infrastructure principles Archives - Transportation For America

The House bill needs some changes to make repair the number one priority

UPDATE, June 17: A bipartisan amendment to fix the issues we detailed below was accepted by unanimous consent in the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. Thank you Chair Rep. Peter DeFazio, Rep. Jesús G. “Chuy” García, and Rep. Mike Gallagher for your tremendous support and leadership. View our amendment tracker for the INVEST act here, get real-time updates by following @t4america on Twitter, and take action by sending a message to your representative if they sit on this House committee.

The House’s new INVEST Act made a strong effort to prioritize maintenance, but there are still loopholes that can allow states and metro areas to avoid the legislative intent of a real, concrete focus on repair first. Here’s a run down on our concerns with the repair provision and how it could be strengthened in next week’s markup in the House transportation committee.

Flickr photo of bridge resurfacing by WSDOT. https://www.flickr.com/photos/wsdot/49921039787

We’ve spent 60-plus years building an unparalleled highway system with hundreds of thousands of bridges, in addition to scores of metropolitan transit networks and a network of other streets. But we have failed to steward our assets well. For no good reason at all, we’re still spending money like it’s 1956, expending money we don’t have to build roads we can’t afford to maintain which fail to bring the promised economic returns—all while neglecting repair needs. Liberals have supported and aggressively funded the status quo, ignoring the transportation program’s impact on climate, public health, and access to opportunity. Conservatives have joined them, failing to take a stand for bedrock values of good stewardship of federal dollars and keeping federal spending low. We must make repair and maintenance the core, number one priority of the federal transportation program. We cannot afford to keep expanding our system without any plan for maintaining it.

When we first read through the INVEST Act last week we were excited to see that the committee clearly made a good faith effort to prioritize maintenance and after a cursory look we were inclined to give it a passing grade on our first principle of prioritizing repair. But the deeper we looked into the language, the more we saw the loopholes.

It is indeed a major change that the committee proposes dedicating 20 percent of the two biggest sources of state DOT funds toward repair. In addition, states have to fulfill some new conditions to add new capacity with the largest highway program. Both are good steps and we applaud them. However, the INVEST Act’s fix-it-first language still needs to be strengthened to ensure a true focus on prioritizing repairing what we have before building new things that come with expensive, long-term repair costs. There were three misses in the House’s approach, but all can be fixed if the House is truly committed to ensuring that we preserve and maintain our existing transportation network.

1) Too many definitions are either missing, or too vaguely defined

Because the committee left a lot of the vital details to the USDOT Secretary to determine via regulatory language, the final verdict on repair won’t be decided in the legislation (as it should). As an example, for states to add new capacity with core highway funds, they have to fulfill three conditions: They have to demonstrate that they are making progress on repair, they have to consider operational improvements and transit and show that expanding roadway capacity is more cost-effective than either, and they have to demonstrate that the expansion project would meet another performance target, like congestion reduction.

Those three terms in italics will be left up to the USDOT rulemaking process, and can already have a long history of being manipulated to add new capacity. It would help to put more explicit parameters on what defines “progress on repair.” Does it mean meeting the state or MPO’s own repair targets, which could be unambitious? And when it comes to measuring cost-effectiveness and benefit cost analysis, the way these have been applied to transportation projects in the past have overstated the benefits of highway capacity expansions and undervalued or failed to value climate, equity and public health benefits.

2) To truly prioritize repair, states should prove they can maintain the new things they build

Even if states fulfill these conditions above to add new capacity, there’s no language requiring the project sponsor to prove they can maintain the asset they are building. This is a big miss, and this is one of the primary reasons we’re all in this mess in the first place.

Even if states make valuable and measurable progress on state of good repair, it would be negligent to allow them to build new things without requiring that they consider and plan for how they will take care of them. You don’t buy a house when you manage to secure some of the upfront costs (a downpayment), you also have to prove to the bank that you have a plan for paying that monthly mortgage for the next 15 or 30 years. We already require transit capital project sponsors to provide a plan for long-term maintenance when they apply for federal funding. It’s time to start requiring this degree of stewardship and responsibility to a highway program that has been sorely lacking it. Simply adding this as a core requirement to the conditions for expansion via an amendment could bring about this powerful change.

3) All the tools the states have to fulfill this repair focus were designed to justify new highways

The biggest challenge here is that the House is counting on an entrenched culture that was organized around the building and expanding a national highway system to accomplish something entirely new. The tools that transportation agencies have at their disposal—the ones the House is asking them to use to fulfill this new focus on repair—were developed specifically to justify new highways. Without other changes, they will continue to do so.

The transportation demand models assume the same amount of driving in a neighborhood built only for cars as they do for a neighborhood built for walking. These models do not foresee that making space on a highway might invite more driving in the space cleared up. They often predict, strangely, that narrowing a lane in the city from 12 to 10 feet somehow means that the road can accommodate fewer 6-7 feet wide vehicles. These tools are old, flawed and often wrong. Comparing costs and benefits is a great idea, but we need to make clear that the benefits should be calculated in a way that is reasonably likely to be correct. And that can be done by simply asking the agencies to look back and report on how often their projections actually turn out to be right when making a justification for a massive new investment with taxpayer dollars.

We are hopeful that we’ll be able to report news of a specific amendment to make many of these fixes when the committee considers the bill, so stay tuned. We will need your support!

Wrapping up

If infrastructure is as bipartisan as everyone always claims then commonsense should prevail on this point. Republicans should care deeply about conserving taxpayer funds. Democrats should care about climate and equity impacts. Both should seek to maintain faith and public trust in the program. Strengthening these repair provisions should be an easy, bipartisan win and we urge Chairman DeFazio and House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee members to make it happen.

Rep. Bill Shuster’s infrastructure proposal scores 50 percent

On Monday, July 23, the Chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, Bill Shuster, released his proposal to reform transportation investment. While there are some novel ideas in the proposal, it ultimately scores a 50 percent based on our four guiding principles for infrastructure investment.

Local governments and millions of Americans are counting on the federal government to be a partner in rebuilding our transportation infrastructure. In November 2017, Transportation for America released a set of four simple principles to inform and evaluate any potential plans for federal infrastructure investment. The Chairman’s proposal is a serious one, and should be commended for being the first proposal with real funding in more than a decade, advancing the national conversation about our infrastructure. However, on the policy, it fails to meet our four principles.

How the proposal measures up to our principles

Provide real funding
We need real federal funding, not just new ways to borrow money or sell off public assets to support transportation investments.

The Chairman’s proposal addresses our infrastructure funding deficit through new short term revenue sources and a Highway Trust Fund Commission. While the proposal ultimately eliminates the gas tax, the proposed short-term fixes would include new/steeper taxes on bikes and transit (which we have concerns about). The gas tax would be replaced by a new revenue source (such as a mileage-based fee/road user charge) identified by the Commission. While we believe this proposal generally holds the promise of providing real funding. and we look forward to working together to advance this shared goal.

Fix the existing system first
We must immediately fix the system we have and fund needed repairs to aging infrastructure.

The Chairman’s proposal does not prioritize maintenance over other investment. The proposal creates a vehicle miles traveled tax pilot with a goal to “steadily reduce the state of good repair backlog in surface transportation.” This is a commendable goal, however it cannot be achieved by a funding source. Addressing the state of good repair backlog requires policy makers to set this as a priority and to dedicate available funding for this purpose. This proposal, like the current program, fails to do that.

Build smart new projects
Our current approach, largely driven by formula funding, is necessary to ensure baseline investments, but funding that flows automatically for specified purposes does not encourage innovation or flexible action.

The Chairman’s proposal holds the promise of meeting this principle. Through three proposed programs—national infrastructure investments grants, incentive grants, and projects of national significance—the proposal increases the amount of funding distributed through competition. Competition is an effective way to identify the projects that bring the greatest benefits for the investment.

Measure success
Infrastructure investments are a means to foster economic development and improve access to jobs and opportunity for all Americans.

Unfortunately, the Chairman’s proposal fails to ensure that communities measure the success of their investments or connects what they measure to their investment decisions. Congress started a performance measures framework in MAP-21; however, those measures miss major community priorities (like improving access to work) and fail to connect results to funding and thus lack real accountability.

Our four principles cannot be considered independently of each other. Well crafted programs that are underfunded miss the mark. More money spent ineffectively is certainly not the point. Bringing our infrastructure up to a state of good repair requires both real funding and refocusing the program on maintenance (as opposed to expanding out the highway system).

While Chairman Shuster is the first to propose real funding in quite some time and we thank him for providing real leadership, we can not just spend our way to our goals without other reforms. The proposal therefore scores only a 50 percent, far from a passing grade in the classroom or for something as long-lasting as infrastructure.

We appreciate the chairman’s thoughtfulness and determination and we look forward to working together to ensure that future proposals ultimately spend taxpayer money wisely.

Eight questions to ask about infrastructure during tonight’s State of the Union

President Trump has been telling us that infrastructure is a top priority since his campaign. Tonight, in his State of the Union address, all signs point toward the president providing a preview of his infrastructure plan followed shortly by a public release. If enacted, this plan could reshape our communities. As we listen tonight, how should we evaluate what we hear from the president on infrastructure?

Update: Few details were shared during the president’s State of the Union speech (here’s the full text on infrastructure.) But until we hear answers, these eight key questions are just as relevant and remain in the front of our minds as we await a more detailed version of the president’s infrastructure plan. -Ed.

As we watch the president’s speech tonight, here are eight key questions, derived in part from our own set of four simple guiding principles for infrastructure investment, to help analyze what we hear tonight when it comes to transportation funding and policy.

1) Does this plan actually propose real funding? Or will they gut transit and Amtrak to pay for it? 11 minutes after promising the U.S. Conference of Mayors last week that the president’s plan would not cut existing funding to pay the tab for their proposal, White House advisor DJ Gribbin reversed himself and said the administration is in fact planning to eliminate funding for Amtrak, new transit construction, and passenger rail to pay for part of it. To be clear, neither cutting funding that cities and states rely on nor simply shifting existing money around within federal transportation programs represent real new funding.

Clarified to say, that the funding for the package “WILL be a repurposing of existing transportation program funding, like @Amtrak and transit.” #funding #infrastructure #budgetcuts @usmayors

— Sabrina Sussman (@SSussman) January 25, 2018

2) Other than slashing its funding, did you hear anything else about transit? In a dramatic shift, young people, empty nesters, and major corporations are voting with their feet and choosing to live and work in locations with access to transit. Is this administration serious about supporting the cities of all sizes that are investing their own dollars in transit to move people and connect them to opportunity? Amazon’s clear preference for a robust transit network in any potential host city for their second headquarters was a wake-up call for cities small and large, and like these state lawmakers in Indiana once opposed to transit, others have awoken to the reality that it’s a vital part of any metro area with a strong economy that’s competitive for talent. Whatever the president proposes for transit tonight, remember that this administration’s 2018 budget already proposed eliminating all funding to build or expand transit.

3) Will this plan shift the cost burden to states and localities? The federal government hasn’t raised the gas tax since 1994, so states and localities have been taking the hard votes to make up at least some of that difference between mounting needs and a stagnating federal gas tax. Whether the 31 states that have raised new transportation revenues since 2012 or the $2 billion in new local revenues for transportation raised in November 2016 alone at the ballot box, locals are already bearing the burden. Will this infrastructure plan meet them in the middle as a partner, or just further undermine local efforts to reinvest? And while some cities can go to the ballot or easily raise new revenues, many cities and smaller areas may not have the capacity to raise their own new transportation revenues to fill the gap.

4) Did you hear any recognition of the difference between financing and funding? We don’t lack financing for infrastructure projects, we lack the cold hard cash required to pay for them. Our highways and transit systems were built with real money, not financing gimmicks. Public-private partnerships and other financing tools can help, but they don’t replace real funding. The White House has consistently talked about unleashing private financing in infrastructure, but private financiers don’t invest in infrastructure as a charity, they expect to make money. If they’re financing a project with money up front, it’s because they expect to make more of it in the long-term through repayments of some kind, such as regular bond payments or a dedicated funding stream like toll revenues. We don’t lack for financing opportunities, we lack the money to pay that financing back. Incentivizing more private financing won’t fix that.

5) Where do rural areas, towns, and cities fit into this plan? The status quo prioritizes state DOTs over local governments. While larger metro areas receive some funds directly, cities themselves have no direct control of those federal transportation dollars. And though metropolitan areas drive our economy, will this plan recognize that fact by giving them greater access to federal transportation dollars? There are rumors that the plan could require 25 percent of the proposed funding be set aside for rural areas, which includes a lot of smaller cities. But even with such a requirement, that money would be directly controlled by the governor or their state DOT—not local communities. Will money for rural communities be spent on them, or by them? There’s a big difference between money being spent in their area according to someone else’s priorities, and controlling that money themselves.

6) Did you hear any focus on boring ol’ repair and maintenance? Any proposal that doesn’t prioritize repairing our existing infrastructure is not a proposal worth taking seriously. It makes little sense to build costly new infrastructure (which is equally expensive to maintain) without any accountability for maintaining what we’ve got. If the rhetoric is accurate and our infrastructure truly is “crumbling,” then simply building something new and shiny doesn’t solve the underlying problem. If your house has a leaky roof, are you going to take out a loan for an expensive new addition, or are you going to fix your roof first?

7) Will the plan prioritize building the smartest new projects, or just more of the same? If this plan produces any new money to invest in infrastructure, it should be awarded by the merits on a competitive basis to only the best projects. We know both that competition helps the best projects rise to the top, and that spending new money through outdated formulas will just lead to the same old projects. Will the president model his plan on successful competitive programs like TIGER, or will he just pour more money into the status quo and go ahead with his budgetary plan to eliminate TIGER?

8) Did you hear a call for accountability and measuring what we get for our billions in spending? Or just the same tired infrastructure rhetoric. Why spend more money on infrastructure if we don’t know that we’re going to be better off afterward? Why spend more if we don’t know that we’re going to create lasting prosperity or build a resilient framework for creating and capturing value? Spending more money on infrastructure without measuring success and considering the value of our investments is not only short-sighted, but wasteful and irresponsible. We need a transparent system of measuring performance and holding states and metro areas accountable for hitting those targets.

Our four principles place a new emphasis on measuring progress and success, rather than just focusing on how much it all costs. We want real funding for infrastructure, not just ways to borrow money or sell off public assets as a means to pay for projects. We want a real commitment to prioritize fixing our aging infrastructure before building expensive new liabilities. We want new projects to be selected competitively with more local control, spurred by innovation and creativity. And yes, we want to ensure greater accountability so taxpayers understand the benefits they are actually receiving for their billions of dollars.

So as you listen tonight (and when a specific plan is released), keep these eight simple questions in mind and ask yourself: did you hear the answers to these questions?

One thing is certain: this has definitely been the longest “infrastructure week” of all time. And it’s apparently not over yet.

The rapidly disappearing infrastructure promises of 2017

The House-approved tax reform legislation is the most recent evidence that neither the administration nor Congress seems to be very serious about supporting and encouraging infrastructure investment.

On the campaign trail, in his inaugural address and in numerous press conferences and events throughout 2017, President Trump and members of his administration have been promising a much-needed investment in infrastructure. “Crumbling infrastructure will be replaced with new roads, bridges, tunnels, airports, and railways gleaming across our very, very beautiful land,” the President recently said in a statement. After nearly a year of waiting for an infrastructure plan that was always just right around the corner, as we were frequently told, the Trump administration has only managed to release a few broad principles. Numerous congressional leaders have joined the chorus, yet nothing has been accomplished.

In the total absence of a specific infrastructure plan from the administration, we can only look for clues. The most obvious is the President’s budget proposal for 2018 — the priorities of which stand in stark contrast to his stated commitment to rebuilding the nation’s infrastructure, luring more private sector involvement into infrastructure planning and spending, or the early promises to make a $1 trillion investment in infrastructure.

Under the president’s budget for next year:

Overall infrastructure spending would go down. The President’s budget proposal for next year recommends funding the highway and transit formula programs at levels prescribed by the 2015 FAST Act, but capping the Highway Trust Fund in 2019 and 2020 at FY2018 levels, effectively cutting about $2.4 billion in transportation funding already authorized by Congress.

Funding for new transit construction would be slashed…and eventually eliminated. The President’s budget reduces and eventually eliminates another $2.4 billion in annual funding that helps states and cities of all sizes build or expand public transportation systems. Some of these projects already have signed funding agreements from the federal government, matched by local and state dollars committed by voters at ballot boxes.

The only funding that communities can currently tap directly would disappear. The budget also eliminates the $500 million competitive TIGER (Transportation Investments Generating Economic Recovery) program — the only multimodal transportation investment program directly available to local governments. At a time when we should be awarding more dollars to the best possible projects, this budget dumps one of the only programs intended to do so.

Promises have already been scaled back, and are shrinking as we speak. The President’s budget suggests that his infrastructure initiative will have $200 billion in direct federal spending over ten years, far less than the $1 trillion program previously promised by the administration. And after nearly a year, the administration has only offered vague principles for such a package.

The administration has suggested that the massive gap between their original $1 trillion figure and the $200 billion, ten-year plan be filled by increasing and encouraging more private investment in our infrastructure. Yet the House Tax Cuts and Jobs Act — the House’s tax reform proposal, which passed last week with the President’s thumbs up —eliminated private activity bonds, a specific financing mechanism that encourages greater private investment in infrastructure.

Private activity bonds are tax-exempt bonds that fund infrastructure projects with a “private” use of at least 10 percent, and they’ve been used on a wide range of infrastructure projects around the country, including roads, highways, housing, hospitals and airports. Most notably, these bonds have also been instrumental in several public-private partnerships (P3s), including the Purple Line light rail project in Maryland and the Rapid Bridge Replacement Project in Pennsylvania. Encouraging more P3s has been one of the core pillars of the administration’s approach to supporting infrastructure investment.

But to save just $39 billion over ten years, the House did away with these tax-exempt bonds, hindering the ability of state and local governments and private entities to obtain financing and build more complicated infrastructure projects like toll roads and transit and rail stations. This is after the administration’s 2018 budget proposal — harmful in so many other ways — proposed expanding the number of infrastructure projects that could tap private activity bonds as one of their few infrastructure investment proposals. The administration even stated that they “support the expansion of PAB eligibility.”

As we wait for a substantial infrastructure plan from the administration, which will almost certainly not be released until 2018, if at all, last week Transportation for America released its own set of guiding principles to help inform or evaluate any standalone infrastructure bill.

As Congress works on a tax plan and a 2018 budget, let’s keep infrastructure funding in the forefront and stop advancing short-sighted plans that undermine or circumvent our ability to connect communities, create jobs and secure our economic future.

Download the full one page principles document here.

Transportation for America’s guiding principles for an infrastructure plan

As we continue to await either broad principles or specifics of the Trump’s administration much-anticipated infrastructure plan, T4America has released these four simple guiding principles to inform and evaluate any such future plan.

It’s past time to elevate the national conversation about infrastructure beyond just the breadth and cost of it. We need an examination of exactly which projects we are investing in and why. Whether the $50 billion we currently spend each year or the $1 trillion originally suggested by the administration, we need to do more than just pour money into the same old system for planning and building transportation projects.

America’s current federal transportation program does not bring us the returns we deserve for the sums we invest. There’s far too little accountability for accomplishing anything measurable and tangible with the billions we spend.

We urgently need a new way of doing business.

To get us there and truly realize the benefits of robust federal transportation infrastructure investments, we need a renewed focus on fixing our existing system first and foremost, on investing new dollars in only the smartest projects, and on creating new mechanisms to measure what we get in return for our money.

In lieu of any substantive details offered by the administration, Transportation for America offers its own set of guiding principles to help inform or evaluate any standalone infrastructure bill, aimed at influencing the national dialogue and encouraging members of Congress and White House officials to talk plainly and honestly about a smart approach to infrastructure planning and funding. They are:

1 – Provide real funding

We need real federal funding, not just new ways to borrow money or sell off existing assets, to rebuild our transportation systems. Historically, economic development and opportunity have depended on federal investments in transportation that connect communities and allow businesses to bring goods to market. Direct federal investment funded the construction of our highways, bridges, and transit systems, creating economic opportunities. Today, deteriorating transportation infrastructure—the result of years of reduced federal investment—is a roadblock to continued economic growth. Real funding, invested according to the principles outlined here, will rebuild the nation’s transportation infrastructure and restore economic opportunity.

2 – Fix the existing system first

We must immediately fix the transportation system we have and fund needed repairs to aging infrastructure. If we have a house with a leaky roof, it’s only prudent to fix the roof before building a new addition. Our transportation systems are no different.

Congress should dedicate federal transportation formula dollars to maintenance to make sure the system is returned to a state of good repair, is resilient, and works for all users; before funding new projects that bring years of additional maintenance costs. The application of federal performance measures to both the state and metro area programs would help prioritize needs and ensure that the greatest of them are addressed first.

3 – Build smart new projects

At a time when transportation resources are scarce, it is critical that funds go only to the best new projects. Competition, local control, and objective evaluation can ensure that federal funds flow to the projects that deliver the greatest benefit to communities. When communities are given the opportunity to compete for federal funds, they work harder to put forward projects that maximize return on investment, provide creative solutions, and involve a diverse range of stakeholders. Congress should direct new federal transportation dollars through competitive processes, such as the TIGER and transit Capital Investment Grant programs, which are accessible directly to city, county, regional, and state governments. Merely adding new funding into existing and outdated formula funding programs will not deliver the transformative projects that deliver long-term economic growth.

4 – Measure success

Investments in transportation are not an end in and of themselves. They are a means to foster economic development and improve all Americans’ access to jobs and opportunity. Agencies should be held accountable by evaluating how well their investments help achieve their regions’ goals. Newly available data and tools allow agencies to measure—better than ever before—how well transportation networks connect people to jobs and other necessities. The federal government should harness these tools so that state departments of transportation and metropolitan planning organizations can ensure that federally funded investments are effectively connecting people to economic opportunity.

Download these principles as a sharable one-page PDF here or by clicking below: