Skip to main content

Tag: senate

The good, bad, and ugly in the Senate’s new transportation proposal

The Senate committee responsible for writing the highway provisions for our country’s long-term transportation policies released their proposal over the weekend. This bill makes some notable improvements and creates some vital, small new programs, but largely leaves the problematic status quo intact—akin to filling up a bucket with a leak in it. 

Our country’s fundamental transportation problems—huge numbers of people killed on our roadways, skyrocketing greenhouse gas emissions, the inability to participate in the economy if you can’t spend $10,000 per year on a vehicle or have disabilities—are getting worse. Yet our federal transportation policy hasn’t changed in decades and is perpetuating many of these problems.

That’s why Transportation for America believes that current policy must be rewritten with these three principles to redirect funding in order to achieve the outcomes we need: getting everyone where they need to go safely, sustainably, affordably and conveniently. But this past weekend, the Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee released the “Surface Transportation Reauthorization Act of 2021” that follows the same-old, status quo approach. 

(Update 6/15/21: This bill was approved by the committee and advanced to the Senate with no tangible improvements. We believe that both Republicans and Democrats traded away their core principles in the name of bipartisanship. We sent this letter to Senate leaders, signed by dozens of organizations and leaders from across the country, noting that “these failures cannot be fixed with tweaks around the edges. They require a fundamental rethinking of what the American taxpayer should get for their investment in transportation infrastructure.” A week before that, the House released their full five-year transportation proposal, which we praised and which went three-for-three on our core principles, in sharp contrast to this Senate bill.)

While there are definitely some things worth praising in this bill, it’s a lot like summer 2019, when this same committee passed a status quo bill that would make our climate, income inequality, economy, safety, and health much worse. Here’s our breakdown. 

The good 

Regular updates of the traffic engineers’ bible: The Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD) is a monster of a planning document that provides guidance for street designs across the country. The current iteration is marked by an overall approach that prioritizes moving cars quickly through developed areas (including downtowns) at the expense of the safety for everyone else. This 1950s approach to transportation makes it too hard to implement life-saving solutions, like requiring a certain number of people to be killed while walking at an intersection before a crosswalk can be added.

This bill requires the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) to update the MUTCD now and every three years with a focus on vulnerable users and safely testing automated vehicles. After months of trying to get the MUTCD changed this year, this is a huge win for Transportation for America, our partners (particularly America Walks and NACTO who led the effort), and anyone who cares about a people-first approach to street design that will save lives.

Requires states to spend active transportation dollars on active transportation: The small Transportation Alternatives Program (TAP) is designed to support projects that make it safer and more convenient to walk or bike. Currently, some states move these funds very slowly or transfer them to other programs. This bill would allow the Secretary of Transportation to increase the amount sent directly to the local governments clamoring for these funds to ensure that it gets spent on making it safe and comfortable for people to move around outside of a car. 

Support for measuring multimodal access to jobs and essential services: Based on the COMMUTE Act, introduced by Sens. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) and Joni Ernst (R-IA), developed with T4America, the bill includes a transportation pilot program to develop or procure an accessibility data set and make it available to those selected to participate. The goal is to measure the level of access by surface transportation modes to important destinations, including jobs and essential services. It is authorized for 8 years and funded out of the department’s research program.

Creates a pilot program to measure access: For decades, the federal transportation program has spent money without any evaluation of where people need to go and how they can get there—focusing instead on moving cars quickly to nowhere. That’s why connecting people to jobs and services is one of Transportation for America’s three principles. This bill establishes a pilot program to develop or procure an access to jobs and essential services data set and make it available to those selected to participate. 

Good, but…

Some funding to repair damage of urban highways but no measures to prevent displacement: This bill would create a sorely-needed $100 million per year competitive pilot program to reconnect communities that were divided by a highway or other infrastructure, based on our proposal with Third Way. This is indeed a major, welcome development, but $100 million is a drop in the bucket, and it also lacks any anti-displacement provisions to ensure that potential highway teardowns don’t harm the same communities by driving up the price of housing.

Complete Streets policies (good) but no requirement to fund them: This bill requires states and metro areas to use their funding and time to adopt Complete Street policies and standards, and develop a Complete Streets prioritization plan, but it fails to require them to apply that plan to the majority of the federal funds they receive.

A bridge repair program that lets new construction go unchecked: This bill creates a new $600 million competitive grant program for bridge repair or replacement, but once again, the Senate is choosing to create a stand alone new program in an attempt to fix a problem (bridge repair) that will be undermined by the lack of any requirement for states to prioritize repairing bridges. (See “the ugly” below.) We’ve had dedicated bridge repair programs before (as recently as 2012), and it failed to eliminate the backlog because states were allowed to just continue building more roads and bridges at the same time.

The bad

A carbon reduction program that’s no match for highway funding: This bill creates a program that sounds exciting (it would fund projects like advanced truck stop electrification systems, public transportation, facilities for pedestrians and bicyclists, congestion management technologies and more) until you realize that: 1) it is a small project to fix problems that the larger program will continue to create, 2) is subject to a provision that allows states to transfer 50 percent out if they wish, and 3) allows many states to opt out completely. So, much less exciting. 

Propane and natural gas fueling stations…? Transportation is the largest source of carbon emissions in the U.S., and the majority of them come from driving. To address this, the EPW bill establishes a competitive grant program for Alternative Fuel Corridors to deploy electric vehicle charging infrastructure, hydrogen fueling infrastructure, propane fueling infrastructure (only for medium and heavy-duty vehicles), and natural gas fueling infrastructure along alternative fuel corridors. Deploying propane and natural gas stations is out of step with our needs and the kind of solution we’d expect to see proposed 20 years ago. 

Continues to suggest that highways are the only solution for moving freight: The freight programs were created to identify barriers to freight movement and projects to remove them. All the planning is multimodal. But nearly all of the funding is for highways. The current program allows a meager 10 percent of funding to go to multimodal projects. This bill raises that number to 30 percent. Apparently states need flexibility to set targets for more roadway fatalities, but not to spend freight funds outside of highway improvements.

The ugly 

No tightening of safety performance measures: While states have to set targets for improving roadway safety, states can actually plan for more people to be killed than in the previous year with no penalties. This bill fails to fix that. It attempts to dedicate funding to vulnerable users, adding a requirement that when 15 percent of road deaths are pedestrians, cyclists, or people using mobility-assistive devices, that state needs to spend 15 percent of Highway Safety Improvement Program (HSIP) funds on addressing vulnerable user safety. 

To give an example of just how pitiful this is, in Florida (the most dangerous state for pedestrians), would be required to spend $18.7 million on vulnerable users of the $2 billion they get from the feds. The message, just from the scale, is that this is not a priority.

No requirement to fix-it-first: Our Repair Priorities report makes this clear: when states aren’t required to spend highway dollars on maintenance, many choose to build new roads that let the maintenance backlog grow, often on projects that make traffic worse. In fact, the Washington Post reported on this tendency to ignore repair just today. FHWA estimates a $435 billion repair backlog and the Post’s analysis found that one-fifth of the nation’s major roads were rated in poor condition in 2019, yet “more than one-third of states’ capital spending on roads that year, $19 billion, went toward expanding the road network rather than chipping away at the backlog.”

This bill contains no requirement that states prioritize repair or have a plan to maintain what they build or make progress on the state of repair of their system. This approach was approved unanimously in the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee when they moved the INVEST Act last summer, and it should be an obvious fix. 

Exempts states from measuring and reducing greenhouse gas emissions: Instead of an executive action that can be implemented and undone by a future administration, this bill would legislatively direct USDOT and EPA to require states  to measure and set targets for CO2 emissions from transportation. The Obama administration promulgated a rule to do just that, and it was withdrawn by the Trump administration. Unfortunately, this bill allows states to be exempted from this rule, rendering it meaningless. The rule is just to measure and set targets. Even that seems to be too much to ask.

No requirement to build resilient infrastructure: This bill provides a good pot of money to plan and make improvements to infrastructure to make it more resilient, both through planning and by building protective infrastructure on or near transportation assets to weather increasingly worse storms. But none of it is required. So a state can choose to build infrastructure that is vulnerable to natural disasters and then have the federal taxpayer bail them out by replacing that with a new, equally unprotected asset. Due to an additional change in the rules, the taxpayer might pay not just to replace the vulnerable asset but expand it—and likely replace the now bigger asset again later.

Luckily, it can be fixed 

This bill is emblematic of our traditional approach to our country’s massive transportation problems: create new, too-small programs ostensibly designed to address major problems while continuing to perpetuate the same damage with the bigger core highway programs. For example, the majority of this bill will pour billions into the same-old highway programs that states use to pursue damaging, divisive, and largely redundant projects like the I-45 expansion in Houston. 


The good news is that these areas are fixable with targeted changes or amendments. Transportation for America is working on four amendments we urge the EPW Committee to incorporate into the bill this Wednesday during the mark-up hearing. These amendments would improve the equity, climate, safety and repair sections of this bill. Stay tuned for more information by subscribing to our mailing list or following us on Twitter.

Statement on the Surface Transportation Reauthorization Act of 2021

press release

A statement from Transportation for America director Beth Osborne on the Surface Transportation Reauthorization Act of 2021 released this weekend by the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee: 

“Federal transportation policy has very serious problems to solve, from increasing pedestrian deaths, skyrocketing emissions, and the lack of equitable access to jobs and essential services. This bill tried to tackle them in the way we have seen in the past. It creates exciting new programs with a small amount of funding in the hope that it can fix the problems that will continue to be created by the much larger status quo program. 

“However, the good things in the bill can be enhanced and built upon to reflect and enact all that is exciting about the American Jobs Plan. With targeted amendments that support fix-it-first, equity, safety, and our climate, this bill can achieve the outcomes we all care about. The investments we make today will impact communities for decades to come—we cannot afford to get it wrong again.” 

Senators hone in on 80/20 split, transit operations funding at Banking hearing

Last week, the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee held a hearing on investing in public transit in the next long-term transportation law. We were pleasantly surprised to see senators ask questions on funding transit and highways equally, transit operations, and rural transit. 

Credit: Kyle Anderson, WMATA

Public transportation usually gets shafted in the long-term surface transportation law—so much so that lawmakers tend to call it “the highway bill.” 

But not this year. Senators in the committee charged with writing the public transit portion of this law—up for reauthorization this September—surprised us at a recent hearing with questions that got to the heart of the policies keeping U.S. public transit behind. Many senators specifically asked our director Beth Osborne, who testified before the committee, about the 80/20 split between highway and transit funding, the value of funding transit operations, and rural transit needs. 

We’ve long criticized the Senate Banking Committee for shirking its duty to write the public transit portion of authorization by taking a backseat to the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, which writes the highway title. But this hearing might signal a change in tactic. Here’s what we heard that surprised us. 

The belly of the beast: the 80/20 split

Since 1982, spending from the federal Highway Trust Fund has followed this formula: 80 percent for highways, 20 percent for public transportation. The logic behind this was that since the Trust Fund’s funding came from the gas tax drivers pay at the pump, most of the funding should be spent on highways. 

Besides a groundbreaking resolution from Rep. Chuy García (that you can support here), this faulty logic hasn’t been challenged much since—even though subsequent legislation, particularly the three COVID-19 relief packages, didn’t adhere to this formula. Which is why we were surprised to hear Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ) ask Beth right out of the gate how funding transit and highways equally would improve transit service. “We’ve never made the kind of investment in transit at the national level as we did for highways,” Beth said. “But this is what we need to do to give people multiple modes of travel.” 

Senator Menendez also noted that the federal transportation program subsidizes highways and bridges, so he doesn’t understand why transit is any different. 

Funding transit operations—not just maintenance and capital 

The only federal funding provided regularly to medium-sized and larger transit agencies is for maintenance or expansion projects—not the day-to-day costs of operating transit service. Transit agencies are on their own to raise this money, relying on a combination of fares, sales tax receipts, and other state level sources of support. 

The three COVID-19 relief packages broke this tradition by providing operating support to transit agencies, giving us hope that lawmakers would make this a permanent component of the long-term transportation law. Senator Jack Reed (D-RI)  brought this idea to the committee by asking Beth about the value of federal operating support, even noting that investing in more frequent service will bring a return of more riders. 

“People can’t rely on transit that comes every 45 minutes to an hour,” Beth responded. “We need the reliability that high-frequency transit service brings, and not just at the times that white collar workers need transit.” And the only way there is through federal operating support for transit. 

An interest in rural transit 

Both Senators Jon Tester (D-MT) and Tina Smith (D-MN) asked Beth about the types of investments needed to support public transit in rural areas, and how they might be different than investments in urban and suburban public transit. 

This is an important issue: we found in an analysis of American Community Survey data that the majority of counties with high rates of zero-car households are rural. In fact, more than one million households in predominantly rural counties do not have access to a vehicle, as we blogged last year. 

“When we think rural, we think wide open fields and farmlands. But we forget that there are concentrations of people who live in distinct towns, and that services they need—like hospitals and schools—are moving farther away, consolidating into centers that serve entire regions,” Beth responded. “We need transit that can connect people to those regional hubs.” 

Lack of bipartisanship 

Only one Republican member of the committee showed up to the hearing: Ranking Member Pat Toomey (PA-R), who spent his testimony criticizing the high amount of funding public transit received in the most recent COVID-19 relief package. 

The lack of bipartisan participation in the hearing is both good and bad. On the good side, transportation has typically been an issue that both Democrats and Republicans agree to undermine for the sake of bipartisanship, regularly passing long-term authorizations that maintain the status quo and make our transportation problems worse. Breaking from this tradition is necessary to pass an authorization that will actually maintain our infrastructure, improve safety, and connect people with jobs and services sustainably and equitably. 

Yet the lack of bipartisanship implies that these recommendations are partisan—when in reality, many of the changes to federal transportation policy needed would achieve both parties’ goals: improved economic competitiveness, access to jobs and services, sustainability and more. That’s why freshmen Democrat and Republican members of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee supported many of Transportation for America’s recommendations in legislation passed by the House last summer. 

Turning needed reforms to the federal transportation program into a partisan issue will fail to deliver the transportation system Americans deserve and overwhelmingly support. We urge senators on both sides of the aisle to take a hard look at the current transportation program and ask themselves: is this working? 

Beth was “the belle of the transit ball”—but nothing is real until it’s law

It’s exciting to hear senators ask about policy proposals that would constitute a paradigm shift in U.S. transportation policy if enacted—which is why after the hearing, our chairman John Robert Smith called Beth “the belle of the transit ball.” 

But the Banking Committee hasn’t released any bill text yet, meaning that we can’t assume that ending the 80/20 split, funding transit operations, supporting rural transit and more will make it into the bill. Talk without action is meaningless. Yet we’re glad to see that there’s talk at all, especially after decades of the status quo. 

The Senate needs a new transportation bill—and over 120 elected officials and organizations agree

Current long-term transportation policy expires this September, giving Congress a rare opportunity to fundamentally rethink American transportation. That’s why the House passed a transformative bill last summer—but the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee passed a status quo bill that would just make our problems worse. Over 120 elected officials and organizations signed our letter urging the Senate to take a new course. 

A floating bus stop with a bike lane in Montgomery County, MD. Photo by Beyond DC on Flickr’s Creative Commons.

Last summer, the House of Representatives passed a long-term transportation bill completely unlike any we’ve seen before. 

The bill—called the INVEST Act—required states to maintain their roadways before building new ones; use Complete Streets design standards, among other policies that make the safety of people walking and biking a priority; and measure how well their transportation investments connect people to jobs and services, and prioritize investments that improve those connections—regardless of mode. 

These policy changes would start the work of focusing our transportation policy on outcomes, not dollars—building a transportation system that connects people to what they need affordably, safely, conveniently, equitably, and sustainably. 

The Senate was a different story. The Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee is responsible for writing the highway portion of the long-term transportation law, and the bill they passed in summer 2019 was, kindly, so-so:

  • No requirement to maintain roads with the overwhelming amount of funding dedicated to highways; 
  • Nothing to curb the skyrocketing number of people killed while walking every year; 
  • The bill included a pilot program to measure access, but nothing to reorient the federal transportation program from mindlessly pursuing vehicle speed as a goal. 

As we wrote then, we’re tired of the same old transportation bills that pump money into building highways at the expense of our crumbling roads and bridges, people’s access to essential jobs and services, and human life.

But there’s hope: The new chair of the Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee (the Senate committee responsible for the public transit portion of the long-term transportation bill) has said that he wants his committee to take a much bigger role in passing this legislation. (Historically, EPW has taken the lead, leaving transit policy and funding in the dust.) In addition, the new EPW chair has requested feedback this month from members on surface transportation priorities.

To capitalize on this, 124 elected officials and organizations from 35 states signed our letter urging the Senate to pick a new path—like the INVEST Act—to the long-term transportation bill. It’s time for the Senate to pass a bill that fundamentally updates the 70 year old federal transportation program to prioritize maintenance, design for safety over speed, and connect people to jobs and services—and so many agree. 

To achieve this vision, the EPW and Banking committees must work together—a critical piece of our message to the Senate. Our letter reads: 

“Climate change, racial and economic equity, safety, and maintenance are interrelated transportation challenges—just like highways, public transit, biking, walking, and passenger rail are interrelated. We can no longer consider these issues in legislative and policy silos; coordination among your committees is essential to delivering the transportation system Americans deserve. 

“As an example of the committee coordination needed, we support significant new investment in public transit and passenger rail—including operating support for public transit—to provide more people with safe, reliable, and convenient service. At the same time, every trip begins and ends as a pedestrian and we also support investments in safe streets and more connected communities that are necessary to leverage investments in transit and rail. “

As Senators hit the drafting board this spring, we urge them to take our recommendations to heart. It’s long past time for visionary transportation legislation that meets the moment. 

Read our full letter here, and check out our blogs on the Senate and House bills: 

Senate Democrats recommend less driving—as Senate committee approves billions for new roads

The Senate Democrats’ Special Committee on the Climate Crisis recently released a report recommending key federal actions in each sector to avert the impacts of climate change, incorporating a number of Transportation for America’s recommendations. In fact, the very first recommendation for the transportation sector is to enable Americans to choose walking, biking, or public transportation over driving.

A MUNI light rail train in San Francisco. Photo by Jim Maurer on Flickr’s Creative Commons.

We will never be able to reduce transportation emissions in time to avert catastrophic climate change without also reducing how much people must drive to accomplish daily activities. Federal transportation policy has a huge role to play in that. 

Our partners at Third Way recently joined us to discuss why the Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee’s transportation reauthorization bill from last summer fell far short of the broad changes needed to address climate change (particularly in contrast to the House’s more recent INVEST Act). While the Senate included a section on climate, their overall approach would actually make climate change worse by preserving the status quo approach that leads to more roads, more driving, and more emissions. 

Fortunately some Senators have recently taken a broader view. In late August, the Senate Democrats’ Special Committee on the Climate Crisis released a climate action report that proposes the kind of paradigm shift that’s needed. The report doesn’t merely go beyond electric vehicles—it leads its transportation section with recommendations on the importance of reducing how much people need to drive by building walkable, transit-served communities where people can live and work in the same area.

Here are three things we were encouraged to see in this plan.

Recognizes the role of land use and sprawl in increasing emissions

It is noteworthy that the transportation section of the Senate’s report begins with a discussion about how land use decisions exacerbate transportation emissions by driving sprawl. That focus is often entirely missing from climate advocates’ and policymakers’ conversations. 

As the report notes, through 20th century zoning, most communities have made it illegal to build affordable, multi-family housing near job centers, retail or public transit by restricting those areas only for detached single-family homes. This practice produces spread out car-oriented development and raises the cost to live in desirable areas where walkability and viable alternatives to driving exist. It forces low- and moderate-income commuters to make long drives from suburbs and exurbs, increasing emissions and exacerbating congestion in the process. Simply allowing greater housing density, especially near job and retail centers, can have a profound impact on emissions by reducing how much people need to drive every day.

But this isn’t just a local issue. Federal policy plays an enormous role in local land-use decisions, largely due to the incentives that federal programs—like transportation and housing—often create. The Senate report recommends that the federal government provide significant new funding and financing to promote smart growth, safer streets, and public transportation options. Done right, those strategies can be a potent tool to reduce emissions, while addressing critical issues of equity and housing affordability in the process. 

Emphasizes high-quality transit and roadway safety

Providing frequent, reliable transit service will be a crucial step in reducing how much Americans need to drive, yet as the Senate’s report notes, the current approach fails to help make that a reality. The federal government has chronically underfunded transit, particularly transit operations, resulting in a major backlog of repairs and reliability issues caused by decades of neglect that have undercut transit ridership. Federal support for transit is more important than ever, as agencies are spending more to clean transit vehicles, provide personal protective equipment to keep their employees safe, and continue to provide access to work, healthcare, and other necessities for the millions of Americans who rely on transit.

The Senate’s report also explicitly calls out the need to improve safety for pedestrians, especially pedestrians of color. It echoes Transportation for America’s principles, noting that many U.S. roads are designed to move vehicles at the highest speeds possible, with little consideration for walking, biking, or transit. It calls to stop treating pedestrians as an afterthought and explicitly encourage other transportation options for trips under three miles. It recommends adoption of a Complete Streets approach.

Many of the same strategies apply in rural areas

The report also notes that while rural areas have their own challenges, many of the same land-use strategies will still be crucial in those communities. Promoting mixed-use development in existing historic rural downtowns and main streets over office parks and regional malls can have a profound impact on how much people drive, and emit. It can also help leverage rural communities’ unique character, historically significant architecture, and valuable public spaces to promote economic vitality and reduce the risk that these local assets are forsaken in favor of new development on the fringes of the community that is far more expensive to maintain while generating less tax revenue.

The Senate’s report is a good step but more education is needed

It is heartening to see this emphasis in the Senate’s climate report, but it isn’t enough. Reports like this are only meaningful if they actually impact federal transportation policy. 

Too many congressional leaders still aren’t seeing the importance of investing in a transportation system that allows people to drive less by making shorter trips, biking, walking, and riding transit possible. While we often hear support in theory, few realize that this means both supporting those types of projects while also opposing projects that add new dangers in the name of letting drivers drive faster. It also means supporting fundamental reform in the federal transportation program that makes walking, biking, and riding transit a priority through funding and policy, at the expense of more money for the status quo road-building approach. Even the Senate’s report arguably downplays the significant role that federal—not just local—policy has played in incentivizing sprawl and increasing how much Americans need to drive, as well as the crucial role federal policy will need to play in making change happen. 

We are encouraging advocates to help educate their members of Congress about the real connection between climate and transportation. You can help by:

(1) Sending a letter to your members of Congress explaining why the Senate EPW Committee’s long-term transportation bill is actually bad for the climate. We have a draft letter you can use, which you can find here. 

(2) Tweeting at your members of Congress (particularly your Senators) to urge them to pass a climate-friendly transportation bill. You can use our social media toolkit. 

(3) Submitting a short letter to the editor to your local newspaper explaining what it takes to truly reduce transportation emissions: investment in a transportation system that makes shorter trips, biking, walking, and riding transit possible. 

Webinar recap: How the Senate’s transportation proposal would make climate change worse

Transportation is the largest source of U.S. carbon emissions, and most of it comes from driving. But a long-term transportation bill passed by a Senate committee last summer would only make this problem worse. Last week, along with Third Way, we discussed the role federal transportation policy plays in making climate change worse—and what a better transportation bill looks like. 

Last summer, the Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee passed a long-term transportation bill that was, quite frankly, a wolf in sheep’s clothing. The bill included a groundbreaking $10 billion for carbon reduction programs (“groundbreaking” simply because no prior transportation law had ever included any climate-related funding), while pouring 27 times that amount into programs that are perfectly designed to increase carbon emissions.. 

That’s why we teamed up with Third Way to host a webinar debunking the bill’s climate-friendly ethos. Our Policy Director Scott Goldstein and Third Way’s Transportation Policy Advisor Alexander Laska discussed how the Senate bill will just wind up increasing emissions, and what a better long-term transportation bill looks like (psssssh: it looks an awful lot like the bill passed by the House of Representatives this summer). 

Here are three of the most frequently-asked questions from the webinar. 

Why isn’t electrifying vehicles enough to reduce transportation emissions? 

The reason: Americans are driving more than ever, and electrification can’t keep up with the pace of growth. As federal transportation policy and funding encourages more and wider highways, destinations—like housing, businesses, schools and more—get placed physically farther apart from each other to accommodate highways. This results in people living further away from the things they need and the places they go, causing them to drive further and further just to reach everyday destinations, as our former colleague Emily Mangan wrote in this slam dunk of a blog post. 

This ever-increasing driving (known as “vehicle miles traveled”, or VMT) is why emissions have increased despite relatively large increases in fuel efficiency standards and the slow-but-steady adoption of electric vehicles thus far. Despite an admirable 35 percent increase in the overall fuel efficiency of our vehicle fleet from 1990-2016, emissions still rose by 21 percent. That’s because the total amount of miles traveled increased by 50 percent in that same period. 

If we only electrify the fleet but don’t find ways for more people to drive less each day, this trend will continue to go in the wrong direction. And make no mistake, this Senate bill gives states billions in new money for new roads that will just produce more driving.

What role does Congress play in local land use decisions? 

The common belief is that land-use decisions are made strictly at the local level, and that the federal government has no role or effect on them. That’s false. Federal policy plays an enormous role in local land use decisions, largely due to the incentives that federal programs create. 

In the federal transportation program, 80 percent of funding is set mostly for highways, where the overarching priority is to increase vehicle speed, not to improve safety, not to make it easier to bike or walk, and not to make transit more efficient. As a result, towns and cities make decisions in response to these federal priorities and investments: they’ll widen a highway instead of repairing the existing street network or building a protected bike lane, and decide to zone more land for low-density housing or retail. 

Changing federal incentives can have a ripple effect on local land-use decisions. Allowing cities and towns to use transportation dollars to invest in transit operations and maintenance might encourage local governments to make zoning decisions that support those investments: that means denser, walkable neighborhoods and downtowns. 

Congress can also unlock more federal funding for equitable transit-oriented development. As we wrote with Third Way in their Transportation and Climate: Federal Policy Agenda, Congress should require that the U.S. Housing and Urban Development Department (HUD) and U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) coordinate to leverage billions of dollars in existing loan authority that could support mixed-income, mixed-use development and provide new revenue streams for transit, affordable housing, and local governments. 

How can college-aged students and climate activists help amplify the importance of this issue?

There’s a lot that anyone can do to make sure that long-term transportation policy actually reduces carbon emissions. 

It’s vitally important that members of Congress understand the connection between transportation and climate change. Anyone can understand that cars pollute the air, but making the next step—that we need to reduce driving, not just electrify it—is something that needs to be explained to many people, particularly our elected officials. The failure to understand this point has been bipartisan.It’s not enough to somehow make every vehicle electric: we also need a transportation system that allows more people to bike, walk, and take transit, as well as take shorter trips in a vehicle. Making marginal changes to yesterday’s transportation policy won’t get us there. 

We have a couple of ways you can start educating your members of Congress about the real connection between climate and transportation: 

  1. Send a letter to your members of Congress explaining why the Senate EPW Committee’s long-term transportation bill is actually really bad for the climate. We have a draft letter you can use, which you can find here. 
  2. Tweet at your members of Congress (particularly your Senators) to urge them to pass a climate-friendly transportation bill. You can use our social media toolkit. 
  3. Submit a short letter to the editor to your local newspaper explaining what it takes to truly reduce transportation emissions: investment in a transportation system that makes shorter trips, biking, walking, and riding transit possible. 

Why the Senate’s transportation bill is terrible for climate

Last summer, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee passed a long-term transportation bill that was praised for its climate title, marking the first time the word “climate” was included in a bipartisan transportation bill. But while this climate title was worth celebrating, the bill overall would actually result in more emissions, not less. Here’s how, and why we need a different approach.

Check out the recap of our webinar with Third Way, where we discussed why the Senate’s bill is bad for climate, why the House’s INVEST Act is much better, and what advocates can do to help Senators improve their next transportation bill.

A protected bike lane in Washington, DC. Photo by Elvert Barnes on Flickr’s Creative Commons.

Last July, the Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee passed the America’s Transportation Infrastructure Act (ATIA), this committee’s stab at reauthorizing transportation policy once the existing law expires this September. Amid the status quo of more money for existing federal transportation programs, the bill would spend $10 billion over five years on a new suite of climate and carbon reduction programs, including funds to incentivize states to develop and adopt carbon reduction strategies and grants for electric vehicle charging infrastructure. But this $10 billion for climate will fail to accomplish much when the rest of the bill funnels $277 billion into traditional programs that are perfectly designed to increase emissions. 

Here’s how—and how the House’s recently-passed bill will actually shift the climate paradigm. 

To reduce emissions, we need to allow people to drive less

Transportation accounts for the largest share of carbon emissions in the U.S., and those emissions are rising—even as other sectors have improved. This is because vehicle miles traveled (VMT) is increasing, negating the 35 percent increase in the overall fuel efficiency of vehicles on our roads between 1990-2016. Carbon emissions rose by 21 percent over that period because VMT rose by 50 percent. 

We won’t be able to increase fuel efficiency and electrify cars faster than VMT is rising, reducing the impact of electrification particularly in the next 10-20 years. And VMT is rising because the current federal transportation program—the broken program that the Senate is proposing to effectively renew with more money for five years—increases driving by design. U.S. transportation policy is focused on building more and wider highways instead of maintaining what we have, and without making sure that those new highways actually improve people’s access to the places they need to reach. This divides communities by the highway from the things they need across the highway and pushes development (and the people who live there) further away from the things they need, making them drive further and further just to get where they  need to go on a daily basis.  

The bill passed in the House is much better for climate 

If we want to reduce transportation emissions, we must reform the programs at the heart of federal transportation policy that allow and even encourage states to build new roads and expand existing ones in a way that divides communities and pushes development further out. The Senate bill’s $10 billion for climate doesn’t stand a chance against the unchanged status quo, but the bill recently passed by the House of Representatives—the INVEST Act—is a step in the right direction. 

For one, the INVEST Act requires that states maintain roads before building new ones. This is a huge step toward reducing unwise road building and expansion that often cuts off short local trips making people drive more, displaces existing communities (more often people of color) and encourages more development far from everything those residents will need to get to. That is the status quo maintained by the ATIA: increasing VMT, the backlog of maintenance needs, and congestion. 

While the Senate created an Accessibility Data Pilot Program in the ATIA, the House took that up a notch by creating a performance measure that requires states and metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) to improve access to jobs and services by all modes. This means that project sponsors must determine whether people traveling (not just driving) can reach jobs, schools, groceries, medical care and other necessities. 

Under the INVEST Act’s performance measure, states and MPOs will be penalized if they fail to use federal funding to improve that access—effectively incentivizing project sponsors to not build new or expanded roads. New roads don’t help nondrivers and they don’t help drivers get where they need to go any faster if they have to travel further, which is often the result of these projects. 

In another major shift, the INVEST Act also requires that states measure and reduce greenhouse gas emissions from their transportation system. States that reduce emissions can be rewarded with increased flexibility on how they spend federal dollars, while states that fail to reduce emissions will face penalties, as we wrote in this blog with our partners at Third Way. 

These aren’t the only ways the House has taken a far superior, holistic approach to the Senate on climate. While not perfect, the INVEST Act makes significant progress towards electrifying our vehicle fleet, increasing transit funding, and making biking and walking safer (read more about these policies here). 

The Senate’s bill doesn’t go far enough 

One thing is certain: the Senate doesn’t go nearly far enough. To be clear, we understand that the climate champions do not have the numbers to overcome the climate deniers in the Senate and that getting any climate language in their bill took real work. Kudos to those that fought for these programs. However, there should be an understanding from real climate champions about its weakness and how little it does to attack the underlying climate problems with our approach to transportation in this country. 

These champions might tout the climate provisions they got but vote against the bill, which happens all of the time. Or they could vote for the bill while being open about the continuing problems caused by the 96.7 percent of the funding that does nothing to address climate, much of which will harm our efforts to stave off catastrophic climate change. Or if not those options, they could loudly praise the superior House bill and welcome those ideas to the conversation in conference. And to be clear, this isn’t just an issue with those seeking to address climate in the Senate but also to those stakeholders that work on the issue from across the country, who praised this bill as if it made real change and didn’t just give a tiny portion of funding to fix the problem that is continuing to be generated by 30 times the funding given to climate.

It is too late for this meek approach. We all must do more. It’s time for bold action, not just an add-on to the status quo. 

Bipartisan, climate-forward transportation legislation is possible—but only if lawmakers rethink what transportation investments can achieve. Check out our director Beth Osborne’s take on why bipartisanship on its own can’t make a transportation bill great.

T4America statement on Senate Republicans’ HEALS Act

press release

WASHINGTON, DC: Yesterday evening, Senate Republicans released their proposal for the next round of COVID-19 relief funding. The proposal, called the HEALS Act, contains no emergency funding for public transportation operations or passenger rail. Transportation for America released the following statement in response. 

“Stay-at-home orders to prevent the spread of COVID-19 have hit transit agencies very hard. At the same time, transit remains critical for essential workers to reach their jobs and will be central to restarting the economy if we want everyone who wants to work to be able to get there. But the Senate leaves transit out of the HEALS Act,” said Beth Osborne, director of Transportation for America. “Americans need reliable, convenient, and affordable transportation options now more than ever. Any final bill must reflect that transit needs at least $32 billion in order to survive this crisis.”

“The response to COVID-19 has slowed travel between cities by a huge amount. Interestingly, the Senate recognized in the HEALS Act the importance of keeping airports operating through the crisis, but not passenger rail,” said John Robert Smith, chairman of Transportation for America. “However, many in small town America still rely on intercity rail to get to hospitals and essential services. It is irresponsible to leave many people in small towns and rural areas disconnected from Amtrak and other passenger rail services at this precarious time.”

Transit agencies sound the alarm: COVID-19 is a long-term threat to service

We need you to take action to save transit: Please email and call your member of Congress asking them to support emergency funding for transit agencies. It only takes a minute.

The COVID-19 pandemic is decimating transit agencies’ budgets. Without emergency assistance from Congress, public transportation won’t be there when this crisis subsides—yet the Senate Republicans’ proposed stimulus bill doesn’t give transit a cent. Join transit agencies across the country and tell Congress that transit needs emergency funding. 

“Empty Metro” by Mike Maguire on Flickr’s Creative Commons

Transit ridership is plummeting as millions of Americans practice critically important social distancing to slow the spread of COVID-19—and transit agencies are happy about it. Both Washington, DC and New York City’s subway systems tweeted rapidly falling ridership numbers with joy, praising people for taking social distancing seriously. 

But despite the praise, transit agencies also know that this loss of ridership is devastating their budgets. New York City’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) and the Washington, DC region’s Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) know that this is a recipe for long-term service reductions. Both agencies are calling for emergency funding from Congress, with the MTA specifically calling for $4 billion. “No agency of our size can find additional billions in savings equivalent to the damages we have and will sustain as a result of this pandemic,” MTA CEO Pat Foye said in the letter to New York’s Congressional delegation. “This is a national disaster that requires a national response.” Washington’s Metro is projecting a $52 million a month operating deficit.

Revenue from local or state sales taxes make up the other biggest portion of transit agencies’ budgets, and with the local economy being virtually shut down in many places, those funds will be rapidly dwindling as well. Increased costs from additional cleaning and measures to protect employees, such as the purchase of gloves, face masks, hand sanitizer, and other protective equipment, are evaporating funds faster than normal, too. 

That’s why with only 24 hours’ notice over 220 elected officials, cities, transit agencies and organizations across the country signed a letter written by T4America and the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) urging Congress to provide transit agencies with nearly $13 billion in emergency funding. We’re thrilled that so many people stepped up to save transit with such short notice. But it isn’t enough: the Senate Republicans’ stimulus bill was released yesterday, and it includes not one dollar for transit or Amtrak. 

We need you to step up for public transportation. Please call and email your members of Congress today. Demand them to support emergency funding for transit. 

TAKE ACTION NOW

Without federal financial assistance, many transit agencies and paratransit service providers will be forced to dramatically reduce or eliminate critical service. This could cut off health care and other workers from jobs, and make it even harder for the economy to recover once this crisis subsides. 

Please take action today. Transit needs you.

Here’s how senators can turn their support for transit into real policy

At a Congressional hearing earlier this week, senators on both sides of the aisle expressed support for funding public transportation. As they begin to prepare legislation, we have six ideas on how to guarantee that transit is a priority. 

American Public Transportation Association president Paul Skoutelas testifying before the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs earlier this week. Photo credit: Banking Committee

Crafting transportation policy is a task split between four different Senate committees, and the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs is responsible for drafting the transit piece. As the current law of the land—the FAST Act—expires this September, the Banking Committee held a hearing earlier this week on “stakeholder perspectives” about public transportation policy.

It went pretty well: Both Democratic and Republican Senators on the Banking Committee spoke of their support for public transportation and their desire to improve it. We’re happy to hear it. But the Banking Committee must ensure that the final transportation bill makes transit a priority, not just a small part of a highway-centric bill. Simply maintaining the status quo is unacceptable. 

We have six policy ideas for both the House and Senate to guarantee that transit is a priority in the upcoming surface transportation reauthorization. Congress, take note:

1. Provide adequate resources for transit maintenance

Federal law allocates 20 percent of the Highway Trust Fund to public transit. Unlike in the highway program (which allows states to neglect their repair needs), these funds are primarily spent on maintenance. Unfortunately, this still underfunds our transit maintenance needs. In order to truly prioritize maintenance of public transit systems the federal government must provide the necessary resources.

Congress should substantially increase the formula public transit maintenance funds to a level that the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) estimates will reduce the maintenance backlog in half. As of the most recent conditions and performance report, the FTA estimated that the transit maintenance backlog was approximately $90 billion. 

2. Require roadway designs which provide safe and convenient access to transit

Public transit is most useful when streets are designed to provide people with safe and convenient access. Today, most roads—not just highways—are designed to move personal vehicles at the highest speeds possible, and are not designed for people walking, biking, or taking transit. Our dangerous streetscapes are a driving force behind the disturbing increase in pedestrian fatalities—occurring at the same time that the number of fatalities of people inside cars is going down. 

3. Develop a national assessment of access to jobs and services by all modes, including transit, and set national goals for improvement.

Instead of measuring success of the transportation system by looking primarily at the limited and blunt metric of congestion (which fails to measure people opting out of congestion via transit or walking and biking), we should measure access to jobs and services by all modes, including transit. This will allow an apples-to-apples comparison of the benefits of all projects and will place transit investments on equal footing with road investments. The first step toward adoption of this approach is to establish a national baseline so that we can set goals for improvement.

4. Provide operating support for public transit

While the federal government will help local governments and MPOs build new public transit, it provides limited support in rural communities and no support in urban areas to operate their systems. This is unlike some other modes of transportation where the federal government provides significant operating support. High quality operations including safe, frequent, reliable service are integral to a successful public transit.

5. Fund transit and roads equally

The federal funding distribution disincentivizes investment in transit in two ways. The first is that while funding for new roads is guaranteed to states thanks to over $40 billion annually in highway formulas (this will be over $50 billion if the Senate EPW Committee’s bill passes), transit is given just $2 billion in discretionary funds (that are not guaranteed) to build new or expand existing transit.

Second, the federal government will fund up to 80 percent of a road project (even 90 percent in limited cases), and only up to 50 percent of a transit project (though matches of less than 40 percent have been more common in recent years). This doesn’t just disincentivize investment in public transit: it creates the false perception that public transit is too expensive when compared to roads.  

6. Reform the transit Capital Investment Grant Program with more funding and new deadlines for USDOT

The Capital Investment Grant (CIG) program supports local communities that have chosen to expand or build new public transit systems. It is the primary program that transit project sponsors use to build or expand public transit. 

Funding for this program is discretionary and limited to $2.6 billion, which has failed to keep pace with increased construction costs and needs to address operational bottlenecks. Further, in recent years, the FTA has failed to communicate with Congress, project sponsors, and the public as to the status of the program and projects seeking funding, undermining the efficient operation of this program and placing a greater burden on local communities. 

There is a lot the FTA can do to improve CIG, but our big ask is this: Congress should allow the FTA to fund the same share of a new transit project as is allowed for new roadways (under current law that is 80 project), and require that the FTA provides annual assessments of projects expected to advance to the next phase of CIG project pipeline. 

Why this matters

Public transportation is key to our local, regional, and national economies and is essential to economic opportunity. But national transportation policy provides too little funding for transit, only covers half or less of the final project cost, and fails to properly integrate our transit and road networks. The federal government puts a thumb on the scale, making it near impossible for towns and cities to choose a transit solution to a transportation challenge.

It’s time for this to change. The Banking Committee can use the upcoming surface transportation reauthorization to make public transportation a national priority. The Committee can stand up for transit by working with their colleagues on EPW and in leadership to ensure our transportation network supports transit, and by approving a robust transit title that provides urban and rural transit agencies the resources they need to provide safe, efficient, and reliable service. 

We appreciate how hard Banking has fought to save transit in the Highway Trust Fund. Those fights were important. But now is the time to do more.

The Senate’s first transportation reauthorization bill gets an F

EDIT, March 2021: If you represent an organization or are an elected official, please sign our letter urging the Senate to pass a long-term law completely unlike this one—a bill that orients the program transportation program around what counts: getting to where you need to go.

Authorizing federal spending on surface transportation is complicated, with different Congressional committees writing separate portions of the bill. That’s why we’ll score every reauthorization bill by how well it achieves our three simple principles for transportation investment. The America’s Transportation Infrastructure Act fails on all counts. 

With the current authorization for federal transportation spending—the FAST Act—set to expire in 2020, it’s time for Congress to set transportation policy for the next five to six years. Once passed, this legislation will set federal funding levels for transportation for another five to six years.

We’re tired of the same old transportation bills that pump money into building highways at the expense of our crumbling roads and bridges, people’s access to essential jobs and services, and human life. That’s why we’ll score every reauthorization bill on how well they achieve our three simple principles.

By our scorecard, the first reauthorization bill—America’s Transportation Infrastructure Act, which the Senate’s Environment and Public Works Committee approved in July—gets a big fat F. Here’s why. 

Maintenance

This bill fails to take steps toward cutting our country’s maintenance backlog in half because it contains zero new, binding requirements to ensure that states use federal funds to actually bring their roads and bridges into good condition. The bill provides an additional $32 billion annually—on top of the $40 billion they already receive— for existing road building policy. History has shown that without any requirement to invest in maintenance, many states simply won’t. While the inclusion of a new bridge maintenance program is a welcome step, it’s a relative pittance at just 2 percent of overall funding. 

Speed

We are in the midst of a massive safety crisis for people walking, with an alarming 35 percent increase in people struck and killed by drivers while walking from 2008-2017.  And nearly 40,000 people die each year in traffic crashes.

This bill includes significant new formula and discretionary safety programs and language encouraging states and planning organizations to adopt complete streets designs and plans. However, we’re concerned that these programs will be undercut by substantial funding increases for high speed roadways in the base formulas without any additional constraints to improve safety. Complete streets designs shouldn’t be optional, as this bill considers them. History has shown us that “optional” will result in many states failing to take action to save lives. 

Access

We were happy to see that the bill included a pilot program based on the COMMUTE Act to help a select group of states and metros measure whether or not their investments are connecting people to jobs and services. But a pilot program isn’t enough. Access to jobs and services has to be the core of any transportation authorization. We need to reward the boldness of this pilot proposal by measuring whether all $358 billion in this bill is connecting people to jobs and services. 

Multiple states, including Virginia and Hawaii, have already started prioritizing their spending on projects that improve access. It’s possible—and necessary—to prioritize federal spending this way. We can’t afford another five or six years of wasted investment from using vehicle speed as our outdated measure of success.

Click on any image below to learn more about our brand new principles or download a sharable card

Broad coalition takes the offensive on federal automated vehicle policy

Instead of waiting for Congress to release a new bill to regulate autonomous vehicles worse than last year’s notorious AV START Act, T4America joined a diverse coalition of safety, public health, consumer, and transportation groups to urge lawmakers to take a smarter approach than last year’s reckless hands-off approach for the driverless car industry. 

We’re living through the first time in a hundred years a truly new transportation mode has hit American streets. While electric scooters, shareable mopeds, and electric bikes are all variations on a theme, automated vehicles (AVs) represent a truly transformational change to the world of mobility.

Yet federal policy hasn’t kept up. Current long-term transportation policy law—The FAST Act— which passed in 2015, didn’t even mention the phrase “automated vehicles.” When Congress did finally attempt to set basic rules for them, the House unanimously passed a bill before anyone knew what was in it and then the Senate attempted to pass the AV START Act. Both bills were a giveaway to the nascent industry which would have allowed hundreds of thousands of AVs on the road while preempting states and localities from not only regulating the vehicles in their jurisdictions, but even from knowing basic information about where and how they are operating.

But this issue isn’t going away. And if advocates fail to engage with Congress on this policy, these vehicles could undermine safety, exacerbate inequities, and worsen land-use policies that promote sprawl and create congestion. Rather than waiting for Congress, T4America and a host of other advocates want to do things differently this time. Instead of fighting to stop dangerous legislation from passing, T4America would rather fight for a bill that the public can support because they know it’s clearly in their best interests and protects their safety above all else.

We teamed up with a variety of stakeholders—including Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, National League of Cities, and the League of American Bicyclists—to send a letter to Congress with specific AV policy recommendations. The final letter was signed by 47 national groups with a range of interests, and it covered seven broad recommendations, all of which were either ignored or handled poorly in last year’s legislation:

Any federal AV legislation must prioritize safety for motorists, pedestrians, motorcyclists, transit riders, and cyclists; ensure access for everyone including people with disabilities; protect local control; and provide appropriate data to consumers and local authorities while also equipping the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) with the resources and authorities it needs to oversee this new technology.

AVs are certainly complicated, but getting the policy right shouldn’t be that difficult. But it does require an open, deliberative process of gathering feedback from everyone with a stake in how they’re rolled out and how they operate. 

For a new transportation mode that has the power to dramatically reshape our communities, Congress can’t just ask the industry what they think and then hastily rush a bill through based on their limited feedback. We need our deliberative bodies to do better.  By keeping safety at the forefront, we can craft legislation that works for everyone. 

We are optimistic we can work together with Congress on a bill that enhances the federal government’s ability to regulate auto safety, protects states and local governments’ authority to promote safety for all road users in their communities, and ensures that this new transportation technology is accessible to everyone. 

The full letter with the list of all signatories can be found here.

Member Policy Memo: Senate EPW Authorization Bill

The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee introduced America’s Transportation Infrastructure Act on Monday, July 29 and passed it out of the committee on Tuesday, July 30. This is the first step in passing a long term transportation bill to replace the FAST Act of 2015, which expires in September 2020. T4A’s policy team developed an in-depth analysis of the 487-page bill exclusively for members.

Read the memo here  > >

Senate Transportation Infrastructure Act makes welcome additions but fails to change the status quo

Today the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works approved America’s Transportation Infrastructure Act, a bill that will reauthorize the FAST Act once it expires in September 2020.  T4America director Beth Osborne offered this statement:

“This first attempt at reauthorization from the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee has some notable new additions worth praising, including the first-ever climate title and new programs aimed at measuring transportation by access to jobs and services, reconnecting communities torn apart by highways, reducing carbon emissions, increasing resilience, and improving safety. The bill also includes a focus on complete streets and increased funding for existing programs that make biking or walking safer such as the Transportation Alternatives Program (TAP.) 

“But overall, four years later, this bill unfortunately fails in many of the same ways the FAST Act did in 2015. First, it does very little to accomplish what is perpetually promised by lawmakers: actually repairing our existing infrastructure. Despite the rhetoric we’re sure to hear in the days ahead, this bill has zero new, binding requirements to ensure that states use their core formula programs to actually bring their roads and bridges into good condition, while providing them with more than $32 billion more for existing road building policy. While the inclusion of a new bridge maintenance program is a welcome step, it’s a relative pittance at just two percent of overall funding. T4America believes anything short of holding states and metro areas accountable for cutting the maintenance backlog in half is unacceptable.

“Secondly, although the National Transportation Safety Board has been repeatedly sounding the alarm on speed as a primary risk factor in traffic fatalities—especially for people walking—this bill fails to require states to use complete streets designs to address the alarming 35 percent increase in people struck and killed while walking from 2008-2017. Instead, the bill makes these designs optional, and history has shown us that ‘optional’ will result in many states failing to take advantage of the option to save lives. 

“Third, it’s time to organize this overall program around connecting people to jobs and opportunity. T4America is delighted to see a pilot program based on the COMMUTE Act to help a select group of states and metros measure whether or not their investments are connecting people to jobs and services. But we need to reward the boldness of this proposal by expanding it to more of the population by measuring whether all $358 billion in this bill is connecting people to daily essentials.

“The inclusion of a climate title is an overdue addition and the committee is to be commended for their bipartisan approach to this pressing issue. We need more lawmakers like these willing to step out and tackle the risks of climate change. Though new money for reducing carbon emissions, resilience, alternative fuels, and reducing port emissions are notable, this approach unfortunately fundamentally fails to recognize that a federal program still focused primarily on delivering high-speed roads guarantees more driving and will undercut the committee’s worthwhile efforts to reduce emissions or stem the tide of climate change.

“Lastly, we also welcome the inclusion of new safety formula and discretionary programs, designed to invest in proven strategies for reducing fatalities and reward communities that have demonstrated progress in reducing fatalities. However, the funds available through these programs could be put to better use by requiring them to be used for complete streets and rewarding communities for specific investments in complete streets. As with the climate title, these programs will be undercut by substantial funding increases for high-speed roadways in the base formulas without any additional constraints to improve safety.”

116th Congress Begins

This information was supplied to members via email on January 4, 2019. We are posting it here today so members can use this option to find it.

There are a lot of issues in play as the 116th Congress starts this week: a continuing government shutdown, new leadership in the House of Representatives, a new FY19 Appropriations bill from the Democratic-led House, committee leadership decisions, and discussions on an infrastructure package, reauthorization of the FAST Act, and the beginnings of FY20 appropriations discussions looming in the next few months. To keep you informed and prepare you for what almost certainly will be an interesting year, our policy team has provided what you need to know in this memo.

For those of you who like charts, and to help place the Democratic House FY19 Appropriations bill funding levels in context, check out this slide deck.

Also, not on the memo linked above because it just happened a a few hours ago ago: Senate Republicans finalized their committee memberships. As a reminder, committee assignments for Senate Democrats are here.

Senate-Passed FY19 THUD Approps Bill Summary

Download the Senate passed FY19 THUD Appropriations Bill Summary here.

On August 1st, the full Senate approved the fiscal year 2019 (FY19) Transportation, Housing and Urban
Development (THUD) appropriations bill. The bill was included in a package of four appropriations bills,
known as a “minibus”, which was approved by a vote of 92-6.

The bill is substantially similar to what the THUD subcommittee approved on June 7th, though the full
Senate did approve several important transportation amendments on transit and on passenger rail that
are described in the document linked above.

U.S. Senate passes transportation appropriations bill with robust funding for transit, rail programs

press release

Washington, DC—Today, the United States Senate again rejected the Trump administration’s proposal to eliminate or severely cut vital transportation programs that local communities rely on by adopting its FY19 Transportation Housing and Urban Development (THUD) appropriations bill. In perhaps their strongest rebuke of the president’s disdain for transit, the bill language specifically requests that USDOT manage the BUILD program (formerly TIGER) as it did during the Obama administration.

“Today the United States Senate reaffirmed the importance of investing in transportation and in particular public transit. The Senate’s vote signals that funding public transit is and should remain a federal priority, despite the objections of the current administration,” said Kevin F. Thompson, director of Transportation for America. “Millions of Americans are counting on new or improved transit service to provide options for reaching jobs and opportunity, and local governments are counting on federal funds to leverage local taxpayer revenue and bring these projects to fruition.”

President Trump has twice sent recommended budgets to Capitol Hill that have eliminated most or all funding for public transit.

The Senate THUD appropriations bill funds:

  • The BUILD (Better Utilizing Investments to Leverage Development) Grants program at $1 billion. The bill language specifically directs USDOT to administer this program as it was in 2016 (under Obama’s DOT) in response to changes the agency has tried to impose which would have added greater financial and administrative burdens on local communities. The BUILD program is one of the most popular programs administered by the federal government, providing grants directly to local communities across the country for all manner of transportation systems from biking and walking infrastructure to port projects to transit systems. Communities can continue to rely on BUILD to help make upgrades to their ports (like in Mobile, Alabama) or shared-use trail systems (like in northwest Arkansas).
  • The Capital Investment Grants (CIG) Program at $2.5 billion, a $1.6 billion increase over the administration’s FY19 request but $92 million below FY18. This funding will allow projects like the Indianapolis Purple Bus Rapid transit (BRT) line, the Raleigh-Durham light rail line and the Tempe, Arizona Streetcar to move forward. Each of these communities raised tens or hundreds of millions of local dollars based on the promise of federal matching funds. The Senate, through this bill, keeps that promise.

The Senate strongly endorsed continuing Amtrak’s long-distance service, despite objections of the Trump administration, by virtually prohibiting Amtrak from reducing or eliminating rail service on the Southwest Chief line as Amtrak proposed. The Senate also adopted an amendment supported by Transportation for America that expressly prohibits the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) from changing its federal loan policy that would have raised costs for local taxpayers (see FTA’s “Dear Colleague” letter). The letter sowed confusion about FTA’s standards and we’re pleased the Senate rebuked the agency’s actions. The Senate sent a clear message that FTA should continue carrying out the CIG program as Congress intended.

We applaud the Senate for taking a firm stand in support of these programs and the communities that rely on them; we hope the U.S. House of Representatives will do the same.

On May 23, 2018, the House Appropriations Committee approved their THUD bill. Like the Senate bill, the House bill rejects the president’s proposal to eliminate or severely cut vital transportation programs that local communities rely on. We encourage Speaker Ryan to bring the bill expeditiously to the full House of Representatives for a vote.

Senate Democrats’ infrastructure plan provides more funding, but as with the president’s plan, it fails to prioritize repair & maintenance

press release

Upon the release of the Senate Democratic Jobs & Infrastructure Plan, T4A Director Kevin F. Thompson released the following statement:

“We strongly support the Senate Democrats call to increase funding for investments in vital infrastructure, addressing our maintenance backlog and funding transportation alternatives. But many of these programs signal the approach Congress should be, but isn’t, taking with the rest of their proposal: prioritize repair with formula dollars and select expansion projects on a competitive basis.

“It seems that both parties on Capitol Hill are missing an important point on infrastructure. We need to focus much more on what we are funding rather than how much we are spending. Both the President’s infrastructure plan and the Democrats’ plan are silent on how to address the quality of projects chosen and how to overcome the flaws in our current transportation program that produced such a massive national backlog in deferred maintenance and repairs in the first place.

“In contrast with the President’s plan, the Democrats’ plan does provide distinct funding for various categories of infrastructure investment rather than forcing them to cannibalize each other for funding. It encourages more competition rather than indiscriminately doling out the spoils of a finite funding package.

“But neither plan provides any new long-term source of transportation funding or prioritizes new federal dollars toward our backlogs of neglected maintenance. We cannot repair our ‘crumbling’ transportation infrastructure unless we raise new, real money for transportation, and then ensure that money is directed first to fixing our existing networks.

“The Senate Democrats propose funding these increases by making changes to the tax code. Regardless of the merits of tax reform, real, long-term, dedicated funding is necessary. If infrastructure investment is truly a priority, Congress needs to pay for it with new, long-term, stable revenue for transportation that’s derived from the users of the system. If Congress is unwilling to do so, then we should admit that infrastructure investment is not a priority.

“While we appreciate that the Democrats’ plan proposes new transit grants for critical asset repair and a new program for repairing bridges, these programs will fail to accomplish their goals if, at the same time, we fund programs that encourage building new over improving stewardship of existing infrastructure.

“We cannot simply pour new money into the same existing highway and transit formula programs that brought us to this moment. This is more than just an issue of money — if Congress is going to raise new money for transportation, we need to spend it in a new way. Absent any real reform, we’ll merely be empowering states and metro areas to build new things that they can’t afford to maintain over the long-term.”

Stories You May Have Missed – Week of December 1st

As a valued member, Transportation for America is dedicated to providing you pertinent information. This includes news articles to inform your work. Check out a list of stories you may have missed last week.

  • The U.S. Senate in the early hours of Saturday morning passed a sweeping tax reform bill. The House of Representatives is scheduled to vote on Monday to go to conference to work out the differences between the Senate and House bills. (Politico)
  • Transportation for America released a statement on the Senate tax reform bill after passage. (T4America)
  • The House and Senate tax bills spell trouble for any infrastructure package. (The Hill)
  • Governing Magazine covers how the tax bills will negatively affect transportation projects. (Governing Magazine)
  • “Southern California transport agencies raise concerns about tax reform proposals.” (Southern California Association of Governments, American Shipper)
  • “Uncertainty mounts over timing of Trump’s infrastructure plan.” (The Hill)
  • House Republican leadership are pushing a two week short term continuing resolution until December 22nd in order to avoid a government shutdown and create more time for negotiations over full year appropriations. (Fox Business)
  • “Uncertainty Surrounds Avoiding Shutdown Showdown.” (Roll Call)

Senate tax bill greenlights a torrent of cuts to transportation programs

press release

After the United States Senate voted early Saturday morning to approve passage of their tax reform bill, T4America director Kevin F. Thompson released the following statement.

“The Senate’s action today on tax reform may be a cause for celebration for some, but it greenlights a torrent of cuts to vital transportation programs and infrastructure investments that will ultimately leave our cities and towns, large and small across the nation, less competitive. Whether cuts to the funding to improve or expand public transportation systems or the competitive grants that support the smartest projects, these cuts to transportation programs and investments are a blow to every community working hard to improve access to jobs and opportunity.

“This tax reform measure triggers ten years of annual automatic cuts to transportation programs unless Congress takes further action, and it may also signal the final demise of a national infrastructure package. After creating more than a trillion dollars in new debt, it is difficult to fathom where this Congress will find the resources to pay for another trillion-dollar program. Long-term, that means our country falls further behind, our economy suffers and the cost of any future infrastructure investments are even more prohibitive.”