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Senate on the verge of passing a multi-year transportation bill

After several contentious procedural votes to keep the bill moving forward over the past week, the Senate is likely to be taking a final vote on their three-year transportation bill at some point before the end of the week. Here’s a short update on where things currently stand.

First, here are the six most useful tidbits to know right now:

The Senate is a few more procedural votes away from a final vote on their three-year transportation bill.
Little in the bill has substantially changed since it was first introduced, though a few fixes were made to issues in the first draft having to do with transit funding and complete streets language.
The contentious amendment to reauthorize the Export-Import Bank through 2019 was approved and included in the base bill last night.
The first manager’s package of amendments has been moved to consideration, though nothing has actually been approved yet.
Whether this long-term bill passes the Senate this week or not, there will likely be an extension to MAP-21 for 3 to 5 months. This is intended to provide time for the House and Senate to negotiate a final agreement.
Including the Wicker-Booker amendment to increase transportation funding going directly to local communities is still our best chance to improve this bill. Getting more support for this amendment from other Senators is the best method to have it included in a manager’s package or as one of the few (if any) amendments considered on the floor. But the prospects are not good without more support. We’re working hard to drive up sponsors — Sen. Durbin from Illinois and Sen. Peters from Michigan hopped on as co-sponsors yesterday! — but we still need your help. Send another letter, or make a phone call as soon as possible.

After one failed vote early last week, the overall Senate transportation bill passed a cloture motion late last week that cleared the way for the bill to be considered and debated on the Senate floor.

Before they can take a final vote on the bill, the Senate has to work through the amendment process. Because of Sen. McConnell’s parliamentary actions to “fill the amendment tree,” we don’t forsee the usual open amendment process playing out where individual amendments are offered on the floor and debated. Instead, for the most part, any amendments to the bill will have to be included in the manager’s package to be voted on all at once or adopted by unanimous consent.

Last night, the Senate took small steps toward a final vote by successfully voting to include a reauthorization of the Export-Import Bank in the base bill and begin the debate on the manager’s package of amendments. Whether there is a third manager’s package or not, once they are approved, it clears the way to take a final cloture vote to halt debate on the underlying bill and move to a vote on final passage.

If that passes, we’ll have 30 hours of debate on the bill before a vote on final passage sometime before Friday night.

As to MAP-21’s expiration, the House already passed a five-month extension. However, the House has now agreed to move a shorter 3-month extension tomorrow and Speaker John Boehner has said they are leaving town after the vote for August recess. We expect the Senate to take up and pass the House’s 3-month patch and very likely pass their multi-year surface transportation authorization package this week as well.

Support the new plan from a bipartisan duo of senators to send more transportation dollars to local communities

Two Senators championing the cause of giving local communities more control over their transportation dollars have introduced a modified plan to steer more federal transportation dollars directly to local communities of all sizes — reaching a compromise that they hope to incorporate into the Senate’s transportation bill as it heads to the floor.

The Innovation in Surface Transportation Act has been one of our biggest priorities for more than a year now. That bill would put a small share of each state’s federal transportation dollars into a competitive grant program so that towns and cities of all sizes could compete directly on the merits for transportation funds. Local communities get a seat at the table and get more access to federal dollars that can be spent on a wide variety of locally determined transportation projects and programs.

ISTA is a great proposal and it remains active in the House of Representatives, but the two Senators who introduced it have come together on a new plan to accomplish the same goal, one with even more widespread support.

A new proposal from Senators Wicker (R-MS) and Booker (D-NJ) would put a larger share of transportation dollars directly in the hands of local governments by increasing the amount of flexible federal Surface Transportation Program (STP) dollars directly given to metropolitan areas of all sizes.

This new proposal will hopefully be offered as an amendment to the long-term transportation bill currently before the Senate.

We need to drive up support for this plan now as the Senate considers their bill. Send a message to your Senators and urge them to support this provision from Senators Booker and Wicker.

SEND A MESSAGE

It’s a proposal that works for red states and blue states, heavily urbanized areas and smaller rural towns — evident from the support of a Democratic Senator from the most urbanized state in the country, and a Republican Senator from the deep south where a large percentage of his state’s population lives in smaller urbanized areas.

How the current system works for local communities, and how it falls short

Today, small metro areas (under 200,000 people) are at the mercy of their state’s decision-making process for transportation spending in their area.

Large metro areas (over 200,000 people) directly receive a share of flexible federal dollars through a process known as suballocation. But in the smaller metro areas under 200,000 in population, those “suballocated” funds go directly to the state instead, which has total control over spending that money. The only basic requirement is that the state must spend a predetermined share of those funds within the state’s smaller metro areas, but the local community gets little say on how those dollars are spent.

Those decisions are left entirely up to the state, even though the funds are expressly intended by federal law for those smaller cities and metro areas.

While there’s some variety from state to state in how this plays out — a few select states are certainly more respectful of local communities’ wishes — it means that a local community could see their priorities passed over completely by the wishes of their state department of transportation. A state could have a pressing local priority like improving an important downtown street, and the state could instead decide to add a lane on the state highway on the edge of town instead. As long as the state spends the appropriate amount of money within that small metro area, that’s considered a proper use of the money intended for use in that community.

What would this proposal change?

The overall funding intended for metro areas and cities of all sizes would increase in two ways: First, the size of the flexible program known as the Surface Transportation Program (STP), which can be spent on almost anything from roads to bridges to transit to bike lanes, would be increased. Secondly, the share of STP that gets suballocated to metro areas increases from 50 percent of STP funding to 67 percent. That means more money will be given directly to metro areas and metropolitan planning organizations.

Last but not least, an important change is made to ensure that smaller metro areas aren’t left behind. Instead of being put solely at the state’s discretion, the share of STP dollars intended for communities under 200,000 people will be put into a competitive grant program for these areas, so these smaller communities will be able to apply for their share of the funding in a competitive grant program for their local priorities.

Who supports this new proposal in the Senate?

A compelling case can be made that Americans are willing to contribute more to invest in transportation, but they absolutely want to know that the dollars a) will be spent wisely on the projects that do the most get to work, school and daily needs and b) they want more decisions in the hands of the levels of government closest to them so they can hold them accountable.

A number of groups that represent local elected officials in communities of all sizes sent a letter to Congress this week endorsing this proposal. The National League of Cities, the U.S. Conference of Mayors, the National Association of Development Organizations, the National Association of Counties, the Association of Metropolitan Planning Organizations, and the National Association of Regional Councils all signed onto a letter to Congress supporting the Booker-Wicker proposal, urging it to be included as an amendment to the Senate’s full long-term transportation bill currently under consideration.

What does this mean for the Innovation in Surface Transportation Act

While numerous local mayors, county executives, chambers of commerce and other local leaders have backed the Innovation in Surface Transportation Act, it’s an even bigger sign of support to see these national associations which represent many of those leaders nationally endorse this new proposal, noting that it would be a win for mayors, cities, county executives, metro leaders and others.

But this new proposal wouldn’t have happened without the strong support that has been pouring in for months on the Innovation in Surface Transportation Act. Your emails, phone calls, letters and meetings have made it clear to these Senators that this idea has traction, and this new proposal is a direct result of your past support for the Innovation in Surface Transportation Act.

All of this means that in the Senate from here on out, we’ll be focusing our efforts on this amendment from Senators Booker and Wicker because it represents a far greater chance to accomplish many of the same goals as the Innovation in Surface Transportation Act. This new proposal is a smart compromise that should be incorporated into the full Senate long-term transportation bill currently on the floor, and one that will ensure that smart, locally-driven, homegrown transportation investments get the funding they need.

We’ll continue to drive up support for ISTA in the House, however, and we encourage you to continue supporting it in messages and calls to your representatives.

Send a message to your Senators and urge them to support this provision from Senators Booker and Wicker. It only takes a moment, and vocal support for this plan will be crucial to getting it incorporated into the full bill.

UPDATED: Senate reaches preliminary agreement on a long-term transportation bill

A group of key Senate leaders announced yesterday that they’d reached agreement on a bipartisan six-year transportation bill with three years of guaranteed funding. While it’s encouraging to see this agreement ten days before MAP-21 expires on July 31, forthcoming negotiations over the actual details of the bill will be crucial as most Senators have not yet seen the policy or funding language.

Senator McCcnnell announcing deal 2015-07-21 Senator Boxer announcing deal 2015-07-21

UPDATED Thursday 9:30 a.m.: Late Wednesday, the Senate reached cloture on the transportation reauthorization bill. It got just the required number of votes to pass, 60-38. We’ll move on to discussing and debating the bill today.

UPDATED Wednesday 5:30 p.m.: Yesterday (Tuesday) afternoon, a few hours after this bill was announced on the Senate floor, the Senate failed to pass a “cloture” vote to begin debate of the bill. Senate Democrats were unwilling to begin considering and debating a bill they’d had less than a few hours to read, and a few Republicans voted against cloture as well because of objections to particular funding mechanisms.

Senators McConnell, Boxer and the others assembling the funding mechanisms were only able to find sufficient funding for three years, using a mix of funding offsets that included selling oil from the nation’s strategic reserves, lowering the dividend paid to banks that join the Federal Reserve, and tinkering with fees from the TSA. You can read the full text of the bill here (pdf), a summary of the provisions from the EPW majority, and a summary of the funding mechanisms.

Stay tuned as we watch the Senate for more. Though a vote was mentioned to reporters as a possibility today by numerous Senators, the Senate recessed this afternoon at 4:30 p.m. (Wednesday) without any movement on the bill. There’s still a possibility they could return tonight for a vote, but the more likely option is Thursday.

Original post: Speaking on the Senate floor yesterday, Senators McConnell (R-KY), Reid (D-NV), Boxer (D-CA) and Inhofe (R-OK) announced their agreement on a long-term transportation bill that cobbles together sufficient revenue to carry the policy forward for three years.

The four Senators (and especially Senators McConnell and Boxer) had been “hammering out the details” over the last few days according to an article in The Hill this morning, and today Senator McConnell announced the deal on a “six year highway authorization that will allow for planning for important projects around the country…a long-term bill that’s in the best interests of our country.” (Note: Sen. McConnell repeatedly called the bill a six-year authorization with only three years of guaranteed funding.)

What’s next?

While an agreement has been reached in principle and procedural vote will be taken this afternoon at 4 p.m to consider debate on the bill, it’s far from a done deal at this point, and Senate Democrats will especially be curious to see the details of a bill that the rank and file (and possibly some of the leadership and relevant committee chairs) have not read at all yet.

It’s also notable that the Banking Committee and Finance Committees haven’t independently passed their portions of the full bill yet, so those committee members will be especially interested to see what the bill contains for their areas of jurisdiction.

After Sen. McConnell spoke, the two key Democratic negotiators in the Senate got up and made it clear that while the agreement is a step forward, they need to know more about what’s in the bill before they can proceed.

“We can’t go forward on a bill until we’ve read it and studied it,” said Senator Reid, one of the two main Democratic negotiators on the deal. “We need to look at this document,” he said. The other key negotiator in Democratic leadership, Senator Boxer, urged her colleagues to get the text posted as soon as possible. “We want to see the text — get the text up,” she said.

The vote coming today at 4 p.m. (originally scheduled earlier in the day but moved back during this time) will be a procedural vote to bring the bill to the floor and begin debate. That doesn’t mean there will be a vote on the final bill anytime soon — especially considering that all of the Senate Democrats who spoke made it clear that there’s still work to be done and that they need to carefully study the bill first.

We’ll be watching the vote this afternoon, so stay tuned, and follow us on Twitter to stay regularly updated.

Three changes could dramatically improve the Senate’s draft transportation bill

Ahead of the looming July 31 deadline to pass a new bill (or extend the current law), the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee in late June introduced and marked up a full six-year transportation bill. While we think it’s a good starting point, there are some promising amendments that could improve the bill dramatically as it goes forward in the Senate.

Mayors and other local elected leaders are the ones who face the music from citizens when bridges need repair, when mounting congestion makes commutes unpredictable, and when families can’t safely walk their kids to school — yet those same leaders are too often left out of the discussions over what gets built and where.

Giving local communities of all sizes the resources they need to realize their ambitious plans to stay economically competitive should be a primary goal of this bill, and several Senators have prepared several amendments to help change that.

Several of these were discussed or offered and withdrawn during the markup, and will hopefully be debated on the floor of the Senate.

First, Senators Wicker (R-MS) and Booker (D-NJ) are offering their Innovation in Surface Transportation Act as an amendment, to create a competitive grant program in each state to give local communities more access to federal funds — but only for the smartest, most innovative projects judged on their merits. A second amendment from Senators Booker and Wicker would increase the amount of flexible transportation dollars directly provided to local communities by ten percent of the program’s share.

Lastly, an amendment from Senator Cardin (D-MD) would increase funding for the program that cities, towns and regions use to invest in projects to make biking and walking safer — restoring the Transportation Alternatives Program to its previous funding level before being slashed in the last reauthorization in 2012.

Can you urge your Senators to support these amendments that will help give local communities like yours more access to and control over transportation dollars?

With a new competitive grant program for local projects in each state, more communities could find success like Normal, IL, found with its Uptown Station. Normal used a grant from the competitive national TIGER program to complete the funding picture for a multimodal station and central plaza that brought new life and economic activity to its town’s core. But the TIGER program is one of the only ways local communities can directly access federal funds, and it’s wildly oversubscribed.

Though the bill has cleared committee, it will still have to be considered in the full Senate, so we need all Senators to hear your support for these amendments. Don’t delay — send a message to your Senators and urge them to support these key amendments to improve this bill.

Logged-in members can read our full summary of the EPW bill below.

[member_content] Feature graphic - epw drive act June 24, 2015 — The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee (EPW) released its six-year MAP-21 reauthorization proposal on June 22, 2015. The DRIVE Act is a start, but needs much more work to reform — and reinvigorate — the federal transportation program in ways that will boost today’s economy and ensure future prosperity. This memo provides an overview of the key provisions included in the proposal, as well as funding levels for key programs.

Read the full members-only memo here.[/member_content]

House extends MAP-21 to July 31, aligning it with impending insolvency of nation’s transportation fund

After a short debate yesterday, The House of Representatives voted to extend MAP-21 for two months past its May 31st expiration to the end of July, aligning the end of the nation’s transportation law with the latest projection for the insolvency of the nation’s transportation fund. The Senate is expected to act before Friday to approve the bill before the Memorial Day recess begins.

Updated 5/26

The bill to extend MAP-21 two months was approved by a vote of 387-35. There was just one amendment considered, from Rep. Esty (D-CT), for $750M to passenger railroads to help them implement positive train control, but that amendment failed on party-line vote, 182-241.

It was a mostly uneventful debate, though a handful of legislators loudly decried yet another short-term extension of the nation’s transportation law. But most if not all of those legislators speaking against short-term extensions also know that May 31st is right around the corner, a long-term bill isn’t going to happen between now and then with recess next week, and would prefer to keep the program from shutting down entirely.

If the Senate does as expected and approves the bill and sends the extension to President Obama for his signature before the 31st, Congress will have officially kicked the can down the road another two months. This marks the 33^rd time Congress has passed a short-term extension over the last six years rather than do what Americans sent them to Congress to do: legislate and make the tough decisions to move America forward.

“While the certain disaster that would result from a shutdown of the federal transportation program has been avoided temporarily, legislators now have just have two months to put together the full multi-year authorization that we so desperately need,”said James Corless, T4America director. “Come July 31, we’ll once again face not only the expiration of our nation’s transportation policy, but also the insolvency of its funding source. With no consensus yet on how to fund a long-term bill, lawmakers have their work cut out for them.”

We’ll update this post as soon as the Senate takes action on the extension, which could come as early as Wednesday afternoon.

With MAP-21 extended an additional two months, the next immediate item of transportation business coming up in Congress will be next year’s transportation appropriations bill. Shortly after Congress returns from the Memorial Day recess on June 1st, the full House is expected to consider their version of the yearly spending bill for FY 2016 which features heavy cuts to TIGER, New Starts and Amtrak, with the Senate likely to begin their process sometime in June as well.

Update: The Senate passed the two-month extension of MAP-21 last weekend, extending the law until July 31st. The president is expected to sign the law by the May 31st deadline.

Polemics give way to compromise on House rail bill

For the last few years, congressional debate over the nation’s passenger rail system has been a discordant tug-of-war between visions of high-speed rail and moves to privatize popular Amtrak corridors and kill operational support. The logjam appeared to break last week with a unanimous committee vote on reauthorizing passenger rail. The compromise bill recognizes the benefits of a truly national passenger rail system and seeks to improve it rather dwell on drawbacks.

Flickr Creative Commons photo by Michael Patrick. /photos/michaelpatrick/110090972

Most importantly, it preserves a national system of state-supported and long-distance routes and authorizes funding for the system that is consistent with the recent appropriations for Amtrak. While passenger rail certainly needs far more investment than it’s getting to truly prosper and meet the burgeoning demand, T4America was encouraged to see representatives who once had a hard time finding common ground agreeing on some important fundamentals.

Let’s get one issue out of the way up front. The Passenger Rail Reform and Investment Act of 2014 (PRRIA) does indeed lower the authorized amount of funding for Amtrak by 40 percent from in the level last adopted in 2008, capping it between $1.4B and $1.5B for each of the next four years. Although that looks like a step backward, in reality Congress never appropriated the full amount of authorized funds. Because there was no dedicated revenue source passenger rail funding was subjected to a contentious debate over general fund spending each year. The new bill yields to that reality and sets funding at the levels of the last several years.

It’s also worth keeping in mind that we’ve had budget proposals in the House over the last two years that appropriated between $1.0 or $1.1 billion for Amtrak — $400-500 million less than this reauthorization proposal from the same chamber.

There are some other interesting and positive changes worth highlighting.

The bill authorizes new competitive grant programs for the Northeast Corridor and for the national network. These programs are authorized at $150 million each for the next four years. The NEC program requires that states put up their own money equal to the federal grant, and the projects that can be funded must be on a priority project list to be developed by the Northeast Corridor Commission.

The bill will take the important first steps toward restoring rail service to the Gulf Coast, a region that has been disconnected from the national network since Hurricane Katrina forced the suspension of rail service along the coast. It’s an encouraging sign that the committee recognizes the value not only of preserving our current rail network, but expanding it to serve additional regions.

Some of the overall structure for funding also changes under this bill. Congress currently funds Amtrak under two programs: operating, and capital/debt service. This year, Congress funded these two programs at $1.39 billion. The bill restructures these programs into a Northeast Corridor Improvement Fund and a National Network Account at a total of $1.412 billion. The NEC account may be used only for that corridor and permits Amtrak to reinvest operational revenue there. The idea of privatizing the Northeast Corridor is off the table, at least for now.

The bill includes several requirements intended to create greater transparency in Amtrak’s financial reporting, increasing accountability and oversight over budgets and financial decisions. Calls by some members of Congress for increased competition in passenger rail were answered with a new pilot program (limited to two routes) that will allow rail carriers that own track used by Amtrak to submit a competitive bid along with Amtrak to provide the same level of passenger service there. The winning bidder would receive the right to provide passenger service for 5 years, with subsidies that would decline over time.

This bill does not contain everything that Transportation for America has called for, however.

For example, there’s still no dedicated funding source identified, which means that Amtrak will still have to fight for funding every year in the annual appropriations process. And some of the provisions related to Amtrak’s finances and operations could lead to changes in service down the road, such as the requirement that Amtrak contract with an independent entity to develop a new methodology for determining which routes to serve.

Still, in a Congress marked by partisan gridlock, we’re hopeful that this encouraging compromise in the House can lay the groundwork for creating a dedicated funding source for rail service that will put it on the same footing as other transportation modes.

States’ underinvestment in road repair signals need for tough federal standards

Consider a couple of eye-popping statistics:

From 2004-2008, states spent 57 percent of available highway dollars to add a little over 1 percent to our already vast highway network, and only 43 percent to maintain the other 99 percent of highway lanes.

Keeping our existing highway network in “good” condition would require spending $43 billion a year over the next 20 years, well over the total, combined amount spent today on new construction and preservation.

Those are two of the findings in a report out today from Smart Growth America and Taxpayers for Common Sense, Repair Priorities: Transportation spending strategies to save taxpayer dollars and improve roads. The report examines road conditions and spending priorities in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, and found that, as a result of their spending decisions, road conditions in many states are getting worse and costs for taxpayers are going up.

The short version: We’ve spent 60 years building highways, the bill for their maintenance is coming due – and it’s a doozy! Left to their own volition, the states are not doing the job. As Grace Crunican, the former DOT head for Oregon, said during the media telebriefing on the report, “There’s a lot of political pressure to put money into new projects. … We’ve got to find the discipline” to keep our roads properly maintained, she said.

It’s time for Washington to fix it. States have to be held to high standards, and the money they receive should be tied to accountability on that score. The share of money that is walled off for maintenance and that can’t be siphoned off for “sexy” – Crunican’s word – pet political projects has to be much larger than it is now.

Congress is currently in the process of drafting a new transportation bill, and lawmakers need to keep a laser-like focus on the repair and rehabilitation of American’s existing roads and bridges. We cannot build a 21st century transportation system until we take care of what we built in the 20th.

You can find more information about this new SGA and Taxpayers’ report, including a state-by-state map, here.

Smart Growth America contributed to this post.

T4 America co-chair John Robert Smith tells key House subcommittee to repair infrastructure and invest in transit options

T4 America co-chair John Robert Smith encouraged members of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee to enact “bold new policy” to repair our nation’s crumbling infrastructure, increase transit options and demand accountability for results, in testimony delivered on Capitol Hill today.

Smith, the former 16-year Republican mayor of Meridian, Mississippi and President and CEO of Reconnecting America, was one of 40 transportation experts testifying before the Subcommittee on Highways and Transit this week.

Pointing to today’s release of our report assessing the condition of the nation’s bridges, Smith emphasized T4 America’s dual mission of repairing the infrastructure we have while building a transportation system for the 21st century.

He spoke about his own experience leading Meridian and seeing first-hand how improved transportation options improve quality of life in smaller cities and rural areas. “It may come as a surprise to some, but Americans who live in small towns have the same transportation needs as those that live in big cities,” Smith said. “They need access to their jobs, healthcare, education and services. Long commutes, rising gas prices, and shifting demographics all impact the prosperity of these communities and the people that live in them.”

During his tenure as mayor, Smith leveraged a mix of public and private investment to restore Meridian’s historic train station and build the South’s first multimodal transportation center. The station was “a catalyst for transforming our main street, increasing public transportation ridership, and helping to generate millions of dollars in private economic development in the surrounding neighborhoods,” he told the Subcommittee.

“Livability” has become a loaded and sadly partisan term in Congress, but as Smith pointed out, it describes something that really shouldn’t be controversial at all. He said:

When I came to Washington, D.C. almost two years ago, I realized as I heard this new word, livability, that that was just what we were doing in Meridian. The transit connections and ensuing economic development that occurred in my sixteen years as Mayor were empowering people to make decisions without being hindered by distance and gas prices. You can put whatever label on it you want – but people should be able to live where they want to live, work where they want to work, and get there in a cost-efficient and timely manner.

Congress has the opportunity to heed Mayor Smith’s vision for repair, increased options and higher quality of life as the Subcommittee and full Committee consider a six-year, transportation reauthorization in the coming months.

You can read Mayor Smith’s entire testimony here.

“Transportation 101” provides a primer on the federal transportation program

• Executive Summary (900k pdf)
• Full Document (2.2 mb pdf)

One of the primary motivations of the Transportation for America campaign is our belief in building a transportation system that meets 21st century challenges.

But understanding how current federal transportation policy works — much less how to go about changing the current system — requires a sometimes painful amount of context. We know it’s not always the easiest issue to follow and a lot of people tend to use complicated jargon and acronyms that confuse even the veterans sometimes. Advocates and legislative staffers who are new to transportation policy often have a lot of catching up to do, and it’s difficult even for folks who have been around awhile to know all the details.

So we put together “Transportation 101: An Introduction to Federal Transportation Policy” to provide some clarity and help document where we’ve been, where the money comes from, how the program works (or doesn’t work) the process of reauthorization and the new (and old) challenges facing us as Congress debates a new transportation bill.

The report was debuted and distributed during a packed briefing on Capitol Hill in the Cannon House Building this morning. We were lucky enough to have some notable panelists speaking at the event, including Roy Kienitz, Under Secretary for Policy at U.S. DOT; former Virginia Secretary of Transportation Pierce Homer; and Mayor Patrick Henry Hays of North Little Rock, Arkansas to kick it off with a short session giving an overview of the federal, state and local roles in transportation policy.

So if you want to learn more about things like the history of the federal transportation program, how the Interstate System was started, how earmarks came to be so prevalent or how the federal role in funding transportation has changed throughout the years, we hope you find Transportation 101 useful.

(And about that jargon and those acronyms…there’s a glossary in the back.)

DSC_0056 Originally uploaded by Transportation for America to Flickr.

House transportation leaders kick-off nationwide tour in West Virginia

West Virginia’s Beckley (right) and Charleston were the first two stops on a multi-state tour that House transportation leaders hope will result in a bipartisan bill to fund the nation’s infrastructure.

The current law, known as SAFETEA-LU, expired in September 2009 and has continued under a series of short-term extensions, the latest expiring in March.

Transportation remained on the back-burner during the previous Congress, but key players are signaling they want action this year. Yesterday, President Obama proposed a forward-looking, $556 billion transportation budget that doubles the nation’s investment in transit, consolidates duplicative programs and reforms how we spend federal dollars. And, House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman John Mica, a Florida Republican, has already been meeting with his Senate counterpart, Democrat Barbara Boxer, on a new bill.

Now, Mica is hitting the road with ranking Democrat Nick Rahall and other members of the Committee. Beckley is in West Virginia’s Third Congressional District, represented by Rahall since 1976.

West Virginia is a largely car-dependent state that lacks large-scale mass transit. But as state highway commissioner Paul Mattox Jr. pointed out during the Beckley hearing, other travel options remain crucial.

“Many West Virginians, particularly in the rural areas, are transit-dependent and utilize these services to get to work, the doctor, shopping and to take care of the necessities of life,” Mattox said, according to the Beckley Register-Herald. “The need for continued transportation investment in West Virginia is greater now than ever.”

And, in Charleston, a number of industry leaders emphasized the importance of both getting a bill done and the level of investment right.

“We hear a lot of talk about doing more with less,” the Charleston Gazette quoted Dan Cooperrider, president of Old Castle Materials’ Mid Atlantic Group, as saying. “If we continue doing more with less, soon we’ll be doing nothing.”

Members of the Committee are also making stops in the Philadelphia areas; Rochester, New York; the greater Chicago area; Vancouver, Washington; Fresno, California; Southern California; Oklahoma City; and elsewhere.

Photo: City-Data

President Obama proposes $556 billion, six-year federal transportation program

President Obama released a budget for the 2012 fiscal year this morning that includes a significant investment in our nation’s infrastructure and a long-overdue emphasis on options and accountability.

The $556 billion, six-year proposal for transportation reauthorization included in the budget is an ambitious standout in a largely sober blueprint. However, persistent unemployment — particularly in the construction industry — makes the case for forgoing infrastructure cuts in favor of investment. When more Americans are working, paying taxes and putting their dollars back into their communities, the deficit goes down too.

Yonah Freemark from the Transport Politic pointed out that the President’s budget continues the expansion of transportation options.

Though the Administration would increase funding for roads construction from $41 billion in the previous budget to $70 billion, that increase is dwarfed in percentage by proposed spending on transit, which would more than double from $8 billion annually currently to $22 billion. Over six years, spending on capital improvements for public transportation would add up to $119 billion.

Tanya Snyder at Streetsblog Capitol Hill also offered some initial reactions.

As promised, the budget also includes the $53 billion for high-speed rail over six years previewed by Vice President Biden in a speech last week.

True to the overall theme of cuts coupled with smarter investment, the plan consolidates 55 programs into just five and invests $30 billion in a National Infrastructure Bank to provide loans and grants to projects of regional and national significance that promote economic growth. The plan contains no earmarks and cancels a number of them still on the books.

The administration is also highlighting a new $32 billion competitive grant program modeled after the successful Race to the Top program in the U.S. Department of Education. This new approach would create incentives for states and regions to pursue their own innovations that reduce congestion, improve quality of life, make it easier for residents to get to work and recreation and enhance economic prosperity. Details about that program should be forthcoming at the U.S. DOT briefing about the budget this afternoon.

In addition, a “Fix-it-first” policy for highways and transit grants would make repair and maintenance of existing infrastructure a higher priority, a reform that would save lives and save money.

The plan does not specify a revenue source for the increases but “commits to work with Congress to ensure that the funding increases for surface transportation do not increase the deficit.”

The U.S. Department of Transportation is hosting a briefing at 2pm at which point many of these details will be further illuminated. T4 America will be releasing a formal statement early this afternoon.

Photo: AFP/Getty Images

Two former secretaries of transportation stress renewed focus on infrastructure, better ways to pay for it

Former secretaries of transportation Norman Mineta and Samuel Skinner want less talk on infrastructure and more action.

The two have a working relationship that dates back to the early 1990s, when Mineta was a Democratic Congressman from San Jose serving as chair of the House Public Works and Transportation Committee, and Skinner was DOT Secretary under President George H.W. Bush. Mineta went on to head USDOT under President George W. Bush.

In a briefing on Capitol Hill yesterday, the duo called for increased attention on the nation’s infrastructure and declared the existing gas tax an insufficient funding source for the future.

“Transportation policy is very important in this country,” Mineta said. “It is the basis of everything that happens.”

Added Skinner: “We have to find new and creative ways to invest in infrastructure and generate the revenue to do so.”

Ashley Halsey of the Washington Post summarized some of the report’s key findings:

If Congress were to do the report’s bidding, the task would be far broader in scope than simply coming up with trillions of dollars in long-term funding to rebuild a 50-year-old highway system.

The experts also advocated adoption of a distinct capital spending plan for transportation, empowering state and local governments with authority to make choices now dictated from the federal level, continued development of high-speed rail systems better integrated with freight rail transportation, and expansion of intermodal policies rather than reliance on highways alone to move goods and people.

Mineta and Skinner’s bipartisan report also cited “nurturing livable communities” as a smart, needed strategy for reducing congestion and improving quality of life. They wrote:

Creating communities conducive to walking and alternative modes of transportation, especially in dense metropolitan areas, should be an important goal of transportation policy at all levels of government.

That a bipartisan duo of transportation secretaries, both of whom worked in Republican administrations, would cite livability and walkable communities as key goals for a 21st century transportation system speaks volumes. It tells us that there’s nothing partisan about getting out of traffic and getting home in time for dinner.

Ezra Klein, a Post staff writer and domestic politics blogger, echoed a similar theme over the weekend, pointing out that the low interest rates and cheaper construction and labor costs resulting from the recession present a unique opportunity to make needed infrastructure investments today at a massively reduced cost. “Delaying a dollar of needed infrastructure repairs is no different than racking up a dollar of debt,” Klein wrote. He goes on to affirm what we already know about the transportation spending process: it’s too political, not accountable, and Americans think it’s broken.

The problem is that the way we choose our infrastructure projects is an embarrassment. About 10 percent of infrastructure spending comes from politicians securing earmarks. Most of the rest depends on a formula in which the government just hands money over to the states. There’s no requirement for cost-benefit analysis or rate-of-return calculations. The decisions are horribly politicized.

If taxpayers are going to make a huge investment in our nation’s infrastructure, then we’re owed an assurance that policymakers are choosing the best projects. That suggests a grand bargain, in which more infrastructure money is tied to reforms ensuring a better process for spending that money.

The report, titled “Well Within Reach: America’s New Transportation Agenda,” was sponsored by the Miller Center for Public Affairs at the University of Virginia and can be downloaded in its entirely at the InfrastructureUSA website.

Transportation for America proposal creates more jobs than current transportation law, Economic Policy Institute finds

What if we could re-design our nation’s transportation policy to increase travel options, reduce oil dependency and create more jobs? According to an Economic Policy Institute study, we could do just that if Congress adopts Transportation for America’s proposal for the next surface transportation law.

The economy is showing some signs of growth, but that’s little encouragement for the millions of Americans without a job – the unemployment rate nationwide is still a notch below 10 percent. It is difficult to see how America’s economy can grow and recover without sustained job creation.

EPI ran the numbers and found that T4 America’s proposed $500 billion transportation bill would support 400,000 more jobs than would be created by continuing SAFETEA-LU, the existing transportation law, at that same $500 billion level. The T4 America proposal would support more than 7.2 million jobs.

T4 America’s proposal is an effective and swift job creator because it calls for investment in some of the more labor-intensive areas of transportation, such as repair and maintenance of existing infrastructure and public transportation, all reliable job creators. Many highway expansion projects take longer to move because they require permits and spend a larger percentage of funds on land acquisition rather than labor. As a result, many of these projects also end up employing less people.

Adopting T4’s plan would give a leg up to the Americans hardest hit by the economic downturn, especially low-wage workers and Americans who did not go to college. In fact, 80 percent of the new jobs created would be filled by Americans without a four-year degree. And the proposal is also a good deal for the working men and women of organized labor – 15 percent of the jobs created would be union jobs, compared to just 12 percent of the jobs in the overall economy.

And these are not just jobs for jobs sake – T4’s plan puts people to work building the transportation system we need for the 21st century, an all-of-the-above approach that rebuilds and maintains roads and bridges, expands travel options, implements real accountability for how we spend precious taxpayer dollars and ensures America’s small towns and rural areas take part in our economic recovery as well.

We need strong infrastructure to achieve steady growth and opportunity in the decades to come.

The ability of T4 America’s proposal to create good-paying jobs and promote economic growth has won our coalition broad support. Sam Williams, president of the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce, a T4 partner, praised the proposal as “an important and timely message for Congress” and “critical to economic development not only in metro Atlanta but across the country.” Teamsters General President Jim Hoffa says the kind of investment in clean transportation advocated by T4 America “will create millions of good paying quality jobs and put our nation on a path to a lasting economic recovery.”

You can read the full report here, or check out T4 America’s release and fact sheet.

East Tennessee doctor weighs in on the health-transportation connection

Jackson mom and daughter biking Dan Burden

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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