at the wholesale level.

But the governor and Senate leaders preferred a more robust package that did not require taking money from other areas of the state budget. It took until after the election, in November, for the Republican controlled Senate to respond by passing an even larger funding package. The plan would increase the gas tax to the equivalent of 44 cents over four years, based on the wholesale prices.

While Michigan legislators work on their compromise, we already are hearing of transportation initiatives moving in other states. This month James Corless, director of T4America, was invited to testify before the Senate Transportation Committee in Oregon. We also met with legislators, state and local officials, and business leaders in Louisiana to discuss transportation policy and funding options. Many others in our state network are developing plans for the upcoming 2015 legislative sessions.

To join with us in our state work, sign up for the state advocacy network.

Three metro planning leaders help make T4America’s MPO guidebook launch successful

Transportation planning is hot, hot, hot! Or so it would seem, after more than 700 people registered for last week’s online seminar to launch The Innovative MPO, a guidebook for metropolitan transportation planning.

The book draws on the work of metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) of all sizes across the country, offering a range of new ideas in planning, programming, technical analysis and community partnerships for almost any MPO. The seminar offered a small sample of those offerings. (You can see a tweet-by-tweet recap on this Storify page.)

Speakers included Andy Cotugno, Senior Policy Advisor from Portland Metro; Tim Brennan, Executive Director of Pioneer Valley Planning Commission (PVPC), and Steve Devencenzi, Planning Director from San Luis Obispo Council of Governments (SLOCOG). Health, equity, safety, climate mitigation, and performance measures were all major themes that MPOs are currently facing and trying to solve, and these three are on the forefront of finding solutions.

Cotugno retraced some of the tactics Metro used to make it possible to do more while driving less. “Importantly, the impact of linking land use and transportation is that our vehicle miles traveled per capita, which is one of our key performance key indicators, has been going down for the past 15 years,” said Cotugno. “That’s a result of having a tight urban growth boundary, focusing on transit investments, and aggressively improving transit, and expanding bike and pedestrian; all leading to shorter trips and less vehicles miles traveled. “

The decline of “vehicle miles traveled” in Portland, Oregon.

The Pioneer Valley Planning Commission is a medium-sized MPO covering the Springfield, MA, area – and it is a leader in incorporating health indicators and outcomes in its transportation planning. Brennan said that work is the outgrowth of a state policy adopted in 2009, known as GreenDOT, that seeks to “reduce greenhouse gas emissions, support smart growth development and promote the healthy options of walking, biking and public transit.”

He noted that Massachusetts also has committed to a “mode shift” goal of tripling transit, walking, bicycling trips through 2030. “The question for us as an MPO is … how do we connect transportation and health” in way a that meets the state goals?

“We are also trying to make smarter investments with the austere budgets we have for transportation.”

PVPC began to develop a method for screening and scoring projects to meet goals of reducing congestion and improving mobility while promoting active transportation and reducing health impacts. The first major opportunity to “make the connections real” was the proposed construction of an $800 million casino development by MGM, a project with major implications for Springfield. Among the key criteria was a health impact assessment that now has become integral to the project scorecard.

SLOCOG covers nearly 2.2 million acres in the San Luis Obispo, CA, area, encompasses seven cities, and was featured for innovations in scenario planning. The rate of growth within San Luis Obispo County has dropped off dramatically, Devencenzi said, leaving a much different tax base than was there just 20 years ago, with a current population of 275,000, expected to grow by 40,000 or so in the next 20 years.

However, the region is surrounded by huge populations that severely impact the area. Bordered by the Bay Area, Los Angeles County, San Joaquin Valley, San Diego, and the Sacramento area leaves the San Luis Obispo County trying to predict traffic patterns and congestion for a total population of 35.5 million people.

“There are about 30 million people that are within two hours of us, and they travel through and to our county. So we have a lot of issues in transportation that aren’t self-generated,” Devencenzi. The MPO used a state grant and contributions from member jurisdictions to meet requirements from a state law requiring coordination of land use and transportation (SB 375).

A big first step was to translate the disparate terms for zoning categories in the seven jurisdictions to a “common language”, creating a regional land use map that could then be used to determine where future growth could and should go.

“We allocated growth just within existing communities and demonstrated we can meet the future demand without having to sprawl across the countryside,” Devencenzi said. “We created target development areas around commercial districts,” and with massive public input, created a Regional Transportation Plan, out just this month.

These were only three of the more than 50 MPOs featured in the guidebook, organizations that are pushing the envelope to stretch public resources, achieve multiple benefits with a transportation dollar or simultaneously advance regional and economic development priorities.

The conversation over The Innovative MPO continues online and on Twitter. To join the conversation, follow the featured MPOs on Twitter, and use the #TheInnovativeMPO to stay updated with current practices MPOs are using to change their regions for the better.

Budget compromise keeps highways and transit steady, cuts TIGER

The $1.01 trillion spending agreement reached by House and Senate negotiators on Tuesday night freezes highway spending at $40 billion while avoiding the big cuts to transit projects in the House proposal.

Here’s a closer look at some other key provisions:

TIGER. Funding for TIGER will drop from $600 million in fiscal 2014 to $500 million – disappointing, but $400 million better than the original House version. More importantly, the compromise also drops a House requirement to limit TIGER grants to highway, bridge and port projects. That means TIGER can continue to support innovative projects that take a multimodal approach and address needs as local communities define them, rather than Congress.

TIGER Planning grants. While the Senate bill would have allocated $35 million for planning grants, the final measure will eliminate them for fiscal 2015. This is surely a case of being penny wise and pound foolish, because good planning can avoid costly errors while making the most of limited transportation dollars. (For evidence, see our Innovative MPO guide, released today.)

Transit. As with highways, formula dollars for transit are frozen at current levels, about $9 billion. Capital investment grants come in at $2.1 billion, the same as the Senate level, and about $456 million higher than the House bill. It supplies $172 million for “small starts”, such as streetcar and bus rapid transit projects.

Safety for people on foot or bicycle. FHWA is directed to establish separate, non-motorized safety performance measures for the highway safety improvement program, define performance measures for fatalities and serious injuries from pedestrian and bicycle crashes, and publish its final rule on safety performance measures no later than September 30, 2015. Transportation for America advocated for the inclusion of a non-motorized safety performance measure and will continue to lead the effort to ensure our transportation investments provide the largest return on taxpayer investment (More here).

	FY15 Omnibus Appropriations	House FY15 THUD Proposal	Senate FY15 THUD Proposal	FY14 THUD Enacted Appropriates	Difference between FY15 THUD Omnibus and FY14 THUD
Federal-Aid Highways	$40.26B	$40.26B	$40.26B	$40.26B	--
Transit Formula Grants	$8.6B	$8.6B	$8.6B	$8.6B	--
Transit 'New Starts' & 'Small Starts'	$2.147B	$1.691B	$2.163B	$1.943B	+$204M in Omnibus
TIGER	$500M	$100M	$550M	$600M	-$100M in Omnibus
Amtrak Operating	$250M	$340M	$350M	$340M	-$90M in Omnibus
Amtrak Capital	$1.14B	$850M	$841B	$1.05B	+$90M in Omnibus
High Speed Rail	$0	$0	$0	$0	--

Who’s leading on transportation planning? Find out in ‘The Innovative MPO’

America today is a metropolitan nation: More than 85 percent of us live in metro areas large and small, and that makes planning for metropolitan areas more critical than ever.

Metropolitan planning organizations, or MPOs, are the organizations responsible for this planning, and if done well their work can help a region thrive.

Fortunately, the last several years have seen a surge in innovative thinking and practice among MPOs, and their work has inspired a new guidebook out today from Transportation for America.

The Innovative MPO is designed to give MPO staff, policymakers, technical and advisory committees, and other interested stakeholders innovative ways to achieve goals on behalf of their communities. It offers a range of recommended actions in planning, programming, technical analysis and community partnership, from those that cost little in staff time or dollars to more complex and expensive undertakings.

Download the Guidebook

Not familiar with MPOs? The guidebook also offers a section called “MPO 101,” which offers a brief history of relevant federal statutes and regulations and an overview of the various ways MPOs are structured, funded and administered.

Join the kickoff webinar

Get an inside look at The Innovative MPO during our kickoff webinar, happening today at 1 PM EST.

Join the webinar to learn about the tools in this guidebook from the report’s primary authors. You’ll also hear about the real world applications of this work from MPO staff in regions highlighted in the guidebook. We hope you’ll join us this afternoon.

GOP Rep. Petri joins bill to raise the federal gas tax

The Highway Trust Fund, our nation’s key infrastructure funding source, has been teetering on the edge of insolvency for the last half decade, with legislators from both parties unable to secure a long term funding source.

Rather than continue to stand by and do nothing, retiring Rep. Tom Petri (R-WI) has decided to join Rep. Earl Blumenauer, a Democrat from Oregon, as a co-sponsor on a bill to gradually raise our current gas tax 15 cents to a total of 33.3 cents. That would be the first increase since 1993 when Bill Clinton was president and gas cost a little more than a dollar. The measure also would also index the tax to inflation to stave off future shortfalls.

On Wednesday morning, the bipartisan pair will host an event on Capitol Hill, accompanied by President Reagan – or at least his words and image., Reagan “spoke eloquently on the need for Congress to raise the gas tax in 1982,” according to a joint statement from the two.

Representative Blumenauer quotes President Reagan on the need for an increase of the gas tax at a press event at the Capitol.

Representative Petri has long been a senior member of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee for the House side and has said for years now that Congress needs to address the constant deficiencies of the Highway Trust Fund.

“In the Highways and Transit subcommittee, we have held hearing after hearing where state transportation officials, mayors, governors, truckers, transit operators, economists, and experts in transportation policy have testified with unwavering support for a long-term, fully-funded surface transportation bill,” said Petri, after the last short term fix was applied to the Highway Trust Fund over the summer. “That should still be our goal.”

Blumenauer has been echoing similar sentiments since introducing a similar bill last December.

”Today, with inflation and increased fuel efficiency for vehicles, the average motorist is paying about half as much per mile as they did in 1993,” Blumenauer said in a statement at the time of the introduction. “It’s time for Congress to act. There’s a broad and persuasive coalition that stands ready to support Congress. We just need to give them something to support.”

Although the idea of raising the gas tax polls poorly, politicians of either party would seem to have little to fear from their constituents if they make a good case for ensuring sound highways and transit investments. Since 2012, 98 percent of state legislators in a variety of states including Wyoming, Massachusetts, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and New Hampshire who voted to approve an increase of the gas tax were re-elected in their next primary, our analysis shows.

When Senators Murphy and Corker introduced their bipartisan bill that would have raised the gas tax 12 cents over the next two years, Transportation for America’s director, James Corless, stated his approval with an urgency to find a long-term solution instead of short-term fixes.

“A return to stable funding will ensure that our states and communities can repair aging roads, bridges and transit systems and build the infrastructure we need for a growing economy. The alternative is to allow our transportation system to crumble along with an economy hobbled by crapshoot commutes and clogged freight corridors.”

House bill extends transit benefit through 2014, leaving permanent extension in doubt

Transit commuters would see their tax benefits restored under a House bill introduced yesterday — but only for two weeks.

The “Tax Increase Prevention Act of 2014” (H.R. 5571) would preserve a number of tax breaks set to expire at the end of the year, while restoring the amount of monthly pre-tax income transit riders can set aside to $245 from $130. This increase would put transit on a par with the tax benefit given to drivers for parking, but only from the bill’s adoption until the end of 2014.

A longer-term fix was included in a package developed last week by the House Ways and Means Committee, but President Obama’s threatened veto of a package he saw as too hard on low- and middle-income taxpayers left it dead in the water. While many had hoped Congress would establish permanent parity between drivers and transit commuters this fall, that possibility is dwindling fast.

Meanwhile, a recent report heavily criticized the parking benefit as “subsidizing congestion” by luring 820,000 additional cars to the road at a cost of $7.3 billion, with most of the benefit going to higher-income earners. [You can read the entire Transit Center report here.]

Northeast Ohio plans ahead for a new network of transportation options

How can a place like the Cleveland region attract and retain talented young people, and how can good transportation options help? That was a core question posed to our Beth Osborne when she was invited to keynote a multimedia event dubbed “Cleveland Connects: Getting Around.”

Beth Osborne at Cleveland Connects Osborne, T4America’s vice president and senior policy advisor, noted that many younger professionals want to live in cities that offer a variety of transportation options. Many seek walkable neighborhoods that offer everything from restaurants and bars to local grocery stores and schools all within the same half-mile.

“When those kids decide they want to go find a job, they actually look for a place they want to live first, and then look for a job, which is a little different than the way people did things when I started looking for work. And that means jobs are following the talent. They’re looking for where the talent locates. And where talent tends to locate these days in places where they can access their needs, and fun, like restaurants and retail and bars on their own two feet. And that is a very different situation from what we had a few decades ago.”

The Nov. 24 event also presented local speakers from across the region and was featured in the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the local NPR affiliate.

Cities and suburbs alike should acknowledge and respond to the big market and demographic changes that are afoot, she said. Chief among them are the dramatic growth in the share of single-person households and the coming wave of empty nesters among the Baby Boom generation.

“Those people have different needs and different desires in terms of transportation. Especially when you look at the younger generation. Many of them weren’t able to get their drivers’ license until they were close to 18 years old.”

While the car still dominates as Cleveland’s main mode of transportation, the region also offers a robust transit system recording an average of two million rides a year — including Cleveland’s popular HealthLine bus rapid transit. The region is considering adding 50 to 100 miles of bicycle lanes and improved bus and streetcar service, but officials are unsure of how to pay for it all when they can barely keep up with the required maintenance and repair.

“We’ve seen people show a great willingness to pay for transportation of all kinds when they have a good understanding of where their funding is going to go and what they’re going to get for it,” Osborne said. “The ballot initiatives for transportation have a success rate that is enviable for any area of over 70 percent, especially when it’s at the local level. Where, like I said, they have a good sense of where that money is going.”

North Shore Station in Downtown Cleveland. Photo credit to Geoff Livingston on Flickr.

Businesses, too, are learning just how profitable being near a transit stop, or in a walkable neighborhood can be. Osborne said her neighborhood in Washington, D.C., is home to one of the most profitable Target stores in the country. However, before Target agreed to build near the Columbia Heights Metro station, the company demanded the city build a “massive parking lot” beneath the store in a garage.

“They didn’t believe that people would go to a Target on foot. … It’s one of the most profitable in the country now, but the parking lot beneath it is empty. And the city is losing millions of dollars a year off of the ownership of an empty parking lot – money that should be going to other infrastructure like our schools.”

Local communities need to decide what works best for them when it comes to planning long term transportation needs and how to best fund them. With people driving less in their own cars in recent years, Cleveland officials acknowledge their need to focus their transportation policies and investments on meeting the changing needs of its region. Here’s hoping that our visit is the first step in an ongoing collaboration on behalf of the region’s economy and quality of life.

Metro areas on the cutting edge of transportation planning: Introducing The Innovative MPO

On Dec. 10, Transportation for America will release a one-of-a-kind guidebook showcasing leading-edge approaches to regional transportation planning, called “The Innovative MPO.” We will launch it with a webinar the same day, open to all. To learn more and register, click here. In this post, we provide a preview of the kind of topics you’ll encounter in the guidebook.

Click here to register for the Dec. 10 webinar and find out more.

Innovative metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) are working with business leaders and economic developers to make sure their regions are competitive and attractive to talented workers. They are stretching to maximize the impact of investments by setting priorities for selecting projects and measuring performance.

They are refusing to be bound by existing trends, but instead are planning in tandem with the aspirations of their citizens. They’re using creativity and flexible funds to fill gaps in transit service or break up bottlenecks that impede freight movement. They are reaching out across racial, language and income divides to make plans that can help everybody live prosperous and healthy lives.

This reporter first became aware of MPOs as a journalist covering growth and development issues in Atlanta in the 1990s. MPOs, you may know, are creatures of federal transportation law, which requires metro regions to program funding through a regional planning process. Their role is to ensure that federal investments are coordinated within metropolitan areas so that individual communities are considered along with the needs of the region as a whole.

And, as Atlanta discovered in the late 1990s, MPOs also must ensure that regional transportation plans do their part to keep harmful emissions in check. Just after the 1996 Olympics, the Atlanta Regional Commission — metro Atlanta’s MPO — received notice that the region faced a shut-off of federal funds because its projected emissions were exceeding the limits of a strengthened Clean Air Act. Stories I filed for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on the crisis made national headlines, because Atlanta was the first to face such sanctions.

The problem was that the region’s long-range transportation plan was based on projections that the region’s out-of-control sprawl would continue as usual for the next 20 years. That would require more and more highway lanes to accommodate longer commutes in congestion that got worse despite the investment, producing untenable levels of vehicle emissions. The only way to make a plan that could meet Clean Air Act requirements was to assume the region would accommodate more of its growth in core areas and town centers. People living and working in those areas would take shorter and fewer car trips, and some could be replaced by other options.

Here’s where I first saw just how innovative an MPO can be.

The ARC had no control over land use — local governments had that authority — and thus little say over the sprawling development. But it turned out that the transportation funding controlled by the MPO offered plenty of opportunity to incentivize better-planned growth. Chief ARC planner Tom Weyandt and his staff came up with the Livable Centers Initiative. The MPO set aside money for competitive grants to support local governments planning for compact, walkable town centers and corridors. Those with smart plans would then be in line for a much larger pool of money for transportation projects to fulfill those plans.

The Livable Centers program not only helped restore the region to compliance with the Clean Air Act and avoid financial penalties, it also unleashed a wave of pent-up demand from communities that were bursting with ideas for reviving moribund downtowns or transforming tired commercial corridors. It helped change regional planning to ensure that transportation spending was in line with overarching goals and created a framework for prioritizing projects.

The LCI program in Atlanta is just the tip of the iceberg of what MPOs can do to help ensure the long-term economic health and quality of life in their regions.

The type of studies conducted in the Atlanta metro region from 2000-2012. Source: ARC

Innovations are not limited to the rich regions on the coasts, but are cropping up all across the country in MPOs of all sizes. It may be no surprise that the MPO in the San Francisco Bay Area has developed a sophisticated method for scoring potential projects that evaluates impacts on everything from climate to access to jobs for lower-income residents. Or that Metro in Portland, OR, puts dollars from the federal highways, transit and bike/ped pots into a combined fund that goes to the projects — whatever they may be — that best serve the region’s overall goals for development, equitable distribution of benefits and sustainability.

But did you know Nashville’s MPO is a leader in soliciting public engagement across race, income and age and is pioneering ways to evaluate impacts on health and safety, and prioritize projects accordingly? Or that the Tulsa, OK, MPO literally takes its planning to the people on a specially equipped bus, while the Flagstaff, AZ, MPO figured out a way to use the flexibility of federal funds to sustain a critical bus service?

The Denver MPO has partnered with the local AARP chapter to create “Boomer Bonds” that help local governments around the region create age-friendly environments, allowing older adults to remain in their homes and communities for as long as they desire. The Savannah, GA, MPO has put together a sophisticated program to ensure the performance of its port, rail and trucking networks in a way that also keeps residents safe, healthy and mobile.

This is just a quick sample of the initiatives large and small that you’ll find in The Innovative MPO, which will be released next Wednesday, December 10. The full guidebook features 30 useful tools from seven areas of focus, 20 detailed case studies (like Atlanta’s) and more than 50 real-world examples from MPOs in regions large and small. There’s also an MPO 101 appendix with a simple, clear explanation of what MPOs are and what they do.

There is a lot to be excited about, and there will be even more to celebrate as MPOs swap their good ideas and challenge each other to push even farther to put transportation dollars to work for the long-term health and prosperity of their people.

We will be hosting a webinar on the day of the release, December 10th at 1p.m. EST. Register here.

Join us as we unveil “The Innovative MPO”

Chances are, your commute this morning was shaped by the work of a metropolitan planning organization – and not only your commute, but also your entire metro region, at least to some degree.

Metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) connect a region’s roads, bridges, transit systems, bike lanes, and sidewalks to economic, educational, and social opportunities. Their decisions can impact traffic congestion, development patterns, workforce development, public health, and how a region connects to larger national and global markets.

Join us for the launch of The Innovative MPO. The last several years have seen a surge in innovative thinking and practice among MPOs nationwide, and their work has inspired a new guidebook to help MPO staff, board members, and civic leaders find innovative ways to make communities prosper.

Transportation for America will hold an online discussion about the new resource on Wednesday, December 10 at 1 PM EST. Register today for this free online event:

This guidebook is designed to offer a range of new ideas in planning, programming, technical analysis and community partnership, from those that cost little in staff time or dollars to more complex and expensive undertakings.

MPOs can push the envelope and innovate — whether to stretch public resources, achieve multiple benefits with a transportation dollar or simultaneously advance regional and economic development priorities. This new guidebook provides ideas how.

Feel free to share this with your friends:

UPS chief and other business leaders urge Congress to pass a bill that helps both commuters and freight

David Abney, the recently hired chief executive officer of UPS, recently penned an editorial in Bloomberg/BNA that provides an illuminating look inside the priorities of the booming freight company — based in the same city where we hosted a policy breakfast on metro freight movement just two weeks ago.

Everybody wins. Flickr photo by Thomas Merton

Abney’s comments put a bright line under the importance of Congress updating our country’s outmoded freight policy in the next federal transportation authorization.

He argues that Congress still needs to update the federal program from its roots in a 20^th century “highway bill” to a truly 21^st century “transportation bill” that knits all modes of transportation together. “My sense tells me that to truly impact America’s transportation infrastructure problem, we can’t approach it just from the standpoint of ‘trying to fix our road’ or ‘trying to fix our ports,’” he said. “Instead, we need to think first about the real end goals: 1) getting to and from our destinations and 2) making those commutes as quick, efficient and cost-effective as possible.”

When we were developing our policy platform a year ago based on the feedback we were hearing in meetings around the country, a consistent theme — especially when meeting with local chambers of commerce or metropolitan business leaders — was that moving freight and people was often one of their top priorities. Forget about the usual simple debates between spending on maintenance versus new road capacity, or whether a particular area should build this rail line or that highway; chambers especially seem to grasp that a) freight movement is critically important to the local (and national) economy and b) you can’t make a plan to move people that doesn’t also account for the movement of stuff, and vice versa.

But like any discussion of federal transportation policy these days, the elephant in the room is always funding. And affirming much of what you’d expect from businesspeople, they’re willing to pay more, but only for a smarter approach that can improve the bottom line:

Of course, before even having a broader debate about infrastructure, we need Congress to pass, at minimum, funding support for vital maintenance and repair programs. Otherwise today’s infrastructure won’t even be around for tomorrow’s solutions. …To address congestion and drive down transportation costs, we need a holistic approach–one that integrates all modes of transport, and that includes dedicated funding mechanisms. Whether it’s a vehicle-miles-traveled tax, raising the gas tax, implementing waste-reduction policies or reallocating government spending, we’ll need a way to pay for these crucial investments.

Abney’s thoughts are similar to what we heard in his company’s hometown just a couple of weeks ago for a policy breakfast we convened with the Metro Atlanta Chamber. At the Chamber offices in downtown Atlanta, we heard from Doug Hooker, executive director of the Atlanta Regional Commission (Atlanta’s MPO), Jannine Miller, senior manager at The Home Depot, and David Abney’s colleague Frank Morris, UPS’s vice president of corporate and public affairs.

All the speakers represented Atlanta-based businesses or metro leaders with a keen interest in seeing the region keep freight and people moving each day. “Atlanta started as a freight hub and has stayed true to that,” said Doug Hooker with ARC. “We, as leaders in Atlanta, need to figure out how that job growth center will continue in the future.”

While there are real flaws with the “Travel Time Index” when it comes to putting a specific dollar value on congestion’s cost to everyday commuters, businesses like UPS or Home Depot that deal in very specific timetables see much more tangible losses. “If UPS’ drivers are stuck, the company puts more drivers on the road. For UPS, a 5 minute delay on every driver every year costs UPS $110 million,” said UPS’ Morris.

“One of metro Atlanta’s biggest advantages is our multimodal transportation system,” said Miller with Home Depot, with a nod to the railroads that helped make Atlanta an economic powerhouse. “The future of our business will be heavily invested in utilizing those last mile connections.” The home improvement chain certainly knows about last-mile connections: the goods from manufacturers around the U.S. and the world eventually have to reach stores located everywhere from downtown NYC to small towns in California.

Because most companies like UPS can’t deliver off-peak, finding ways to reduce demand or more efficiently utilize roadway space at peak times can be a win-win for everyone. A robust and heavily-used transit system in a metro region could be a freight company’s best friend, moving large numbers of people quickly during peak commuting hours without having to take up space on highways they depend on, while also lowering transportation costs for metro residents. UPS’ Abney illustrated this people-first way of thinking in the superb conclusion of his editorial.

America’s transportation infrastructure can become stronger and more efficient if we work at moving people, not just planes, trains and automobiles separately. “Good” can’t be defined exclusively according to road engineering manuals, and while a nationwide “people-based approach” might sound idealistic, it’s also the approach most informed by bottom line impact. A truly functional transportation infrastructure system isn’t just about how many cars we can fit on a particular stretch of highway; it might be, for example, about how we can allow trucks to deliver along busy retail corridors, or how we can best facilitate customers being able to reach their local businesses, no matter where they are in the world.

Put differently, to really get the best bang for our infrastructure buck, we must measure and account for how transportation investments drive growth and support quality of life. The questions we ask about infrastructure need to change accordingly. Are there ways to achieve the same transportation goals by investing limited resources differently? Are we investing in the research, engineering and alternative fuels that will transform commutes and save money? And are we thinking about ways to “right-size” projects–selecting infrastructure investments that might accomplish 90 percent of our goals, but at a fraction of the cost?

Read the full UPS piece here.

Our thanks to Dave Williams and the rest of the team at the Metro Atlanta Chamber for hosting and organizing the terrific policy breakfast.

As funding battles loom in legislatures, Transportation for America launches network to support state efforts to fulfill visions for economic success

For immediate release

DENVER, CO — With representatives from 30 states convening in Denver for a strategy conference, Transportation for America today announced the launch of a new network to support state efforts to pass legislation to raise transportation funding while improving accountability for spending it.

As Congress continues to postpone tough decisions on federal transportation funding, several states have responded by raising new revenues of their own for transportation. Other states are hoping to do the same in 2015. That is why T4America brought together more than 100 experts and participants for the Denver Capital Ideas conference, where they are sharing experiences and insights that can help other states take on the thorny issue of transportation funding in their state legislatures.

“Federal gas tax revenues are dropping and prospects of returning to robust national investment are uncertain, at best,” said T4America director, James Corless. “States that want to continue investing will have to explore new ways to raise funding for transportation on their own.”

Twenty states considered legislation to increase transportation funding in some form in 2013. Since 2012, 12 states have successfully raised new revenues. A handful of other state legislative leaders and governors have already indicated that transportation funding will be on the front burner in 2015.

“They say that states are the laboratories of democracy,” said John Robert Smith, the chair of T4America and former mayor of Meridian, MS. “And many are proving right now how to stand in the gap created by federal inaction. But to fulfill their homegrown solutions, they need help with everything from finding innovative revenue sources to crafting political strategies and legislative language. Our hope is that this new network will help replicate success across the country and empower states and regions that want to make this happen.”

At the same time, T4America is working with local leaders across the country to prepare for the possibility of action in the new Congress convening in January.

“There is still an enormous opportunity,” said Corless, “because Congress still must update the federal transportation program, MAP-21, by next May. This gives us an important chance to resuscitate and reinvigorate the program in exciting ways, so that it better suits the needs of people in the communities where they live.”

CAPITAL IDEAS (https://t4america.org/capital-ideas) is a two-day conference in Denver, convened by Transportation for America to support this kind of work at the state level. View the full agenda and list of speakers here: https://t4america.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/T4A-Capital-Ideas-Agenda.pdf

Contact: David Goldberg
Communications Director
202-412-7930
david.goldberg@t4america.org

Backup contact: Stephen Davis
Deputy Director of Communications
202-955-5543 x242
steve.davis@t4america.org

With GOP victories, SAFETEA-LU team in line to chair Senate committees

With last night’s election, both the Senate and House will see leadership changes in key transportation committees. With the nation’s transportation funding source running near empty and the current law, MAP-21, expiring in the spring, these new committee leaders will have an opportunity to make an impact in the very near term.

First, the Senate, where the Environment and Public Works Committee writes the largest portion of the transportation bill, the “highway title”. Chair Barbara Boxer (D-CA) is expected to yield the gavel to Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK). Though the two worked closely together on MAP-21, Inhofe has indicated that he plans to conduct EPW business differently than his predecessor, and it’s unclear at this point exactly how he would stray from the current course.

The next biggest piece of the Senate bill, the “transit title”, is written in the Banking Committee, where Richard Shelby (R-AL) is in line to become chair. The Inhofe-Shelby pairing also led negotiations on SAFETEA-LU – MAP-21’s predecessor – in 2005.

In the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, Ranking Member Nick Rahall (D-WV) — amazingly a member of this committee his entire time in Congress — lost re-election to his 20th term, which eliminates the top Democrat on the committee. Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-OR) is next in line for the top Democratic seat on the Committee, and is a familiar and vocal proponent of a strong federal role in transportation.

That covers the policy side of the equation. On the funding side, Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) is projected to take over the Finance Committee, swapping roles with Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR). On the funding side in the House, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) is expected to take over the Chair of the Ways & Means Committee for retiring Rep. Dave Camp (R-MI).

In the short-term, the biggest battles will come over annual appropriations, setting the spending levels for discretionary programs such as TIGER and Amtrak. The first order of business for Congress when it returns next week is extending the continuing resolution – a temporary funding measure – that expires in December long enough to allow appropriators to hammer out spending levels for the full fiscal year. That will now likely occur under the GOP-controlled Congress early in the next calendar year.

The 800-pound gorilla of questions marks though, is how Congress will fund the nation’s transportation system next year and beyond. Gas tax receipts are dropping, cars are getting more fuel-efficient and driving is leveling off – and most baby boomers haven’t even stopped commuting yet. Although a faction of Republicans has called for the feds to abandon their traditional role and devolve the lion’s share of responsibility and oversight to the states, that idea so far has not gained traction with the full caucus. Though yet another short-term fix was agreed to a few months ago to keep the program going into next year, that funding will be tapped out by Spring 2015, and the trust fund will be near insolvency yet again.

Raising the gas tax may be a non-starter in a GOP Congress, though that remains to be seen. Other revenue ideas have struggled to gain a foothold, including the House GOP proposal during the last reauthorization to boost revenue with fees from expanding oil and gas drilling into formerly protected areas. On the Democrat side, DeFazio has introduced legislation to replace the federal gas tax with a fee at the refinery level that would be indexed to inflation, potentially yielding a more stable funding source.

In all, Tuesday’s election results should make for a fascinating 2015.

Important transportation ballot measures decided yesterday

Despite the defeat Tuesday of some high-profile measures, transportation funding asks continue to be approved at very high rates – and a few key wins may have impact for years to come.

While some of the key measures we were tracking did not fare well, on the whole, transportation (and transit specifically) did well at the ballot box (See the full list of measures we’re tracking below.) According to the Center for Transportation Excellence’s final results, 72% of all transit or multimodal measures were approved this year, including yesterday’s results – similar to the trend of recent years.

One of the most significant measures at the state level was considered in Massachusetts, where voters were deciding whether or not to repeal a legislature-approved provision to index the gas tax so revenues could keep up with inflation and allow the state to keep up with their pressing transportation needs. The measure to repeal was approved, albeit at a fairly close margin (52.9-47%), which means that Massachusetts will lose a portion of their new funding for transportation, but not all — they also raised their gas tax by three cents, but that was unaffected by this ballot measure.

The Massachusetts vote was definitely one that other states were watching closely as a potential bellwether for attempts to raise new revenue elsewhere. As Dan Vock at Governing Magazine wrote today, “That is not good news for transportation advocates, who are looking for politically feasible ways to raise money for infrastructure improvements.” Though a handful of other states did succeed in raising their gas taxes over the last couple of years, it’s possible that more states hoping to raise revenues in the next few years will consider a shift away from the per-gallon tax to a sales or wholesale tax (as Virginia and Maryland did for example) rather than trying to add in automatic indexing, which many voters saw negatively in Massachusetts.

Rhode Island voters approved a statewide ballot measure to fund some pretty significant transit improvements across the state, including new transit hubs to connect their popular passenger rail services with buses and other forms of transportation, and improvements to the statewide bus network. Scott Wolf, the executive director of Grow Smart RI, which ran the campaign on the measure, was full of praise today:

We commend our fellow Rhode Islanders for recognizing that these investments will provide benefits far beyond their costs and make it easier for the state to retain and recruit a young, talented and mobile work force. If we can continue to pursue this kind of asset based economic development strategy under Governor-Elect Raimondo, we at Grow Smart RI are confident that Rhode Island’s best days will still be ahead of us.

At the local and regional level, there was perhaps no more significant symbolic vote than the one taken in metro Atlanta yesterday. For the first time in more than 40 years, Atlanta’s MARTA system will be expanding into a new county, as Clayton County, Georgia overwhelmingly approved (73% in favor) a one-percent sales tax increase to join MARTA, expand bus service into the county, and save half of the projected revenue for planning and implementing a possible rail connection into the county.

Clayton was the only one of Atlanta’s five core counties that lacked a local public transit system, and there was a surge of momentum for this referendum after a limited county bus system folded in 2010. When it did, Clayton State University saw a drop in enrollment and scores of jobs at Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson Airport got much harder to reach for county residents.

From a regional perspective, with more of the region now having a stake in MARTA — it was intended to serve all five metro counties when it was created, but only two opted in — the agency will expand their base of users and bring more local officials to the table who care about seeing it succeed. And the resounding vote of support with local dollars will likely help continue develop support from the state legislature, where MARTA CEO Keith Parker has been hard at work to create allies for the only major transit agency that receives no dedicated funding from the state.

The news was not so good one state further south, where Pinellas County, Florida (St. Petersburg/Clearwater) saw their Greenlight Pinellas referendum roundly defeated, with only 38% in favor. (A smaller similar measure was also defeated in Polk County, to the east of Tampa.) The referendum would have made enormous expansions to their existing bus service, added new bus rapid transit corridors, and begin laying the groundwork for light rail running through the spine of the county.

It’s a blow not just for Pinellas County, the most densely populated county in the state, but also for the Tampa region at large. Business and civic leaders were hoping that Pinellas would take a first step that Tampa would follow in 2016 with a measure of their own, as they stitch together a region with two major cities divided by the bay. Pinellas leaders can take heart, however, in the fact that many places have lost their first (or even second) run at an ambitious ballot measure, before winning in the end.

We’ll be back shortly with a look at some of the national and state candidate races, and the implications of all the moves in Congress will have on the precarious nature of the nation’s transportation fund, and the upcoming reauthorization of MAP-21 in 2015.

State

Massachusetts – Question 1 to repeal state’s new funding for transportation
Result: Measure Approved (52.9% – 47.1%)
T4A summary: Massachusetts vote a bellwether for efforts to raise state transportation revenue

Rhode Island – Question 6 transit bond measure
Result: Measure Approved (60% – 40%)
T4A summary: Rhode Island’s first statewide ballot measure to support transit

Wisconsin – Question 1 for transportation funding
Result: Measure Approved (79.9% – 20.1%)
T4A summary: Voters in two states consider measures to restrict funding to transportation uses

Maryland – Question 1 on transportation funding
Result: Measure Approved (81.6% – 18.4%)
T4A summary: Voters in two states consider measures to restrict funding to transportation uses

Texas – Proposition 1 to direct rainy day funds into highways
Result: Measure Approved (79.8% – 20.2%)
T4A summary: Texas looks to voters to ensure billions in highway funding

Louisiana – State infrastructure bank
Result: Measure Defeated (67.5% – 32.5%)

Local

Clayton County, GA – One percent sales tax to join MARTA and re-start bus service
Result: Measure Approved (74% – 26%)
T4A summary: After spurning it for decades, suburban Atlanta county seems poised to join regional transit system

City of Seattle, WA – Proposition 1 to add a 0.1% sales and use tax to prevent bus cuts
Result: Measure Approved (59% – 41%)

Austin, Texas – Proposition 1 for $600 million bond for light rail
Result: Measure Defeated (43% – 57%)

Pinellas County, Florida (St. Petersburg) – Greenlight Pinellas for improving transit service & adding light rail
Result: Measure defeated (38% – 62%)
T4America summary: Leaders say St. Petersburg measure key to economic success

Alameda County, CA – Measure BB for a half-percent increase in sales tax to fund local transit and transportation projects
Result: Measure Approved (70% – 30%)

Gainesville, FL (Alachua County) – 1% sales tax for a range of transportation improvements
Result: Measure Defeated (40% – 60%)

Join T4America this Thursday to unpack the transportation ramifications of tomorrow’s elections

Voters will make decisions on November 4 that will resonate deep into the future. Join us Thursday as we provide the inside scoop on how the elections will affect MAP-21 reauthorization and ever-dwindling highway trust fund revenues, and how important state and local transportation measures fared.

If the Senate flips to a Republican majority, what will it mean for federal transportation legislation and the anticipated Spring 2015 insolvency of the federal transportation fund? If Massachusetts successfully votes down an attempt to kill a portion of their new transportation funding package, what would that mean for other states’ hopes to stabilize transportation funding? What will the next two years bring?

Once the dust settles, we will be hosting a free teleconference on November 6^that 3:30pm EST to analyze and discuss the full impacts of these elections.

We’ve been keeping a close eye on several significant ballot measures from Florida to Washington. Pinellas County will take a landmark vote on an ambitious expansion of their transit services. Texas could pass a measure to raise billions for highway spending without having to raise taxes or fees. And Maryland and Wisconsin are attempting to create dedicated transportation funds that can’t be diverted for other uses.

Federal legislation is routinely a reflection of what states and localities have already tested and tried to be true, which is why key state and local measures are so important for predicting what might be on the horizon in the next Congress.

We hope you join us this Thursday.

Competitive grant programs in PA and OR provide a blueprint for a different approach

There’s strong support for a plan in Congress to give locals more access to their transportation dollars, but two states are already leading the way on the idea of competitive grants for smart projects — and Pennsylvania took a big step today.

Drexel Master Plan before after
A photo of current conditions and a rendering from the campus master plan for Drexel University around 30th Street Station in Philadelphia, one of the grantees. More info below.

The Pennsylvania DOT today announced the initial winners of a new statewide competitive grant program specifically for multimodal projects and the impressive list shows just how much demand there is at the local level for these types of innovative projects.

Pennsylvania was one of 12 states that managed to successfully raise new transportation revenue over the last couple of years, but they went a step beyond just raising funds to pour into the same old projects or plug budget gaps. After changing their transportation funding structure, they directed a portion of the new money raised each year into a new, statewide, multimodal grant program.

The first round of winners totaling $84 million is an impressive collection of roadway, freight and passenger rail, aviation, port and waterway, bicycle and pedestrian safety, and other projects. Every single applicant has their own financial skin in the game, bringing significant local or private money to the table.

That last detail is important — applicants are required to have 30 percent of the total cost in hand from other sources to even be considered for receiving state funds. By contrast, traditional federal formula funds only require a 20 percent match. And unlike most other grant programs, private entities can apply and win funding (more on one of those below), which means private money can be brought to bear on improving the transportation system.

Pennsylvania is not the first to create a program like this. In 2005, Oregon successfully created a program called ConnectOregon, which has received more than 528 applications and awarded $482 million in grants since the program’s inception. In just the first four rounds of competitive grants, $340 million in grants for multimodal projects leveraged an additional $500 million in non-state funds.

One thing that local elected officials like to hear is that these programs in PA or OR (or the potential programs in every state that Congress’ Innovation in Surface Transportation Act would create) are equally accessible to rural and urban areas.

Even if you’re a smaller city, the eligibility is the same: Do you have a good project that hits all the competitive criteria from the state? Does your project bring a strong return on investment? Are you bringing your own money to the table? Then you’ve got as good a chance to win funding as a big project in Philadelphia.

Mayors and elected officials throughout the country are looking for an opportunity to compete for funds — especially those that are too often left out of the decision-making process. Representatives in both chambers of Congress have taken these concerns to heart and incorporated some of the best qualities of these two state programs into The Innovation in Surface Transportation Act, which has strong bipartisan support in both the House and Senate.

Pore over the list of winners in Pennsylvania announced today and it’s obvious just how much pent-up demand there is to get funding for smart, innovative local projects. One project in Pittsburgh stands out from the typical winners you see in TIGER, because it’s a private entity. The Oxford Development Company received $2.2 million to augment a development project that will bring tangible benefits to the transportation network in the neighborhood and for the city. Oxford has a $130 million plan to develop Three Crossings, a mixed-use development in the Strip District that will include a multimodal transportation facility on-site and improved bike and pedestrian connections into that historic walkable neighborhood just north of downtown.

A few others worth noting:

Port Authority of Allegheny County, McKeesport – $1 million to demolish the existing McKeesport Transportation Center and build a new multimodal terminal that will bring together regional and local buses, vans, and ACCESS paratransit, a park-and-ride lot, and a major bicycle trail. (Photos of the current station)
Drexel University, Philadelphia – $2.5 million to create an integrated plan to address transportation, commercial opportunities and the station and facilities in the area around Philadelphia’s bustling 30th Street Station. (Photo from the Drexel Master Plan below)
Erie Regional Airport Authority, Millcreek Township – $700,000 for improvements to the Erie International Airport terminal building.
Economic Progress Alliance of Crawford County, Greenwood Township – $1 million to construct an 85-car unit train loop track in the Keystone Regional Industrial Park that will allow a an 85-car train to be serviced, unloaded and turned around at the Keystone Regional Industrial Park without having to uncouple its engine or cars. The state’s $1 million contribution will make it possible for this $7.2 million project to proceed. Story.
Big Spring School District, West Pennsboro Township – $525,000 to complete pedestrian safety improvements, including the design of a pedestrian tunnel connecting Big Spring High School with the fitness center and middle school located across the street in this small town.

Leaders say St. Petersburg transit measure key to economic success

Voters in Pinellas County, Florida, which includes St. Petersburg and borders Tampa, have the chance to approve a one percent sales tax next week that will raise $130 million per year. The money will kickstart a 24-mile light rail system, improve and expand their bus system by 65 percent, build bus rapid transit lines, and increase important regional connections.

Passage would be a major step forward for St. Petersburg and the Tampa Bay region, coming four years after a similar measure in neighboring Hillsborough County narrowly failed.

The plan, known as Greenlight Pinellas, would make a key change to the county’s current funding mechanism for their bus system, erasing the transit millage on property taxes and replacing it with a one percent sales tax. That’s a key change, as it shifts the burden of paying for transit from property owners only, to one that’s shared by the large numbers of tourists and visitors visiting the region. As much as a third of the revenue would eventually come from tourists, according to Greenlight.

The Tampa Tribune endorsed the measure, especially the aspect to shift the funding burden away from solely Pinellas property owners. “Tourism is at record levels as the recession fades. It’s time the county adopted a comprehensive mass transit vision reflecting that dynamic growth.”

The plan would almost immediately improve bus service and increase frequency, and will eventually expand service by about 65 percent, adding new weekend and night service, as well as more frequent service to job centers like Tampa International Airport and downtown St. Pete and Tampa to better connect employees to jobs.

Rapid bus and BRT service will be added on six of the busiest, most productive corridors, and work will begin on a 24-mile light rail line that runs across the county, from Clearwater in the northwest, to downtown St. Pete in the southeast. (Pinellas will still have to assemble other local, state and federal funding to complete the $1.6 billion rail project, but importantly, this measure would also raise enough money to cover the operations of that line once it is up and running.)

The business community has been full-throated in its support of the measure. As of October 10^th, supporters had raised over $1 million to support the campaign. The Tampa Bay Partnership, the St. Petersburg Chamber of Commerce, Sykes Enterprises, Bright House Networks, TransAmerica Insurance and Derby Lane, the Tampa Bay Rays and Lightning, and numerous other local small businesses are supporting the measure.

Michael Kalt, a senior vice president with the Tampa Bay Rays baseball team, told Greenlight that, “Transit is really the linchpin to economic success and improving the quality of life in any major metropolitan area.”

The Tampa Bay Times supported the measure in a strong op-ed. “Tampa Bay is the largest metropolitan area without a viable transportation system that includes bus service and some form of rail.” This project, if approved, will be the first step in “correcting a weakness” of the Tampa Bay region, the editorial continued. Their columnist Joe Henderson also argues for the passage asking his readers, ”How much longer does it take you to get from Point A to B now than it did five years ago? You think an extra penny in sales tax is expensive? Try measuring the loss when businesses take their new jobs elsewhere because of the congestion.”

The project has major political support in addition to the private support, with endorsements from the mayors of the four largest cities and Representative Kathy Castor (D-FL), who said, “This is an active community; this is a community on the go, but we need better transportation options.” Encouraging her constituents to vote yes, she said, “When you do that, you will be making an investment in yourself.”

The organized opposition, No Tax for Tracks, worries about the burden of increasing the sales tax one cent, bringing it to a total of eight percent. They are also concerned about low ridership, though Pinellas Suncoast Transit Authority has reported record boardings the last few years on its buses.

Perhaps no one will be watching this measure more closely than their counterparts across Tampa Bay.

It’s no coincidence that some of the strongest support has been coming from leaders there in Tampa and Hillsborough County: They have high hopes for a referendum of their own to expand existing transit service, build new light rail and some new regional connections, especially after seeing a measure fail four years ago. This new light rail line from Clearwater to downtown St. Petersburg could be the beginning of so much more.

“Perhaps, the rail line represents what could be the start of a regional system across the Howard Frankland Bridge that might one day link the airport, the University of South Florida, the commercial hubs in Gateway, West Shore and downtown Tampa,” said the Times editorial.

Stay tuned next week to hear the results of the voting.

—

Pinellas County is one of a handful of state and local measures to raise revenue to invest transportation. For more information on the measures we’re keeping a close eye on next week, make sure to check out our full Transportation Vote 2014 page.

To better serve the states and localities that are currently campaigning (or hope to campaign) for smart transportation investments, we are hosting the Capital Ideas Conference in Denver on November 13-14^th. There’s still time to register, so learn more today.

If you want to know more about ballot measures related specifically to transit, turn to the Center for Transportation Excellence, who tracks all of those measures and aggregates numbers on results nationwide on an ongoing basis.

Massachusetts vote a bellwether for efforts to raise state transportation revenue

In 2013, the Massachusetts legislature came together on an ambitious plan to raise necessary revenues for transportation, passing a three-cent gas tax increase as well as indexing it to inflation. Now, a year after the legislature approved it, voters on Nov. 4 will decide whether or not to repeal part of the package.

MA bridges Though more than 20 states seriously considered plans to raise new transportation revenue since 2012, Massachusetts was on a short list of 12 states that managed to coalesce around a successful plan. The final plan to raise the gas tax by three cents and index it to inflation, providing an additional $600 million each year to invest in transportation, received at least a partial endorsement from voters this year when all but one of the legislators who supported it won their primary elections.

However, an anti-tax organization took issue with the move to allow the gas tax to rise with inflation and gathered enough signatures to get it on this year’s ballot.

About a third of states index their gas taxes to ensure that growing construction costs don’t result in a net loss of funding to maintain and build their networks. This has become especially important as declining driving and improved fuel efficiency are further reducing revenue from the fuel taxes that provide the bulk of transportation funding. (Question 1 on the ballot only repeals the indexing to inflation, not the three-cent increase, which will stay in place no matter how this measure turns out.)

Supporters of the measure argue that taxes shouldn’t automatically increase without legislative action. The flip side of that argument is that leaving them at a static level basically amounts to regular tax breaks in today’s dollars.

States have all the more reason to index to inflation given the declining contribution expected from the federal program, given a Congress that has not acted to raise the gas tax since 1993.

Kristina Egan, the director of Transportation for Massachusetts, offered further reasons to index to Governing Magazine:

[Egan] said requiring legislators to vote on gas tax hikes every year is “impractical,” because the state legislature focuses on transportation, at most, every five or six years. Because transportation projects typically take years to plan and build, she said, “having a predictable and stable revenue source helps us think ahead for which bridges we can repair and which we can’t afford. If you put that up for a vote every year, you’re undermining that planning process.”

Massachusetts has one of the oldest transportation systems in the country, and even with a focus on repair and maintenance, the backlog of deferred maintenance is outpacing the revenues that the current model brings in.

At an average age of 57 years, Massachusetts has some of the oldest bridges in the entire country, well over the national average of 43 years old. The average age of all structurally deficient bridges is an astonishing 75 years old, also well outpacing the national average of 65. Twenty-seven bridges have been closed altogether in recent years. According to state data, bad roads and potholes cost drivers $2.3 billion per year. Improving the ability of the state to simply keep up with these kinds of repairs is a major focus for the coalition of groups and organizations (http://saferoadsbridges.com/) opposing this ballot measure to repeal funding.

The state is still paying for the Big Dig, and nearly 100 percent of the transit authority’s fares (MBTA) actually go towards paying down debt service on the state’s transportation debts, making it a financial challenge to maintain and expand new service to meet the burgeoning demand in the growing metro region. (The Big Dig debt ended up on the “T” books a few years ago when transportation agencies were merged.)

Question 1 has been an issue in this year’s gubernatorial election as well. Republican Charlie Baker has been campaigning on repealing the indexing of the gas tax, and Democratic challenger Martha Coakley wants to keep the current funding system intact.

There’s a significant coalition statewide opposing the measure, including business groups, the local AAA chapter, more than a dozen mayors, public health groups, and others. As Rick Dimino, President & CEO of A Better City in Boston, wrote in recent op-ed (pdf):

Losing this money for transportation means that we won’t have adequate resources for critical investments that will grow jobs and the economy…The outcome of this ballot question will impact the day to day quality of life for virtually everyone in the commonwealth. The gas tax may not be everyone’s favorite thing or even the ideal way that some would want to pay for transportation. But the vote to keep last year’s progress in place should be an easy choice

The Massachusetts vote will be watched with great interest in many other states that have or are considering plans to raise new transportation dollars in 2015 and beyond. We’ll be watching the returns and will be reporting back here in detail on how Question 1 fares at the ballot.

Do you live in one of those states that are considering plans to raise new transportation dollars in 2015 and beyond? Do you want to learn more about this campaign in Massachusetts and hear lessons direct from the MA campaign on this measure? We’ll have Kristina Egan from Transportation for Massachusetts on hand in Denver for Capital Ideas on Nov. 13-14, unpacking the lessons they’ve learned from their campaign to raise transportation funding in MA, as well as this effort to repeal it. Don’t miss it!