The infrastructure deal could end up spending money just like our current transportation program does — it’s unclear. Graphic from Repair Priorities
In the midst of debates over a new long-term federal transportation law, there’s been nonstop coverage of a potential bipartisan deal on new infrastructure investment that has the White House’s backing, but much of the reporting raises more questions than it answers. What do we know about the potential deal, and what questions does T4America have?
Capitol Hill has been abuzz in recent weeks about transportation reauthorization, whether the Senate’s dud of a highway title, the House’s much better all-in-one comprehensive proposal (The INVEST Act), or the Senate Commerce Committee’s very good rail and transportation safety title—though we’re still waiting to see the Senate’s transit proposal from the Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee.
With those competing proposals to replace the FAST Act (expiring in September) in the background, a bipartisan group of 21 senators have been hammering out a standalone infrastructure package that can get the President’s endorsement and potentially pass both chambers of Congress. Just last Thursday (6/24), the bipartisan group of senators met with and secured President Biden’s endorsement of their broad deal on infrastructure. The deal’s details are still emerging and making political waves on both sides of the aisle, but here is what we know (not much), don’t know (quite a bit), and really want to know.
What we know
The infrastructure deal is a $1.2 trillion framework that would make historic investments in clean transportation, power, and water infrastructure; universal broadband infrastructure; and climate resiliency. The framework highlights proposed funding amounts and how to pay for such a transformational framework—the latter of which has received ample coverage from the Hill media at the expense of more substantial reporting on the actual real-world impacts of the deal, much to our consternation:
People: What's in the deal? Will states be required to fix all the broken stuff first? What policies will guide the spending? What does this mean for transportation in my state?
Media: Here's our savvy behind the scenes look at the political implications, and who "won" the deal pic.twitter.com/5akDv16I4P
— Transportation for America (@T4America) June 25, 2021
There’s a lot more that we don’t know about what’s in this deal, than what we do know.
The framework is very light on specific details as to precisely how these funds would be spent and what measurable goals they intend to achieve. Is this funding framework intended to put money into existing programs and existing transportation policy? Something proposed by the Senate and/or House? Or something else entirely? After T4America was asked numerous times by the media last week if this bill has “enough” funding in it, there’s frankly just not enough information on “how” the money will be spent in order to make that call.
“You can spend a trillion dollars in highways and not spend a dime on repair. So seeing something titled ‘Highways’ with a number by it doesn’t tell me what will be repaired so I can’t answer whether this is enough,”
The bottom line here is, what are we paying for? Transportation for America believes strongly that if we are buying something, we want to know WHAT we’re buying before we decide how much *whatever it is* will cost.
President Biden has gotten a lot of attention for his (good) infrastructure plan and overall approach to transportation. But after 100 days in office, the administration has ignored a lot of low-hanging fruit when it comes to executive and administrative actions they can take to support public transportation, emissions reduction, and other critical goals.
Then Vice President Biden. Photo by the U.S. Embassy Jerusalem
In November 2020, along with Smart Growth America, we sent the incoming Biden administration a memo outlining executive actions and long-term legislation we urged the new president to initiate, which included a list of executive and administrative actions on transportation:
Issue area
Department
Status
Action
Access to federal funds
USDOT
Simplify applications for discretionary grant programs (like the Better Utilizing Investments to Leverage Development (BUILD) program) by creating an online application and benefit-cost analysis (BCA) process so that small, rural and limited-capacity agencies can more easily access federal funds.
Climate change
USDOT
Started rulemaking
We only measure what we treasure. Re-establish the greenhouse gas (GHG) performance measure for transportation abandoned by the last administration, follow this up with annual state GHG rankings, and provide guidance for projecting GHG emissions at the project level.
Climate change
USDOT
Done
Repeal the June 29, 2018, Federal Transit Administration (FTA) Dear Colleague to public transit agencies regarding the Capital Investment Grant program, specifically the treatment of federal loans as not part of the local match, inclusion of a geographic diversity factor in grant awards, and encouraging a low federal cost share.
Climate change
USDOT
Allow rural transit systems to receive funding from the Low and No Emission bus program.
Equity
USDOT
Identify infrastructure that creates barriers to mobility (such as highways or rail beds that divide a community). Then prioritize resources to address those barriers and the disparities they create (e.g., by removing infrastructure barriers or creating new connectivity).
Passenger rail
White House, USDOT
Review the Amtrak Board of Directors and assess the balance of the board with respect to support for and experience with vital long distance, state-supported, and Northeast Corridor routes, as well as civic and elected leaders from local communities actually served by the existing network.
Safety
USDOT
Revise the New Car Assessment Program to consider and prioritize the risk that increasingly larger automobile designs pose to pedestrians and cyclists and the driver’s ability to see pedestrians (particularly children and people using wheelchairs and other assistive devices.)
Safety
USDOT
Comment period extended
Reopen the comment period on the handbook of street engineering standards (the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices or MUTCD) used by transportation agencies to design streets, and reframe and rewrite it to remove standards and guidance that lead to streets that are hostile to or dangerous for those outside of a vehicle.
Technical guidance
White House, HUD, USDOT, GSA
Re-activate the Location Affordability Portal created by DOT and HUD and establish a location efficiency and equitable development scoring criteria to be applied to decisions involving location of new federal facilities, particularly those that serve the public.
Update modeling to achieve desired outcomes
USDOT
Improve traffic projections used to justify projects by issuing guidance requiring the measurement of induced demand and a review of the accuracy of current travel demand models by comparing past projections with actual outcomes, reporting their findings, and updating the models when there are discrepancies.
Update modeling to achieve desired outcomes
USDOT
Push states and metro areas to stop assuming that time savings automatically accrue due to faster vehicle speeds by updating the guidance on the value of time and instead start considering actual projected time savings for a whole trip.
Unfortunately, while the Biden administration has been saying many of the right things, the administration hasn’t made much progress on transportation in real terms, only addressing two of the actions in this list.
The good: A rule change
Repealed Trump changes to transit construction grants: Under President Trump, the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) made an unprecedented change to the program for building transit to count federal loans that get repaid in full by local governments as part of the federal share of a project’s cost, rather than the local share. This unfairly penalized local communities that use low-cost federal loans, essentially requiring more local funds for projects where the feds are only covering 50 percent or less of the cost. As per our recommendation, the Biden administration rescinded this rule in February.
The incomplete: More comments for street design manual
Comment period extended for the broken street design manual: The Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD) is a street design document used by planners across the country. To date, this manual’s overemphasis on designing for motor vehicle speed and failure to fully consider all modes of travel in the places where people live and work has contributed to the rising tide of people struck and killed while walking on streets that are dangerous by design—by creating and governing the design of streets that contribute to this crisis in the first place.
The Trump administration proposed tepid changes to the MUTCD that failed to reform the vehicle-centric standards that prioritize the cars racing through neighborhoods and rules which limit, for example, how communities can install crosswalks, bike and bus lanes, or traffic calming.
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg brought up reforming the MUTCD in March as a technical fix the new administration could focus on, and the Biden administration took the important step of extending the period for submitting comments on the MUTCD.
The comment period ends on Friday, May 14th. USDOT and the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) have not yet committed to a rewrite or a fundamentally new approach that would prioritize safety and people. This is the moment for us to push for it. You can submit a comment directly on our website—it only takes one minute.
There is so much more that the Biden administration can do immediately to make a major positive difference in transportation policy, from requiring the measurement of induced demand in traffic projections used to justify highway expansions, to reinstating the greenhouse gas (GHG) performance measure repealed by the Trump administration. The latter measure was supported by 47 members of Congress in a letter led by Senator Ben Cardin (MD) and Rep. Earl Blumenauer (OR-3), and over 75 organizations and local elected officials in a letter we wrote and organized.
The Biden administration is making some major promises on transportation and infrastructure—most notably with the American Jobs Plan, the largest investment in infrastructure ever proposed by a president. But only the broad strokes of this plan were released. As we wrote last month, getting the policy right is critical to making sure that this investment delivers the sustainable, equitable, safe and efficient transportation system we need.
We’ve learned the hard way through years of big spending with no policy changes: Policy matters. Rulemaking matters. If the Biden administration truly wants to transform U.S. transportation, they need to do more than talk about it. They need to seize the opportunities to make changes that don’t require Congress to weigh in.
Early this morning, the Biden administration released the American Jobs Plan, President Biden’s infrastructure proposal. There’s a lot to be excited about, including massively increased funding for transit and passenger rail—but as we wrote last week, how we target the funding matters as much as how much we spend. Here’s our take on the proposal.
The White House, September 2019. Photo by dconvertini on Flickr’s Creative Commons.
All of the funding included in President Biden’s proposal is meant to sit on top of existing federal programs and the upcoming surface reauthorization, not replace that policy-making process, according to a White House briefing our director Beth Osborne was invited to attend earlier today.
More money for public transit and rail combined than highways
We have never seen this much money for public transportation and passenger rail included in a presidential infrastructure proposal. President Biden’s plan includes $85 billion to “modernize transit agencies,” meaning both maintaining existing transit infrastructure and expanding service to bring “bus, bus rapid transit, and rail service to communities and neighborhoods across the country.”
This is huge: investing in public transportation is critical to increasing equitable and affordable access to jobs and services post-pandemic, reducing our carbon emissions (especially since transportation is the largest source of U.S. emissions), and powering our economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet there’s no mention of recurring federal operating support for transit—something public transportation needs in order to provide frequent, convenient, and desirable transit service.
In addition to public transit, Biden proposes $80 billion for Amtrak to address the repair backlog, modernize the Northeast Corridor and other rail routes, make new connections between cities by rail, and update existing grant and loan programs. The U.S. hasn’t made a substantial, long-term commitment to passenger rail in almost a century, making this funding critically important to building the passenger rail network the U.S. needs to improve access and reduce carbon emissions.
There’s no specific mention of preserving Amtrak’s long-distance routes—something the rail corporation has fought to dismantle in recent years. However, the proposal does call for improving existing corridors and connecting new city pairs. Amtrak’s long-distance network provides critical connections to rural America and for people unable to traverse the country by car or by air, and is even more essential post-pandemic with the continued loss of essential air service and multiple long-distance bus companies cutting routes and even shutting down permanently.
Road repair is discussed as a priority but the devil is in the detail
Biden’s plan includes $115 billion to “fix it better” for our bridges, highways, roads, and “main streets.” This funding will include formula and competitive funding. We love the mention of fix it first (one of T4America’s three principles for transportation policy), but one of the stated goals of this funding—in addition to improving air quality and limiting emissions—is to “reduce congestion” and “modernize,” which usually means the same thing.
“Reducing congestion” is a fool’s errand. As we found in our report the Congestion Con, widening and building new highways only makes traffic worse. If “fix it better” means widening highways at the same time we repair them, the Biden plan will only induce more people to drive—making congestion even worse than what it was before, and putting our carbon emissions on an irreversible upwards trajectory.
To truly focus on repair, the actual legislative language would require serious policy changes to ensure that this money isn’t diverted to road expansion. Our 2019 report Repair Priorities found that states spend a significant portion of highway formula funding to build new roads, creating costly new maintenance liabilities in the form of new roads and lane-miles—even though they are allowed (welcome, even!) to spend that money on maintenance. Why? Because there’s no requirement that they do so.
Billions for repairing damage caused by urban highways but not enough focus on preserving housing affordability
The construction of the Interstate Highway System in many cases led to the intentional demolition and dividing of many communities of color across the country. It’s long-past time for federal funding to repair the health, financial, physical, and emotional damage wrought on families in these neighborhoods—which is why we released a comprehensive policy package to this effect a few months ago with our partners at Third Way.
President Biden proposes $20 billion “for a new program that will reconnect neighborhoods cut off by historic investments and ensure new projects increase opportunity, advance racial equity and environmental justice, and promote affordable access.” While the broader plan has very interesting proposals on providing more affordable housing, this specific proposal is missing any discussion or policy to ensure that removing highways or building connections between them doesn’t make adjacent housing unaffordable—a huge reason why many communities suffering the burden of these highways actually want them to stay. A place based approach will be needed connected to any such project.
Biden’s $20 billion for urban highways includes funding for research on “advanced pavements that recycle carbon dioxide.” While recycling carbon dioxide is a good goal, it barely touches on the health issues that our highway system places disproprotionately on neighborhoods of color. The air pollution generated by urban highways has caused massive and devastating health consequences for communities living near them. That pollution comes from vehicles, pavement (that emits on hot days), tires and more. We need better pavement but also less pavement.
Also, if the $115 billion for highways funds expansions, then we could be further dividing and displacing people (usually people of color) at the same time we’re fixing past damage caused by these projects in the past. We need to do better going forward, not create new assets that continue to create the same damage.
$20 billion for “safety” but nothing explicitly prioritizing safety over speed
Biden’s $115 billion for “modernizing” roads includes $20 billion to “improve road safety for all users, including increases to existing safety programs and a new Safe Streets for All program to fund state and local ‘vision zero’ plans and other improvements to reduce crashes and fatalities, especially for cyclists and pedestrians.”
This is really important. We hope to see a program like this paired with specific requirements like those in the House of Representatives’ surface transportation reauthorization proposal, passed last summer. That includes Complete Streets and context-sensitive designs when repairing or constructing roads surrounded by development—meaning roads that aren’t highways and have homes and businesses along them.
With the number of people killed while walking or using mobility-assistive devices skyrocketing—increasing by 45 percent over the past decade, as we found in our new report, Dangerous by Design—we accept nothing less than design standards that ensure that safety is prioritized over vehicle speed. Because street design that ensures high speed driving over all else is to blame for the skyrocketing number of people killed on our roadways.
Details matter and more to come
This just scratches the surface of the proposal. We have failed to mention so many other exciting proposals. For example, there is $174 billion dedicated to stoking a domestic electric vehicle industry, placing 500,000 electric vehicle chargers, and replacing gas cars and buses with clean electric vehicles. There are proposals for more affordable housing, eliminating exclusionary zoning and harmful land use policies, broadband deployment and more. We will review those provisions too in conjunction with our parent organization, Smart Growth America, soon.
Right now, suffice it to say that there is a lot to be excited about in this infrastructure proposal. There are billions for public transit and passenger rail (more than what’s allocated for highways), a focus on repairing existing highways and making them safer, and funding dedicated to repairing the damage wrought on Black and brown communities by urban highways.
Now we need to watch for the details to ensure that the funding proposed goes to the exciting goals cited and to ensure that these billions will not just be pumped into existing federal transportation programs not designed to achieve these outcomes.
Tomorrow, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg heads to Capitol Hill for his first hearing as Secretary, where the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee will question him on the Biden administration’s goals for infrastructure. We’ve been impressed by Sec. Buttigieg’s rhetoric so far—from his commitment to repairing the damage in Black and brown communities caused by urban highways to making fix-it-first his “mantra“—so we want to hear how he’ll make it happen.
People biking on a trail near the Kennedy Center, Washington DC. Photo by Angela N. on Greater and Lesser Washington’s Flickr pool.
Stimulus
The administration is discussing a major stimulus package focused on infrastructure funding. Will that package specifically address climate, equity and repairing crumbling infrastructure rather than simply adding additional funding to the existing programs that have failed to address these issues?
In the 2009 Recovery Act, Congress intended to spur job creation, but that was not how the infrastructure funds were targeted. In an attempt to move quickly, Congress defaulted to existing programs that were poorly tailored to address the issues at hand. How can we learn from that experience and do better this time?
Repair and maintenance
You and the administration have repeatedly acknowledged the need to fix our transportation infrastructure: our roads, bridges, and transit. Yet, our current federal programs have not successfully been able to do this. Why is this the case?
Can we get to “fix-it-first” with the way we currently prioritize funding?
Safety
A recent report by the National Complete Streets Coalition found that pedestrian fatalities have increased by 45 percent over the last 10 years. Much of this has to do with dangerous street design and transportation laws that make safety for those walking and rolling an afterthought while making speedy vehicle movement the priority.
Should we continue to have separate and parallel highway and safety programs, with the safety funding significantly lower than the highway funding? Can we address the safety crisis without fundamentally reforming the highway program?
The INVEST Act, passed by the House last Congress, centered safety throughout the bill. Would you support centering safety throughout a transportation title instead of maintaining the status quo?
Poor safety design has led to disproportionate safety outcomes for communities of color, often incentivizing these communities to break the law and risk interacting with police, or put themselves in harm’s way when navigating unsafe infrastructure. How can the federal transportation program require street designs which promote safety, particularly for vulnerable road users?
Would you support requiring DOT to collect locations of all collisions resulting in death or serious injury, highlighting those involving cyclists and pedestrians, and produce a detailed map of an annual High Injury Network?
Transit
Since 1982 highways have received approximately 80 percent of surface transportation funding and transit has received approximately 20 percent. Do you and the administration believe we can meet our transportation needs, respond to the climate crisis, and connect all Americans to jobs and services by continuing the way we currently distribute federal funding for highways and transit, often referred to as the 80/20 split?
Do you support revisiting the 80/20 split to ensure funding goes to moving all Americans, especially our most vulnerable communities who rely on transit?
This pandemic, more than ever, has highlighted the importance of transit in connecting our essential communities to jobs and services. The federal government has long maintained the position to not provide operating costs for transit agencies that often serve our most vulnerable communities. Do you support long-term federal operating support for transit agencies?
Equity
This pandemic, more than ever, has highlighted the importance of transit in connecting our essential communities to jobs and services. The federal government has long maintained the position to not provide operating costs for transit agencies that often serve our most vulnerable communities. Do you support long-term federal operating support for transit agencies that connects marginalized communities to jobs and services?
Poor safety design has led to disproportionate safety outcomes for communities of color, often incentivizing these communities to break the law and risk interacting with police, or put themselves in harm’s way when navigating unsafe infrastructure. How can the federal transportation program require street designs which promote safety, particularly for vulnerable road users?
When we measure the transportation system, we look at the speed of vehicles. This ignores people without a car (disproportionately Black and brown people) out completely and it doesn’t look at a person’s whole trip — only their speed along a portion of it. Now that we can measure whole trips and all modes of travel to determine who is able to access jobs and essential services, shouldn’t this be one of our main performance measures?
You and the administration have acknowledged that urban highways have caused substantial harm to the economic prosperity, public health and connectivity of marginalized communities. Do you support a program to address the damage caused to Black and brown communities by urban highways and other infrastructure with funding and programs to prevent displacement?
(Atlanta before and after I-75/85)
Climate
A 2018 California Air Resources Board report found that, even after a ten-fold increase in the number of zero-emission vehicles, California would have to reduce vehicle miles traveled (VMT) per capita by 25 percent to achieve its climate goals. Should we wait for the full turnover of the fleet and hope that is enough? Or should we use every tool we have including investing in infrastructure and transportation policies that enable people to make fewer and shorter car trips?
The more fuel burned and the more roads built, the more money a state receives for transportation. Do you agree that this is a perverse incentive which exacerbates both congestion and climate change?
Traditional measures of a successful transportation system support high speed, free flowing travel. This means that a long-distance commute where a car moves very quickly would be considered more successful than a far shorter commute at a slower speed. Do you agree that designing roads with speed as the highest goal leads us to more and wider roads, more and longer trips, and more greenhouse gas emissions ?
How should we reform the federal transportation program to encourage efforts to shorten people’s trips and allow them to travel using carbon free modes, like walking?
Congestion
As you have stated, since the 1950s the federal transportation program has incentivized the construction of new highways. This has failed to solve congestion and, in fact, through a phenomenon called “induced demand” typical worsens congestion. In a recent report, Transportation for America found that while freeway capacity grew 42 percent in the largest 100 metropolitan areas, 10 percent more than population growth, congestion grew by 144 percent. In fact, congestion grew a great deal even in places that lost population.
How can the federal government incentivize a more effective approach, including more balanced transportation options and less carbon-intensive modes?
Should the federal government require the use of accurate transportation models that include induced demand and those traveling outside a vehicle so as to understand the true benefits and tradeoffs of a project being funded with federal dollars?
Rail
With the administration’s push for passenger rail investments in many underserved regions of the country, how do you plan to expand high-quality passenger rail service to more parts of the country, particularly smaller communities already suffering the loss of essential air service?
Do you agree that it is reasonable for rail passengers, just like airline, cruise, and any other passengers, to expect that the service will arrive and depart on time? What will you do to improve on-time performance?
Most intercity passenger rail serves a multi-state region, with passengers regularly traveling across state lines. Regional collaboration to support passenger rail service is only as effective as coordination between governors, state departments of transportation, and other relevant state and local officials and entities. Would you support incentivizing the creation of interstate passenger rail compacts similar to the compact that governs the Southern Rail Commission?
The economy
As the recent Amazon HQ2 search highlighted, businesses want to be located in walkable, transit-connected communities. Last week, a coalition of local Chambers of Commerce wrote to the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee and made it clear that businesses want the federal transportation program to invest in projects that improve people’s access to jobs and services—not increase vehicle speeds.
Do you agree that safer, walkable, transit-friendly communities support economic growth and business creation?
As a former Mayor, can you describe the economic impacts of investments in complete and safe streets?
What reforms to the federal transportation program will support local economic development?
A new presidential administration means a brand new set of political appointees. Luckily, the Biden administration’s picks for top jobs in the U.S. Department of Transportation give us reasons to be optimistic. Here are our thoughts on the appointees, and a reminder that we can’t rest easy: we need to seize this historic opportunity in our fight for transportation that actually connects Americans to the places they need.
The U.S. Department of Transportation. Photo by the author.
Deputy Secretary: Polly Trottenberg
Polly Trottenberg has led one of the most storied transportation careers we can think of: assistant secretary for transportation policy and under secretary for policy in the Obama administration, a Senate staffer for over 12 years, and most recently—and perhaps most prolifically—the commissioner of New York City’s Department of Transportation. Her leadership in lowering all NYC speed limits to 25 mph is a major testament to her vision and willpower.
What she brings to USDOT: Trottenberg has a strong understanding of the transportation system, the needs of cities, and how federal policy often undermines municipal attempts to reverse autocentric planning. This background—coupled with her vast management experience bringing innovation to one of the country’s largest DOTs—could be game changing in the upper echelon of USDOT leadership.
As our director Beth Osborne put it to E&E News:
“Polly was a groundbreaking leader of New York City’s Department of Transportation, consistently challenging the transportation status quo, including lowering speed limits to 25 mph to reduce crashes and roadway fatalities. This is just one of her many accomplishments. I’m lucky to count Polly as a friend and colleague from my time working at USDOT and on Capitol Hill, and know firsthand that her vision and breadth of government experience will help the new administration modernize the US transportation program and system. We’re excited to work with her!”
Federal Highways Deputy Administrator: Stephanie Pollack
Massachusetts’ Secretary of Transportation for the past five years, Stephanie Pollack’s selection as Deputy Administrator of the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) sends a strong message. She’s a long-time advocate for increased investment in public transit. As secretary, she led the way on greenhouse gas reduction, including helping to shape the Transportation Climate Initiative, which Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker signed onto . She has also made safe access to walking and biking a priority in MassDOT’s street designs, especially near transit.
What she brings to USDOT: Pollack understands state DOTs—a major recipient of FHWA funding. She’s also committed to the safety of all road users, and understands that street design is critical in the effort to save lives and improve access to jobs and services.
Take this powerful quote from Pollack for a sense of how she’ll lead at FHWA:
“Some people think it’s a little odd that I’m headed to [the] Federal Highway [Administration]. But many of you have heard me say that I don’t think of people as pedestrians or bicyclists or bus riders or transit users or drivers. I think of them as people who need the transportation system to help connect them to the things they want and need. And so I go into Federal Highway with a mindset that it can be an agency that supports people rather than a singular mode of transportation.”
National Highway Traffic Safety Deputy Administrator: Steve Cliff
Since 2017, Steve Cliff has been chief of the California Air Resources Board, a state agency “charged with protecting the public from the harmful effects of air pollution and developing programs and actions to fight climate change.” Which might make Cliff an unusual choice for Deputy Administrator of NHTSA, a federal agency overwhelmingly focused on the safety of people inside cars—but that’s exactly what makes his selection exciting.
What he brings to USDOT: A climate leader like Cliff at USDOT who knows that reducing vehicle miles traveled (and not justinvesting in electric vehicles) is critical to reducing emissions will help shift USDOT’s role in fighting climate change in necessary ways.
Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Transportation Policy: Christopher Coes
As of January 19th, Christopher Coes was our coworker! For 10 years, Christopher has shaped the direction of our parent organization, Smart Growth America, most recently serving as our vice president of land use and development and Director of SGA’s LOCUS coalition of real estate developers and investors.
What he brings to USDOT: As the chief of SGA’s land use initiatives, Christopher has a deep understanding of the intersection between housing, land use and transportation—knowledge that is essential to creating a transportation system that efficiently, conveniently, affordably and sustainably connects people with the things they need.
Deputy Assistant Secretary for Safety Policy: Robin Hutcheson
Robin Hutcheson was most recently the director of Public Work in Minneapolis and President of the National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO)’s Board of Directors. Previously, she was the director of transportation for Salt Lake City.
What she brings to USDOT: Hutcheson understands new mobility, curb management, and the design changes needed in order to build safe, transit-friendly streets in towns and cities. Her years of helming NACTO and transportation in Minneapolis—one of the cities that participated in our 2020 Smart Cities Collaborative—are testament to this.
Director of the Office of Civil Rights: Irene Marion
Irene Marion was the Equity and Inclusion Manager for the Portland (OR) Bureau of Transportation (PBOT). At USDOT, her new role makes her responsible for enforcing civil rights across all federally funded transportation programs.
What she brings to USDOT: Marion’s experience defining transportation justice for PBOT will be critical in advancing racial justice at USDOT, a department responsible for a sector that President Biden and incoming Secretary Buttigieg both billed as sources of racial inequality.
NEW EDITION: Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology: Robert Hampshire
Robert Hampshire is an associate professor at the University of Michigan’s Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy “whose research and policy engagement focuses on understanding the societal, climate and equity implications of autonomous and connected vehicles and other innovative mobility services,” as per this press release.
What he brings to USDOT: The equity and climate implications of automated vehicles (AVs) have not been robustly considered in any effort to regulate this new technology. With Congressional interest in passing AV policy mounting, Hampshire’s research and expertise in this area will be critical in the effort to ensure that AVs help improve equity and our climate, not make these problems worse.
There are many other exciting appointees in addition to those highlighted here, including Nuria Fernandez at the Federal Transit Administration, Amit Bose at the Federal Railroad Administration and Meera Joshi at the Federal Motor Carriers Safety Administration.
It’s a “dream team,” but we still need to hold them accountable
Pedestrian safety advocate Angie Schmitt said it first: the Biden administration has put together a “dream team” for USDOT. This is definitely one of the most exciting groups of political appointees we’ve seen for the department. But these capable leaders cannot reform our transportation system alone. We need to hold them accountable to doing their part to make U.S. transportation safe, accessible, sustainable, and equitable within their authority at USDOT. That means more than running the current program well. It means making permanent changes to the program that makes it hard for leaders in the future to run it poorly.
At the same time, we need to support their efforts by urging Congress to pass long-term surface transportation policy that throws out the broken status quo and actually connects federal funding with the outcomes Americans want: getting to where they need to go.
Former South Bend mayor Pete Buttigieg has just been picked as President-elect Joe Biden’s nominee for Secretary of Transportation.Here is a statement from our director, Beth Osborne, on his selection.
“We are very excited to hear that Pete Buttigieg has been nominated to be Secretary of Transportation,” said Beth Osborne, director of Transportation for America. “As mayor of South Bend, he showed great commitment to the safety of all road users through Complete Streets and that Complete Streets were about economic development because they better serve local residents and businesses. For example, our sister organization, the National Complete Streets Coalition, worked directly with South Bend on a Complete Streets demonstration project focused on reducing speeding on a neighborhood street. As a candidate for president, he proposed a fix-it-first approach to highway funding, a national Vision Zero strategy, and measures to organize the federal transportation program around improving access to jobs and essential services for drivers and non-drivers alike. We look forward to working with him in his new post at USDOT.”
We analyzed Buttigieg’s transportation plan from his presidential campaign back in February. Check out the analysis here.
Former South Bend mayor Pete Buttigieg has just been picked as President-elect Joe Biden’s nominee for Secretary of Transportation. Transportation for America is excited about this pickfor one big reason: his transportation plan from his presidentialcampaign was one of two that received passing marks from us. Here’s what we wrote back in February on Buttigieg’s high score, using our three principles for transportation policy as a rubric.
Former South Bend mayor Pete Buttigieg would make big changes to the formulas at the heart of the transportation program. His plan would require states plan for maintenance before they’re allowed to build new or wider highways with federal funding. Requiring maintenance before expansion earns Buttigieg a ✓ by our standards.
Pete’s plan calls for instituting a national Vision Zero plan, which is radical for a country where states are allowed to set targets for pedestrian fatalities above the actual number of deaths. He would require that states “actively improve their safety records or road design processes, or else lose federal funding for other roadway projects,” according to his plan.
Lastly, Mayor Pete’s plan scores high on access. He would require that states, metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs), and any other recipient of federal transportation funding demonstrate how projects improve access to jobs and services. That is key: requiring progress towards goals—and even setting goals—in order to receive funding is common sense. Sadly, it is not a feature of our current transportation program.
Pete’s plan is similar to Michael Bloomberg’s. The big difference is in how he communicates it: Buttigieg leads with funding, not what he’d do with the transportation program. We think this is a bad way to do policy. After all, in what other policy area (or facet of life, for that matter) do people tell you the price before they tell you what they’re selling?
What isn’t clear is how funding will be shifted between modes, if at all. With a President Pete, are we still in a world where highways get 80 percent of the funding pie, leaving only 20 percent for transit?
Read the full blog from February where we ranked all presidential candidates’ transportation plans.
The spread of COVID-19 has sent the United States plummeting into an unprecedented national crisis, but it has also illuminated the path forward. Transportation for America teamed up with our sister organizations at Smart Growth America to identify immediate executive actions and long-term policy changes that the incoming Biden administration can implement to eliminate structural inequities and address catastrophic global climate change.
EDIT, December 2020: We updated the recommendations! Check out the full set of recommendations here and read our summary below.
Earlier this month, Transportation for America teamed up with our partners at Smart Growth America to send recommendations to the Biden transition team on executive actions and legislation. Read the full memo here, updated December 2020.
With years of federal advocacy and public service under our belts, all of us here can say this for certain: simply pumping more money into existing federal programs won’t help the United States recover from the COVID-19 crisis. In fact, taking that approach will just make our economy more unequal, lead to more pollution from transportation, and result in more expensive housing that still isn’t getting built where it’s most helpful. Money alone cannot rectify the structural inequities we are facing.
To truly unlock our economic potential in a fiscally responsible way, tackle climate change and promote racial equity—the three goals of our recommendations—we need a new playbook. We must reform and better utilize the vast quantities of direct spending, tax credits, loan programs, formula funds, and financing that already exist. And only through a holistic approach that connects transportation, housing, and infrastructure policy can we provide Americans with freedom of transportation choice, access to affordable housing, and healthy, resilient communities.
Our recommendations to the transition team are best summed up with two simple messages. One, do not overlook how housing, land use, and transportation are interrelated in determining household costs, access to opportunity, wealth accumulation, and how much emissions we produce. And secondly, climate change and equity must be addressed together—the best strategies to improve the built environment to address one challenge also address the other.
Smart growth is the affordable, equitable, and sustainable path to recovery and prosperity. Now is the time for change enabling us to build back better, and we are glad for the opportunity to provide these recommendations to the incoming presidential administration. Read the full list of recommendations.
Here are some highlights from Transportation for America’s recommendations for immediate executive actions—most of which stem from our three principles for transportation policy.
Reduce emissions from transportation by re-establishing the greenhouse gas (GHG) performance measure for transportation that the Trump administration repealed, with annual state ratings.
Require federal agencies to issue guidance on identifying communities with infrastructure that creates barriers to mobility (such as highways that slice through a community), measuring the degree of harm to that community, and providing incentives and prioritizing resources to address those disparities by removing infrastructure barriers or creating new connectivity.
Require the Federal Highway Administration to update the Highway Capacity Manual to improve standards for pedestrians and cyclists which are based on accurate measures of safety and the perception of safety, including the level of traffic stress and crossing delays as opposed to volume and capacity.
Help transportation agencies measure access to jobs and essential services by directing research funds to create a national Geographic Information System (GIS)-based resource that allows transportation agencies to measure current levels of access to jobs and services by all modes of travel and assess the impact of planned projects.
The Department of Transportation should issue guidance clarifying the appropriate use of the common transportation design standard known as level of service (LOS), taking into account the impacts on induced demand, climate change, equity, and health outcomes.
Make a statement of support for the existing national network of state-supported and long distance passenger rail routes routes as essential connections for people in smaller and rural communities.
Last week, Joe Biden’s presidential campaign jointly released policy recommendations across a range of issues in partnership with Bernie Sanders supporters through a Unity Task Force. Climate change takes a prominent role in the 110-page report, but the proposal fails to call for the comprehensive changes needed to address transportation emissions. Here’s how the Unity Task Force recommendations fall short, particularly in comparison to the House’s new climate blueprint and the INVEST Act.
Weevaluated presidential candidates’ climate plans last November based on how well they address transportation emissions, and in February we scored their transportation proposals against our three guiding principles. Most candidates were heavily focused on promoting electric vehicles and strengthening fuel efficiency standards. Fewer offered concrete goals and targets for (or even addressed) the need to reduce driving by making it safer to walk and bike for short trips, making transit more convenient, supporting passenger rail, and prioritizing maintenance over road expansion projects that induce more traffic.
So how does the Unity Task Force’s proposal compare to its predecessors in addressing climate and transportation? It largely follows in the same footsteps, with nods to investing in transit and passenger rail but no acknowledgement of the need to reform the base national transportation program that has produced communities where transit can’t serve people well. While the report includes brief language on the need to prioritize allocating transportation funds to transit and pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure, it says nothing about reforming the policies that prioritize car travel and congestion reduction above all else—policies that make it inconvenient, dangerous, or impossible to travel outside a car in much of the US.
Support “cash-for-clunkers” style approaches to incentivize accelerated adoption of zero-emission passenger vehicles. Provide incentives for manufacturers to build new factories or retool existing factories in the United States to assemble zero-emission vehicles or manufacture charging equipment.
“Encourage states to prioritize allocation of transportation funds for public mass transit, and pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure, and ensure transportation options and infrastructure meet the needs of tribal, rural, and urban communities to fully participate in zero-emissions transport.”
“Encourage states to prioritize allocation of transportation funds for public mass transit, and pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure, and ensure transportation options and infrastructure meet the needs of tribal, rural, and urban communities to fully participate in zero-emissions transport. Make major improvements to public transit and light rail. Preserve and grow the union workforce within the rail, transit and maritime sectors.”
“We commit to public transportation as a public good, including ensuring transit jobs are good jobs.”
Invest in high speed passenger and freight rail systems, while reducing pollution, helping connect workers to quality jobs with shorter commutes, and spurring investment in communities more efficiently connected to major metropolitan areas and unlocking new, affordable access for every American.
500,000 new public charging outlets by the end of 2030 and restore the full electric vehicle tax credit.
Altering local regulations to eliminate sprawl and allow for denser, more affordable housing near public transit would cut commute times for many of the country’s workers while decreasing their carbon footprint.
Communities across the country are experiencing a growing need for alternative and cleaner transportation options, including transit, dedicated bicycle and pedestrian thoroughfares, and first- and last-mile connections.
Ensure that America has the cleanest, safest, and fastest rail system in the world and will begin the construction of an end-to-end high speed rail system that will connect the coasts.
100 percent electric vehicles powered with renewable energy.
For too long, government policy has encouraged long car commutes, congestion, and dangerous emissions. Create more livable, connected, and vibrant communities.
$300 billion investment to increase public transit ridership by 65 percent by 2030.
$607 billion investment in a regional high-speed rail system.
Check out how we scored Democratic candidates like Senator Warren and Andrew Yang on climate in this November 2019 blog
We can’t “prioritize” transit, biking, and walking without addressing the underlying problems with our highway program
As we said when we evaluated Biden’s transportation plan back in February, layering good programs on top of a program that causes the problems isn’t smart policy. We can’t simply invest more in transit on top of our current highway program and expect to see the emissions results we want, let alone by simply “encouraging” states to invest more in transit as the report calls for. Likewise, just investing more in pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure won’t be enough to make it safer to bike and walk. Adding a bike lane to a dangerous high-speed, car-oriented corridor running through a community without making any other changes to reduce speeds isn’t giving more Americans the option to bike. And investing more in transit in a community where you have to wait for the bus on a busy road with nowhere to cross safely won’t bring us closer to making transit a public good as the Task Force envisions.
We need to come to grips with the legacy of our highway system and fix the problem. We have invested in transportation for decades in ways that are bad for the climate and disproportionately harm low-income people and people of color, and we’ll continue to see the same results until we change the underlying policies that have led to those investments.
A far cry from stronger recent proposals from the House
It is disappointing to see recommendations from Biden and Sanders’ task force that do so little to change the status quo, especially on the heels of much stronger and more comprehensive reforms proposed by the House. The House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis recently released a comprehensive legislative blueprint for tackling climate change that takes a much wider view—prioritizing repair, safety, and access in a holistic approach to promote more transit, biking, and walking and reduce the need to drive. The INVEST Act, recently passed by the House as part of the Moving Forward Act, introduced significant reforms to our core national transportation program along similar lines to those recommended by the Select Committee that could have far-reaching impacts for climate if adopted.
By contrast, the Unity Task Force report does not address reforming current federal transportation policy at all. Here are some specific ways it falls short by comparison:
1) No acknowledgement of the need to stop building needless new roads at the expense of maintenance
Unlike the Unity Task Force report, the House Select Committee’s blueprint calls for changes to our core highway program, including prioritizing maintenance over new road infrastructure. The INVEST Act would put requirements in place to hold states more accountable to doing so. While prioritizing repair may not be intuitive climate policy, it would make a huge difference in stemming the trend of inducing more driving and more emissions. The nation’s roads are deteriorating, contributing to a looming financial problem, yet states consistently underinvest in maintenance and build new roads instead. We have talked previously about how a 1 percent increase in lane miles can result in a 1 percent increase in vehicle miles traveled.
2) Lacks the focus on safety necessary to actually make walking, biking, and transit viable
As we discussed above, dangerous streets and disconnected communities pose a major barrier to taking short trips by walking and biking in many communities, and those same dangerous conditions can make it difficult or impossible to reach transit. The House Select Committee’s blueprint recommends requiring states to use Complete Streets and context-sensitive principles and makes numerous recommendations throughout to prioritize funding for walking and biking. The INVEST Act also takes a comprehensive approach to prioritizing safety. The Unity Task Force report does not address transportation safety at all.
3) Nothing on measuring outcomes that matter for climate change
The House blueprint recommends creating a new performance measure for greenhouse gas emissions, requiring states and metro areas to measure emissions and then create plans for lowering them, as does the INVEST Act. This is a major shift, and it will lead to significantly different outcomes if states are truly held accountable to these measures. The Unity Task Force’s report does not include any recommendations for measuring outcomes that matter for climate, nor does it propose any concrete goals for reducing transportation sector emissions.
These are all major blindspots in the Unity Task Force report. We must address the problems embedded in federal transportation policy to reduce transportation emissions and make our transportation system work for everyone, and it seems like Biden and Sanders still don’t understand this.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner hammered on the job-creation and economy-boosting effects of the Obama administration’s plan for infrastructure investment in a blog post on the department’s website.
Writing the same day Vice President Biden and Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood were in Philadelphia promoting a $53 billion, 6-year passenger rail package, Geithner argued that investing in our nation’s roads, bridges, rail and transit systems creates “both immediate and long-term economic benefits.”
Treasury Department analysis reveals an unemployment rate among American workers building infrastructure at 15 percent, significantly higher than the national average. Investing in infrastructure would create jobs in construction, manufacturing and retail trade, all sectors hard hit by the economic downturn, and nine out of ten jobs created would pay middle-class wages.
Geithner emphasized the administration’s commitment to spending federal dollars in a targeted and fiscally responsible way, writing: “our strategy is designed to make crucial investments in infrastructure while bringing our deficits down to sustainable levels.”
Simply increasing spending levels is unacceptable, Geither wrote, adding “we must also reform the ways in which we invest.” He continued:
Not all infrastructure investments are good investments, and too often we have seen transportation projects exemplify the worst of Washington – the bridges to nowhere that rightly make American taxpayers cringe. The President’s Budget recognizes this and will make some difficult choices, proposing significant spending cuts, including to some programs we would preserve in better times.
President Obama’s plan includes a National Infrastructure Bank, which would “select projects on the basis of rigorous analysis,” Geithner explained. The Bank would evaluate and fund projects that generate the best return on investment, leverage private capital to do it and promote increased transportation options along the way. House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee chairman John Mica, a key player in Congress, has cited securing private capital for projects as a key priority for federal transportation spending.
Infrastructure investment benefits all Americans, even in ways we do not always think about. Upgrades and additions to the New York City subway system allow millions to “get to work faster, increasing their productivity and quality of life by decreasing the amount of time lost to commuting,” Geithner notes. But it also means that “the far-away Kawasaki plant in Lincoln, Nebraska that manufactures the subway cars will increase production, putting Nebraskans to work.”
You can read Secretary Geithner’s entire post here.
Vice President Joe Biden made an emphatic case for high-speed rail in Philadelphia today as the Obama administration kicks off a series of events this week to highlight the need for infrastructure investment.
Biden, who was joined by Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood and other officials, is a fitting messenger for rail’s benefits. Dubbed “Amtrak Joe,” he was a regular commuter on the Acela line during his 36 years as a U.S. Senator from Delaware. While campaigning in 2008, he told the New York Times, “If we get elected, it will be the most train-friendly administration ever.”
The Vice President announced a six-year, $53 billion investment in national high-speed and intercity passenger rail during remarks at Philadelphia’s historic 30th Street Station. Passengers traveling on Amtrak’s Keystone Corridor from Pittsburgh and Harrisburg use the station to connect to the popular and speedy Acela line, which runs through New York City, Boston and Washington, DC.
While the Obama administration has made clear that responsible deficit reduction is a priority, Biden emphasized there are some areas where it would be irresponsible to scale back.
“As President Obama said in his State of the Union, there are key places where we cannot afford to sacrifice as a nation – one of which is infrastructure,” the Vice President said, adding: “If you shut down Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor, you’d have to add seven new lanes to I-95 to accommodate the traffic.”
The Vice President singled out Meridian, Mississippi mayor and T4 America co-chair John Robert Smith, who served his hometown for four terms. Biden hailed Mayor Smith for using passenger rail to revitalize the economy, bring jobs to the region and improve quality of life. Meridian’s restored Union Station serves 300,000 passengers, hosts over 250 events every year and has leveraged millions in downtown investment.
The need for increased travel options to accommodate expected population growth was also a theme in the Vice President’s address, along with the fact that simply widening highways and building new ones will not suffice.
“In the next 40 years, the United States is expected to increase in population by 100 million people,” he said. “Seventy percent of all people in America now live within 50 miles of the Atlantic Ocean or the Pacific Ocean. You know how congested we are now. What happens with 100 million more?
“When you talk about the investments we’re making in rail, they pale in comparison to investment you’d have to make in runways or highways,” he added. “And that’s before you factor in the environmental benefit of taking cars off the road.”
With this long-term commitment, cities and states now have the certainty to pursue longer-term plans for rail, and businesses can move forward putting more Americans to work making this vision possible. The administration has also made strides on streamlining existing programs in USDOT. Now, for the first time, all high-speed and passenger rail programs are consolidated into just two new accounts.
As Streetsblog already noted, the politics of transportation spending remain muddled, but today’s announcement was a key step toward laying the foundation for a 21st century system.
