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How to engage with new elected leaders

New state and federal leaders will take office in January. Where they stand on transportation will have a significant impact on the future of mobility in America. Here’s how you can engage with your new elected officials to help improve our transportation system in coming years.

The federal government hands states hundreds of millions of dollars on an annual basis, with few strings attached. Governors, state legislators, and local leaders have a great deal of money to deliver the projects, services, and results that voters demand.

Yet the goals of state transportation programs are often misaligned with voter priorities. For example, a recent report from the National Cooperative Highway Research Program showed that by one measure, states use less than four percent of flexible federal dollars on transit, even though they could spend much more. Learn more on TransitCenter’s blog.

Too often, state leaders focus spending on only one result: eliminating congestion. This approach overlooks voter concerns like equity, maintenance, safety, and climate emissions—and by the time decision makers get around to addressing those issues, they’ve spent a great deal of money and time on roadway expansions. (And these expensive new lanes often fill with more traffic, thanks to a process called “induced demand.” We wrote about this costly cycle in our report The Congestion Con.)

We don’t have to settle for more of the same. With new leaders headed into office, advocates have an opportunity to change this old pattern and help create a better transportation system for their community.

New governors can steer the transportation system in the right direction by providing clear instructions on the goals of the state transportation program so that the transportation department can start making progress on those priorities. In addition, governors can choose strong leadership in their own office, the state DOT, and in some cases, the transportation commission that oversees the DOT. The governor should choose leaders that understand the transportation program and are motivated to make needed changes.

Though often overlooked, local leaders, like mayors, might be the most crucial stakeholders in transportation decision-making. When pushes for smart transportation in communities succeed, it’s often due to support from local leaders who lobby for the project on the state and federal level and bring other elected officials to the table.

Finally, the federal government still has an important role to play. The authorized funding levels set in the infrastructure law aren’t guaranteed, and we’ve already seen federal policymakers underfund transit and defund certain active transportation programs. The Biden administration also makes the final calls on competitive grant funding, determining which projects will benefit from key funding programs like the Reconnecting Communities Program. By making these decisions, the administration can help ensure federal dollars are advancing the President’s goals, including enhancing equity in the transportation system.

With critical decisions happening at all three levels of government, engaging with new leaders can feel like a daunting task. These three pieces of advice can help you maximize your influence to achieve connected, healthy, equitable communities.

Check in early and often

As their constituent, you have unique power to educate elected officials on the challenges and opportunities that impact the transportation space. State and local leaders will ultimately determine how much funding will go to projects and programs near you, including safety improvements, transit, and highway expansions. Engage with them early to develop an understanding of how and when transportation funding will be used and let them know what your priorities are. Take part in public comment and review periods to encourage them to make the right calls on key policy, investment, and implementation actions.

There are many ways you can reach out to your elected leaders, including joining sign-on letters, engaging with their social media, writing them a letter, calling them up, and even visiting their offices. If they start to move the needle in the right direction, don’t forget to praise them.

Invite your state leaders to join the State Legislator Champions Institute so that they can become effective Complete Streets advocates. Learn more about the Institute here and join an information session on December 6 at 3 p.m. ET.

Find the linchpins

Government decision making happens in phases. Elected officials set their priorities, identify issues and approaches to addressing them, create a plan (including time, resources, and budget parameters), and seek input on their budget, policy, or implementation decisions. Once these steps of the process are complete, they’ll evaluate their progress on their priorities and begin the process again.

When having conversations with elected leaders, seek out information about where they’re at in the process and tailor your asks to the present moment. Find out when public hearings are scheduled and attend them. Get in touch with your local advocacy organizations and follow their lead. Finally, don’t be afraid to point out if important details were missed at an earlier stage of the process (as activist Michael Moritz did in Texas).

T4A members receive regular updates on opportunities for advocacy on the Hill. Learn more about T4A membership here.

Look for common ground

Our transportation needs are frequently touted as bipartisan concerns, and for good reason. The success of our transportation system has a direct impact on every constituent, influencing economic vitality, public health, climate emissions, and everyone’s ability to access the goods and services they need.

Often, elected officials enter office without a clear understanding of how the transportation system can help them reach their goals. By making these connections clear, you can create strong allies, even with leaders who initially disagree with you.

Transportation for America Chair John Robert Smith had just that experience when he brought passenger rail to Meridian, MS—he found that Republican politicians, opposed to passenger rail, were willing to support his project once he explained its economic benefits. To further build support, he humanized the issue by bringing decision makers face to face with constituents to explain how passenger rail impacts them.

The bottom line

It’s not uncommon for federal, state, and local elected leaders to lack a strong understanding of our infrastructure needs. But decision makers at all levels need to know that the transportation program can help them deliver on key issues for their constituents, regardless of their political affiliation. By engaging with your new leaders, you can help them make progress on climate, safety, equity, access, and repair goals.

Mayors tell the Senate that transit, biking, and walking are climate change solutions

Testimonies from mayors at a recent Senate hearing showed that cities understand that reducing driving and expanding other transportation options is key to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and boosting local economies at the same time.

Walking in Southeast Portland. Photo by James Carnes.

Last week, the Senate Democrats’ Special Committee on the Climate Crisis held their first hearing, which focused on what cities across the country are doing to combat and adapt to climate change. In their testimonies, mayors from Atlanta, Honolulu, St. Paul, Pittsburgh, and Portland, OR highlighted the need to reduce emissions from transportation and maintain and expand their existing transit systems.

Transportation is the single largest source of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, contributing 29 percent of the United States’ total GHG emissions. While states and cities are setting ambitious climate goals to reduce their emissions and to even achieve net-zero emissions, many are finding that they will not be able to achieve those goals without reducing emissions from the transportation sector. The best way to do that isn’t just switching to electric vehicles, but by also reducing how much people drive, or vehicle miles traveled (VMT).

During the hearing, it was clear that cities recognize the need to prioritize biking, walking, and transit as a way to both reduce emissions and boost their economies. Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler hit on the connection between climate change and transportation, testifying that “switching to riding public transportation is one of the most effective actions individuals can take to reduce their carbon footprint. In the Portland region, there is 60 percent less carbon emitted for each mile taken on public transit, compared to driving alone.”

Honolulu came to a similar conclusion, with Mayor Kirk Caldwell stating that in order to meet their GHG reduction goals, they need to shift the transportation system towards “more biking, walking, mass transit, renewable fueled vehicles, and other new mobility options.” A recent report from Smart Growth America and Rhodium Group found the same thing. In order for Hawaii to meet its ambitious climate goal of 100 percent clean energy by 2045, it will need to improve transit and land use to encourage walking and biking.

But the mayors weren’t just talk: they highlighted actions their cities are taking to improve biking, walking, and transit. St. Paul is working on “improving pedestrian and bike infrastructure to make it safer and easier to get around” and that Honolulu is “investing significant political and financial capital into transformational projects with high short-term costs and long-term gains, (e.g., rail, Complete Streets, bike lanes, electric buses).” Mayor Wheeler of Portland spoke extensively on the city’s push to “make walking, biking, and using public transit safer and more attractive to maximize the use of our limited road space and help the entire road system work more efficiently.”

What should the federal government’s role be?

This hearing was meant to showcase what cities are doing to become more resilient, but it also offered a chance for cities to tell the federal government what they need in order to achieve ambitious climate goals. As expected, much of it came down to funding.

Mayor Wheeler emphasized the need for a reliable federal partner in funding multi-modal transportation networks, stating that his city “continues to suffer from a severe shortage of transportation funding, even as local voters and state governments have recently increased transportation funding.” He encouraged the continued funding of the FTA’s Capital Investment Grant Program (CIG) and the BUILD program. As we saw during an oversight hearing this week on the FTA’s administration of the CIG program, there is a growing demand for federal funding of transit projects in a timely and transparent manner.

Atlanta also needs additional funding to build out their transit system. Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms testified, “Atlanta taxpayers have also voted with their pocketbooks to build out sidewalks and last-mile connectivity to our transit system” in a recent election. The city is now moving forward with a $2.7 billion expansion of their transit system that will give people more transportation options and increase access to 350,000 jobs. Mayor Melvin Carter of St. Paul asked for the federal government to “help us build for the 21st century, with major investments in pedestrian, bicycle, and transit infrastructure.”

Taxpayers in these cities and others across the country are willing to pay more for better transportation. Unfortunately, the federal government spends the vast majority of its resources on expanding highways—exacerbating the climate crisis—while transit funding gets much less funding and there are many more hoops communities must jump through to access it.

To wrest some of the funding away from building more highways and provide cities and towns with more flexibility in their spending, Mayor Caldwell explicitly encouraged the senators to support the Complete Streets Act of 2019, which was recently introduced by Senator Ed Markey (D-MA) and Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN). The legislation would require states to set aside money for Complete Streets projects, create a statewide program to award the money (and provide technical support), and adopt design standards that support safer, complete streets.

Cities get it

Cities understand that improving transportation infrastructure can have a wide range of benefits. Creating better and more connected multimodal transit systems not only reduces emissions, but it also enables people to move quickly and safely within cities and promotes vibrant economies. Much of the national discourse on reducing emissions from transportation counts on electric vehicles saving us, but cities know that’s simply not enough. Providing transit, safe bike infrastructure, and walkable areas is just as important and the federal government has an important role in helping our country rise to meet that challenge. Mayor Wheeler summed it up best: “The investments that have helped reduce carbon emissions are also what make people want to live, work, and play.”

Would increasing federal transportation investment be enough to solve our problems?

Flickr photo by Paul Nicholson http://www.flickr.com/photos/paulnich/457162590/

Two mayors from very different cities penned a joint op-ed in the New York Times highlighting the need for Congress to pass a long-term transportation bill and raise new revenues to increase the United States’ overall investment in transportation infrastructure. But their strong piece begs another question: Would raising the level of federal investment be enough to meet our pressing local needs without some major policy changes and reforms to the federal transportation program?

A Republican from a red state mid-sized city and a Democrat from a blue state big city, Mayors Mick Cornett (Oklahoma City) and Bill De Blasio (New York City), teamed up to write an op-ed showing that mayors of all stripes agree: America needs to invest more in transportation to be competitive for the long term:

Working Americans pay the price of federal apathy. Those with little means have the fewest options; mass transit is often their only way to get around. Transit ridership is at record highs, with 10.8 billion trips in 2014. Meanwhile, in the 102 largest metropolitan regions, motorists take more than 200 million trips every day across deficient bridges. Freight volumes are expected to increase by 24 percent in the next seven years.

Federal investment has not kept pace with this demand, resulting in an outdated, overburdened surface transportation system that is ill equipped to handle current, let alone future, need. Spending on infrastructure in the United States has sunk to 1.7 percent of gross domestic product, a 20-year low.

And they rightly point out that, though many states and localities — including their own — have responded to the crisis by raising their own new revenues to invest, they still can’t do it alone.

This isn’t for want of local resources. Over the past decade, New York City has increased commitments to capital projects by 50 percent.In Oklahoma City, among the most politically conservative cities in the country, voters passed a temporary sales-tax increase in 2009 to build, among other projects, a $130 million streetcar line. The nearly eight-year program will raise $777 million, and it passed with 54 percent approval. There is an appetite among voters to fund these critical transit projects.

But we could not do it all on the local level even if we wanted to. In New York City, we cannot even deploy traffic cameras to catch speeding without Albany’s permission, let alone raise major revenue for transportation. Without a strong federal partner, the demands of maintaining infrastructure and preparing for future needs are beyond local means.

They end by urging “both parties to make a deal that will prevent our cities from becoming casualties of gridlock and impasse” by passing a multi-year transportation bill that raises current transportation spending over the 50 billion per year.

These are laudable sentiments that we heartily endorse across the board — strengthening the nation’s transportation fund and raising new revenues to invest is the very first point in our platform.

But is the only problem — especially for the leaders of America’s cities and towns of all sizes — that we’re not investing enough, or also that current revenues aren’t being strategically directed to the most pressing needs in our communities?

We’ve spoken to plenty of mayors and other local officials that have made it clear that the current method of doling out federal funds just isn’t cutting it. State politics continue to drive infrastructure projects and local leaders rarely have a seat at the table to help make decisions about where to spend the money. A little (or a lot) more money funneled through the current federal transportation program isn’t going to solve that problem.

As the American Association of Chamber Executive wrote to Congress two months ago:

Innovation is happening at the local level and yet our local decision makers don’t have enough of the tools, and control less than 10 percent of the funding, which limit the ability to advance key projects that can grow the economies in communities big and small.

These two mayors are writing while representing a bipartisan coalition of mayors, and it can always be tough to stake out a position that everyone can endorse. But many of these undersigned mayors might also agree that they’d like to have a little more control and say over the process of where and how federal transportation dollars get spent in their communities. Just spending more than the status quo isn’t going to bring our communities the kind of economic prosperity that we’re all seeking.

We need to find ways to give the local communities represented by these mayors and many more increased access to federal funds. And we should be rewarding the communities that take action to address their own needs — such as raising local revenues as referenced in the editorial — with opportunities for additional funding.

The Innovation in Surface Transportation Act would be a great place to start, as would instituting reforms to ensure that we prioritize repair and invest our dollars in the projects that have the greatest bang for the buck.

With public confidence in government at low levels, it’s more important than ever to quantify the public benefits of transportation investment and let voters know what their money is going to buy — especially when attempts are being made to raise any new money for transportation to fill the gap.

Mayors’ challenge: Help us meet critical transportation needs

Last week, U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx issued a public challenge to mayors to “take significant action to improve safety for bicycle riders and pedestrians of all ages and abilities over the next year.” Mayors, in return, have a challenge of their own to the federal government: Don’t leave us in the lurch when it comes to the funding for those – and many other – transportation needs.

As Washington Post writer Niraj Chokshi noted the other day, transportation funding is the most urgent federal “ask” for cities such as Seattle and San Francisco that are facing both aging infrastructure and surging population. Both mayors were in D.C. for the U.S. Conference of Mayors, where federal transportation funding was a key theme.

Seattle Mayor Ed Murray

In comments to the Post ahead of a White House meeting, Seattle Mayor Ed Murray framed the situation like this:

Post-World War II, with the suburbanization of America, the federal government stepped in big time and created an interstate system that supported the suburban lifestyle. As we urbanize as a country, we need the federal government to step in big time with transit for our urbanization.

Back home, Murray is one of those mayors who would be inclined to rise to Secretary Foxx’s challenge. But to do so, he is trying to find the resources to overcome the legacy of the last century, when federal dollars helped build high-traffic roads through the city with little provision for people to walk or bike safely. With more and more people living along those corridors, his city – like many others – is trying to squeeze more capacity out of them by making sure people can safely walk, bicycle and take transit.

The mayors said they don’t expect “pork-barrel” handouts. They are prepared to compete for grants based on need, smart planning and a willingness to marshal their own resources. That is one of the reasons why mayors of both small towns and larger cities have come forward to support a plan that would carve out a share of federal dollars in each state for such competitive grants.

As San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee put it:

We’re all focused on infrastructure. We think that that’s probably one of the best foundations for our economy, job creation, and we’re true believers in that.

In Hill event, local leaders make case for federal support for transportation needs

Before a packed room on Capitol Hill, local leaders from three very different communities shared one very specific message with a handful of Congressmen and at least four dozen staffers: If Congress doesn’t act to shore up the nation’s transportation fund before it goes insolvent later this year, their cities and communities would bear the brunt of the pain.

Ways and Means briefing overall

Along with Reps. Richard Hanna (R-NY) and Earl Blumenauer (D-OR), Transportation for America helped to bring local leaders to Washington to talk about what the looming insolvency of the Highway Trust Fund means for their communities. As we’ve noted here, states and local governments stand to lose nearly all access to federal transportation support next year if Congress doesn’t act to shore up the nation’s transportation fund sometime before the end of the summer. (The details of which were explored at length in a presentation by the day’s last panelist, Sarah Puro, Principal Analyst at the Congressional Budget Office.)

In between appearances by Reps. Blumenauer and Hanna, as well as comments from Rep. Jim McDermott of Washington and Rep. Rodney Davis of Illinois, three local officials painted pictures of their ambitious transportation plans, and what the lack of federal investment would mean for them.

Normal, IL, Mayor Chris Koos shared the story of how city leaders revitalized their town’s core — and how federal support was the only way they could make it a reality. (Read that full story here.) He noted that the private sector has since followed through with millions in new investments, but that they were unwilling to invest in Uptown Normal until they knew the public sector was truly committed.

Rep. Rodney Davis, a Republican from the 13th District that includes Normal, came up and offered his support for Normal Mayor Chris Koos and expressed pride in this project in his district — a model for how the federal government could support a smart local vision that also had strong local and state funding and support.

Rep. Rodney Davis (right) greets Mayor Chris Koos of Normal, Illinois after the Mayor shared the story of the revitalization of Uptown Normal — made possible by a federal TIGER grant.

While Mayor Koos was speaking in one hearing room, Transportation for America director James Corless was telling a different group of more than 20 members of Congress the same story from Normal, Illinois.

He was testifying alongside many of the transportation industry groups in an invitation-only congressional roundtable hosted by the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure to discuss the next transportation bill. He told the 20-plus members of Congress there, along with transportation lobbyists and advocacy groups, that because local economies are the heart of the American economy, the federal program should support more local initiatives like Normal’s.

“Normal should be “normal,” not the exception,” Corless said.

While Normal is a small college town, Nashville, Tennessee is a much larger, booming metropolis. They’ve been adding jobs and people over the last ten years, and are expected to add a million more in another 20-plus years.

Marc Hill, Chief Policy Officer of the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce, explained how the business community and the chamber got together years ago and recognized that congestion threatens that economic prosperity.

“Six years ago, the Chamber began focusing on transit as a top priority — second only to improving public education.”

Marc Hill from the Nashville Chamber of Commerce

Why? They’ve certainly been inspired by watching and learning from some of their neighbors’ mistakes. “We don’t want to be another Atlanta. We don’t want to start working on transit 10 years after we’re in gridlock,” he said.

The business community is leading the way for making bus-rapid transit a reality in Nashville — and they hope that The Amp’s first line through the center of town is just the first component of what could be a wide-ranging regional bus-rapid transit system, the first of its kind in the South.

But, “there’s simply no way a local community can pull off something like this without a federal partnership,” he said. If the trust fund goes belly up and the federal contribution is curtailed for next year, Tennessee could be out $900 million and Nashville would lose $40 million.

Down in Florida, Tampa Bay is home to the 15th largest port in the nation and the closest to the Panama Canal in sea-miles. Charlie Hunsicker, director of the Manatee County Parks and Natural Resources Dept and also speaking on behalf of the Manatee Chamber of Commerce, urged the Ways and Means members to consider freight as they mull how to rescue the trust fund from insolvency.

“Ports constitute the most important first mile, or last mile, in world trade,” he said.

Charlie Hunsicker, Director of the Manatee County Parks and Natural Resources Department.

The recurring theme today was clear: No matter how motivated and inspired, the American public and business community cannot do this alone.

Nashville is working on their local funding sources for The Amp, and hoping for the feds to support this region that’s “an economic driver, not just in Tennessee, but for the mid-South,” as Marc Hill put it. “There’s no lack of will locally to invest to be a full partner, a majority partner, but we absolutely can’t do it without that federal support.”

Messages and stories like these will continue to flow into Washington, DC from cities and towns and counties and districts all across the country.

But the ball is in Congress’ court, and especially the Ways and Means Committee that’s responsible for funding a transportation bill. Without a solution to the funding crisis, writing great new transportation policies will be like crafting a beautiful saddle without the horse.

These local leaders are counting on Congress to come through for them.

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Photos from the event

Sarah Puro of the CBO gives a presentation at the briefing organized by Reps. Blumenauer and Hanna, with Transportation for America. 2/26/14

Rep. Richard Hanna speaking at the briefing organized by his office and Rep. Blumenauer, with Transportation for America. 2/26/14

Rep. Earl Blumenauer speaking at the briefing organized by his office and Rep. and Hanna, with Transportation for America. 2/26/14

Rep. Earl Blumenauer speaking at the briefing organized by his office and Rep. Hanna, with Transportation for America. 2/26/14

Rep. Jim McDermott speaking at the briefing organized by Reps. Blumenauer and Hanna, with Transportation for America. 2/26/14

Rep. Jim McDermott stopped in to say a few words at the briefing organized by Reps. Blumenauer and Hanna, with Transportation for America. 2/26/14

Rep. Rodney Davis (R-IL) at the briefing organized by Reps. Blumenauer and Hanna, with Transportation for America. 2/26/14

Transportation for America’s John Robert Smith — himself a former mayor — kicks off the briefing with a few remarks.

T4 brings mayors to Washington to tell Secretary Foxx about the importance of passenger rail

T4America brought together a group of mayors to visit with U.S. Secretary of Transportation Anthony Foxx — a former mayor himself — and deliver a message about the importance of passenger rail to the economies of those local communities they represent.

Mayor Marks of Tallahassee, Florida greets Sec. Foxx before a meeting at USDOT on 12/17/2013

There are few who better understand the importance of passenger rail as a transportation option and economic development tool than do mayors. That’s why we brought a bipartisan group of mayors from cities across the country to Washington, D.C. for a meeting with Sec. Foxx today.

Passenger rail service has been booming in this country, setting monthly and yearly records as surely as the pages of the calendar continue to turn. Not including the many commuter rail systems operating in the U.S., about 85,000 passengers ride on more than 300 Amtrak trains each day, with more than 31 million passengers taking a trip last year — an all-time ridership record for the nation’s passenger railroad.

The bill (PRIIA) that sets policy and authorizes funding for Amtrak expired on Sept. 30, 2013. Congress is overdue to write its replacement, and there’s a lot of discussion about what sort of reforms need to be made and how much funding to invest in our country’s passenger rail system.

From left, Mayor McFarlane of Raleigh, North Carolina; former Mayor John Robert Smith with T4America; Mayor Danny Jones of Charleston, West Virginia; and Mayor John Marks of Tallahassee, Florida in the meeting with Secretary Foxx on Dec. 17, 2013.

Mayors like these know firsthand that passenger rail supports economic development in their cities and provides vital connections to other cities near and far, and that’s a message that needs to be heard at USDOT and in Congress right now.

Mayors in North Carolina’s Triangle region are raring to go with more improvements and added service for their existing passenger rail connections, and in fact, they’re already seeing the economic impacts.

Mayor Nancy McFarlane of Raleigh, North Carolina shared how a TIGER grant that helped her city start work on a station to connect Amtrak and local transit service under one roof has already reaped rewards. “400 jobs are there already, just from announcing the plans for the station,” she said. And next door in Durham, Mayor Bill Bell is on the same page, telling Sec. Foxx that “it’s no question that the demand is there — we just need the capacity.”

Charleston, West Virginia Mayor Danny Jones remembered how the trains were one of the few things moving after 9/11 for those days that air travel was shut down.

“The price we pay for Amtrak each year — that’s a small price for having a good substitute transportation system for this country. It’s there for us, and we need it,” he reminded everyone.

At the end of the historic Crescent Line in New Orleans, Louisiana, Deputy Mayor Grant provided a poignant reminder that during Hurricane Katrina, rail service was actually the only way out of the city at times.

Not too far east, Tallahassee, Florida was one of the handful of cities that lost their passenger rail service because of Katrina and has yet to see it return.

“I want to focus the conversation on economic development,” Mayor John Marks began. With 75,000 university students and staff between Florida State, Florida A&M and a sizable community college (as well as baby boomer retirees flocking to Tallahassee) all within a few miles of the train station that’s right off the main street, he said that moving people more efficiently has significant economic implications. Reconnecting that service through Tallahassee “is a significant tool for our economic development,” he said.

Saco, Maine is a small town where the city invested $2.5 million into the old train station downtown, which is in turn spurring the development of nearby abandoned mills into mixed use buildings. “We’re invested,” said Mayor Donald Pilon. “And the investment is paying off. The train station is the draw for the developers.”

“This train drives southern Maine’s economy,” Mayor Pilon declared, while mentioning all the destinations connected to Saco by the five daily trains.

Our co-chair and former Mayor John Robert Smith is fond of telling the story of how he got involved firsthand years ago in Meridian, Mississippi when the passenger line that runs right through his town from Atlanta to New Orleans was on the chopping block. It wasn’t just the fact that a lot of his constituents depended on that passenger rail service as the only way they could visit relatives, see a doctor in a bigger city, or take a vacation. The downtown train station was also an important transportation hub and in the process of being transformed into a new center of economic activity for Meridian. And once that service was preserved, the restoration of the station helped usher in millions of dollars in economic impacts through new and renovated buildings in the downtown core.

From Mayor John Marks in Tallahassee, Florida all the way up to Mayor Donald Pilon in Saco, Maine, mayors know the importance of investing in reliable, on-time passenger rail connections.

Secretary Foxx, not far removed from his time as Mayor of Charlotte, N.C., told all the mayors that their work delivering this message here and back at the state level can carry greater weight for members of Congress than a message from him at USDOT. It’s got to come from the local level, he said.

He closed the meeting by letting the mayors know that USDOT wants to be in the business of helping them realize their visions.

Hopefully Congress will hear the message from these mayors and dozens of others loud and clear — and act on it as they begin work on passenger rail policy and funding for the next few years to come.

Secretary Foxx

Transportation Vote 2012: San Diego mayoral candidates indicate strong commitment to investing in transportation options in a televised debate

In San Diego, a region facing significant growth on a congested transportation system, the two mayoral candidates signaled their commitment to expanding transportation options throughout the region in the years to come — but shrinking transportation funding will test that commitment.

This post is one of our Transportation Vote 2012 series, looking at the role of transportation in local and state elections this fall.

Like most other metro areas across the country San Diego is facing major transportation challenges. Over the next 40 years the region’s population is expected to grow by 1.3 million, 42 percent, with the city itself absorbing half of that increase.

With regional freeways and roads already straining to deal with the congestion that threatens economic competitiveness, health, and quality of life, San Diegans need and are demanding more and better options for getting around where they need to go day-to-day. While the city is making plans to significantly expand their public transportation systems and invest in making streets safer for walking and biking, the limited transportation funding available in the years to come will test its leaders’ commitment to prioritizing these investments over more of the status quo.

And just who that leader will be is a decision voters will make this election season.

Last week in San Diego, Transportation for America partners Move San Diego, WalkSanDiego, and the San Diego County Bicycle Coalition held a mayoral debate titled “Walk Bike Move Live” between the two candidates for mayor. Congressman Bob Filner and San Diego City Councilman Carl DeMaio, both put forth their visions for improving transportation and quality of life in San Diego.

“We want San Diego residents to know the candidates’ plans on how to improve transportation alternatives that support smart growth, and what those plans are for improving our environment, the local economy and preserving and enhancing the quality of life that defines America’s Finest City”, said Elyse Lowe, Executive Director of Move San Diego.

Though accelerating public transportation improvements were emphasized, most of the energy of the debate focused on how to make San Diego one of the most bikeable and walkable cities in the country.

Both candidates stressed their commitment to making San Diego’s communities safer for biking and walking with Councilman DeMaio saying it is in an investment in making the city more competitive, creating jobs, and “the San Diego way of life.”

Congressman Filner stressed that this would be one of his top priorities and that he sees San Diego’s future as a “city of villages” connected by walkable and bikeable streets that promote the arts, community, and the economy.

Biking and walking are gaining significant traction as transportation options in San Diego. The regional transportation planning organization SANDAG is planning to invest more than $3.5 billion in bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure by 2050. This investment will make streets safer as more people travel by foot and bicycle and enhance access to transit, jobs, and housing while reducing the cost of transportation.

“Making our communities more walkable is one of the best ways to make the San Diego region a better place to live”, said Jim Stone, Executive Director of WalkSanDiego. “Walkable neighborhoods lead to healthier people, lower healthcare costs, higher real estate values, better retail sales, less air pollution, and an improved quality of life. Walkability is a winning proposition.”

Even as both candidates repeatedly trumpeted their commitment to this approach — certainly easy to do in debates typically long on promises and short on specifics — questions remain as to how they’ll achieve this vision given the fiscal realities facing cities today and in the days to come.

The federal programs that fund the majority of bicycle and pedestrian projects was significantly cut in the recently passed federal transportation bill, (MAP-21) and state revenues for transportation funding have remained flat and sometimes decreased.

“The San Diego County Bicycle Coalition is looking for a bold leader who will commit to join us in our quest to become the nation’s most bicycle friendly city”, said Andy Hanshaw, Executive Director of the San Diego County Bicycle Coalition.

“Working together we can change the way we think and get around by taking the initiative to provide safe and accessible bike connections throughout our city.”

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You can watch a full video of the debate below.