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High speed rail grantees awarded, was your state included?

As you may have heard by now, President Obama is following up his favorable mention of high speed rail in last night’s State of the Union address with a Tampa event to announce the winners of federal grants for high speed rail service. (In case you missed our official statement about the announcement, read that here.)

The President is due to make his announcement this afternoon, but the list of awardees has already been released. So who were the big winners? Certainly Florida and California, who got the biggest grants, netting $1.25 and $2.3 billion respectively. Although the lion’s share of funding is going toward a handful of corridors, 31 states will receive some portion of funding or benefit from new or improved rail service, according to reporting on the proposal. A few notable bloggers have already done superb analysis of the recipients of the $8 billion, starting with Yonah Freemark’s excellent corridor by corridor breakdown on the Transport Politic:

After months of speculation about which states will get funding from the Federal Railroad Administration to begin construction on new high-speed corridors, the news is in. As has been expected, California, Florida, and Illinois are the big winners, with more than one billion in spending proposed for each. But other states with less visible projects, including Wisconsin, North Carolina, and Washington will also get huge grants and begin offering relatively fast trains on their respective corridors within five years. The distribution of dollars is well thought-out and reasonable: it provides money to regions across the nation and prioritizes states that have made a commitment of their own to a fast train program.

Elana Schor at Streetsblog DC included a quote from Chairman Oberstar, who was certainly delighted at the first small step toward a true nationwide high speed rail network.

House infrastructure committee chairman Jim Oberstar (D-MN) hailed today’s first rail grants as “a transformational moment,” adding: “The development of high-speed rail in the United States is an historic opportunity to create jobs, develop a new domestic manufacturing base, and provide an environmentally-friendly and competitive transportation alternative to the traveling public.”

Information about all the corridors can be found in the White House briefing room online. We hope to post additional reaction and analysis later today or tomorrow.

Cleaner buses can create jobs, improve the environment

A new study by Duke University illuminates the fact that thousands of green jobs are waiting to be tapped in transit bus manufacturing — if the federal government will make a sustained commitment to investing in public transportation.

The Duke University Center on Globalization, Governance and Competitiveness released a new report this morning during a briefing at the Natural Resources Defense Council that evaluated the many U.S. job opportunities that can reduce carbon emissions in public transit buses. Jobs in and related to public transportation are some of the lowest hanging fruit in the push for green jobs, so what’s keeping the domestic manufacturing industry from ramping up?

The U.S. market for heavy-duty transit buses is small, currently delivering 5,000 to 5,500 buses per year. U.S.-based firms dominate the North American bus market, with an 88% share in total buses and a 51% share in heavy-duty transit buses. Under current U.S. transportation policy, which favors highway spending and de-emphasizes public transit, bus orders are small and sporadic; this makes it difficult for the bus industry to grow.

Buses and Jobs — Duke CGGC report
Non-comprehensive chart of the domestic supply chain for buses. From the Duke CGGC report, p.30

The report is well worth a read, but for a much simpler case study of what this means in real life, consider one piece of the complex supply chain for transit buses that we tend to take for granted: seats. On a crowded bus or train, you may not get the chance to sit in one, but when you do, you probably don’t think about the design or innovation that went into that seat. It probably didn’t occur to you that seats can add hundreds or thousands of pounds of weight that the bus needs energy to carry.

David McLaughlin, vice president of the American Seating Company, a U.S.-based manufacturer of seats for buses and railcars (among many other things), made it clear at this morning’s briefing that increased investment in transit would be good for business. But he also stressed that those benefits are not limited to American Seating alone. As a result of the stimulus bill from 2009, McLaughlin’s company calculated $2.9 million in new business, the bulk of which resulted from seat orders for buses and railcars ordered by transit agencies across the country with stimulus dollars.

“$2.9 million means 11 new jobs for us at American Seating,” he said. In another internal study, His company discovered that 1 job at American Seating sustained roughly 6 others in their immediate supply chain.

Take those two facts together and you begin to see the economic impact of the small public transit investment in the stimulus — and what could happen on a much larger scale. American Seating, just one manufacturer of one particular component that goes into transit vehicles, created the equivalent of 11 jobs through the stimulus. Those 11 jobs create or sustain 66 more at the company that supply them.

Stimulus spending will not be enough, however. Although the economic activity resulting from the stimulus was important, McLaughlin said his business needs investment that is reliable, consistent and predictable — like the funding that could result from a full six-year transportation bill. Stable funding sources will fuel the research and development that can cut seats weights even further and enable buses to use less energy.

“The stimulus package has been a good thing, but what we really need is sustained predictable investment, so we can make the investments we need to make to ensure our viability. This isn’t just a public issue, it’s a public-private issue.  …It’s jobs,” he said.

The message from all fronts this morning was consistent. To spur job creation through manufacturing cleaner transit buses, the industry needs reliable, predictable investment and government policies that encourage innovation. Increasing the available federal funding for new transit lines and rolling stock is one aspect. Ensuring operation of these new transit lines remains affordable is another. Both are needed. As the report says:

If federal, state and local policy were to shift to a clear, sustained commitment to public transit, the nation would have the manufacturing capability to meet the resulting increased demand for transit buses. However, the transit bus industry is unlikely to have significant market growth in the absence of several major changes: better management of public transit funds and improved coordination with manufacturing firms; significant, sustained public funding; and perhaps most important, a comprehensive transportation policy shift that encourages public transit use.

Or, in other words, give transit agencies money to buy new rolling stock — and the money to operate them — and you’ll be creating green jobs on Main Street all across America. Buy new hybrid buses for New York City or San Francisco to reduce emissions there, and support new jobs in towns like Grand Rapids, Michigan that need jobs more than anything.

Feds announce change to consider livability in funding transit projects

TriMet MAX on the Transit Mall Originally uploaded by paulkimo90
From the Transportation for America Flickr group.

Following through on a policy change hinted at for much of 2009, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood announced this morning that federal transit officials would begin considering expanded criteria as they select which transit projects to fund, bringing a new focus on improving livability and sustainability.

At the Transportation Research Board’s annual conference this morning, Secretary LaHood made it clear that a wider range of positive benefits would be considered in the application process for new transit lines or systems. These applications were being unfairly burdened by the previous administration’s cost-effectiveness measurement, which left out such benefits as energy efficiency, economic development and reduced emissions.

“Our new policy for selecting major transit projects will work to promote livability rather than hinder it,” he said. “We want to base our decisions on how much transit helps the environment, how much it improves development opportunities and how it makes our communities better places to live.”

Of course, the one problem that this will not fix is the very high demand for a limited supply of New Starts funding. Even under the old narrow rules for winning approval, only a small percentage of the many applicants were receiving limited funding, and even then, the federal government was only matching about half of local funds, compared with at least 80 percent for road projects.

Still, this change is keeping in line with the positive reforms contained in Chairman Jim Oberstar’s draft reauthorization bill released back in the summer. In June, we quoted the bill’s section on New Starts reform, noting that the proposal to remove the cost-effectiveness requirement and include other “livability” criteria “equalizes the treatment of proposed transit projects and elevates the importance of the benefits that will occur in the community once the project is built.”

The Obama administration and all the leaders at USDOT and the Federal Transit Administration are to be praised for their leadership in changing this program for the better. The next step is securing a greater share of funds for public transportation in the upcoming reauthorization and improving federal match rates to equalize the choices state or regional leaders face between new highways and new transit lines.

Update: Chairman Oberstar responded with a statement of his own praising the change, also observing that New Starts needs greater funding to meet the overwhelming demand. “Now we need increased investment dollars to follow this reform, so that we can move forward with transit projects that relieve congestion, reduce emissions, increase our energy independence, and promote more livable communities across the country,” he said. (From Elana Schor’s post on Streetsblog Capitol Hill)

East Tennessee doctor weighs in on the health-transportation connection

Jackson mom and daughter biking Dan Burden
Being able to bike or walk safely can help keep people healthy. Photo by Dan Burden, walkable.org

Our transportation decisions have a huge impact — positive or negative — on the health and well-being of all Americans.

This idea that health and transportation are connected is gaining traction all across the country due in large part to groups (and T4 America partners) like the American Public Health Association, Prevention Institute, Partnership for Prevention and Health by Design.

They’ve started asking important questions that need to be answered: Can we safely walk as part of our daily routines? Is future pollution and its harmful effects considered when planning a new highway or where to build it? Are we designing communities where seniors can still get around and avoid being stranded at home?

An influential doctor and T4 partner wrote a smart op-ed for an Eastern Tennessee newspaper this week asking some of these pointed questions on behalf of Tennesseans.

The piece, “Sidewalks and Bike Paths: Transportation Reform Would Help With Air Quality, Health,” ran in the Sunday edition of the Johnson City Press (no online link available) and was authored by Dr. Anthony DeLucia, a member of the faculty at East Tennessee State University. DeLucia is also a former chairman of the American Lung Association and member of the Environmental Protection Agency Clean Air Act Advisory Committee.

He recently met with the offices of Tennessee Senator Lamar Alexander and Representatives John Duncan Jr. and Zach Wamp as a participant in T4 America’s health fly-in last October to emphasize the link between health and transportation policy.

DeLucia argues that Tennessee has succeeded at getting its fair share of Washington transportation funds but fails to address transportation challenges in a comprehensive way.

The problem is that Tennessee, like other states throughout the country, has neglected to address core transportation challenges in its five major metropolitan areas. Instead, we have provided an illusory and one-dimensional economic stimulus. In transportation policy, “my way or the highway” literally means “my way is the highway.” We need a fresh look at policy, funding and accountability that addresses the challenges of local metropolitan planning organizations, state departments of transportation and the Federal Highway Administration.

He also compels us to look at our transportation policy as a reflection of our broader societal values and the country we want our children to grow up in.

The right kind of streets allow kids to burn those calories by bicycle, foot or skateboard to school, recreation, social engagements and the like. For our growing senior population, some of whom cannot drive, a complete street and sidewalk system with amenities like crosswalks, raised medians, trees, fountains and benches is a thing of beauty and utility.

DeLucia cites Transportation for America’s Dangerous by Design report to highlight how Tennessee’s major cities stack up on pedestrian safety. Nashville ranked second-best among cities with more than 1 million people in spending on pedestrian safety, while Memphis clocked in as the fifth worst among 52 large metros. On quality of life statistics, DeLucia points out that Tennessee lags most other states, with high rates of poverty and poor air quality. He concludes with this:

From health and the environment to equity and economic development, smarter transportation policy can help us turn a corner for the better in Tennessee and the entire nation.

SGA analysis reveals transportation projects create the most jobs at the lowest cost

Seattle Streetcar Lake Union Park Originally uploaded by paulkimo90

A new analysis of federal stimulus spending confirms what many of us have suspected for months: investment in public transportation gets more people to work, faster, in just about every sense.

The report’s analysis, co-authored by Smart Growth America, the Center for Neighborhood Technology and U.S. PIRG, reveals that during the first ten months of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), investments in public transportation produced twice the jobs per billion dollars as did highway projects.

This is a critical lesson as the Senate takes up a jobs-creation measure passed by the House late last month, based almost entirely on the previous ARRA formula. If the Senate jobs bill were to instead invest equally in public transportation and highways (rather than the uneven split of ARRA), an additional 71,415 job months would be created, equivalent to year-round employment for nearly 6,000 additional workers.  And this could be done without spending a dime more than the House.

It is imperative that Senators utilize this opportunity. As Smart Growth America President Geoff Anderson put it: “If we are serious about creating jobs and bringing about the economic recovery our nation desperately needs, members of the Senate will insist on investing a greater percentage of the transportation funds in public transportation.”

Why do public transportation projects put more people to work dollar-for-dollar? First, public transportation projects invest more in labor than in land acquisition. Second, the projects tend to be more complex, resulting in greater employment diversity in both job numbers and required skills.

Public transportation has also proven itself to be just as “shovel-ready” as roads. Compared to highway infrastructure projects, public transportation projects are spending money at roughly the same rate nationwide.

In addition, every job saved or created for America’s bus drivers, rail operators and station agents is valuable in and of itself. But we often forget public transport does not just provide work, it also gets people to work. Millions of Americas rely on buses and subways each day for employment and essential services, especially during tough times. Investing in public transportation is an investment in their lives and livelihood too.

Read the report for yourself here, or read the full press release.

Debate panelists split over buses, broader impact of transit investments

Albuquerque1 Originally uploaded by Transportation for America
The new Rail Runner commuter rail service in New Mexico has been hugely popular, drawing new riders and luring former drivers to the service.

Monday’s online debate on conservatives and public transportation was billed as a back-and-forth on why the ideological right should embrace public transportation. While differences persisted between our conservative and libertarian panelists about the impact of transit investments, another schism developed over how big a role buses should play.

Monday’s debate hosted by Transportation for America centered around the book Moving Minds: Conservatives and Public Transportation, written by conservatives William Lind and the late Paul Weyrich.

Lind used his opening remarks to summarize the book and refute the oft-repeated right-wing argument that public transportation requires government subsidies while automobiles and the roads required to support them are somehow a free-market outcome.

“In fact, the dominance of the automobile is a product of massive government intervention in the marketplace,” Lind said, citing decades of federal support for the interstate highway system as streetcars remained privately operated — resulting in crushingly unfair competition. “Conservatives above all people should know what happens when you subsidize one competitor and tax the other.”

“You’re either investing in (both highways and transit) or subsidizing both,” agreed panelist John Robert Smith, president and CEO of Reconnecting America and former mayor of Meridian, Mississippi. “You can’t have it both ways.”

Sam Staley, director of urban and land use policy at the libertarian Reason Foundation, was the designated mass transit critic of the debate, which he conceded was “probably accurate” but in need of further clarification. Staley is skeptical about the ability of transit to drive economic development or result in major lifestyle changes.

“I definitely think that transit has an important role to play,” Staley said, “but I think we need to be paying a lot more attention to the conditions under which transit works and when it doesn’t.”

Staley cited the Washington D.C. Metro’s Orange Line, saying transit has succeeded in dense, developed areas like Ballston in Northern Virginia but is less effective when those conditions are missing in places like New Carrollton, on the Maryland side of the District. (Didn’t the changes along the Orange line in Virginia come about largely due to that transit investment?)

Despite his misgivings about mass transit in general, Staley found himself in the unlikely position of defending buses from Lind’s attacks. Lind argued most Americans “don’t like riding buses” and that only trolleys or streetcars would persuade choice-riders to give up their cars, to which Staley responded: “If we discount buses, we’re really doing a disservice to transit generally.”

The final panelist, American Public Transportation Association (APTA) president Bill Millar, also defended buses, saying the industry is rapidly adopting new technologies like bus rapid transit and dedicated lanes, which will appeal to drivers.

Panelists answered a number of interesting questions from listeners on topics such as public-private partnerships, rural transit needs and winning over anti-tax conservatives. Overall, despite differences over the role of buses and transit’s ability to influence broader change, panelists agreed on the general importance of public transportation and the need to make practical decisions not rooted in partisanship.

Smith put it well: “As mayor, I never found a pothole or a railroad crossing that identified as a Democrat or a Republican.”

If you missed the webinar or want to listen again, you can do that with any of the links below, or on the webinars page:

Secretary Ray LaHood on the the Daily Show with Jon Stewart

U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood was the guest on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart last night, and got an easy question right off the bat. When asked by Stewart about how a high-powered CEO could get from New York to D.C. “when it’s foggy out,” alluding to the three Wall Street CEOs who had their plane grounded in last week’s fog, missing a meeting with the President, Ray LaHood gave a simple answer.

“Amtrak runs in the fog,” he said.

Watch to the end for LaHood’s plug for the investments in high speed passenger rail. The applause that follows certainly sounded organic — like a group of people who are excited about one day getting to ride speedy passenger rail from city to city.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c
Ray LaHood
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Still time to register for today’s discussion on conservatives and public transportation

What is the conservative rationale for providing efficient public transportation? Some conservatives would likely suggest that the entire concept is an oxymoron. Conservatives William Lind and the late Paul Weyrich believe otherwise.

This is the final post in a three-part series on Moving Minds: Conservatives and Public Transportation, the subject of an online debate later today (at 3 p.m. Eastern, register now!) Panelists include co-author Lind, mass transit critic Sam Staley, director of urban and land use policy at the Reason Foundation; John Robert Smith, president and CEO of Reconnecting America and former mayor of Meridian, Mississippi; and Bill Millar, president of the American Public Transportation Association (APTA).

The authors identify four elements to their conservative vision for good public transport: coverage, frequency, ease of connection and a preference for rail over buses.

In a previous post, we noted the community-building element of public transportation and how that exemplified a conservative value few would fault. There is also the element of preserving — or, in some cases, reviving — what has worked in the past. Many of America’s greatest cities not only have a tradition of robust transportation infrastructure, but they also contain a historic built environment with untapped potential.

“As conservatives, we want to revive America’s older, industrial cities,” the authors note. “Older cities have lots of infrastructure that can be built on. Conservatives prefer building on what exists to creating vast systems from nothing (at vast cost).”

While lining up with many traditional conservative principles, the notions of preserving resources, building on existing traditions and making good use of what we have are goals most can support.

As conservatives, Weyrich and Lind do not speak the language of visionary social programs and even say they “desire no new technology.” Yet they reach the same conclusion as others in increasing public transportation investment as a means to achieve both economic and social ends.

We hope you’ll join us at 3 p.m. today.

Pew: “Self-sustaining” highways are increasingly subsidized

-- LA highwayCritics of public transportation often cling to the canard that government should not subsidize a transportation option that cannot pay for itself. These naysayers reference “self-sustaining” roads and highways, which receive funding from user-fees – in this case, the federal gas tax.

A new study conducted by SubsidyScope, an initiative of the Pew Charitable Trusts, reveals that not only are roads and highways not self-sustaining, but the amount covered by gas taxes has been declining — leaving an increasing amount of their massive cost to be subsidized. Pew projections – using Federal Highway Administration numbers – show user fees contributing a slim majority of the revenue to the Highway Trust Fund, with the difference made up through bonds and General Fund dollars. Public transportation does, as the critics assert, operate “at a loss,” but so do roadways (see chart below, courtesy of Subsidyscope).

The researchers wrote: “In 2007, 51 percent of the nation’s $193 billion set aside for highway construction and maintenance was generated through user fees — down from 10 years earlier when user fees made up 61 percent of total spending on roads. The rest came from other sources, including revenue generated by income, sales and property taxes, as well as bond issues.” Forty-years ago, they noted, user-fees generated 71 percent of highway revenues.

Of the 18.4 cent federal gasoline tax, 2.86 cents – about 15 percent – is directed toward mass transit projects, and an additional 0.1 cent toward environmental clean-up, according to the report. That leaves more than 80 percent strictly for highways. Even if we spent 100 percent of gas tax revenues on highways, only 65 percent of their total cost would be covered. There would still be a need for significant outside revenue – in other words, subsidies. Does that mean highways are “government waste?” Or are transportation dollars an investment to provide access to jobs and movement of goods?

One reason for the decline of the user-fee’s contribution is that the gas tax has not kept pace with inflation. Today, there is limited political appetite for a gas tax increase. Americans are also driving cleaner cars than they used to, due in large part of federal action on fuel economy. Less gas purchased means lower gas tax revenues.

So, to the critics who seem to be against all subsidies — unless they’re going to cover highway projects: let’s drop the claim that highways “pay for themselves” and have a debate rooted in fact rather than myth.

highway_funds_chart

Secretary LaHood takes on Senator Coburn’s “stimulus waste”

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood didn’t pull any punches in a blog post yesterday about one senator’s “stimulus waste” list.

Senator Tom Coburn is a persistent critic of transportation “enhancements” and the author of a failed amendment earlier this year to strip bicycle and pedestrian projects from a spending bill. His latest waste list includes two bike paths. Coburn told the Washington Times, “When we run $1.4 trillion deficits, the money we spend ought to be a high priority for the American people as a whole.” To which LaHood retorts: “What he really means is that, because he doesn’t get bikes, no one else does either.”

LaHood goes on to cite an American Recovery and Reinvestment Act project extending a bike trail between downtown Minneapolis and the new Minnesota Twins stadium.

“I guess a better connection to Minneapolis’s central business district doesn’t count as infrastructure to some folks,” the secretary wrote. In fact, projects aimed at improving biking, walking and livability are central to both economic recovery, livability and future prosperity.

“We don’t call that waste,” LaHood concluded. “We call it progress.”

Walkscore innovators turn to improving public transportation

CItyGoRound LogoFront Seat, the civic software company responsible for the massively popular Walkscore service, launched a new project today aimed at encouraging public transportation ridership. The project makes transit agency schedule data available, accessible, and open to developers so they can create applications to make it easier to ride. CityGoRound.org is a new portal where you can find the many applications developers have created to ease and increase the convenience of riding transit. Their mission, outlined on a newly launched site today, is very simple:

Our mission is to help make public transit more convenient. For example, an app that lets you know when your bus will arrive is way better than standing outside waiting for 20 minutes. If we can make public transit more convenient, more people will ride public transit. More people riding public transit equals less driving. Less driving equals a healthier planet.

To accomplish that, they’re doing three things: cataloging the hundreds of smartphone/web applications people have created to make riding public transit easier, putting pressure on agencies across the country that have not released their public data, and raising awareness of the need for government agencies to open up their data.

By typing in your zip code at CityGoRound.org, you may find, for example, apps that have taken publicly available transit agency schedule data and turned it into a slick iPhone or web app you can check on the go to find out when that next bus is coming, or when the next train will be headed your direction. One major barrier to riding transit is the learning curve that comes with unfamiliar schedules or service. If you’ve never ridden the bus home from work, are you going to wait in the snow at 8 p.m. for your first try, hoping you understood the posted timetable correctly?

The openness of government data might sound like something that only techies need to worry about, but more openness in government both increases accountability to the people and makes services more available and convenient for the public. Just this week, President Obama announced a new comprehensive open government plan, establishing parameters for all federal agencies to open up their operations — and their taxpayer-funded data — to the public.

“We are calling on transit agencies nationwide to open their data and follow the lead of the Open Government Directive issued this week by the White House,” said Mike Mathieu, Founder and Chairman of Front Seat. “City-Go-Round’s transit apps are a concrete example of how open data can improve citizens’ lives on a daily basis.”

Go check out the site today. If your city’s agency doesn’t provide open data for public transportation, they have a petition there you can sign to find out how to get involved in making that happen.

Front Seat created the service with the Transit Developers Group, generously supported with a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation.

Conservatives and public transportation — join us on Monday the 14th

Conservatives and Public Transportation book cover
Sign up to listen to the free online debate next Monday, 12/14

UPDATED: This session has been rescheduled for 12/14. If you already signed up with the link below, you won’t need to do a thing, and should get an email from us.

“As conservatives, our first principle is the reality principle,” wrote William Lind and the late Paul Weyrich in Moving Minds: Conservatives and Public Transportation. “Public policy must be based on reality, not on the fairy-tale wishes so beloved by liberals.”

Left-leaning transit advocates need not be insulted.

The authors are simply trying to talk about public transportation in ways that appeal to right-of-center allies. If your interest is piqued, you’ll definitely want to join us for an online debate next Monday, December 7, December 14th in which a handful of experts, including co-author Lind, will discuss — and debate — the ideas contained in the book. Register for the debate here.

Reality-based planning can find appeal across political persuasions because everybody relies on America’s transportation system in one form or another. Even people who don’t use public transportation on a regular basis receive numerous benefits from its expansion, the authors point out. The reason? More rail passengers means less traffic congestion and faster commute times, a win-win.

In Salt Lake County, Utah, for instance, supporters of a referendum on light rail developed a campaign aimed at non-transit riders with the simple message: “even if you don’t ride it, you use it.” One ad focused on an automobile wheel moving along faster because of less crowded roads, while another emphasized the advantages of less traffic congestion, the authors noted.

They offer three concrete reasons in the book for why transit is good for non-riders. The first is the reduction in road gridlock. The second is “the big football game” or the car being in the shop or some other circumstance that creates the need for an alternative. The third reason is that lower congestion and better transit access actually raises property values and improves quality of life.

The authors make several peripheral points as well, such as the influence of heavy subsidies and market distortions on the prevalence of auto-oriented, low-density growth — a concept getting some notoriety in the last week.

“Every urban and suburban area should offer two alternate building codes, one the current ‘sprawl’ code and the other a code that allows traditional neighborhood design, where living, working and shopping are all close by each other,” the authors argue. “Which code will prevail? Let the market decide!”

Weyrich and Lind also reject the oft-prevailing wisdom that the “obvious” solution to traffic congestion is building more roads or lanes. When more lanes are made available, people who would not have driven otherwise make additional trips, inducing demand and resulting in yet more gridlock — the exact problem that the lanes were supposed to solve.

There is no unanimity about public transport among conservatives. One right-leaning mass transit critic is Sam Staley, director of urban and land use policy at the Reason Foundation. He will appear alongside Lind in Monday’s debate, along with John Robert Smith, president and CEO of Reconnecting America and former mayor of Meridian, Mississippi; and Bill Millar, president of the American Public Transportation Association (APTA).

We hope you’ll join us too. Register today.

TIME Magazine features Dangerous by Design report on pedestrian safety, culminating three weeks of coverage nationwide

--newspapersThis week’s issue of TIME Magazine topped off three weeks of nationwide coverage of Transportation for America’s Dangerous by Design report ranking communities according to the risk for pedestrians.

The excellent TIME piece opens with the tragic story of Ashley Nicole Valdes, “a smart, pretty 11-year-old girl” who was killed while crossing the street in Miami earlier this year and became “a heart-wrenching symbol of South Florida’s notoriously reckless car culture.”

Florida was identified in the report as being the most dangerous for pedestrians. “You see all these people getting run over,” said Ashley’s mother, Adonay Risete, “and you ask yourself: What’s happened to us as people here? We need to get tougher and change attitudes.”

The phenomenal response to Dangerous by Design is a hopeful sign that change may be under way.

More than 150 newspapers, 300 TV broadcasts and 50 radio programs have covered the report, co-authored by the Surface Transportation Policy Partnership, since its release three weeks ago. The report’s findings speak to the need for action: America has a pedestrian fatality rate equivalent to a jumbo jet full of passengers crashing every 31 days. This decade alone, 43,000 Americans – including 3,906 children under 16 – have been killed while walking or crossing the street.

We could make great strides on pedestrian safety by adopting “complete streets” policies, ensuring that roads are designed to be safe and accessible for everyone who uses them, whether motorist, bicyclist, transit rider or pedestrian. You can help by asking your member of Congress to support the pending national Complete Streets Act.

Meanwhile, more than 100 communities and states have adopted such policies, and more are coming. One of the report’s greatest success stories was the swift action of officials in Southwest Florida’s Lee County, who adopted a resolution in support of Complete Streets within 48 hours of the report’s release, and just one day after the local Ft. Myers News-Press editorialized in favor of the policy.

Dangerous by Design was covered extensively in both national and local media, including National Public Radio, TIME Magazine, USA Today, The Christian Science Monitor, The Washington Post, Boston Globe, San Francisco Chronicle, Denver Post, Baltimore Sun, Houston Chronicle, Consumer Affairs, Orlando Sentinel, Detroit Free Press, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and dozens more.

The Kansas City-Star wrote that the Kansas City metropolitan area’s “widely dispersed population and auto-oriented development are doing no favors for pedestrian safety.”

The Minnesota Daily wrote: “With the implementation of Complete Streets…streets wouldn’t be something we simply drove through, but the destination itself.”

And, the Billings Gazette in Montana drew on the experience of T4 America partner Dr. Michael Vlases to link transportation safety and health. “Bringing walking back into daily urban life is not just about aesthetics,” Vlases told the Gazette. “It’s a matter of public health.”

The “room for improvement” designation easily goes to Harris County, Texas, which according to the Houston Chronicle, “has a policy of not installing sidewalks when it builds a new road, unless a group or city provides the extra money. ‘It’s an expense that doesn’t have to do with transportation,’ said Mark Seegers, a spokesman for Harris County Commissioner Sylvia Garcia. ‘The county does not do sidewalks; it’s not what gets cars from point A to point B.’”

Harris County serves as a reminder of how much work there is to be done.

The steering committee for Dangerous by Design included the American Public Health Association, Smart Growth America, AARP, America Bikes, America Walks, the Safe Routes to School National Partnership and the National Complete Streets Coalition. T4 America is indebted to these partners for their work helping create and release this report.

Conservatives and public transportation; join us for an upcoming debate

Conservatives and Public Transportation book cover
Sign up to listen to the free online debate.

UPDATED: This session has been rescheduled for 12/14. If you already signed up with the link below, you won’t need to do a thing, and should get an email from us about the change.

Everyone has to get from point A to point B at some point each day. Though most people don’t rate it as one of their most important issues, transportation is something that affects everyone, whether we realize it or not.

If you are not convinced that the need for transportation reform is an issue that transcends labels and partisanship, you’ll definitely want to join us for what should be an interesting online debate/discussion on Monday, December 7 December 14. A handful of experts from differing perspectives are going to discuss the viewpoints shared in a recent book by William Lind and the late Paul Weyrich called “Moving Minds: Conservatives and Public Transportation.”

William Lind, one of the book’s co-authors, will be expanding on the arguments made in his book; that public transportation is something conservatives should embrace, because it can protect national security, promote economic development, support tight-knit communities and reduce congestion; and how many libertarians and conservatives often ignore the fact that our interstate highway system has been a massively subsidized project, made possible only through heavy government intervention.

Sam Staley, a critic of mass transit who serves as director of urban and land use policy at the libertarian Reason Foundation, will provide an alternative perspective to Lind. We’ll also have John Robert Smith, president and CEO of Reconnecting America and former mayor of Meridian, Mississippi; and Bill Millar, president of the American Public Transportation Association (APTA).

Join us online for the debate on Monday, December 7 December 14 at 3:00 p.m. (Eastern)

The tone of the book by Lind and Weyrich, published jointly by the Free Congress Foundation and Reconnecting America, is perhaps best captured by former Wisconsin Governor Tommy Thompson, a Republican, who writes in the forward: “why do academic conservatives seem to believe that all transit is bad, when as a real-world conservative, I know it isn’t?”

Weyrich and Lind do a thorough job of knocking down myths peddled by some right-wing groups, like the “decline” of bus and light-rail. Many of these numbers are attributable to policy choices that gave preference or hefty subsidies to the automobile. Building codes and tax policy, for instance, have effectively subsidized auto-oriented growth for decades.

The authors are also unafraid to take a jab or two at some of the libertarian think tanks that regularly oppose funding for public transportation. Many of these critics decry support for light rail and bus systems as “subsidies,” but when offering their own proposals, often ignore the evidence that building more interstates or highways requires massive government support as well.

While critics like to label light rail projects as social engineering, it is hard not to look at our current transportation system without coming to the same conclusion, Weyrich and Lind argue.

“In no other society in history have places to live, places to work and places to shop been separated from one another, separated so widely that you need a car to get from one to another.”

There’s a old argument that transit must be a waste of money, because it carries only a small percentage of all trips. As Lind points out in the Streetfilms video below, the critics are disingenuously comparing apples to oranges. 1/2 of all Americans have no access to transit. And of the half that do, 1/2 of those say that the service is inadequate or unsatisfactory. If you break it down to a corridor where transit is available as a viable option to automobile travel (“transit competitive trips, as Lind calls it”), public transportation may be carrying a number closer to 40% of the total trips.

Weyrich and Lind make a thorough economic case for public transportation, offering superb guidance for making a compelling case to a conservative for supporting public transportation. But they also introduce a cultural element that is equally compelling. To them, reviving downtown streetcars or beefing up bus service does more than bring people to their destination and fuel development. It adds “flavor” and lifeblood to urban centers, spawning community. This may be a conservative sentiment, but it’s one that appeals to a broad audience.

Streetfilms had a chance to interview William Lind at the recent Rail~Volution conference in Boston about his book and produced this terrific short video that is a must-watch.

Stephen Lee Davis contributed to this post.

Secretary LaHood receives your message loud and clear, responds in kind

DSC_0348 Originally uploaded by Transportation for America
Secretary Ray LaHood holds the petition from Transportation for America and thousands of supporters while flanked by T4 America campaign director James Corless, left, and Barbara McCann of the National Complete Streets Coalition Monday afternoon at USDOT

Just a week after the release of Dangerous by Design, our report on the epidemic of pedestrian deaths, Transportation for America and six of our key partners had the opportunity to meet with Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. During the meeting yesterday, we delivered a petition with thousands of signatures urging him to make pedestrian safety and complete streets a USDOT priority.

He responded with resounding support, telling T4 America, “the right of way doesn’t just belong to cars — it belongs to pedestrians and bicyclists as well.”

He added, “the DOT Safety Council is going to look at this report and work with advocacy groups to ensure our streets are as safe as possible.”

After Dangerous by Design was released last Monday, we asked for your help sending a strong message to Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood that safer, complete streets must be a priority at USDOT. The response was fantastic. In just five days, we received more than 4,100 signatures from people in 47 U.S. states on a petition to Secretary LaHood.

Due in part to the massive media coverage that Dangerous by Design received last week from coast to coast, we were able to set up this meeting with the Secretary and three of his top deputies to present him with the petition, talk about the report and discuss the urgency of pedestrian and bicycle safety. With the petition and a copy of Dangerous by Design in front of him, LaHood listened intently as T4 America’s James Corless and others talked about the epidemic of preventable deaths — and what we can do to turn the tide and keep pedestrians safe.

DSC_0334_2 Originally uploaded by Transportation for America

Secretary LaHood was hopeful that federal transportation policy can better accommodate all users and keep them safe, and that now is the right time to make that change.

“I think this Congress gets it now,” Secretary LaHood told us. “Certainly in part because of advocates like you.” He acknowledged that making the streets in our communities safe and accommodating for everyone dovetails well with the Obama administration’s focus on livability.

He stressed that safety is the top consideration for everything they do at USDOT and urged T4 America to take the report directly to Congress as they continue discussions on the full six-year transportation bill. He also asked for more copies of Dangerous by Design (on their way, Mr. Secretary!)

Transportation for America was joined in the meeting by partners from America Bikes, the American Public Health Association, AARP, the National Complete Streets Coalition, the Safe Routes to School National Partnership and Smart Growth America.

View the entire set of photos from the meeting in our Flickr stream, and check back here later today for some more comments on the meeting.

DSC_0376 Originally uploaded by Transportation for America
Barbara McCann of the National Complete Streets Coalition, right, tells Secretary LaHood a story from Cary, Illinois about Nate Oglesby, a young man who was killed in 2000 on his bicycle because he was crossing the only bridge over the Fox River — one that had no safe lanes for pedestrians. (Two other teens had died there previously.) Lanes were eventually added to the bridge at significant cost, but as McCann noted, “it would have saved money and lives to have just done it right in the first place.” Complete Streets policies would ensure that the needs of all users are considered during the planning phase of a project.

Rural Senators focus on heartland transit

--AmtrakHow could a new transportation bill revitalize rural and small-town America? That was the focus of a Senate Democratic Steering Committee briefing on “Issues and Innovations for Small Towns and Rural Communities” in the Capitol Visitors Center last Friday.

Transportation for America co-chair and former Meridian, Mississippi Mayor John Robert Smith shared his perspective as chief executive of a mid-sized city in a rural area. During his tenure, Smith initiated a renovation of Meridian’s historic train station, sparking growth and economic vitality in the downtown corridor that is now the “life of Meridian.” The improvements that he championed resulted in $135 million in capital investments around the station, and property values quadrupled in an area previously devoid of residents. More importantly, a vital aspect of mobility was restored for all residents of the area. Knowing firsthand how vital Amtrak service was to Mississippians, especially many traveling on fixed budgets, he helped lead the fight to restore the train route between Atlanta and New Orleans, and has continued his advocacy for passenger rail travel ever since.

Rural and small-town residents throughout the country are seeking more transportation options and want to ensure that they’re not left behind. Briefing panelists emphasized that transportation reform, far from leaving the heartland in the dust, can actually encourage growth and improve quality of life.

For one thing, improving rural transportation helps seniors. In 2000, 23 percent of older adults in America lived in rural areas, and as they age, they risk being isolated in their homes in the absence of adequate transportation infrastructure. DSC_0064.JPGBroader accessibility is a challenge as well due to long distances some rural Americans must travel to reach employment, groceries and health services. And, intercity mobility remains limited in many parts of the country, cutting people off from friends, family and economic opportunity. During the briefing, Mayor Smith spoke not only about the economic benefits of revitalizing the area around the train station, but also about the transit service that connected low-income residents in Meridian’s HOPE VI housing development, ensuring their access to essential destinations.

Enhancing transportation safety, relieving highway congestion by shifting goods movement to freight rail, investing in public buses and paratransit services and increasing intercity and multi-modal connectivity are some potential solutions for small cities and rural regions. T4 America staff have partnered with National Association of Counties and the National Association of Development Organizations, both of which were represented at the briefing, to help promote these solutions as vital parts of the upcoming transportation bill.

Far from leaving rural America out, a much-needed overhaul to our nation’s transportation policy can in fact provide a needed lifeline and help rural areas and smaller towns succeed as vital, livable places for all.

Rochelle Carpenter of Transportation for America contributed to this report.

Last week’s elections a net plus for public transportation

Last Tuesday’s election results were a win for public transit, although high-profile state and national races stole most of the headlines. According to the Center for Transportation Excellence, 72 percent of transportation ballot measures received voter approval on November 3.

November’s ballot included seven measures in five states – Colorado, Indiana, Maine, Michigan and Ohio. Voters ultimately approved $74 million for transportation and rejected measures to delay transit projects, most notably a measure in Cincinnati aimed at blocking a planned streetcar line. The pro-transit incumbent in Cincinnati, Mayor Mark Mallory, was re-elected and voters in Charlotte, North Carolina elected transit advocate Anthony Foxx over an opponent who has been less supportive of transportation choices.

Two states – Maine and Washington – rejected initiatives known as TABOR measures. If passed, these would have imposed harsh spending limits on state governments, potentially forcing deep cuts to public transportation.

Starting tomorrow, the Center for Transportation Excellence is launching a free, six-part webinar series aimed at helping transportation organizations and advocates get measures on the ballot and win. The first part, scheduled for Friday, November 13 is themed “Election Trends: Learning from the Past and Looking to the Future.” Future webinars include “Building a Winning Coalition,” “Making Your Message Better” and “Silencing the Naysayers.”

CFTE maintains comprehensive records of transit politics throughout the country. Their website, http://www.cfte.org is a terrific resource.

Help us send a message to Secretary LaHood and the USDOT

398px-ray_lahoodAs our new Dangerous by Design report illustrates, pedestrian safety is a matter of life or death for thousands of Americans each year. With a loss of life equivalent to a jumbo jet going down roughly each month, it is a tragedy that simply does not get enough attention at any level of government. Tragic, because these are preventable deaths, largely on roads that are not safe for walking or biking.

As a follow-up on the release of the report, Transportation for America is working to arrange a meeting with U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, perhaps as soon as next week. At this meeting, we plan to deliver the message from our hundreds of partner organizations and thousands of supporters across the country that safer streets must be a priority!

Sign our petition today and help us send a strong message to the USDOT!

Secretary LaHood has already demonstrated a strong interest in safety with a distracted driving initiative and the creation of a new Safety Council, and we have praised his vocal commitment to livability in our towns and communities. Because the Department of Transportation holds the purse strings, if Secretary LaHood adds Complete Streets to his list of safety priorities, we can ensure that every road project facilitates safe travel for everyone — including vulnerable pedestrians.

So if you have not yet signed the petition, go and sign it now so we can take an enormous stack  with names from across the country to Secretary LaHood soon. This is our chance to make a big impression and to let him and the DOT know how many of you care about making our streets safer for everyone.

If you have signed the petition already, be sure to post it to Twitter or Facebook with the links below, or tell a friend about it.

Post about this action on Twitter! Post a link to your Facebook profile

New York City sees biking go in one direction — up!

All of the videos from Streetfilms are certainly worth watching, but we wanted to call out special attention to this one, especially on the heels of the Dangerous by Design release yesterday morning. With nearly 5,000 people dying every year on our roads while walking or biking, some cities are working hard to bring those numbers down by making biking (and walking) safer and more convenient.

New York City is one of those places. If you looked at the detailed rankings of the largest 52 metro areas in Dangerous by Design, you might have seen that New York is already one of the safest metros in the country when measured with the Pedestrian Danger Index. Part of the reason for that is the relatively low number of fatalities when compared against the high percentage of people who walk to work in the metro area. But that doesn’t mean it’s inherently safe. New York City has the largest share of pedestrians dying in traffic accidents in the country, with pedestrians making up a whopping 31% of all traffic fatalities.

So for the last few years, the City has been committed to making the public realm and their streets safer for walking and biking, and the numbers are bearing it out in a positive way. Watch this encouraging video from the gang at Streetfilms chronicling the huge rise in the numbers of people bicycling in the Big Apple.

Mayor John Robert Smith on urgency and the upcoming transport bill

Aaron Renn of the Urbanophile interviewed T4 America co-chair Mayor John Robert Smith at the Rail~Volution conference a few days ago in Boston, Mass., and shot this short video highly worth watching. Mayor Smith was the longtime mayor of his hometown of Meridian, Mississippi, where he worked tirelessly to open the state’s first multi-modal transportation hub in downtown Meridian along the Amtrak line that travels through. He gave an inspiring speech at our platform release earlier this year before coming to Washington, D.C., to serve as the T4 America co-chair and president of Reconnecting America.

Aaron says:

I was able to catch up with John Robert Smith, CEO of Reconnecting America, and he recorded a short two minute video for me. If you only watch one of the videos I post, make it this one. He makes two incredibly important points that are too often overlooked when it comes to the livable cities agenda. The first is that we need to build an urban-small town-rural coalition around a new transportation policy. The other is that these issues are, or should be, non-partisan.

Thanks to Aaron for the video.