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Protect, don’t prosecute, pedestrians — Raquel Nelson seeking a new trial

The story of Raquel Nelson, the Atlanta mother charged with vehicular homicide when her son was killed while crossing a street with her, continues to make waves in the local and national media. It’s been a galvanizing story, as people across the country were shocked to see a grieving mother convicted and facing jail time for doing something as ordinary as crossing a street. As we said before, this story was easy to relate to, as most Americans either regularly drive on roads like Austell Road — wide, multi-lane high-speed thoroughfares that run through suburban or urbanizing areas — or have the experience of walking in places where your safety and convenience as a pedestrian is an afterthought or wholly ignored.

David Goldberg, T4 America communications director, penned a thoughtful op-ed on the Raquel Nelson story that ran in the Washington Post today.

The prosecution of this grieving mother was shocking. In truth, though, no one should be surprised that tragedies like this are happening every day across America: Transportation officials and local planners routinely create the very conditions that underlie these “accidents” and allow them to persist…

…This is a major issue in inner-ring suburbs across the country, places originally built as auto-only suburbia that now are home to many lower-income families who don’t have access to cars. Neither the public transportation system nor the highway designs work for those who live, work and walk in these areas. People are being punished and killed simply for being pedestrians. Our research shows that thousands of lives could be saved — and millions more lives improved — by retrofitting these dangerous roads, as many communities are trying to do.

In related news, Nelson has officially announced her intention to seek a new trial, which will begin October 25. She talked about her decision with Ann Curry on the Today Show in a second interview. While Nelson is concerned with clearing her own name, she knows that others face the same situation every day.

“It’s for myself, my children, single mothers, anybody who has to take public transportation and had to be in a scary situation like that,” she told Today.

We’re still gathering signatures to join with the others petitioning Gov. Nathan Deal and the Cobb County authorities to pardon her and clear her of the previous charges without having to go through another trial. Add your name and spread the word.

Watch the full video below:

What does the debt ceiling deal mean for transportation?

With just hours to spare before the deadline, the House, Senate and President Obama have agreed (in principle) on an agreement to raise the debt ceiling. While the details of that agreement are circulating in the media, the implications for the ongoing efforts to reauthorize the transportation bill — as well as funding for current programs over the next year or two — are a bit murky.

Here are a few things we know:

The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee won’t be able to move their transportation bill this week, which means it won’t get introduced or marked up before the August recess. The delay caused by the debt ceiling debate and the scheduled recess in August will likely move the introduction of the Senate bill and markup into September.

The Senate Finance Committee, currently tasked with finding an additional $12 billion to fund the Senate’s plan for a two-year bill, might be preoccupied with examining the details of the cuts in the debt deal. The Senate would need $12 billion to keep the HTF solvent over the length of its two-year bill.

Perhaps restating the obvious, but at a time when Congress is trying to establish or decide what will or won’t be cut, it could be more difficult to find the $12 billion needed for the Senate’s plan. That said, don’t count out Sen. Baucus just yet and his ability to find this amount of money for the EPW Committee.

Other than the cuts to defense spending, the bulk of the initial cuts will come from discretionary programs (and caps on discretionary spending.) In the past, the Highway Trust Fund has never been treated as discretionary spending by Congress, which could lead to a problem if that is the case in this instance. If there are discretionary cuts to transportation, they will primarily hit the transportation programs that get funded out of general fund revenues. This could include things like high speed rail, TIGER and New Starts, among others.

The upshot is that it’s still too early to determine the specific impacts, but this deal will have definite impacts on transportation over the coming two years and beyond.

Also: Read Streetsblog Capitol Hill on the same topic

Tell your story: 15.5 million seniors will have poor or non-existent transit access in 2015. How will it affect you?

By 2015, more than 15.5 million Americans 65 and older will live in communities where public transportation service is poor or non-existent. That number will continue to grow rapidly as the baby boom generation “ages in place” in suburbs and exurbs with few mobility options for those who do not drive.

How will we address the shrinking mobility options of baby boomers who wish to stay in their homes and “age in place?” What happens when people in the largest generation in American history outlive their ability to drive for everything?

We want to know how the lack of transit access or other options affects you. Whether you’re a senior or have a parent or grandparent getting older in places with poor transportation options, we want to hear real stories of how this will affect real people in the coming years. We’re partnering with AARP to gather stories about how you or someone you know is or will be affected by the lack of transportation options.

Share your story with AARP today, which is joining with T4 America to gather compelling stories to share with Congress.

With Congress set to introduce a transportation bill that will determine how to spend our transportation money for the next 6 years, we need to make it clear to Congress how their decisions will impact real people.

T4 America will address Senate panel on senior transit access

Transportation for America Director James Corless will testify before a key Senate panel this week about the need for better and expanded transit options for seniors.

The Wednesday hearing of the Senate Banking Subcommittee on Housing, Transportation and Community Development comes on the heels of T4 America’s recent finding that 15.5 million older Americans will live in communities with poor or non-existent public transit by 2015. Aging in Place, Stuck without Options, was covered in dozens of states and generated widespread discussion.

The chairman of Senate Banking, South Dakota Democrat Tim Johnson, has already shone a spotlight on senior transit needs, particularly in sparser communities like those in his home state. The subcommittee is chaired by New Jersey Democrat Robert Menendez, who has consistently championed transportation options and investment in mass transit.

According to an E&E report on the hearing, Corless will be joined by Lee Hammond, president of AARP, Steve Fittante, executive director of Middlesex County Area Transit in Menendez’s hometstate of New Jersey and Mary Leavy, assistant vice president of the Easter Seals Transportation Group.

The top Republican on the Subcommittee, Jim DeMint of South Carolina, invited Cato Institute fellow Randal O’Toole, who has made his views on senior transit access abundantly clear: “so what?” As Jason Plautz reported in E&E this morning:

O’Toole published a blog post questioning the report, noting data from the American Public Transportation Association that found that 6.7 percent of transit trips are taken by seniors.

“Those baby boomers who prefer transit over driving can do what everyone else does who prefers one set of services over another: locate to where the services they prefer are the greatest. In the case of transit riders, that generally means dense central cities,” O’Toole said, accusing Transportation for America of being “largely a shill for the transit industry.”

You can read T4’s response to O’Toole here.

The hearing will commence Wednesday, June 29 at 2pm in Room 548 of the Senate Dirksen Office Building. We’ll have a wrap on the hearing here.

New York Complete Streets clears legislature, awaits Governor Cuomo’s signature

Complete streets legislation passed both the New York State Senate and Assembly unanimously this week and awaits Governor Andrew Cuomo’s signature.

Once the legislation becomes law as expected, New York State will follow in the footsteps of hundreds of other states and municipalities that have already started prioritizing the needs of all users on their roads, whether on foot, bicycle, in a wheelchair, or using a personal vehicle or public transit.

The Tri-State Transportation Campaign, a T4 partner in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, played a pivotal role in pushing the bill, which was sponsored in its latest iteration by Republican Senator Charles J. Fuschillo, the chairman of the chamber’s transportation committee. The New York AARP was also closely involved in securing passage.

“Everyone knew that something had to be done, so the political will was there,” the state AARP’s legislative director Bill Ferris told Streetsblog New York City.

A national complete streets policy was a key recommendation of our recent Dangerous by Design 2011 report, which documented the more than 47,700 preventable pedestrian deaths in the Untied States between 2000 and 2009. These tragic deaths are too often treated as a fact of life, when we’ve built roadways more suited to speeding traffic than people. Complete streets policies, like the one passed in New York State, make streets safer for all users, no matter their mode of transport.

As Tri-State Transportation Campaign’s executive director Kate Slevin said earlier this year, “We’ve repeatedly found that what makes a road dangerous is poor design — exactly what a state complete streets law will fix.”

The unanimity in this week’s roll call votes was impressive and significant, but did not come without some legislative maneuvering. As Jim O’Grady of WNYC described it:

Some highway superintendents complained about the cost of adding bike lanes and similar features to road projects. So the bill was changed in a late negotiation to require them in the design phase, while making their implementation optional if they’d put a project over budget. A town or county cannot be sued if it chooses not to install complete street features for budgetary reasons.

This bipartisan victory in one of the nation’s largest states should catch the attention of Congress — which has its own complete streets bills in the hopper — as members draft priorities for the next transportation bill. Tell your representative to support Complete Streets and stop preventable pedestrian deaths today.

Seniors and transit report generates widespread coverage and discussion

Last week, we released Aging in Place, Stuck without Options, documenting the more than 15.5 million Americans 65 years and older who, by 2015,  will live in places with poor or non-existent public transportation.

The report ranked metro areas according to the percentage of seniors projected to face poor transit access, and asked: How do we address the shrinking mobility options of baby boomers who wish to stay in their homes and “age in place?” What happens when people in the largest generation in American history outlive their ability to drive for everything?

The discussions we saw in the comments of blog posts and newspaper articles were very interesting. It’s an immediately relatable story, because almost everyone has a parent or grandparent currently dealing with or facing the prospect of getting older and staying mobile.

Accommodating seniors who want to age in place  — most of them do — will be a challenge for our nation’s transportation system. But there is a lot that we can do. We can increase funding for bus routes, paratransit, vanpools and ridesharing. We can provide incentives for community non-profits to operate their own systems. We can encourage states to involve seniors more intimately in the planning process and ensure officials are still able to “flex” federal dollars for transit projects. We can also prioritize “complete streets” that meet the needs of all users, including older Americans on foot, in wheelchairs or on their way to a transit stop.

All of these ideas can — and should — be folded into the next transportation bill currently being drafted in Congress.

The report generated widespread coverage and discussion. In response to the report’s findings, the San Francisco Bay Area gave itself a pat on the back for its top rank, with the San Francisco Chronicle referring to the region as “a good place to retire the car keys,” while the Kansas City Star reacted to its region’s poor ranking. The Wall Street Journal’s Smart Money offered a nice summation of the report’s overall findings.

Some argued that our recommendation to meet seniors where they are is backwards. Rather than extending transit out, they said, we ought to encourage older adults to move to places that already have robust transportation systems. Tanya Snyder surveyed both sides of the debate, which also played out in the comments section and on Twitter, at Streetsblog Capitol Hill:

Those recommendations might help geographically isolated seniors reach services, but is it really the responsibility of the taxpayer to subsidize the decisions people have made to live in places that explicitly reject transit accessibility? Should those inefficient, low-density, sprawling areas be retrofitted with transit now that their populations are aging?

Cristina Martin Firvida, who works on these issues for AARP, said helping seniors marooned in those areas helps everybody. And besides, the suburbs were built through federal policies encouraging outward development after the second world war, she said – it’s not just that one person built a house on top of a mountain and then demanded that taxpayer-subsidized transit come to them. “The suburbs is where our economy and our entire society has moved to since the fifties,” Firvida said.

No one took more umbrage with our report and conclusions than the Cato Institute’s Randal O’Toole, whose response to the growing mobility needs of America’s seniors was a glib: “So what?” While O’Toole is dismissive of the desire for greater options, AARP’s research found that public transportation use among older Americans increased by 40 percent since 2001 (see graphic below). And this is despite the fact that many live in areas with spotty and less-than-reliable service to begin with. T4’s David Goldberg responded to O’Toole last week.

You can still check out the full report and see how your area ranked here.

Senate committee due to release bill next week, must prioritize repair

We’ve heard that the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee is releasing their portion of the transportation bill next week. (Though as Tanya Snyder at Streetsblog pointed out, they promised it would be released in two weeks, three weeks ago.)

There’s a vital piece of policy that must be included in the Senate bill next week, and there’s not much time to make sure the EPW committee members hear about it.

Earlier this week, Senator Cardin introduced a bill that would make the upkeep of our roads and bridges a top national priority. Now we need to make sure this priority is actually adopted as part of the full transportation bill. With the Senate EPW committee expected to release their draft bill next week, time is short to signal our support for this important legislation. Tell your Senators to sponsor this important bill.

We continue spending limited transportation dollars to build roads we can’t afford to maintain — all while our existing infrastructure cracks and rusts and crumbles due to deferred maintenance. Our next transportation bill needs to ensure that we first and foremost take care of our existing investments, saving us money over the long-term.

Send an email to your Senators and make sure they know that their bill absolutely must prioritize repair.

Partnership for Sustainable Communities celebrates two years, and we hope for many more

The Partnership for Sustainable Communities, an innovative plan to get federal agencies working in concert instead of at cross-purposes, is celebrating its two year anniversary. And there is good reason to celebrate.

The Partnership, a joint venture between the U.S. Department of Transportation, Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Environmental Protection Agency, promotes multi-agency cooperation and solutions to key economic problems. One of its chief advisers is HUD’s Shelley Poticha, a longtime advocate for smart planning and transit who previously served as President and CEO of T4’s co-parent organization Reconnecting America.

In a blog post today, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood joined EPA chief Lisa Jackson and HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan in describing the Partnership’s work:

Two years ago, President Obama offered a new vision for sustainable communities and vastly improved how our agencies work together. He challenged us to coordinate our efforts and help build communities where housing, public transportation, jobs, and services are conveniently connected, where businesses thrive, and where the air, water and land are clean.

Agency collaboration is precisely the kind of common sense that Americans expect from Washington. If anything, policymakers have been slow to catch up with what local officials are already doing.

Last year, we spoke with Kris Krider, Town Planner for Davidson, North Carolina, a small community 20 miles from Charlotte, about the Partnership and the need for collaboration.

“I think the relationship between the DOT, HUD and EPA is a great way to start,” he told us. “I think it’s looking at things comprehensively. We don’t live in a world that’s just HUD and EPA, so the relationships between agencies in the federal government should mimic what towns are facing.”

Roger Millar, who now serves as director of the Leadership Institute at Smart Growth America, said federal assistance in 3,000-person McCall, Idaho “gave citizens a vocabulary that they didn’t have,” adding: “What the team was able to do was put the tools in the citizens’ hands to say, ‘This is what we want — it looks like this.'”

Millar got it exactly right — the Partnership is not about dictating on high what local communities should be doing to create jobs, get people moving and improve quality of life. It’s about giving them the tools and resources to make those decisions for themselves, and recognizing that it’s nonsensical to keep housing, transportation and the environment in their own compartments.

The two-year mark is important for it’s own sake, but especially notable given the the very real threat the Partnership was under during this year’s budget debate. As Poticha put it, according to Transportation Nation:

Our office was lined out of the budget for 2011 and we were out for months. I think it’s only because people in communities called up their representatives that we are still here.

Reform and progress are often fragile, so it is gratifying to see how far the Partnership has come. And their approach is needed now more than ever.

Nassau County Executive to privatize Long Island Bus system

In April, the Long Island Bus system in Nassau County, New York was on the verge of cutting bus service in half until a funding deal between state and local officials halted the reductions with an $8.6 million cash infusion. Now, with the temporary lifeline slated to end in December, Nassau County Executive Edward Mangano has announced his intention to privatize the system by 2012.

Under the deal, privately-owned Veolia Transportation would begin operating the 48 Long Island bus lines, which serve an average of 100,000 riders daily. Long Island Bus is one of the largest suburban bus systems in the country, according to Transportation Nation.

This week’s announcement was not a surprise, as Mangano has made his intention to privatize the system known for some months. Mangano ran for office and won on an aggressive anti-tax platform, steadfastly opposing new revenues and refusing to meet the requested financial commitments to the Long Island Bus system requested by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. In a press release announcing the deal today, he described the New York MTA as a “bloated bureaucracy.”

Veolia officials say they can run the system at three quarters of Long Island Bus’ current operating budget of $141 million, and Mangano has estimated savings of between $2 and $4 million a year. But the math, according to the Tri-State Transportation Campaign, just doesn’t add up. Privatization in other parts of the country has often resulted in higher costs to the county and reduced services, wrote TSTC’s Stephen Higashide:

For example, last year Veolia received a local subsidy of $77 million to operate Phoenix’s bus system, and provided 1.9 million hours of service. By contrast, Nassau County contributed only $9.1 million to LI Bus (with the MTA paying another $25 million) and received 1.2 million hours of service.

The contract requires approval from the County Legislature and the state-run Nassau Interim Finance Authority.

Throwing grandma off the train…and under the bus

True to his M.O., the Cato Institute’s Randal O’Toole (right) resorts to name-calling, distortions and untruths to attack our report highlighting the transportation challenges facing communities with a rapidly growing number of seniors.

It is ironic to hear Randal O’Toole – who is largely a shill for the highway lobby and its pet subsidies – refer to Transportation for America as “ largely a shill for the transit industry.”

The T4America coalition is alarming to people like O’Toole because it is an unusual player in the battles over the federal transportation program: It is expressly not an industry group. Rather, it represents millions of Americans who rely on our nation’s transportation infrastructure and who want to see it preserved and expanded in ways that meet the needs of a changing nation.

The folks at AARP, who co-released the Aging in Place, Stuck without Options report with us, are hardly spokespeople for those who make and operate trains and buses. They represent the interests of Americans as we age. They actually talk to seniors to find out their problems and what they need. What they’ve learned is that people want to live in the communities where they have built social and other support networks. And like the rest of America, the vast majority live in suburbs.

But those suburbs were built with the assumption that everyone would drive for everything, regardless of their health, age, physical condition or budget. That presents a national problem when our largest ever generation, with the longest life expectancies ever, faces a future of diminished capacity for driving.

Presented with the fact of this phenomenon and its implications, O’Toole responds, “So what?” [Lets hope for his sake that his eyesight, reflexes, hearing, joints and pension never give out, or that he has plenty of kids who have nothing better to do than shuttle him around in his dotage.] O’Toole makes a big point of saying that not a lot of seniors take transit today. But that’s perfectly in line with our findings: Most live where transit service is poor or non-existent. In places that do have transit, the number of seniors taking transit is, in fact, rising, and that is accelerating as gas prices rise.

And now for O’Toole’s patent untruth:

Transportation for America wants transit agencies to extend frequent bus or rail service to every remote suburb where there might be a few people over 65.

We never said any such thing, because we don’t believe any such thing. We believe there are as many solutions as there are communities. Some inner suburbs might decide to extend an existing transit system from the urban core into their area. Some exurbs might create a call center for dial-a-ride or ride-sharing services. Some communities with an existing public transportation network might encourage senior-friendly housing in walkable neighborhoods near transit stops. That would allow people to stay in their communities, but in homes and neighborhoods where they can remain active and independent.

It is clear that cash-strapped states and localities can’t do what they need to do in the coming years without federal support. The upcoming transportation bill will allocate how our existing tax dollars are spent. We can keep spending on 1950s-era highway schemes and Bridges to Nowhere, or we can face reality and recognize the fact of aging, both of our existing infrastructure and our population, and dedicate federal support accordingly.

Photo courtesy of Wichita Liberty.

Senator Cardin introduces bill to prioritize repair of bridges and roads

Whether one looks at our interactive tool mapping the nation’s deficient bridges, or the more recent Smart Growth America study on the sorry condition of our roads, there’s plenty of evidence that we’re spending limited transportation dollars to build things we can’t afford to maintain — all while our existing infrastructure cracks and rusts and crumbles due to deferred maintenance.

One member of the influential Senate Committee drafting the transportation bill introduced legislation aimed at making repair and maintenance of existing infrastructure a higher priority.

The Preservation and Renewal of Federal-Aid Highways Act, introduced by Maryland Senator Ben Cardin, would require the Secretary of Transportation to establish “state of good repair standards” for highways receiving federal funding and set repair guidelines for states.

The bill would also require states to use an “asset management process” to develop their own targets for highway preservation and renewal and would consolidate several existing federal programs into a System Preservation and Renewal Program fund. (Asset management is just a fancy way of describing a program designed to keep tabs on the condition of roads and bridges to ensure repairs are made in the most timely and cost-effective fashion. -Ed.)

Cardin’s office cited the American Society of Civil Engineers’ 2009 grade of “D-” for the nation’s highways as an impetus for the legislation.

“Investing in our nation’s highways and infrastructure has been one the best federal investments we have ever made,” Cardin said in a statement released earlier today. “Our nation’s highways are critical to growing our economy, and repairing and maintaining their quality is required to ensure the lasting efficiency and safety of our nation’s highways and bridges.”

Clear priorities for repair and maintenance are long overdue. A truly reformed federal program combines preserving what we already have while laying the groundwork for a 21st century transportation system with an array of options and real accountability. Cardin’s measure is an essential step toward fixing and restoring trust in the current program.

Cardin’s approach also saves money, a key selling-point when disputes over domestic spending color much of the debate in Washington. For every $1 spent on road repair today, we save between $6 and $14 that would have been spent if we had allowed the same road to deteriorate into poor condition. The Obama administration’s broad outline for a transportation bill also included strong state-of-good repair standards.

Click to enlarge this graphic on the benefits of repairing — and the cost of neglecting — infrastructure.

White House launches advisory group on rural issues that includes transportation officials

President Obama signed an executive order today creating an advisory group for rural issues. The group will be tasked with developing recommendations for boosting economic growth, job opportunities and quality of life in rural communities.

The Executive Order notes that sixteen percent of the population lives in rural counties and that these areas are essential to future economic competitiveness.

“Though rural communities face numerous challenges, they also present enormous economic potential,” according to the order. “The Federal Government has an important role to play in order to expand access to the capital necessary for economic growth, promote innovation, improve access to health care and education, and expand outdoor recreational activities on public lands

Tom Vilsack, the Secretary of Agriculture, will serve as chairman and will be joined Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson and dozens of other Cabinet and administration officials. Including these voices will ensure cross-jurisdiction solutions are considered.

The transportation challenges of rural areas are well-known, yet cannot be overstated.

More than 1.6 million rural households in America lack access to a personal vehicle, and rural areas and small towns tend to have higher concentrations of older adults and low-income families, precisely the groups that are less likely to drive or be able to afford a car. The need for increased travel options in these communities was outlined in our Dangerous by Design 2011 report, which found that while only 24 percent of Americans live in rural areas, the areas account for more than 27 percent of pedestrian fatalities.

As Congress continues its deliberations over the next transportation bill, rural transit needs have finally begun to receive more of the attention they deserve. Senator Tim Johnson, a South Dakota Democrat who chairs the Banking Committee that oversees transit, has called for additional resources to help small providers maintain service levels. And, Representative Shelley Moore Capito, a Republican member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee whose West Virginia district contains a number of rural counties, has said she will “certainly remain a strong voice for making roads safer for pedestrians” as the next bill is crafted.

Rural transportation needs were also the subject of recent report from the Rural Policy Research Institute, or RUPRI. You can read their full report, which includes a number of recommendations for the next transportation bill, here.

Photo courtesy of Huron County Transit.

Coastal Alabama advocates make Complete Streets in Mobile a reality

With the echo of the latest pedestrian fatality figures still ringing, a city in the deep South became the latest, albeit unlikely, place to adopt a Complete Streets policy. To paraphrase the song: if it can happen there, it can happen anywhere.

When people think of “infrastructure,” images of roadways and grids tend to come to mind. But there’s another kind of infrastructure — support from key people and players on the ground — that is equally crucial to how we build our communities.

Wendy Allen and Charlene Lee (pictured at right) of Smart Coast, an advocacy group aimed at strengthening and revitalizing the Alabama coastline, understand the importance of that support structure. Without their coalition-building skills, it’s unlikely the Mobile City Council would have passed a Complete Streets policy this year.

Smart Coast was founded a decade ago to encourage smart and sustainable development in the face of increased population along the coast. In 2009, the Mobile region’s poor ranking on pedestrian fatalities prompted the group to host an event to raise the profile of safe access for all road users.

“We were working in an area that did not have a groundswell or clamor saying ‘my God, this is unacceptable that my area is unsafe,’” said Lee, the programs director for Smart Coast. “We were trying to build that groundswell.”

Allen and Lee cited the recommendations in Transportation for America’s Dangerous by Design report, and T4 Communications Director David Goldberg attended and spoke at the event. Mobile had 138 pedestrian fatalities from 2000 to 2009, according to our most recent report, and the state of Alabama was the fifth most dangerous state overall for people walking.

In January 2010, Smart Coast presented its Complete Streets recommendations to the Mobile City Council for the first time, a meeting Allen described as “a big lovefest.” Prior to the presentation, Allen and Lee had solidified support from Councilmember Gina Gregory, who has a professional background in media and public relations. They also built relationships with business groups, city engineers and other key stakeholders.

The outreach resulted in a “foundational infrastructure with enough people in enough places that cared,” according to Allen, Smart Coast’s Executive Director.

“We had a perfect storm of things happens,” added Lee.

The measure languished for over a year in the council’s Public Safety Committee, but the backing of the Mobile Medical Society, coupled with increased activity among local bicyclists and the full backing of Leadership Mobile, a civic group, helped to finally advance the complete streets proposal to the full Council this year. Growing awareness of the public health implications of unsafe streets was particularly resonant in a state that consistently ranks among the highest in adult obesity.

As the Press-Register reported this week, the measure passed in Mobile is non-binding and lacks an enforcement mechanism, but Lee emphasized that it was important to “get the policy done first” so that advocates would have something to build upon.

Smart Coast is already at work on implementation, with plans to identify three potential Mobile streets that could accommodate a “road diet” that includes bicycle lanes and wider sidewalks. Mobile citizens would be invited to weigh in on where they would prefer to see these changes happen.

“If we can get an early success on the ground, we think that will parlay into this incredible engagement that’s already occurring,” Lee said.

Mobile is the sixth city in coastal Alabama to adopt a complete streets policy, following the lead of Fairhope, Daphne Chickasaw, Mount Vernon and Orange Beach.

Photo courtesy of Smart Coast.

States’ underinvestment in road repair signals need for tough federal standards

Consider a couple of eye-popping statistics:

From 2004-2008, states spent 57 percent of available highway dollars to add a little over 1 percent to our already vast highway network, and only 43 percent to maintain the other 99 percent of highway lanes.

Keeping our existing highway network in “good” condition would require spending $43 billion a year over the next 20 years, well over the total, combined amount spent today on new construction and preservation.

Those are two of the findings in a report out today from Smart Growth America and Taxpayers for Common Sense, Repair Priorities: Transportation spending strategies to save taxpayer dollars and improve roads. The report examines road conditions and spending priorities in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, and found that, as a result of their spending decisions, road conditions in many states are getting worse and costs for taxpayers are going up.

The short version: We’ve spent 60 years building highways, the bill for their maintenance is coming due – and it’s a doozy! Left to their own volition, the states are not doing the job. As Grace Crunican, the former DOT head for Oregon, said during the media telebriefing on the report, “There’s a lot of political pressure to put money into new projects. … We’ve got to find the discipline” to keep our roads properly maintained, she said.

It’s time for Washington to fix it. States have to be held to high standards, and the money they receive should be tied to accountability on that score. The share of money that is walled off for maintenance and that can’t be siphoned off for “sexy” – Crunican’s word – pet political projects has to be much larger than it is now.

Congress is currently in the process of drafting a new transportation bill, and lawmakers need to keep a laser-like focus on the repair and rehabilitation of American’s existing roads and bridges. We cannot build a 21st century transportation system until we take care of what we built in the 20th.

You can find more information about this new SGA and Taxpayers’ report, including a state-by-state map, here.

Smart Growth America contributed to this post.

Newspapers across the country call for increased pedestrian safety following Dangerous by Design rankings

Jackson, Mississippi Credit: Dr. Scott Crawford.

This week’s release of Dangerous by Design has prompted several newspapers to editorialize in favor of tough pedestrian safety measures that address the urgency of the 47,000 killed and 688,000 injured on unsafe streets between 2000 and 2009.

The report generated ample coverage in Florida, home to the nation’s four most dangerous metropolitan areas for pedestrians: Orlando, Tampa, Miami and Jacksonville. Statewide, 5,163 Floridians were killed between 2000 and 2009, at a cost of $22.2 billion.

The Orlando Sentinel weighed in Wednesday, warning: “If you like to walk in Florida, the bad news just keeps coming,” continuing: “What’s attractive about living in a place where it’s dangerous to even walk?”

The Sentinel also turned its attention to Florida’s elected officials who are in a position to make a difference:

Can we look to our current leadership to correct this dubious distinction? Well, U.S Rep. John Mica wants to lift the requirement that 10 percent of federal gas tax proceeds be spent on things like sidewalks and bike lanes. And Gov. Rick Scott’s new Secretary of Transportation, Ananth Prasad, recently testified before Congress that, when money’s tight, it might not make sense to build — you guessed it — sidewalks and bike trails.

(Ed. note: The Sentinel figure is too high — in fact, about 1.5 percent of total federal transportation dollars go toward making walking and biking safer.)

The Gainesville Sun reached a similar conclusion in “A death defying act: Walking across Florida’s mean streets,” saying: “Facilitating the fast movement of automobiles is a far higher priority than saving lives.”

In West Virginia, several newspapers covered the report and the Charleston Daily Mail ran an editorial titled “Protecting pedestrians should be a priority.” They wrote:

Improving safety for pedestrians is essential if the state is going to promote walking as part of any program for healthier living. Given this state’s abysmal rankings in most health categories, the issue seems worthy of government attention.

West Virginia is the home of Nick Rahall, the top Democrat on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, as well as key Republican Shelley Moore Capito, who this week announced her intention to fight for pedestrian safety in the next transportation bill. The state ranked 24th out of 50 in overall pedestrian danger index.

Up north, the Philadelphia Inquirer noted Pennsylvania’s relatively favorable ranking overall while imploring Mayor Michael Nutter to continue efforts toward promoting a walkable city. Philadelphia has already expanded bike lanes and instituted a Complete Streets policy.

And in Hawaii, which had the highest fatality rate among senior pedestrians, the Honolulu Star-Advertiser similarly urged renewed focus on the needs of all road users.

Failure to adopt a policy that helps seniors and all citizens use transportation without undue hazard would be a mistake, more costly in the long run and a contradiction in a state that prides itself on its year-round enjoyment of the outdoors.

You can view more state rankings on our report map here.

UPDATE: The Detroit Free Press, hailing from the cradle of the American auto industry, echoed similar themes this weekend, editorializing: “Designing walkable streets and public places is important to building healthy, livable cities that attract talented employees, innovative businesses and creative entrepreneurs.”

Also, several lawmakers responded in the wake of the report.

Lawmakers move to address pedestrian safety in the wake of Dangerous by Design

Tuesday’s release of Dangerous by Design outlining the 47,700 deaths and 688,000 injuries to people while walking on unsafe streets has renewed Congress’ focus on pedestrian safety in the next transportation bill. But what substantial steps the House and Senate will take to promote safer streets and improve conditions for walking remains very much in play.

As we point out in the report, federal dollars and/or design guidelines have contributed to the dangerous conditions on the roads where two-thirds of these people have died, so the federal government can’t now throw up their hands, pass the buck and declare the ongoing carnage “a local problem.”

Representative Shelley Moore Capito (right), a West Virginia Republican and member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, told the Charleston Daily Mail that she will “certainly remain a strong voice for making roads safer to pedestrians” while crafting the transportation bill. More than 200 people were killed while walking in West Virginia from 2000 to 2009, according to the report, at a cost of $1.02 billion, and the Charleston metro area had 56 of those fatalities. The entire state ranked 24th out of 50 states in overall danger to pedestrians.

Over in the Senate, the Environmental and Public Works Committee has been drafting their part of the bill and looking for points of agreement among the top four committee members from both parties. Many T4 partners from across the country have been communicating with EPW offices for the last several weeks urging the Senate to retain dedicated funding for making walking and biking safer, a key recommendation of Dangerous by Design 2011.

Sen. Boxer released a joint statement yesterday with her fellow Committee leaders from both parties on the broad principles they’ve agreed upon for the next transportation bill. (Read T4’s official response here.)

• Funds programs at current levels to maintain and modernize our critical transportation infrastructure;
• Eliminates earmarks;
• Consolidates numerous programs to focus resources on key national goals and reduce duplicative and wasteful programs;
• Consolidates numerous programs into a more focused freight program that will improve the movement of goods;
• Creates a new section called America Fast Forward, which strengthens the TIFIA program to stretch federal dollars further than they have been stretched before; and
• Expedites project delivery without sacrificing the environment or the rights of people to be heard

Boxer told reporters she supports federal efforts and funding for walking and biking. “Certainly any mode of transportation – roads that support alternatives such as bike paths, walkways – will be included and get good attention,” she said, according to Streetsblog Capitol Hill, though negotiations continue on all aspects of the bill not included in these core principles above.

California had 6,957 pedestrian deaths from 2000 to 2009, including 2,533 in the Los Angeles metropolitan area and 938 in the Riverside-San Bernardino metro area, which made the list of the top ten most dangerous metros at #5. California ranked 16th out of all 50 states, according to the report’s Pedestrian Danger Index for states.

New report and map chronicles the visceral reality of 47,000 preventable pedestrian deaths

The 2011 edition of our pedestrian safety report is out today, looking back on the 47,000 people that were killed and 688,000 injured while walking our nation’s streets in the ten years from 2000-2009. Dangerous by Design 2011 examines the problem and several solutions for the epidemic of preventable deaths that far too many have simply accepted as matter of course.

This edition of our national report, along with data and a report or factsheet for all 50 states, comes with a powerful visual: this year, we’ve taken the pedestrian fatalities from 2001 to 2009 that have location data (all but about 5 percent) and plotted them on an interactive map, allowing you to take a look at the streets and roads near you to see how safe or unsafe they may be. Test it out.

https://t4america.org/resources/dangerousbydesign2011/map/

Type an address and once the map draws, click on any point to see the available information about the victim, the date, the location, the street type and even what the road looks like via Google Street View. Here’s a sample from Orlando, rated the #1 most dangerous metro area in the country.

The visual is striking. Shown on a map like this, it’s shockingly easy to pick out the busy arterial roads where fatalities are strung out in a tidy little line following the path of the road. Nationally speaking, the majority of these deaths occurred along these “arterial” roadways that are dangerous by design — streets engineered for speeding traffic with little or no provision for people on foot, in wheelchairs or on bicycles.

Our federal tax dollars actually go to build these streets that are designed to be perilous to children, older adults and everyone else. And yet, right now, some in Congress are considering the total elimination of funding for projects to make it safer to walk and bicycle.

The highways-only lobby insists that pedestrian safety is a “frill” and a local responsibility. But 67 percent of these fatalities over the last 10 years occurred on federal-aid roads — roads eligible to receive federal funding or with federal guidelines or oversight for their design.

That’s right: Federal programs have encouraged state departments of transportation to prioritize speeding traffic over the safety of people in our neighborhoods and shopping districts. Shouldn’t our tax dollars be used to build streets that are safe for all users, and not deadly for those on foot?

The irony is that fixing these conditions is relatively cheap: Existing funds for that purpose — now targeted for elimination — amount to less than 1.5 percent of the current federal transportation outlay. A policy of giving federal support only to “complete streets” that are designed for the safety of people on foot or bicycle as well as in cars would cost next to nothing.

Tell Congress: it’s no time to start cutting funding keeps pedestrians safe.

UPDATE: Within hours of the report’s release, Senator Tom Harkin and eleven co-sponsors formally introduced the Complete Streets Act of 2011, which mirrors its House counterpart — sponsored by Republican Steve LaTourette and Democrat Doris Matsui —  in calling for streets that are safe and accessible for all users, whether on foot, in a wheelchair, on a bike or using public transit. The Iowa Democrat, who has introduced similar legislation in the past, mentioned the Dangerous by Design report in his statement this afternoon.

T4 teams up with fiscally conservative groups to promote innovative transportation solutions

Transportation for America partnered with Taxpayers for Common Sense and the Reason Foundation — not a trio you’re accustomed to seeing — on a report detailing innovative and cost-effective transportation solutions with the potential to command broad support in a divided Congress.

The jointly written report, The Most for Our Money: Taxpayer Friendly Solutions for the Nation’s Transportation Challenges discusses seven approaches that would increase travel options, cut congestion and stretch every federal transportation dollar further so that our current system can be maintained. Representatives from the three groups outlined the findings in detail at a briefing on Capitol Hill this morning.

One key tenet of the report is transportation scenario planning. Under this approach, state and local officials would forecast a variety of “what-if” growth and planning scenarios to see how these potential futures would impact transportation. Then, constituents and interested parties would be able to see for themselves how to best leverage their transportation dollars under a number of different outcomes. Many communities — Salt Lake City, Utah; Sacramento, California; and Chicago; among others — have already saved money and developed a bold vision using these strategies.

Another innovative solution stressed in the report is the expanded use of High-Occupancy Toll, or HOT, lanes. These lanes are reserved for buses and high-occupancy vehicles. Single-occupancy vehicles wishing to use the lanes may pay a fluctuating rate that varies based on traffic conditions. Users of the HOT lanes enjoy the direct benefits of an ease in congestion and non-HOT lane users indirectly benefit from more space in their lanes.

Other recommendations include:

  • Bus Rapid Transit (BRT), which utilizes a combination of technology, dedicated lanes and existing infrastructure to run faster buses on local streets and highways
  • Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS), which uses a variety of technologies such as web-based alerts, traffic management and electronic tolling to make better use of existing capacity
  • Intercity Buses, which have quickly becomes a popular travel option between population centers
  • Teleworking, which encourages employers to make arrangements for remote work, improving productivity and reducing the need for long commutes
  • Local Connectivity, which emphasizes improved local traffic networks so that longer-distance routes are less congested and more efficiently used

“Needless to say, the obstacles facing our transportation system are large, especially given the current state of the economy and difficult funding climate,” said James Corless, director of Transportation for America. “But by making smart, selective choices about how our vital dollars are spent — fixing what we have first and looking for ways to better utilize the system — we can maintain our current network and better meet changing transportation needs.”

Shirley Ybarra, senior transportation policy analyst at the Reason Foundation and former Virginia secretary of transportation added, “We’re offering innovative ideas, free-market solutions, and simple fixes that will help us get the most for our money.”

Read the full report here.

Diverse groups propose cost-effective strategies to get the most for our transportation money

Transportation for America, the Reason Foundation and Taxpayers for Common Sense show how to modernize systems, increase safety and reduce congestion

WASHINGTON, D.C. – A new report released today by Reason Foundation, Taxpayers for Common Sense and Transportation for America proposes cost-effective recommendations that Congress should consider as part of the pending transportation bill that will stretch our limited transportation dollars, save money in the long run, cut congestion, and better maintain the existing system.

The jointly written report, “The Most for Our Money: Taxpayer Friendly Solutions for the Nation’s Transportation Challenges,” introduces innovative approaches that will expand the efficiency of our infrastructure while keeping costs in check.

“Needless to say, the obstacles facing our transportation system are large, especially given the current state of the economy and difficult funding climate,” said James Corless, director of Transportation for America.  “But by making smart, selective choices about how our vital dollars are spent — fixing what we have first and looking for ways to better utilize the system — we can maintain our current network and better meet changing transportation needs.”

The report outlines seven specific tools – some big, some small – that would significantly improve our nation’s transportation system by reducing future congestion, plan for the future, better utilize existing capacity and increase the safety of our roads and bridges.

For example, the implementation of Transportation Scenario Planning would bring together local governments, metropolitan planning organizations, and regional councils to assess forecasted data on transportation demands and develop “what-if” scenarios to indicate how potential systems would function as populations expand. Legislators, businesses and the public then assess these scenarios and come to agreement on the most favorable solution. Many communities find that changes to “business as usual” result in a more efficient transportation system at a lower cost. Scenario Planning has been used in various states and regions, and was recently embraced by Chicago in its “GO TO 2040” plan to develop a new transportation system by 2040 that would meet the city’s growing population and transportation needs.

“Staring down the barrel of trillion-dollar budget deficits, federal taxpayers are demanding more bang for their buck, and transportation spending is no exception,” said Erich W. Zimmermann, Senior Policy Analyst at Taxpayers for Common Sense. “Our work highlights a number of opportunities to do more with less. For example, scenario planning, modeled on strategic military planning, enables a community to consider various options and choose the one that best suits its fiscal and transportation needs.

Another innovative approach the report recommends is to reduce congestion on the road by expanding the use of High-Occupancy Toll (HOT) lanes.  HOT lanes are reserved for buses and other high-occupancy vehicles. Single-occupancy vehicles wishing to access the less congested HOT lanes pay a fluctuating rate based upon the number of vehicles in the HOT lanes to ensure they keep traffic moving.  These lanes have already been introduced in cities around the country, and in Southeast Florida alone, saved commuters nearly $9 million in just six months.

“While HOT lanes and Bus Rapid Transit are certainly not new or flashy innovations, the purpose of our recommendations is to encourage Congress to rethink the way we finance and design our transportation systems and support the expansion of these types of low cost, efficient solutions,” said Shirley Ybarra, senior transportation policy analyst for Reason Foundation and former Virginia secretary of transportation. “We’re offering innovative ideas, free-market solutions, and simple fixes that will help us get the most for our money.”

The report also recommends five additional strategies, including:

  • Bus Rapid Transit (BRT);
  • Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS);
  • Intercity Buses;
  • Teleworking; and
  • Local Street Connectivity

“It is imperative that Congress seriously consider these tools in the next six-year transportation reauthorization,” said Zimmermann. “Implementing strategies like these is an easy way for Congress to make America’s transportation more effective, efficient and convenient without breaking the bank.”

To view the report, click here.

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TRANSPORTATION FOR AMERICA (T4) is the largest, most diverse coalition working on transportation reform today.  Our nation’s transportation network is based on a policy that has not been significantly updated since the 1950’s. We believe it is time for a bold new vision — transportation that guarantees our freedom to move however we choose and leads to a stronger economy, greater energy security, cleaner environment, and healthier America for all of us. We’re calling for more responsible investment of our federal tax dollars to create a safer, cleaner, smarter transportation system that works for everyone. www.t4america.org

TAXPAYERS FOR COMMON SENSE is a 501(c)(3) non-partisan budget watchdog serving as an independent voice for American taxpayers. Our mission is to achieve a government that spends taxpayer dollars responsibly and operates within its means. We work with individuals, policymakers, and the media to increase transparency, expose and eliminate wasteful and corrupt subsidies, earmarks, and corporate welfare, and hold decision makers accountable. www.taxpayer.net

REASON FOUNDATION is a nonprofit think tank dedicated to advancing free minds and free markets and publisher of the critically-acclaimed Reason magazine and its website www.reason.com. For more information, please visit www.reason.org.

Rockefeller and Pew: States need to strengthen performance measures

Many states fail to track the results of their transportation dollars, according to a new report by the Pew Center on the States and the Rockefeller Foundation.

The report, Measuring Transportation Investments: The Road to Results, is quick to tie the timing of its findings to the current debate over including more performance measures in a reauthorization of the nation’s surface transportation law. An unofficial version of the Obama administration bill makes performance and accountability a key component of the federal program.

The report ranked the 50 states and the District of Columbia according to six key goals: safety, jobs and commerce, mobility, access, environmental stewardship and infrastructure preservation. According to the report:

Just 13 states — California, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Maryland, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Oregon, Texas, Utah, Virginia and Washington — have goals, performance measures and data to help decision makers prioritize transportation spending. Nineteen states trail behind, lacking a full array of tools needed to account for the return on investment in their roads, highways, bridges and bus and rail systems. The remaining 18 states and Washington, DC, fall someplace in between, with mixed results

Voters are making it known that they want concrete benchmarks and clear results for their tax dollars when it comes to infrastructure. “The American public expects leaders to manage our transportation investment with an eye toward performance and results,” said Nicholas Turner, Rockefeller Foundation managing director, pointing to recent Rockefeller Foundation Infrastructure Survey results showing that 90 percent favor strengthening policies that hold government accountable for collecting data and certifying that projects are delivered on time and on-budget.

At Streetsblog Capitol Hill, Tanya Snyder noted that the state transportation agencies with the most effective means of tracking public dollars often enjoy greater public backing.

The collection of solid data and the ability to use that data to justify the benefit of transportation expenditures helps the public gain confidence in state transportation agencies. In Washington, once the state started scoring projects based on a cost-benefit analysis, the legislature was persuaded to sell bond issues and increase the gas tax to bring in more revenue. Georgia has begun assessing potential projects in terms of their ability to improve mobility and create economic development. Oregon measures the number and rate of crashes in which large trucks were at fault, using this information to increase safety precautions.

Snyder also highlighted the sections of the report touting merit-based grant programs like TIGER, which would be built upon if Congress adopts the administration’s proposed Transportation Leadership Awards.