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Divided by Design: Quantifying the damage of our transportation program

Our new report examines the racist roots of our current transportation system. Most importantly, it demonstrates how today’s policies and practices were shaped by the past, leading to racial disparities today. Without a fundamental change to the overall approach to transportation, today’s leaders and transportation professionals, no matter their intent, will perpetuate and exacerbate the damage.

Beginning in the 1950s, highways devastated communities of color and changed our cities forever. But the consequences continue, even as we begin to acknowledge our past mistakes.

To create a better system, we can’t settle for small changes. We need a total shift in approach. To learn more about the report and our analysis, join our webinar on July 25 at 2 p.m. ET.

Read the report Register for the webinar

A guide to this report

Part I examines the damage and inequities deliberately created by and in the federal transportation program from ~1950 onward. It concludes with a unique analysis of both an unbuilt and built highway segment within Atlanta and Washington, DC to quantify what was lost, who bore the brunt of the damage, and what could have been lost with highways that were never built.

Part II examines our current transportation program to demonstrate how the programs, standards, models, and measures have their roots in the previous era and exacerbate inequities—whether intentional or not.

Part III outlines what needs to change—concrete steps we can take to fundamentally reorient the program around unwinding those inequities.

Two cities divided

Divided by Design also quantifies the damage caused by highways in two U.S. cities: Atlanta, GA and Washington, DC. Like hundreds of others in the U.S., these cities are forever scarred by highways that demolished communities of color, robbing them of opportunity and potential.

Atlanta’s I-20 displaced over 7,500 people and destroyed 1,400 occupied homes. In DC, I-395/695 displaced over 5,000 people and demolished 2,200 homes. These numbers only scratch the surface of the full damage and dislocation.

More significant damage was also avoided in these cities. To understand what might exist in these communities if they hadn’t been disrupted by highways, we looked at two planned highway segments that were never built and the hundreds of businesses, office buildings, and homes that wouldn’t exist today. Click to read these stories:

The damage continues

The models, policies, and practices we use today took root in the highway era, and they continue to inflict the most harm on people of color. Our approach leads to worse health outcomes, greater congestion, and deadlier roadways. It leaves millions of Americans without access to reliable transportation options to get where they need to go. We can’t build a better system on a rotten foundation. It’s time for a paradigm shift.

We need a new approach.

Read Divided by Design

Explore the report’s full content—jump to one of the three parts with the graphics below.

report cover graphic showing a stylized highway cutting through a city.graphic showing a stylized scene of construction of a highway through a city neighborhoodgraphic showing a stylized scene a few blocks away from a highway running through a city neighborhoodgraphic showing a stylized scene of what a neighborhood could look like after tearing a highway down

Don’t miss supplemental maps, videos, and animations in the DC and Atlanta case studies which are not in the hard copy. Download a PDF version of the report.

 

Everyone agrees that repair is important. No one is willing to require it

comic illustration

Despite a fundamental lack of understanding by some members of Congress about the program they’re responsible for overseeing, the law sets states free to spend their federal transportation cash on eligible expenses, however they see fit. Our repair needs will never get addressed until we change this approach.

comic illustration
Illustration produced for T4America by visual artist Jean Wei. IG/@weisanboo

Please download and share our new illustration above on social media, via email, Reddit, etc. Right click to “save as” or find and share this on Twitter and Facebook with these links.

Every time that we’ve polled voters over the years, we hear that taking good care of our existing infrastructure—repair and maintenance—should be priority #1 for our transportation dollars. Ask any member of Congress and they’ll tell you it’s absolutely a top priority. 1 And every state DOT will tell you that keeping things in a state of good repair is either their top priority or second only to safety. 

Everyone seems to agree about the importance of repair, yet everyone in charge seems to recoil when anyone suggests creating hard and fast requirements that states prioritize their repair needs before building new infrastructure they will also have to maintain for decades to come.

After seeing Virginia leaders touting the infrastructure law’s $530+ million to address Virginia’s deficient bridges, Wyatt Gordon in the Virginia Mercury recently asked the obvious question: “Why did more than one in 25 bridges deteriorate into a ‘poor or worse condition’ in a state with a nearly $7 billion annual budget for its Department of Transportation?” T4America director Beth Osborne weighed in:

The more you fail in transportation—the more people die, the more expenses increase, the more bridges collapse, the louder the calls to put more money into the programs that produced that failure in the first place. There is no accountability. These senators who voted for [the IIJA] promise us results every time, but I just heard a bridge fell down in Pittsburgh. How many times do they promise the same results without changing the program that is producing these same failures?

Look, it’s worth noting that not every state performs equally when it comes to prioritizing repair with their flexibility, and some states have made sizable shifts from expansion to repair in the last few years. As the above piece notes, states like Pennsylvania and Massachusetts are already devoting the lion’s share of their budgets toward repair. They’re doing their best to ignore that second voice in the background of the comic pushing the sexy new expansion project.

But most states are not choosing to do this.

This reminds me of what Mississippi DOT commissioner Dick Hall said during a repair-focused event we held in DC in 2019, where he made a plea for Congress to step in and require repair first. “If you want us to prioritize maintenance, then you’re going to have to tell us ‘you gotta do it,” he said. Until Congress does, some states will do well and other states will just punt questions about paying for all the things they’ve built off to their grandkids to figure out.

How bad is this addiction? 

Consider the new $43 billion bridge repair formula program that Congress created in the infrastructure law. Even though this money is doled out proportionately to the states with the greatest bridge repair needs and Congress just supercharged the funding to the massive flexible programs that all states can use to build new highways, Congress still decided to allow states to use this dedicated “repair” money to build brand new bridges. USDOT’s guidance on the legislative language made it clear that the law allows “the construction of a new highway bridge on a new alignment” as an eligible project, though USDOT gently encouraged states to focus on bridges in poor or fair condition.

We’ll once again just have to hope that all states can deliver on all the repair promises. And in five years, after the IIJA’s $643 billion has been exhausted, we’ll be right back here lamenting the state of our infrastructure and wondering where all the money went, even as we renew the pleas for more funds to “repair our crumbling infrastructure.”

The infrastructure bill is finished—what you need to know

Infrastructure will be built, but what kind?

The $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill is notable both for including Congress’ most significant effort to address climate change, and its general failure to make fundamental changes to a transportation program that’s responsible for massive increases in transportation emissions, worsening state of repair, unequal access to jobs, and increasing numbers of people killed on our roadways.

promo graphic for a guide to the IIJA

This post is part of T4America’s suite of materials explaining the 2021 $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), which governs all federal transportation policy and funding through 2026. What do you need to know about the new infrastructure law? We know that federal transportation policy can be intimidating and confusing. Our hub for the new law will walk you through it, from the basics all the way to more complex details.

First, you can read our short statement about the deal’s passage (signed by President Biden on Monday, November 15!) In a sea of media coverage and complicated explainers, we wanted to drill into just a few basic things you should know and remember about this new bill:

1) Transportation policy and funding is now wrapped up until 2026

Did you catch this one?

The way this deal was repeatedly referred to in the media as a standalone infrastructure bill created a lot of confusion, so it’s worth being clear on this count: Congress just wrapped up the every-five-years process of transportation reauthorization because the Senate’s five-year transportation policy proposals passed earlier this summer were the foundation of this larger infrastructure deal. There’s a lot of additional money that will go into various forms of infrastructure, but of the $645 billion total for transportation, about $300 billion is for a new five-year reauthorization to replace the expiring FAST Act. The additional ~$345 billion consists of annual appropriations of various kinds which are not guaranteed or sourced from gas taxes via the highway trust fund (see #4 below for more on that.)

So other than the annual appropriations process where Congress decides funding levels for some discretionary programs like the transit capital construction program or BUILD grants, funding and policy decisions are now finished for five years, and the focus now moves to implementation, i.e., how this money gets spent and where. 

2) So what was in the five-year reauthorization included in the deal?

We took a long look at the good, the bad, and the ugly when the deal passed the full Senate back in August, and almost nothing has changed since:

[It] includes a lot of new spending, but that spending isn’t directed toward outcomes, much less the priorities that the President articulated in The American Jobs Plan. Though this bill mentions safety, climate, and equity often, as it stands, it will fail to produce meaningful shifts. “The White House will soon discover that they’ve dealt themselves a challenging hand in their long-term effort to address climate change and persistent inequities, while kicking the can down a crumbling road that’s likely to stay that way,” T4America director Beth Osborne said in our full statement after Tuesday’s final vote.

There is some good news, though. When it comes to the next five years of policy and spending, passenger rail was the biggest winner, making the expansion of reliable, frequent rail service to more Americans a cornerstone of the deal’s approach. The rail portion ​​will “1) expand, increase, and improve service, 2) focus on the entire national network (rather than just the northeast corridor), 3) encourage more local, ground-up coalitions of local-state partnerships for improving or adding new service, and 4) make it easier to finance projects and expand that authority to transit-oriented development projects.” We explained these provisions in-depth in this post.

3) More money for transit but with policy crafted in 2015 (and before!)

The transit portion of reauthorization was never produced by the Senate Banking Committee, which means that this deal basically carried forward the status quo approach to transit policy from the now-replaced FAST Act, but with a historic amount of transit funding (along with a historic amount of highway funding.) The House’s discarded five-year INVEST Act proposal contained some vital improvements to transit policy, but it was ignored by the Senate when assembling the larger infrastructure deal.

We’ll have much more about the modest changes to the transit program in a later post—including what’s next.

4) What else was included in the non-reauthorization portions of the bill’s $1.2 trillion price tag?

This great chart from the National Association of Counties shows where the additional transportation money— outside of the ~$300 billion, five-year authorization—is going:

For more on the non-transportation inclusions in the bill, you can read this post from Smart Growth America with a broader look at the package and what was included on climate resilience, broadband, and other areas. 

5) Time to hold the administration and Congress accountable for accomplishing their ambitious promises

The Biden administration has made significant promises to taxpayers about what they are going to accomplish with this historic investment when it comes to repair, climate change, safety, equity, and an equitable economic recovery from the past year and a half. They’ve assembled a tremendous team of superstar smart people at USDOT to make it happen. They’ve shown their willingness to use their administrative authority to at least temporarily halt damaging highway projects. They’ve created a litany of helpful new competitive grant programs they now need to write the rules for awarding. 

But watching the president sign the bill isn’t just a celebration, it’s a cue for them to get to work with some major urgency: the first year of this money is flowing out the door already, so states are already pouring this money into projects already underway. 

It will require a herculean effort from them to make sure this bill accomplishes what they believe it will. As we said when the deal was first approved by Congress on November 5, “The administration is confident they can make substantial progress on all of these goals despite those deficiencies. Most states are promising to use the flexibility they fought for to make marked improvements across these priorities. To make that happen, both the administration and the states will need to make major changes to how they approach transportation, but we know they can do it.” 

Because they missed the chance to codify a wholly different approach to transportation into law, they only have the option of making changes that are administrative or imposed by the executive branch—changes which can all be undone by a future administration.

Now is the time for us, the media, advocates and local leaders of all stripes to hold them accountable for what they have promised to accomplish with this historically massive infrastructure bill. 

More highways, more driving, more emissions: Explaining “induced demand”

Even if we hit the most ambitious targets for changing our cars and trucks over to electric vehicles, we will fail to meaningfully reduce emissions from transportation without confronting this simple fact: new roads always produce new driving. This costly feedback loop referred to as “induced demand” is the invisible force short-circuiting the neverending attempts to eliminate congestion by building or expanding roads.

This gif explaining induced demand is from Driving Down Emissions

Today, Transportation for America is partnering with RMI and the Natural Resources Defense Council to release a new calculator that shows how highway expansion repeatedly fails to reduce congestion and instead increases traffic and pollution. The SHIFT Calculator provides transparency about new traffic created by highway widening and expansion so transportation agencies can make smarter, more sustainable transportation investments. Read the press release.

Check out the calculator here

Imagine a guy who, struck with a wild but charitable fever of generosity, decided to give away 100 gallons of tasty, free coffee every morning at a small downtown stand. During that entire first week, he struggled to give it all away before lunchtime and went home with quite a few gallons of leftover lukewarm coffee. In week #2, he started seeing familiar faces each day from the nearby buildings, because people walking by know a good deal when they see one (the low price of free!) Many of them returned each day and the coffee was gone by 11 a.m. By the third week, the word was out across downtown about the “crazy free coffee guy” and he started running out earlier each day. By the start of week four, people were coming from all over downtown and he had a line queued up waiting for him at 7 a.m. to ensure they got their free cup before work, and it was all gone before 9 a.m. 

Say hello to “induced demand.”

Giving something away for free shapes the behavior of those who want it

It’s a fundamental principle of economics: Provide a tangible good at no cost that people value and the demand will outstrip supply.

Yet political leaders and transportation agencies refuse to believe that this same basic principle will apply when they spend billions to widen or expand highways in the name of “solving” traffic congestion in urban regions, and then give away all of that newly created space for free. They refuse to believe that anyone will take new trips on the newly freed-up highway space, that people will shift existing off-peaks trips to rush hour, that someone on transit might decide to return to driving (like thousands of people did during the pandemic), or that developers might take advantage of the new capacity to build yet more houses or retail on land that’s now more easily accessible.

They refuse to believe that this is possible, even when all of that expensive new highway space fills right up in a short period of time, wiping out any benefits and failing to deliver on all those promises of speedy commutes, improved travel times, and money in our pockets from all the “time savings.”

Attempting to “solve” congestion by building new roads or expanding existing ones has been the animating purpose behind billions of dollars of federal and state transportation investment for decades now. 

Armed with this single-minded purpose and billions in no-strings money from the federal government, states have spent hundreds of billions of dollars to widen or build new highways. We built enough new roads and lanes from just 2009-2017 to build a brand new road back and forth across our enormous country 83 times. State transportation departments have added 5,325 new lane-miles just since 2015.

All the lanes we’ve built have led to a predictable increase in driving. From 1980-2017, per capita vehicle miles traveled (VMT) increased by 46 percent. In 1993, on average, each person accounted for 21 miles of driving per day in those 100 urbanized areas. By 2017, that number had jumped to 25 miles per day. Every year, Americans are having to drive farther just to accomplish the same things we did back in 1993 every day.

The problem isn’t too few roads

Delay skyrocketed in our 100 largest urbanized areas from 1993-2017, rising by 144 percent. Yet we expanded our freeway system in those areas by 42 percent, while the population only increased by 32% during that time. We built roads like crazy, yet delay just got worse.

Delay increased because new highways, roads, and lanes are proven to induce more driving, which leads to more emissions and ultimately more congestion. The evidence for induced demand is overwhelming. In a landmark study, Kent Hymel at Cal State Northridge suggests the relationship is perfectly correlated—a 10 percent increase in lane miles leads to a 10 percent increase in driving.

If you’re celebrating the notable but small climate and transit provisions in the current enormous infrastructure deal, you should know that this shortsighted 1950s-style deal will provide states with historic levels of virtually no-strings highway funding that they can continue to blow on the same old bankrupt strategy for congestion without even any basic requirements to repair things first.

Profligate spending on highways also undermines the relatively limited investments being made in other lower emission transportation options like biking, walking, and transit.

Why do transportation agencies deny this reality?

The unreliable models that agencies depend upon have a poor track record of success, but they never look backward to consider their accuracy or how they can be improved.  When is a state DOT ever held to account for repeatedly making predictions about traffic that fails to materialize? Who even remembers what they predict? This great thread from Kevin DeGood about Texas DOT’s repeated failure to make accurate predictions shows just how rarely anyone looks backward:

19 years ago, the Texas DOT predicted that average daily traffic (ADT) on I-35 through downtown Austin would be 330,000 daily vehicles by last year. The reality wasn’t even close: Actual totals in 2019 were only 201,000 daily trips. As Kevin notes, in 2016, with the state totally ignoring how wildly inaccurate their current projections were turning out to be, they projected “that total VMT on I-35 in the Austin area would increase by 50% by 2040.”

Rinse and repeat. 

TxDOT is certainly doing their best to make those 2040 projections come true. All it’s going to cost taxpayers is $5 billion to widen I-35 right through downtown.

If the state follows through on this staggeringly expensive project, they’d be creating millions of new trips and increasing pollution, all while failing to make a dent in congestion over the long term and wiping out hundreds of acres of some of the most valuable land in the entire state.

Screenshot of SHIFT calculator's results on Austin, TX I-35 widening project
This data comes from the new SHIFT Calculator’s estimates for the I-35 widening project which would add 42 lane-miles to the interstate through downtown Austin

The cynical answer to “why” is that if state DOTs around the country finally admitted that expansions fail to actually solve congestion, they would lose their #1 strategy of continued expansions that allow everyone other than the taxpayer to make more money. They’d be admitting that they’ve placed all of their bets on a losing horse, and they’ve been doing so for years. On top of that, they’d then have to do far more sophisticated work to better understand the complicated reality of our travel needs and rebuild their models from the ground up to focus on moving people rather than just “make cars go fast.” 

Even the most progressive states with ambitious agendas to lower transportation emissions aren’t fully willing to acknowledge this reality. 

Advocates and residents and local leaders need to start holding them to account. How?

We can’t put our heads in the sand anymore

This new, rigorously vetted calculator produced by RMI, the Natural Resources Defense Council and Transportation for America provides more accurate and transparent data about increases in driving and pollution, as well as the other impacts of highway expansions. 

Our hope is that advocates, local governments, and anyone who cares about finally getting more accurate and transparent data about increases in driving and pollution will use this new tool to hold their transportation agencies to account. And we want transportation agencies to use it to bring a fuller picture to their current transportation modeling that leads them to “solutions” that fail to address congestion, divide neighborhoods, increase pollution, devastate nearby communities, and fail to meaningfully improve our access to jobs and services.

Find a proposed project in your metro area and run it through the calculator.

Some parts of the above post were adapted from Driving Down Emissions, a report from Smart Growth America and Transportation for America which explores how changing transportation policy and land-use patterns are key to lowering greenhouse gas emissions.

New calculator shows how highway expansions increase traffic

graphic element

The SHIFT Calculator provides transparency about new traffic created by highway widening and expansion so transportation agencies can make smarter, more sustainable transportation investments.

A new tool released today provides anyone with the ability to estimate the increased traffic and pollution that will result from proposed highway expansions.

Over the past few decades, taxpayer dollars have funded billions of dollars in highway expansions intended to alleviate road congestion, but it usually does not take long for the traffic to return. This endless loop, known as “induced demand,” fails to address congestion while leading to more cars on the road and more pollution from the transportation sector, which is the nation’s largest source of emissions.

Using the State Highway Induced Frequency of Travel (SHIFT) Calculator developed by RMI, NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council) and Transportation for America, anyone can now project the increases in driving that would result from highway expansions. The Calculator provides transparency and accountability for transportation projects that often do not deliver on promised benefits and instead make traffic and pollution worse. This new tool will enable transportation agencies to account for the principle of induced demand in the planning and implementation of highway projects.

“Road expansion projects have failed to deliver the promised benefits. In fact, the evidence shows that they actually make traffic and pollution worse,” said Ben Holland, manager in RMI’s Urban Transformation Program. “To achieve US climate goals, we must reduce the amount that the average person drives by 20%. This tool shines a light on the impacts of highway expansion and shows how these projects often move us away from our goals.”

The SHIFT Calculator was based on RMI’s Colorado Induced Travel Calculator, which advocates used to show that proposed and in-progress road expansions would increase vehicle miles traveled by up to 3% by 2030, at a time that the state is aiming to reduce those roadway miles by 10%.

“This easy-to-use tool will help advocates make their case to city and state transportation departments,” said Carter Rubin, a transportation strategist at NRDC. “So many of us have seen firsthand how quickly traffic returns when extra highway lanes open up, and this calculator provides the numbers to back up that experience. If cities and states really want to get residents out of traffic and cut down on smog, they should make it easier and faster for people to ride public transit, bike and walk.”

“For 90 years, we have known that building new lanes creates new vehicle trips that fill those lanes, and for 90 years, we have mostly ignored this fundamental law while repeating the same mistakes at great cost,” said Beth Osborne, director of Transportation for America. “We must stop making empty promises about congestion reduction that never materialize. Having the ability to estimate added travel caused by expansions can finally equip decision makers and the public with the data to make the case for something more effective at connecting people to jobs and opportunity.”

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About RMI

RMI is an independent nonprofit founded in 1982 that transforms global energy systems through market-driven solutions to align with a 1.5°C future and secure a clean, prosperous, zero-carbon future for all. We work in the world’s most critical geographies and engage businesses, policymakers, communities, and NGOs to identify and scale energy system interventions that will cut greenhouse gas emissions at least 50 percent by 2030. RMI has offices in Basalt and Boulder, Colorado; New York City; Oakland, California; Washington, D.C.; and Beijing.
More information on RMI can be found at www.rmi.org or follow us on Twitter @RockyMtnInst.

About NRDC

NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council) is an international nonprofit environmental organization with more than 3 million members and online activists. Since 1970, our lawyers, scientists, and other environmental specialists have worked to protect the world’s natural resources, public health, and the environment. NRDC has offices in New York City, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Bozeman, MT, and Beijing. Visit us at www.nrdc.org and follow us on Twitter @NRDC.

About Transportation for America

Transportation for America, a program of Smart Growth America, is an advocacy organization made up of local, regional and state leaders who envision a transportation system that safely, affordably and conveniently connects people of all means and ability to jobs, services, and opportunity through multiple modes of travel. Learn more at t4america.org and follow us on Twitter @T4America.

WATCH NOW: Going #BeyondEVs in three webinars, including one with Sec. Anthony Foxx

Electrifying vehicles is critical to reducing transportation emissions, but they can’t get the job done on their own—Americans need the freedom to drive less. In honor of Earth Day, we hosted three webinars diving into this issue, including one with former USDOT Secretary Anthony Foxx and Rep. Nikema Williams (GA-5). 

Transportation is the largest source of U.S. emissions—and they’re going up. Yet electric vehicles (EVs) are not enough on their own to reduce these emissions due to the slow rate of fleet turnover and the increasing rate of vehicle miles traveled (VMT). Americans are driving more and more every day, and policy can’t keep up. 

But Americans aren’t driving more by choice. Our transportation investment decisions make driving many people’s only option, forcing people to drive everywhere by prioritizing projects that make it easier to drive fast. This cuts off millions of Americans who can’t afford or operate a vehicle from reaching jobs, schools, and other essential services. 

To truly reduce transportation emissions and make transportation accessible for everyone—no matter who you are or where you live—we need to give Americans more options than just driving. We need to go #BeyondEVs.

Tuesday, 1:00 pm ET: Undoing the Damage of Urban Freeways

This two-part, joint panel event with Third Way examines the lasting impact of urban freeways and how our next infrastructure investments must be different.

Transportation investments shape our communities — not always for the better. For decades, transportation planners invested in urban freeways that destroyed many communities of color. Recently, the Department of Transportation halted a planned expansion of I-45 in Houston, a project that would have displaced not only families, homes, and businesses but historic Black and brown communities.

Changing the way we invest in transportation is part of how we’ll make the U.S. more equitable and sustainable. The new American Jobs Plan presents a once-in-a-century opportunity to do that — if we do it right. 

Check out our superstar lineup of speakers: 

  • Former US Department of Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx, Lyft’s Chief Policy Officer 
  • Josh Freed, Senior Vice President for the Climate and Energy Program, Third Way
  • Representative Nikema Williams (D-GA)
  • Mayor Ben Walsh, Syracuse, New York
  • Former Mayor John Norquist, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
  • Beth Osborne, Director, Transportation for America
  • Tanya Snyder, Reporter, POLITICO
  • Molly Cook, Stop TxDOT I-45, Houston
  • Keith Baker, Executive Director of Reconnect Rondo, St. Paul
  • Amy Stelly, Claiborne Avenue Alliance, New Orleans
Watch the recording here!

Wednesday, 3:00 pm ET: Driving Down Emissions: Why reducing how much we drive is critical for our climate

The heart of our transportation climate strategy needs to hinge on making it easier, safer, and more convenient to take shorter routine trips and meet daily needs without a car, whether those vehicles are electric or not. We’ll never achieve our ambitious climate targets in time—or create more livable and equitable communities—if we don’t.

This webinar will draw from Smart Growth America’s 2020 report, Driving Down Emissions, and highlight new research and state action to reduce emissions from the transportation sector. Speakers will discuss why it’s so critical to reduce the need to drive in the US, how policy changes can get us there, and what steps California and Minnesota, two leading states, are taking to make it happen. 

Thursday, 1:00 pm ET: Transforming Transit: Fund transit at the same level as highways

Expanding public transportation is necessary to help give Americans more transportation options than just driving and building an equitable economy post-COVID-19. 

This webinar will unpack hurdles to a transformational investment in public transit embedded in existing federal transportation policy—notably the “handshake deal” limiting public transit to only 20 percent of the transportation budget. Our speakers will break down the consequences of this policy—something we’ve expanded upon here—and help chart a path forward. 

Angry about the 80/20 split between highway and transit funding? Send a message to your legislators!

Road and public transit maintenance create more jobs than building new highways

With Congress charged with passing a long-term transportation law this year, many hope that increased infrastructure spending will create more jobs. We have to remember that not all infrastructure spending is equal: road and public transit maintenance projects actually create more jobs than highway expansion projects.

Maintaining public transit in Chicago.

The first goal of transportation infrastructure investment is getting people and goods where they need to go. When that investment is part of a package to jumpstart the economy, an important secondary goal is creating new jobs. But in the past, Congress has failed to require states to pick the best investments to do this, partially due to the misconception that spending funds on big highway expansion projects creates a lot of jobs. Dollar-for-dollar, it doesn’t.

Take the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act (ARRA). Between 2009 and 2010, ARRA gave states $26 billion to spend on surface transportation capital projects and $8.4 billion for public transportation capital projects, as we wrote in our joint report with Smart Growth America analyzing this bill last year. States were required to report how they spent that money, and how many jobs they created with it.

Because of that requirement, we know that every ARRA dollar spent on public transportation produced 70 percent more job hours than an ARRA dollar spent on highways. Transit preventive maintenance produced the most jobs out of the main categories for ARRA transit spending, including rail car purchase and rehabilitation, transit infrastructure, and bus purchase and rehabilitation. 

Similarly, road repair produces 16 percent more jobs per dollar than new road construction, according to 2009 research from Smart Growth America and the University of Utah. This makes sense: maintenance jobs are open to more kinds of workers, spend less money on equipment and more on wages, and spend less time on plans and permits. Meanwhile, new capacity projects require more funding for buying costly property, which has little or no stimulative or reinvestment value, as we wrote in our joint recommendations for any and all COVID-19 relief packages with Smart Growth America. 

Unfortunately, we can’t know if investments in transit maintenance or transit operations (the costs of running a transit agency, as opposed to the costs to construct or maintain transit infrastructure) produce more jobs, because ARRA forbade states from spending funds on operations. But we do know that transit operations funding often goes straight to employees’ wages. 

Prioritizing funds on roadway and public transit maintenance is also popular with voters. In a March 2020 poll conducted by Transportation for America and several partners, 79 percent of respondents said that they want to focus federal funding on fixing roads and public transit. 

With current long-term transportation policy expiring in September—at the same time our economy is struggling to recover from an unprecedented pandemic—Congress has an opportunity to create the most new jobs and finally rebuild our “crumbling infrastructure.” All by simply increasing funding for transit maintenance and requiring that states fix-it-first: maintain their existing roadways before building new ones. 

A policy proposal to undo the damage of “urban renewal”

Today, Transportation for America and Third Way released a policy proposal to undo the damage of “urban renewal” projects that have displaced more than a million Americans since construction of the Interstate Highway System and that continue to harm communities of color today. These four federal policy recommendations can be included in a COVID-19 stimulus bill or infrastructure package, or considered as stand-alone legislation.

A highway is replaced by a park

So-called “urban renewal” initiatives of the 1950s and 1960s ostensibly provided money to cities across the country to revitalize neighborhoods. But in practice, these new interstates razed housing and ripped through neighborhoods, displacing more than a million Americans during the first two decades of the federal interstate system.1 These projects deliberately targeted communities of color and particularly Black neighborhoods, wreaking havoc on their health and local environments for decades.

The American public has made it very clear that they want the federal government to prioritize revitalizing our nation’s infrastructure. Both parties in Congress and the incoming Biden Administration ostensibly agree on this need. Absent a new approach, however, even re-investment risks perpetuating the inequitable highway construction practices of the past while locking in air, water, and climate pollution that are a drag on our health and the economy.

To undo the far-reaching damage of “urban renewal” projects, Third Way and Transportation for America recommend a suite of policies, including the creation of a new competitive grant program, to reconnect communities, repair the damage, and invest for sustainable and equitable growth. This includes:

  • Creating a competitive grant program to redesign or deconstruct the outdated infrastructure that has hindered the growth of low-income and minority communities;
  • Establishing land trusts to help generate wealth for the communities that already reside in these neighborhoods; and
  • Updating federal transportation modeling tools so that decision-makers and communities can see how these infrastructure projects really impact traffic patterns today;
  • Requiring federal agencies to issue guidance on identifying communities with infrastructure barriers, measuring the degree of harm to that community, and providing incentives and prioritizing resources to address those disparities.

This critical investment could feature in a COVID-19 stimulus bill or separate infrastructure package, or as stand-alone legislation.

Background

After Congress enacted the 1956 Highway Act, cities and states used primarily federal funding to build highways through the middle of cities. White families used these interstates to move to the suburbs. City planners worried that their city centers would empty out if the suburbs were disconnected from downtown, so they intentionally ran new highways downtown to ensure suburban residents would regularly drive into town. But city developers also often deliberately chose highway routes in order to displace, disrupt, or segregate neighborhoods of color.2

The displacement has caused profound and generational impacts on these communities and has created huge physical divides in areas that would otherwise be among the most valuable for the city, especially at a time when cities’ downtowns are revitalizing. These highways destroyed the wealth built up through property by the families whose homes cities took through eminent domain or that developers destroyed. Now, residents cannot enjoy the current benefits of a downtown resurgence because of the infrastructure next to them.3

The urban highways cutting through these communities also brought additional, longer car trips; more congestion on the roads; and more pollution. The air quality issues associated with vehicle emissions disproportionately impact communities of color, with these communities facing higher exposure to harmful pollutants4and greater risk of asthma and other health issues5 than predominantly white communities. These highways, and the sprawl they enabled, have also harmed the climate by increasing Americans’ reliance on motor vehicles: Transportation is now our largest source of greenhouse gas emissions, most of which come from cars and trucks.6

Increasingly, state and local governments are reaching an inflection point. Many of these highways are aged half a century or older and have either fallen into disrepair or are no longer needed because of changing traffic patterns. Rather than simply replace or expand these highways, cities and states should reconsider whether these highways are necessary routes or unnecessary barriers that continue to cut off neighborhoods of color from opportunity.

The idea of legislating to undo the damage of past “urban renewal” policies isn’t new: under President Barack Obama, Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx convened stakeholder meetings on how to make transportation more affordable, accessible, and equitable.7 President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration—and House and Senate infrastructure leaders’ commitment to improving America’s roads and bridges—could give new currency to this work.

Policy recommendations

Authorize $10 billion for a new Restoring America’s Neighborhoods Grant program to correct the economic, environmental, and social damage of “Urban Renewal” highway projects that destroyed the core of many small, medium, and large US cities and displaced communities of color.

Half of this funding would be awarded to state DOTs to redesign or deconstruct highways or other transportation infrastructure that was built through communities of color (“obstructive highways”). The other half would fund the creation of land trusts in those neighborhoods to ensure the land freed up from the removal of obstructive highways will generate wealth for the people who already live there.

Redesign or deconstruction of obstructive highways

The US Department of Transportation (USDOT) should make grants available to state DOTs in partnership with the affected cities. Eligible projects for grants under this program would be for removal or repurposing of obstructive highways, including bringing the highway to grade, reconstructing the local roadway network, turning the highway into a boulevard, etc. There should also be a planning set-aside for assessing, designing, permitting and engineering alternatives for specific obstructive highways as well as setting up a land trust, including forming the trust and providing it authority to operate in the area. This work could include measurements of the air and water pollution impacts of retaining or repairing existing disruptive highways versus removing or replacing this infrastructure.

A $5 billion investment could fund a couple of large projects and 6-10 smaller ones, depending on the size of the obstructive infrastructure. These grants will be sufficient to fully fund a project, to ensure these projects can move forward quickly. USDOT should give preference to applicants with a demonstrated capacity—including any locally matched funding—to develop and manage the project; those that have an existing partnership with the communities impacted; and those whose projects demonstrate equitable economic development, a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, supportive land uses, new transit service, or explicit protection of housing affordability.

To maximize the impact of these investments for economic stimulus, USDOT should reward the first grants no later than nine months after the program is enacted and should strongly prioritize funding to projects that can be completed within 5 years. USDOT should also require projects receiving grant funding to adhere to the labor provisions that usually come attached to federal-aid highway funding, such as Davis-Bacon prevailing wage standards and Buy America domestic content provisions.

Land trusts

The interstates that the Highway Act supported consistently destroyed wealth in the communities they traversed and divided, particularly in communities of color. Therefore, any projects that begin to reverse this damage should rebuild that wealth. Highway update projects that remove a barrier, create new greenspace, or connect the community to commercial centers will also increase land values. To ensure that neighborhoods around the highway receive the benefits of its removal or modification, the project sponsor for any award under this program should be required to establish a land trust or land bank that would receive initial ownership of any property that becomes developable through activities supported by a grant under this program. The land trust would help locals buy the property, preserve and build affordable housing, support the opening of locally-owned small businesses, and preserve greenspace and parks.

A $5 billion investment could support 1-2 dozen land trusts for five years. The sale of property and development of land recovered should both fund the land trust beyond its first five years and help existing homeowners pay the increase in property taxes once their property values appreciate due to gentrification. The program should also protect renters, as well as homeowners who have owned affected buildings for generations but who cannot show title. It must ensure that housing affordability remains protected before, during, and after development. The USDOT should work directly with the Department of Housing and Urban Development to establish the land trust portion of this program, determine awards and manage the grants.

Policy considerations

This paper only introduces the Restoring America’s Neighborhoods Grant program and its key principles; it’s not meant to spell out every detail or present legislative text. However, policymakers and others interested in advancing this program will need to think through some additional policy considerations regarding the land trust component of the program, such as:

  • Whether to include a requirement that the land trust act with a fiduciary duty to the local community;
  • Whether to require that a grantee already have a land trust, or similar non-profit, already established and operating in the area; and
  • Whether to funnel this money through an existing program like the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program in order to get funding awarded quickly.

Forecasting tools

Transportation agencies do not yet have the necessary tools to understand the impacts of various highway project alternatives on traffic, urban development, and climate change. Today’s traffic forecasting tools are not built to consider individual trips that shift to other corridors; occur at a different time of day; involve a different mode of transportation; or disappear due to telecommuting or a shifted trip. Our proposal includes $25 million for USDOT to develop twenty-first century tools capable of accounting for these shifts in traffic in order to help plan and to preserve affordability in travel.

Study on obstructive infrastructure

Too many communities suffer the burden of infrastructure barriers without the political or economic power to oppose harmful projects and secure beneficial investments. Meanwhile, the federal government spends billions in formula and discretionary funds, often perpetuating the cycle of harm to communities. To break this cycle, and better target investments, our proposal will require USDOT to conduct a broader study, with the support of state DOTs and impacted cities, identifying the communities with infrastructure that creates barriers to mobility (such as highways that slice through a community) and measuring the degree of harm to that community. This study will culminate in the creation of a national map of communities torn apart by infrastructure, and will help prioritize resources for the communities most badly harmed by obstructive highways in the future.

Examples of successful reversals

Many cities across the country have already removed urban freeways and other infrastructure that has hindered the growth and vitality of their communities. These successes can serve as a model for a federal program.

In the 1970s, Portland became the first major city to remove an existing highway when it tore out Harbor Drive and replaced it with a public park that has served as an anchor for new development. Milwaukee tore down the Park East Freeway in the early 2000s, attracting over $880 million in private investment to the 24-acre corridor. In Greenville, South Carolina, the city replaced a four-lane highway bridge with a pedestrian bridge and public park, a project that revitalized its West End and spurred over $100 million in private investment in its first two years.

The pedestrian bridge in Greenville’s Falls Park on the Reedy that replaced a highway, spurring over $100 million in private investment in its first two years.

There are also examples of communities establishing land banks to bring economic value to low-income communities and communities of color and help underserved families stay in their homes. Launched in 2003, Denver’s Urban Land Conservancy preserves and develops permanently affordable real estate to ensure underserved communities are not displaced by rising property values. Through the conservancy and other partners, the Denver Transit-Oriented Development Fund is working to secure over 1,000 affordable housing units on transit corridors. In Minneapolis, the Twin Cities Community Land Bank has acquired at least 1,000 vacant or distressed properties since 2009, keeping these properties affordable and helping low-income families stay in their homes.

Positive impacts

The United States has an opportunity to replicate these success stories by providing cities with the proper resources and tools to tackle these projects. Through a $10 billion program, dozens of cities could plan and repurpose their disruptive highways and reclaim significant acreage for tax-paying, job-creating redevelopment.

This grant program would improve regional air quality and health outcomes in disadvantaged communities by reducing exposure to smog. It would reconnect impacted neighborhoods, create new open spaces and allow people to take shorter trips to reach daily necessities like the grocery store or community center. It would increase access to less polluting modes of travel, like walking and biking. It would reduce climate pollution in areas that research already indicates will suffer a greater burden from the impacts of climate change. Most importantly, it would be a step toward rectifying the mistakes of past federal policy and moving us forward in a brighter direction.

Endnotes

  1. Pyke, Alan, “Top infrastructure official explains how America used highways to destroy black neighborhoods.” Think Progress, 31 Mar. 2016, https://archive.thinkprogress.org/top-infrastructure-official-explains-how-america-used-highways-to-destroy-black-neighborhoods-96c1460d1962/.
  2. Kruse, Kevin M, “What does a traffic jam in Atlanta have to do with segregation? Quite a lot.” New York Times Magazine, 14 Aug. 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/14/magazine/traffic-atlanta-segregation.html.
  3. Semuels, Alana, “The role of highways in American poverty.” The Atlantic, 18 Mar. 2016, https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/03/role-of-highways-in-american-poverty/474282/.
  4. De Moura, Maria Cecilia Pinto and David Reichmuth, “Inequitable exposure to air pollution from vehicles in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic.” Union of Concerned Scientists, 21 Jun. 2019, https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/inequitable-exposure-air-pollution-vehicles.
  5. “Disparities in the impact of air pollution.” American Lung Association, 20 Apr. 2020, https://www.lung.org/clean-air/outdoors/who-is-at-risk/disparities.
  6. “Fast facts on transportation greenhouse gas emissions.” U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, accessed 4 Dec. 2020, https://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/fast-facts-transportation-greenhouse-gas-emissions.
  7. Beyond Traffic 2045, U.S. Department of Transportation, 9 Jan. 2017, page 206, https://www.transportation.gov/sites/dot.gov/files/docs/BeyondTraffic_tagged_508_final.pdf.

It’s time to fund public transportation and highways equally

With a new Congress preparing to take office—bringing hopes of an infrastructure stimulus with them—it’s time to end an outdated agreement keeping American transportation stuck in the ‘80s: restricting public transit to only 20 percent of federal transportation funding while highways get 80 percent. Sign our petition today to tell Congress to fund them equally. 

Can you imagine what we could accomplish if transit was funded as much as highways? Photo of Metroway (bus rapid transit in Northern Virginia) by BeyondDC on Flickr’s Creative Commons.

It’s critical that Congress funds public transit and highways in the next transportation authorization, ending an outdated rule that makes it near impossible for states and local governments to deliver the high-quality public transportation Americans want. Sign our petition to urge Congress to fund transit as much as highways.

Since 1982, thanks to an agreement signed by President Reagan, spending from the federal Highway Trust Fund has followed this formula: 80 percent for highways, 20 percent for public transportation (though in reality, transit gets much less). The logic behind this was that since the Trust Fund’s funding came from the gas tax drivers pay at the pump, most of the funding should be spent on highways. 

As our colleague Emily Mangan wrote this summer, this logic no longer applies because the Highway Trust Fund hasn’t been a trust fund by any definition of that term in a long time. It hasn’t been exclusively funded by the gas tax since 2008, when it ran out of money because the gas tax was no longer sufficient to cover expenditures. To stay afloat, the trust fund received huge infusions of general taxpayer dollars totaling over $144 billion—meaning that every taxpayer is funding  transportation, whether they bought a single gallon of gas or drove a mile this year or not. 

Yet we still applied this arbitrary funding split to the influx of new transportation funds in the Recovery Act of 2009, which was sourced entirely from deficit spending from the general fund and not a single dime from gas tax user fees. Yet roughly 75 percent of the Recovery Act dollars went to roads.

The consequences of not funding transit and highways equally

Even though highways receive the overwhelming majority of federal transportation funding, they fail to solve our transportation problems on their own. In fact, this huge amount of  highway funding makes our problems—congestion, carbon emissions, dangerous roadways, reduced access to jobs and services—worse. Because there’s no rule requiring that states spend highway funding on maintenance before expansion, or any performance measures requiring that states improve people’s access to jobs and services by all modes, our highway investments wind up just increasing congestion and carbon emissions while disconnecting Americans from the daily services they need.

Guaranteeing that highways receive 80 percent of federal funding also reduces states’ and local governments’ freedom to choose for themselves what they want to build and how they want to solve their own transportation challenges. According to recent polling, voters overwhelmingly believe that their communities and the country as a whole would benefit from increased transit investment. But Congress has hampered states’ and communities’ ability to deliver this for decades by putting their thumb on the scale and incentivizing highway expansion with huge amounts of funding, making it incredibly difficult to choose a transit solution to a transportation problem.

This 80/20 split also leaves the transit infrastructure that already exists out to rot. According to the American Public Transportation Association, addressing the backlog of deferred transit maintenance backlog would cost $90 billion—or just two years of highway funding.

It doesn’t have to be this way. If Congress were to end the arbitrary 80/20 split and fund transit and highways equally, we could fix our aging public transportation infrastructure and provide the frequent and reliable service necessary to connect people to jobs and services. With more transit funding, states would be incentivized to make roadway investments that accommodate transit, not compete with it, such as investments in complete streets and land-use changes that make it safe and easy to bike and walk and therefore to access transit. 

Meaningful and consistent investment in public transportation is critical to reducing our carbon emissions, improving public health, dismantling barriers to opportunity—especially those faced by people of color—and supporting our economic recovery from the COVID-19 crisis. It’s time for Congress to free states and local governments from this arbitrary 80-20 split in transportation funding and let them invest in transit.

Congressional leadership and junior members offer hope

There are numerous elected officials in Congress who understand the power of transportation policy to strengthen our economy, save lives, dismantle barriers to opportunity, and reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. From the innovative Future of Transportation Caucus, to leaders like Rep. Peter DeFazio, and to bipartisan members of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, the incoming Congress has a real shot at reforming transportation policy to work for all Americans—regardless of if they drive or not. 

The House of Representatives has a great jumping off point with the INVEST Act, a bill they passed this summer, that starts to finally connect transportation funding to the outcomes Americans want. Instead of pumping more general funds into the existing program, the bill employs performance measures and requirements to align funds with our goals: reducing our enormous backlog of roadway maintenance, decreasing congestion and carbon emissions, and making our streets safe for all road users. We strongly urge the incoming House of Representatives to pick up this bill again—and fund transit and highways equally this time. 

To kick off that effort, next month Rep. Jesús “Chuy” García (a founding co-chair of the Future of Transportation Caucus) will introduce a resolution to the House of Representatives urging members to support funding transit and highways equally in the next surface transportation authorization. A resolution like this would have been unthinkable just three years ago—a real testament to the changing attitudes towards transportation policy. 

Tell Congress: it’s time to end the 80-20 split

With federal transportation policy up for reauthorization this year and hopes for an infrastructure stimulus hitting the floors of Congress running high, now is the time for our elected leaders to solve our transportation problems and fund transit and highways equally. Sign our petition to urge Congress to end the 80/20 split and fund transit and highways equally.

SIGN THE PETITION

Dear governor, our congestion “solutions” have failed

Governors and legislators in state houses across the country have a major role to play in ending the congestion con and spending our money on projects that will actually improve our lives—rather than just temporarily shortening some commutes by 30 seconds until the congestion returns. Help us make that a reality by sending your local officials a message.

In the United States, conventional wisdom holds that the solution to traffic congestion is more and wider roads. But the conventional wisdom is wrong. Really wrong.

It’s been well documented for years that wider roads create more traffic rather than reduce it. Research showing this dates back to the 1960s and Transportation for America’s new report—The Congestion Con—shows clearly that on average congestion has more than doubled in the 100 most populous urbanized areas since 1993, despite billions spent on freeway expansions.

Unfortunately, the state officials in charge of directing how we spend transportation dollars haven’t gotten this memo and keep advocating for more roads as a solution to congestion.

It’s time to end the con. Send a message to your state legislators and governor to make sure they have this new data.

Send a message

There are dozens of prominent examples around the country that demonstrate just how futile highway widenings are, like the Katy Freeway widening in Houston, TX or the I-405 widening in Los Angeles. Both epitomize induced demand, where new lanes just entice more people to drive. More insidiously, new freeways also spur sprawl by making previously remote land more readily accessible.

Governors are sometimes the worst offenders here. Many have grand—i.e. expensive—highway plans to “solve congestion” and they appoint transportation secretaries that will make their pet projects a reality. In many cases, governors see their department of transportation (DOT) not as a holistic transportation department, but as a highway department. DOTs could just as easily be put to work eliminating our road maintenance backlog or building robust networks of biking, walking, and transit infrastructure that would reduce traffic burdens instead of digging us into a deeper congestion hole.

But governors are absolutely not the only ones to blame here: state legislatures can and do set limits for or give directives to DOTs through legislation and oversight. Legislators are often just as complicit in the congestion con, whether they know it or not.

Take action and make sure elected leaders in your state have the information they need to make informed transportation investments.

Take action

Real solutions for real relief

It’s time to break this vicious cycle. Instead of spending huge sums of public money on ineffective highway widenings, let’s instead focus on real solutions that can deliver real congestion relief.

The Congestion Con report details five policy recommendations. While many are targeted at the federal government—and would be most effective if implemented nationally—states can and should move forward with these policy changes on their own. In fact, state action almost always precedes major federal policy shifts and states should lead by example.

First, we need a new measure. Using vehicle delay as a proxy for congestion is 1) overly simplistic, 2) car-centric and ignores everyone else not in a personal vehicle, and 3) leads to an expensive focus on spot improvements instead of system-wide solutions. With new technologies that are readily available, DOTs could instead start measuring accessibility—what jobs and services can one easily reach and how. An accessibility measure is much more robust, includes all travel modes—walking, biking, transit, driving—and allows us to more accurately evaluate other important information like trip times, trip lengths, overall travel, mode split, emissions, health impacts, and household transportation expenditures. Some states like Virginia and Hawaii are already using access to prioritize projects for funding and more states should follow their lead.

Second, states should focus on road repair instead of road expansion. As we chronicled in Repair Priorities 2019, states choose to spend about as much money on repairing existing highways as they do building new ones—and the maintenance backlog continues to grow as a result. There is nothing preventing state legislators from directing their state DOT to prioritize repair with highway funding until and unless a certain (high) threshold of roads are in good condition. The federal government has given state DOTs tremendous flexibility to choose how to spend billions in annual highway funds, but in the absence of directives to spend on repair, many shirk that responsibility. The only thing preventing us from reducing our maintenance backlog is the will to act.

Third, we need safer streets for everyone. When streets are designed to prioritize high-speed cars and trucks, it robs people of the ability to walk or bike to their destination, even if it’s nearby. While Congress has a role to play here with the federal Complete Street Act, state legislatures could just as easily dictate that roads surrounded by development be designed for speeds of 35 mph or less.

Fourth, we need to address demand by pricing roads. We will never be able to build enough supply—we have to find ways to reduce travel demand at peak times. The meat of this recommendation is federal: remove restrictions on tolling federal highways and allow the proceeds to be used for other roads, transit, and walking & biking infrastructure. This national restriction on tolling is related to the current hold up on New York City’s congestion pricing plans. But if other states were to pursue congestion pricing in their metro areas as a way to raise more funding to invest in other transportation options, this would put more pressure on the Federal Highway Administration and Congress to change the law.

Finally, we need to curtail sprawl and focus on infill development. A major part of the congestion con is this negative feedback loop: new highway → new development → more traffic → wider highway → more sprawling development → more traffic ad infinitum. On this issue, states can truly lead the way. In Oregon, Virginia, Maryland, Minnesota, Nebraska, and other states around the country, legislators are considering or have passed state level bills to remove overly restrictive zoning rules that raise the cost of housing in existing communities and make it easier to build new homes that are closer to jobs, schools, and other destinations. This reduces the pressure to build new roads out to the fringe to support new homes in sprawling locations

Governors and legislators in state houses across the country have a major role to play in ending the congestion con and spending our money on projects that will actually improve our lives—rather than just temporarily shortening some commutes by 30 seconds until the congestion returns. Help us make that a reality by sending your local officials a message.

Contact your state officials

The Congestion Con: You’ve been played

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

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

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

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

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

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

Download the report

Why aren’t we reducing congestion?

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

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

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

What needs to happen: Five policy recommendations

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

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

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

Download the report

Why we’re thrilled to support the Build Local, Hire Local Act

A bike commuter wearing a suit, tie, and a helmet flashes a thumbs up to the photographer while biking on a busy road in San Francisco.

Last month, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (NY) and Representative Karen Bass (CA-37) introduced legislation that would create transportation accessibility performance measures and a grant program to reconnect communities divided by highways. 

A bike commuter wearing a suit, tie, and a helmet flashes a thumbs up to the photographer while biking on a busy road in San Francisco.

Last month, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) and Representative. Karen Bass (D-CA), chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, introduced the Build Local, Hire Local Act (S. 2404 and H.R. 4101 ), legislation that would use federal infrastructure funding as a tool to hire people who live near new infrastructure projects for high-quality jobs. 

In the process, the bill creates a new access to jobs and services performance measure, and a technical assistance program, and a construction grant program to improve transportation connections in communities divided by highways. We’ve worked closely with the Senator and Representative in developing this legislation and are thrilled to support the Build Local, Hire Local Act.

The performance measure included in the bill requires states and metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) to assess how well the entire transportation system—roads, public transit, bike lanes and sidewalks—connects people to opportunities, putting a particular emphasis on improving accessibility in low-income communities. States and MPOs must report these assessments to Congress, who will make the data publicly available online. Measuring accessibility would lead us to a transportation system that prioritizes efficient travel and a more equitable transportation system. 

These tools allow states and MPOs to better understand where people are traveling and to design transportation networks to maximize the ability of people to travel. It also allows states and MPOs to optimize their transportation networks to utilize all modes of transportation and even to understand how their investments interact with land use policies.

This connectivity and accessibility performance measure is similar to the COMMUTE Act, a bill that would create a pilot program for states and MPOs to use travel data collected by the U.S. Department of Transportation to measure and improve access to jobs and services by all modes. We’ve been advocating for this legislation for awhile, and a version of the COMMUTE Act is included in the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee’s recently passed long-term transportation policy bill. 

The Build Local, Hire Local Act’s technical assistance program and grant program take this performance measure a step further. To improve access to jobs and services by all modes, the bill will help communities—especially those bi-furcated by highways—find and build innovative projects that connect divided neighborhoods. 

This is an important step in the right direction. Too often, highway infrastructure tears apart communities, particularly disadvantaged communities, separating people from jobs, services, and connections to other neighborhoods. This not only exacerbates existing inequalities, it worsens air pollution and public health outcomes, turning neighborhoods from places where people want to be into places people want to get away from—via the highway. This bill seeks to fix that.  

“The goal of our transportation system should be to safely and efficiently connect people to jobs and services,” said our director Beth Osborne. “For too long, we have treated vehicle speed as a sufficient measure for this goal. Yet it fails to capture walking, cycling, and transit trips, and inaccurately measures vehicle trips.

“Transportation for America commends Senator Gillibrand and Representative Bass for this innovative legislation to measure and judge performance by what really matters in transportation: access by all modes of travel.”

Oregon DOT provides a wake up call for local leaders in other states

In a move that should raise alarm bells for local leaders in other states, last week the Oregon Department of Transportation decided where to spend nearly $200 million in new money from last year’s FAST Act on their road system with limited to zero public engagement.

Interstate 5 - Oregon

I-5 over the Columbia River in Oregon. Flickr photo by Doug Kerr.

The FAST Act, the five-year transportation bill passed by Congress in late 2015, provided a level of funding certainty for state transportation programs that they’ve not had in years. Thanks to a $70 billion transfer from general taxpayer funds into the Highway Trust Fund, the FAST Act also provided a slight increase in funding for each state. This followed on the heels of $75 billion in transfers total over the prior seven years, just to keep the trust fund solvent.

Yet simply funneling more money into the same system won’t necessarily ensure better outcomes for the taxpayers’ investment or that local priorities will be addressed, and Oregon’s actions could be a preview of what might happen in countless other states, deciding not to equitably distribute the new funds to state and local priorities.

Rather than improve the underlying policies that directs each state’s transportation investments, Congress chose to largely direct the FAST Act’s increased funding into new freight programs, the largest of which is being distributed to states by a formula wholly unrelated to freight needs or merit. (This was one of the provisions we called out in our post covering ten things to know about the FAST Act. –Ed.)

This new National Highway Freight Program will dole out more than $1 billion per year to state DOTs with zero relation to the value or tonnage of the freight moved within its borders. It also predetermines that the solution to any freight problem is highway-related by directing all but 10 percent of each state’s funding to highway development only, disregarding the fact that these funds were not collected from gas taxes.

In addition, the increase in funds in the main highway programs are also directed largely to state DOT owned roads (interstates and highways). Thus, local governments must be prepared to ensure their priorities are addressed and the states share in their newfound resources, however large those may be. 

Case in point: Oregon.

As Bike Portland originally reported back on 3/17, The Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT), with the approval of its Transportation Commission, programmed $196 million in new funding from the FAST Act on Thursday, March 17. While ODOT is correct that the majority of its new funding is from the highway freight formula program, the agency has misinformed (pdf) their audience by stating the funds must be allocated to “freight-related projects on high-volume, high-priority truck freight routes, primarily the Interstate.”

Congress provides ODOT, and every other state, great flexibility to direct federal highway dollars to priority projects — state or local, highway or non-highway. Every state has the flexibility to transfer 50 percent of its funding for a highway program to a separate highway program such as the highly flexible and locally accessible Surface Transportation Program, which can be used on almost any type of important project.

While nearly 40 percent of the additional $200 million in Oregon will support fix-it-first projects – a priority that Transportation for America supports —95 percent of the new funding will likely go to state-owned highways and almost nothing is done to improve transparency and accountability for the public. To wit: the list of project types receiving funds does not provide a discussion or rationale for which projects will receive the new funding or why any particular project category received funding.

The murky process of picking projects in a way that is nearly impossible for the public to decipher will continue.

ODOT will not begin spending the nearly $200 million in newly programmed funds until 2018, which provides Oregon’s local leaders two years to build their case to receive a greater portion of the new funding from the FAST Act for their priorities.

But today and tomorrow, Oregon’s example illustrates why local leaders in other states need to proactively engage their state representatives and DOT to ensure their state’s new funding from the FAST Act is shared and supports both local and state priorities.

Click here to review the amount of highway funding directed to your state DOT from the FAST Act

Alabama DOT out-of-step with metro business leaders on economic development

A coalition of business and local leaders in Birmingham, AL are pushing back against the state’s plans to widen an interstate through downtown, advocating instead for a more up-to-date approach to economic development for the revitalizing downtown core.

A story earlier this week caught our eye and iIllustrates how state departments of transportation can often be out-of-touch with the diverse transportation needs of local communities and cities. From the Over the Mountain Journal:

Downtown Birmingham has many prominent features and landmarks. The recently renovated Lyric Fine Arts Theatre, the Birmingham Museum of Art and the McWane Science Center are just a few attractions drawing people in. But there is one feature many area business leaders find worrisome: the Interstate 20/59 corridor cutting through downtown. The Alabama Department of Transportation is moving forward with plans to reconfigure and widen the interstate. Civic leaders believe the plan will have long-term, detrimental effects on the city.

birmingham google maps

Interstate 59 and Interstate 20 merge together on the east side of downtown Birmingham and, similar to post-war road designs in scores of other U.S. cities, cut a path through the heart of downtown Birmingham, with part of that route in the form of a 1.3-mile elevated viaduct.

Just like many of those other cities, Birmingham has also experienced a rebirth of downtown in the last decade, with $728 million “in 32 downtown projects under construction or recently completed,” according to Business Alabama. More residents are now moving in than moving out (changing a decades-long trend), and thousands of new housing units have been added. A quarter of the region’s jobs are located downtown, public investments have spurred millions in private investments, and the city enjoys the presence of a growing state university campus (U. of Alabama at Birmingham) just south of downtown.

birmingham 20:59 viaduct

Yet, many city leaders and residents have pointed to the aging viaduct as a barrier to the potential economic growth percolating downtown. After ALDOT’s repair plan for the aging viaduct morphed into a much larger plan to replace and widen it, the City of Birmingham commissioned the firm that helped produce their 2013 comprehensive plan to produce an alternative study. “Participants during the comprehensive planning project identified the I-20/59 viaduct as a barrier to full revitalization of downtown and adjacent Northside neighborhoods,” it read.

The coalition of local business and civic leaders speaking out against the project — including the former head of the state’s third largest private company — believe that not only should Birmingham have more of a say in their own future, but that a better plan created in collaboration with city leaders could do a better job of boosting the city’s economic competitiveness, which is also in the state’s interest. The Over the Mountain Journal piece continues:

F. Dixon Brooke Jr., former president and CEO of EBSCO, and nearly a dozen other business and community leaders are asking ALDOT to look at alternatives. Brooke said the current layout of the interstate has hurt Birmingham’s revitalization. “It has proven to be dividing the city for years. It has limited quality of life and the ability to revitalize,” Brooke said.

Those leaders are hopeful, and they crave a more transparent process that incorporates goals other than moving cars through the city.

“I need ALDOT to exhibit genuine interest in collaborating and consider alternatives. They feel they’ve looked at all options because they think this is the best one, but I’m not convinced. We want an open, honest collaborative view.” He said he isn’t looking for a fight, he is just asking for transparency. “At the end of the day we may look at everything and see there just isn’t a better way to do it,” Brooke said.

While their complaints so far have been tabled by the Alabama DOT, it will be an interesting case to watch.

It’s yet one more sign of a growing coalition of local business, elected, and civic leaders in similar midsize cities across the country pushing for a smarter approach to transportation investment and a break from the past conventional wisdom.

Senator Cardin introduces bill to prioritize repair of bridges and roads

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Transportation numbers emerge on the stimulus

UPDATE (2:00 p.m., 02/12/09): Talking Points Memo has acquired a summary of the new bill, which includes a comparison of each spending item to the House and Senate legislation. It looks like the final number for highways is $27.5 billion. The bill to come out of conference also includes $1.3 billion for Amtrak.

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We now have what appear to be the final numbers for transportation infrastructure in the stimulus. While the totals for transit and highway spending were both in the same ballpark as what they were in the original House and Senate bills, the sum for high-speed has drastically increased from the numbers in the first two versions. Here’s a rundown:

  • $27.5 billion for highways and bridges
  • $8.4 billion for transit
  • $8 billion for high-speed rail
  • $1.3 billion for Amtrak

Although it’s too early to know exactly how things played out behind the scenes, the Associated Press reports that President Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid helped push up the funding for high-speed rail.