state funding & policy Archives - Transportation For America

The stakes in the states

Members of the Minnesota legislature convene in a warmly lit room with gold embellishments and white columns

The next federal transportation reauthorization won’t pass for another three years, but change can still happen at the state level. Here’s why state legislatures play a key role during this time and what they should do with that power.

By passing the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA, or infrastructure law), the federal government authorized transportation programs through November 2026. There are occasionally new programs proposed, such as Rep. Cori Bush’s BRT Bill, and annual fights to ensure that discretionary programs which didn’t receive advance appropriations are adequately funded. However, Congress’s general dysfunction likely means that no significant new transportation legislation will be passed at the federal level. The infrastructure law left a great deal of power in the hands of the states, and what states choose to prioritize will impact our safety, access, repair, equity, and climate goals for years to come. Therefore, it is a critical time for state legislatures to pick up the slack, and inaction is itself an action.

The state legislature behind the curtain

State legislatures have always had a critical role in determining what transportation networks look like. In many states, a significant portion of the transportation budget comes from state coffers, not federal funds. Illinois and Washington are two states whose legislatures have passed significant spending packages in recent years. In addition, no matter where money comes from, state legislatures have significant leeway over how that money is spent. They can set conditions on spending and conduct oversight of state DOTs whose urban and rural roads are disproportionately deadly. They can also direct state DOTs to spend funds on modes that aren’t just driving, such as investments in rail and subsidizing transit operations.

The passage of the 2021 infrastructure law made state legislatures’ role even more important, as it made a significant sum of money available to the states. However, a significant portion of these federal funds are being distributed through formula programs that don’t come with few strings attached, which means it could easily further entrench the unsafe, unsustainable status quo. Left to their own devices, state DOTs can profess to use that money in the name of good (setting a goal to limit the number of pedestrian fatalities), while ignoring key problems (setting a goal that’s higher than the actual number of fatalities in the previous year). The same could be said for goals of reducing emissions and ensuring that transportation’s inequitable past doesn’t become its future: without state legislative action, much of the funding from the 2021 infrastructure law could be used to make these problems worse.

Importantly, with many legislative sessions coming to an end in 2-3 months, state legislators’ windows for action on a number of these issues are rapidly closing. As federal funds go into state piggy banks, safety, sustainability, and equity could all suffer without sufficient guidance to state DOTs. As funding for passenger rail is distributed, state legislatures risk their state missing out on popular transportation options. At the same time, alarms are sounding from transit agencies facing a fiscal cliff. If state legislatures don’t step up, any promise in the infrastructure law could very well go unrealized.

What state legislators can and should do

The first step state legislators can take is to rethink the status quo on road spending. Rather than building new infrastructure that further divides communities, state legislatures should prioritize maintaining the infrastructure they have built that’s useful, and reconnecting communities where old infrastructure does little more than divide. Rather than getting people to their destinations as quickly as possible, states should prioritize getting them there safely and ensuring they don’t have to travel as far to meet their needs in the first place. These are all specific, clear transportation goals and priorities that state legislatures can direct their state DOT to pursue.

To do this, they simply need to follow the lead of, and improve upon, state innovations that have already been implemented. In Colorado, the Greenhouse Gas Pollution Reduction Planning Rule requires metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) to plan for greenhouse reductions by limiting projects which will increase emissions and promoting those which expand multimodal options. Minnesota lawmakers are pursuing legislation similar to that of Colorado. In 2021 Maryland established a required baseline for transit maintenance funding, securing it from the whims of annual budget conversations. This is an important step that other legislatures should consider. Relatedly, Virginia’s SMART SCALE is a transportation project evaluation tool that ensures factors like improved safety, increased accessibility, and efficient land-use make a project more likely to get funding from Virginia Department of Transportation. Unfortunately, no state has copied their work yet.

When it comes to passenger rail, state legislatures should take advantage of new, time-sensitive opportunities. The 2021 infrastructure law created the Interstate Rail Compact Program (IRC) to help states work together to develop regional passenger rail networks across the country, as well as the Corridor Identification and Development Program (CIDP). However, given shifts in Congress, both of these programs may receive less funding in future years. Legislators interested in bringing rail service to their state should not allow this opportunity to pass.

Finally, as transit agencies approach fiscal cliffs over the next few years, state legislatures should move to give them the operating funds necessary to not only maintain current service, but increase it. Although federal Capital Investment Grants are still available to agencies, financial support for operations that the federal government distributed during the pandemic is unlikely to come back any time soon. Any legislature that’s serious about maintaining, if not expanding, the role of transit in their state to avoid increased emissions must provide direct support to agencies for operations.

The bottom line

Transportation spending can be a lot like the game plinko—although a lot of money may be poured in at the top, where it actually ends up depends on decisions made at the state and local levels in between federal reauthorizations. As we approach three-and-a-half years until the next federal infrastructure law, the power over what our transportation system looks like rests in states’ hands.

Advocates can help steer their representatives in the right direction by contacting them and highlighting key transportation concerns. Include specific suggestions on how they can tackle the issue, such as direct more funding towards transit or support policy proposals. During legislative sessions, advocates also have an opportunity to engage through testimony on transportation issues that are most important to them. Ask your state leaders: Will you accept the current deadly, carbon-intensive, community-destroying status quo? Or will you usher in an era of safer, more sustainable transportation that brings our communities together?

Find more advice on engaging with your elected leaders here.

Follow the money: Where does your state stack up on supporting transit?

A passenger hops onto a bus on a sunny day

Even though transit service is a localized experience, the state you live in actually has a massive impact on your access to frequent, reliable transit. As with interstates, ports, or other vital parts of a state’s transportation network, state governments have a major role in supporting the planning, operations, and maintenance of public transportation service. But the financial commitment to transit varies widely from state to state.

In partnership with the National Campaign for Transit Justice, we assessed the quality of transit support and availability across all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. We’ll unpack our four criteria in a series of blog posts. This first post focuses on the dollars and cents: transit spending and restrictions on state tax dollars.

At a time when transit agencies are facing heavy financial stress, state support can be a key source of funding that allows transit to continue delivering reliable service. Most large transit systems, many of which are vital for supporting the largest regional economy in a state, operate with some level of support from their state. But that’s not always the case. There are statewide policies that impact a state’s financial commitment to transit, which can range from robust support down to almost nothing.

Transit agencies across the nation are nearing a fiscal cliff in 2023 as Covid-era relief packages expire. Click here to learn more.

Transit spending

If you’ve ever wanted to know what your state’s priorities are, take a look at the budget. That’s one of the first places we looked to assess state support for transit.

The 2021 infrastructure law increased federal transit spending, but in almost every case (with the exception of small agencies), these funds are not permitted to be used on operations, which means they don’t cover expenses like bus drivers’ salaries or bus maintenance. These expenses account for two-thirds of transit agencies’ total expenses, and without federal support, the burden of this funding can only realistically come from a few sources: state funding, local funding, and farebox revenue. The amount of state funding can have a major impact on the reach and quality of transit, especially in rural areas that don’t have as much local funding to supplement state dollars.

Click here to learn how transit spending on operations impacts local driving habits.

In the first graphic below, transit spending refers to each state’s total spending on public transportation in 2021—adjusted to per person rates to fairly compare states of varying size. We identified six bands of state transit spending per person:

Less than $12
$12.50-$25
$25-$50
$50-$100
$100-$200
More than $200

To see where your state lands, take a look at the figure below.

Map of state transit spending. For more information, see the text under "Transit spending." A table showing each state's spending will be available in our upcoming report, The Transit Report Card. — *Map depicting statewide spending on transit per capita (or per person) in each state in 2021. Map is not drawn to scale.*

While the map above shows each state’s most current spending levels (from 2021) on public transit, it’s not a full picture. Annual transit spending is also volatile, subject each year to the whims of state legislators, so these numbers from 2021 could look very different today. To get a stronger sense of long-term transit funding, we had to take a look at one of the frequent key sources—gas taxes.

State restrictions on gas tax revenue

Gas taxes are the taxes you pay every time you fill up a tank, and they’re the bedrock revenue stream for most states’ transportation systems. In fact, this is how we fund transit capital improvements nationally, by devoting a small share of the 18.4¢-per-gallon federal gas tax to a trust fund for transit. Yet in many states, it’s illegal to use state gas taxes for public transit.

Restrictions on gas tax revenue create a counterintuitive cycle, where all gas tax funding goes only toward building more roads, resulting in people having to drive more, which means more gas sold, which means more money spent on only new roads and no other travel options—leading to more driving and more spending. Without the reliable source of funding fuel taxes would provide, many transit agencies have had to rely on sales taxes, which are an incredibly volatile funding source subject to the swings of the economy. As a result, transit agencies can be forced to raise fares or cut service to stay afloat.

Gas tax restrictions can come from state statutes or state constitutions. Statutes are laws that can be written, passed, and repealed by state legislators. On the other hand, to repeal any law in a state constitution, an amendment needs to be passed. It is more difficult to pass a constitutional amendment than to repeal a statute.

In seven states, gas tax revenue is restricted by state statutes. Though these prohibitions can be a frustrating roadblock for advocates and transit agencies, they can be repealed. In the figure below, these states are shown in medium blue.

23 other states have a clause in their state constitution prohibiting gas tax revenue from being spent on public transit. Edit 2/23/2023: Three additional states (MI, OK, and CO) have partial restrictions on the majority of gas tax revenue being spent on transit. All of these states are shown in dark blue below. Though constitutional restrictions are much more difficult to overturn, advocates who see their states have these restrictions shouldn’t give up. In some cases, the language may be vague or flexible enough to leave room for transit to receive funding, even if the law hasn’t been interpreted that way in the past. For example, Colorado advocates were able to win transit support by making their fight about the way their gas tax law was interpreted.

States with no restrictions, like California, Virginia, South Carolina, and New York, are shown in light gray. These states allow gas tax revenue to be used for transit, which can serve as a lifeline in times of economic stress.

Map of gas tax revenue restrictions by state. For more information, see the text under "State restrictions on gas tax revenue." A table of each state's restrictions will be available in our upcoming report, The Transit Report Card. — *Map depicting restrictions on usage of motor fuel tax revenues in each state as of 2022. Map is not drawn to scale.* **Edit 2/23/2023:** A previous version of this map erroneously included Illinois, Wisconsin, Florida, Massachusetts, Vermont, and Louisiana as states with constitutional or statutory restrictions. These states have no restrictions.

The bottom line

State spending is a strong indicator of state priorities, and low spending (coupled with a lack of funding options) is a clear sign that transit service is not at the top of state legislators’ minds.

Across the country, the transit fiscal cliff is looming. To weather the storm, agencies require financial assistance, or they’ll be forced to cut valuable service. Now is the time to increase transit spending at the state level. States with statutory and constitutional restrictions on funding for transit will need to think critically about how well these restrictions are serving them and their residents.

Keep an eye out for our next post in this series, which will focus on transit access and driving levels in each state.

How to engage with new elected leaders

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Check in early and often

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

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

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

Find the linchpins

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

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

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

Look for common ground

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

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

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

The bottom line

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

Become part of the movement with T4America membership

All types of local public agencies and organizations join T4America’s membership program to gain access to information and expertise, but because the benefits are numerous, they also often get things they weren’t expecting.

*T4America members participate in a premier network dedicated to reforming how we spend transportation dollars at the federal, state, and local levels.*

T4America’s offices are inside the beltway, but we have always been rooted in our connections to local organizations and places. What good is your work on national policy if you don’t understand how it will impact people where they live? We started our membership program in 2015 to become more deeply connected with the local agencies and organizations that share our vision for communities where people of all means can reach jobs, services and opportunities safely and affordably through multiple modes of travel.

People sometimes ask how T4America’s membership program is different from associations like the American Public Transit Association (APTA), American Association of Metropolitan Planning Organizations (AAMPO), the National Association of Regional Councils (NARC), or the U.S. Conference of Mayors (USCM), etc. Associations are great at representing a specific sector’s interests. That’s not our role. As a cross-sector organization (with cities, MPOs, transit agencies, chambers of commerce and civic organizations) that can connect and lift the voices of diverse local players, we are in a position to advance a transformational vision that many, but not all communities share.

If you’re on board with moving your community beyond outdated transportation paradigms and developing more and better transportation options, here’s how joining T4America will get you there.

Click here to download more information on T4America membership

“I benefit from hearing about transportation policy from a different slant and hearing what other areas are doing through member updates and newsletters. T4A has been on top of the infrastructure law and we appreciate their analysis.” —Todd Ashby, Des Moines Area Metropolitan Planning Organization, Iowa

Learn about the role T4America plays in key transportation issues and discover why members believe membership was a benefit to them. Click here to learn more about T4America membership.

Know how federal and state policy will affect your work

From funding and financing for public transportation, to passenger rail, to governance, to creating transparency and support; Transportation for America analyzes legislative and regulatory information to create understandable and actionable summaries of information. Our analysis is specifically curated through the lens of creating vibrant walkable communities with plenty of transportation options. T4America’s members benefit from this exclusive analysis, which makes it easy to know when to call your federal delegation and how national policy will affect their local community on the issues you care about.

Learn new approaches

T4America has worked with the leading edge of state DOTs, MPOs, cities, transit agencies and others who are eager for new ways to measure performance that go beyond outdated measures like congestion and level of service. For example, we’ve helped many agencies develop and utilize measures like access to jobs and essential services that take land use into account and can be used to compare across all modes of travel. In addition, our Smart Cities Collaborative is on the cutting edge of emerging transportation issues and developing policies that get the best outcomes, from new mobility to curb management to integrating electric vehicle charging.

Engage the public and get them on board

Change is often frightening. Communities need to engage stakeholders and the public in inclusive ways to develop better projects that can win broad support by serving everyone well. T4America brings expertise in inclusive public engagement like creative placemaking, engaging historically underserved communities, and communicating the value of transportation options to get your constituents engaged and on board.

Win transportation funding to implement your priorities

For years, T4America has been effectively leading the fight for funding that supports transportation options and walkable vibrant places. We’ve been at the forefront of fighting for transit funding programs like the Capital Improvement Grant programs and have helped several members win grants from the very competitive RAISE (formerly TIGER / BUILD) program. AND we are often the only national organization nimble enough to quickly stand up to save public transportation when it’s threatened. We did this in 2012 when the House tried to eliminate all funding for transit, in 2018 when the Trump administration deliberately slowed down dozens of transit projects, and in 2020 when the pandemic threatened transit agencies with bankruptcy.

But our work goes far beyond a few specific programs. The federal program has hobbled along without a guiding purpose for decades since completing the original interstate system, doing more damage as it has continued dividing communities and prioritized “solving” congestion at the expense of actually connecting more people to jobs and services. That’s why, unlike many of the trade groups out there, we are fighting for more than just more money for “our” part of the federal program, but to fundamentally change and broaden its overall priorities. That’s why we made a clear stand in 2018: No new money for transportation until we adopt three simple, clear principles. Our cross-sector coalition focused on a transformational vision is the only platform that can win a long-term transportation bill that makes this kind of change. (Which we won in the House in 2020 before the Senate jettisoned it in favor of passing what became the IIJA.)

Conclusion

The organizations and communities that join T4America and use our support to re-tool transportation for people and places will be the successful places of tomorrow, and will be on the leading edge of the movement to remake transportation to better serve Americans nationwide. Go here to learn more about how your organization or local agency can join Transportation for America.

Minnesota takes important steps to drive down emissions

To address urgent climate needs, every state will need to make it possible for their residents to drive less every day. But too many shy away from taking concrete steps to do so, putting all of their efforts into improving fuel efficiency and electric vehicle adoption. The Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) just took a key step in the fight against climate change: setting an ambitious target for reducing driving (measured as vehicle miles traveled, or VMT).

Riders on a bus in the Twin Cities of Minnesota, June 2020. Photo by Metro Transit.

The Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) recently made a highly anticipated decision to adopt a number of recommendations from the state’s Sustainable Transportation Advisory Council (STAC) made in December 2020, including setting a preliminary statewide goal for a 20 percent VMT reduction statewide and per capita by 2050. For the average Minnesota driver, that will mean traveling about 45 miles less per week in 2050 than today.

MnDOT’s VMT reduction target is preliminary, and will be finalized after engaging the public and stakeholders through the Statewide Multimodal Transportation Plan process that will occur throughout 2021. MnDOT may also set interim targets, as well as different targets for the Twin Cities region (which already has locally-established targets) compared to the rest of the state.

Minnesota has already had some success reducing emissions from the transportation sector in recent years, particularly compared to some of its peers, but setting VMT reduction goals has been a gap in the state’s efforts. We highlighted the need for VMT reduction targets with our partners at Move Minnesota in our Minnesota case study for our Driving Down Emissions report, as have local advocates and stakeholders, so it is great to see the state step out as a national leader working toward reducing the need to drive.

This step is a big deal—most states are still heavily focused on improving fuel efficiency standards and electric vehicle adoption with little or no emphasis on how growing VMT is undercutting those efforts. This is shortsighted and leaves valuable strategies that would also create more livable and equitable communities on the table.

Importantly, MnDOT also plans to develop an approach for estimating the VMT that will result from its program and proposed projects by assessing both induced demand from adding lanes and reduced demand from increasing walking access. MnDOT will also evaluate the accuracy of existing travel demand forecasting methods—an important step, since many traditional forecasting models have a poor track record of accuracy and can prompt premature or unnecessary highway expansions that induce more driving and more emissions.

Minnesota isn’t the only state taking action this month to reduce emissions by reducing the need to drive. The California State Transportation Agency (CalSTA) recently released a public discussion draft of its plan to reduce VMT. The Climate Action Plan for Transportation Infrastructure (CAPTI), created in response to Governor Gavin Newsom’s executive order, will be finalized later this year. It includes 28 action items with a number of potential strategies aimed at reducing driving, including pricing, using state transportation funds to incentivize land use decisions that reduce the need to drive, and establishing VMT mitigation banks that allow transportation project sponsors to purchase VMT allowances if their project will induce more driving, creating a fund for VMT-reduction projects.

California’s plan also includes strategies aimed at addressing the transportation system’s entrenched inequities, such as pollutants that disproportionately affect low-income and minority communities. And California has also already developed an approach for estimating the induced driving that will result from its highway projects, which other states can and should adopt.

We are very excited to see MnDOT take bold steps to address climate change emissions in transportation by addressing the role the transportation system plays in forcing people to drive more and further. They are showing themselves to be leaders and we hope to see many more states follow.

States that take chances get rewarded, and six other things we learned this year at Capital Ideas 2018

We’re fresh back from Capital Ideas 2018 in Atlanta, and as in years past, this year’s conference was an incredible alchemy of passion, knowledge, inspiration, and amazing people from around the country. For those of you who weren’t able to make it to Atlanta, here are seven things that we learned.

Left photo: Mayor Sly James of Kansas City, MO, right, one of Capital Ideas’ keynote speakers, talks to Toks Omishakin of the Tennessee DOT, and T4America chair John Robert Smith. Right: During a keynote on day two, Rusty Roberts, VP for Government Affairs at Brightline, shared his company’s ambitious plans for private passenger rail currently unfolding in Florida.

1) States that innovate, try new things, and take chances, get rewarded

There’s a common thought when it comes to new mobility or improving transit that it’s really only about cities. While we certainly think cities have a major role to play (see our Smart Cities Collaborative!), the role of the state is still vital.

The City of Gainesville, FL is on the cusp of launching a new automated vehicle shuttle pilot project to connect the University of Florida with downtown Gainesville via an automated driverless shuttle. Dan Hoffman, Gainesville’s city manager, shared their progress to date but made one thing clear: They would never be able to make this happen without the state of Florida’s involvement…and money, with the state contributing over $1 million. But it’s also worth noting that the state isn’t trying to run the pilot project—they’re collaborating to help a city run their own pilot. And the lessons that Dan and his city learn will be shared with the state as they collaborate with other cities. That’s a great recipe for success.

Sometimes states try new things and lose before they taste the eventual reward. But the smart ones learn from the experience. In Georgia, Atlanta bounced back from a painful failure to raise new revenue for transportation at the ballot box in 2012. They dusted themselves off, figured out why they failed, rebuilt trust in the transit agency, and then built vital new relationships with the state (and especially with legislators) that paved the way for a successful ballot measure effort in 2016 that raised money for billions in new transit projects in metro Atlanta.

A big difference between the 2012 loss at the polls to fund transportation in the Atlanta region and the successes that followed was confidence in GDOT increased. -Michael Sullivan #T4CapIdeas

— Beth Osborne (@BethOsborneTA) December 5, 2018

Suburban Gwinnett County has rejected ballot measures to join the MARTA regional transit system multiple times over the last few decades. However, this March they will vote on a measure to finally join the MARTA system and dramatically expand transit service in a rapidly changing county where 25 percent of the population was born outside of the United States.

While others may have written off their state legislatures, the Metro Atlanta Chamber and the rest of their coalition did the hard work required between 2012 and 2016 to turn skeptical state legislators into outspoken champions for transit. Michael Sullivan from the American Council of Engineering Companies in Georgia so aptly summarized at the end of this panel discussion: never assume that your opponent today has to be your opponent in the future.

As Commissioner Charlotte Nash from Gwinnett County noted on the panel, their work paid off: action by that same legislature is enabling her county to go to the ballot this March to raise new funds for transit. Never write off your opponent or a skeptic.

States that refuse to take chances might avoid some failure, but they are also likely to avoid great success.

Our sincere thanks to Dave Williams from the Metro Atlanta Chamber for his commitment to transportation in the region and to taking selfies whenever he moderates a panel for T4America. From left, Dave Williams, Michael Sullivan, Georgia State Rep. Kevin Tanner, and Gwinnett County Commissioner Charlotte Nash.

2) “Transit access is the #1 factor in upward economic mobility”

Our opening keynote speaker on the first day summed things up when it comes to the “why” for improving access to transit:

Transit access is the #1 factor in upward economic mobility. Poor transportation access exacerbates #inequality.” – Debra Lam, Managing Director, Center for Smart Cities and Innovation at @GeorgiaTech #T4CapIdeas pic.twitter.com/lmIbQUtv4c

— Calvin Gladney (@SmartGrowthCEO) December 5, 2018

As a different speaker would explain later, exactly how we measure access matters a great deal, but is there anything more that needs to be said? If we want to lift up those on the lower socio-economic rungs of our communities, then improving transit service and expanding access to it should always be a primary goal.

3) We are swimming in data, but very little of it has anything to do with the people who use the system.

A few audible cheers went up in the room when Stephanie Pollack, the Secretary of MassDOT, made that statement during an incredible panel moderated by T4America director Beth Osborne about the role of the state in new mobility services. She was joined by Commissioner Polly Trottenberg of the NYC DOT and Lilly Shoup, the Senior Director of Transportation Policy for Lyft. (More on that in a moment.)

On the second day, we took a deep dive into measuring accessibility and how so many of our metrics and data poorly assess what really matters. Nick Donohue, assistant secretary of the Virginia DOT, shared a story about the oft-cited Travel Time Index that measures congestion, and how it’s so far removed from the experience of real people and what really matters to them.

Nick tells story about his ten-minute, mile-long commute in Richmond with relatively slow travel speed. Boss comes from Fredericksburg in 45 minutes at a high rate of speed. Travel time index would show latter commute as “better!” #T4CapIdeas

— Transport. 4 America (@T4America) December 6, 2018

Congestion measures treat every road the same and have an implicit bias: always moving as fast as possible is the preferred goal. But streets are all about creating a place and a framework to create and capture value—not just a place for vehicles to move fast. This difference is often best illustrated with an image:

Another example from Denver: Street on the left has great congestion measures, low accessibility. Street on the right, probably worse congestion, higher accessibility. #T4CapIdeas pic.twitter.com/PHZGk4uxla

— Transport. 4 America (@T4America) December 6, 2018

4) We don’t always agree with one another, but we have to keep working together

The panel discussion on new mobility definitely got “spirited!” Sec. Pollack is a provocative quote machine, but we also had a representative from Lyft sitting a few feet away from the person charged with keeping America’s biggest city moving. And as Commissioner Polly Trottenberg noted, congestion and VMT are both up in NYC while transit ridership is down since TNCs like Uber and Lyft arrived on the scene.

Though there were some (entertaining!) disagreements on this panel, the most important lesson we learned was that at the end of the day, many of these companies do want to try and accomplish the same things that the cities do, and we have to find a way to work together. As an example, Lyft’s long-term goals are to have fleets of vehicles in cities that are shared, electric, and automated, which certainly dovetail with the goals of a city like New York, as described by Commissioner Polly Trottenberg.

Ultimately it’s more productive for state or local officials to find ways to work together with private industry rather than against one another. And as Sec. Pollack noted, we have a lot of work to do to make more of these trips shared, and we won’t be able to make that happen without the private providers at the table.

5) You have to be ready and willing to listen

If you show up to a meeting about a transportation project or issue, you’ll have to talk about more than just the item at had: everything that came before you will be on the table. For example, in the public sector, you might have to address and resolve your agency’s past sins in a community first, even if the project proposed is an attempt to try and rectify the damage. As Sec. Pollack said, state DOTs might have to do something radical: listen to the people that they serve.

Our first panel on the second day was focused on making development around transit more equitable. Carol Wolfe from the City of Tacoma—which is in the midst of a rail extension through their city—noted that all too often planners and officials forget that there’s already a “place” that needs to be kept at the center of the process.

[Economic & Community Development] is not about creating new spaces. Take the time to honor and embrace the places that are already there. – Carol Wolfe, @CityofTacoma #Truth #T4CapIdeas @T4America #HowWeThrive @ThrivingRegion #ThrivingCommunities

— Bridgett Massengill (@bmassen) December 6, 2018

And it’s a little thing, but when an agency or planning firm makes renderings of future development, do they incorporate existing places and people? Does the community see themselves in the picture, or do the renderings include the same generic details as every other rendering?

Carol Wolfe (City of Tacoma) begins by making the point that if your TOD renderings do not reflect the community&are not culturally competent, you show how you didn’t listen to the community – people can’t imagine themselves in that TOD and feel how they belong. #T4CapIdeas

— Victoria Payne (@VictoriaCSPayne) December 6, 2018

6) People are hungry to exchange information and learn from one another

As we did in 2014 and 2016, we spent the first afternoon in roundtable discussions. Participants got to choose two of 12 topics, sit down with an expert, and then have a completely open-ended discussion with them and a dozen others interested in the same thing. These roundtables are one of the best features of Capital Ideas, and many of them are just a starting point for a longer exchange of information that will continue for weeks or months to come.

This year, our roundtables covered the Smart Scale project funding process in Virginia, the mileage-based user fee pilot in Washington State, the deployment of automated vehicles, strategies to compete for competitive federal transportation grant funds, the Metropolitan Planning Council’s Transit Means Business Report, and the Partnership for Southern Equity’s “Opportunity Deferred” report, among many others.

7) Atlanta is a wonderful city with lots of momentum (including on the soccer front!)

It may have partially been due to the fact that Atlanta United, the city’s Major League Soccer team, was preparing to host MLS Cup last weekend and beat the Portland Timbers in front of 73,000 screaming crazy fans for the city’s first championship since the Braves in 1995, but the energy in the city was palpable.

The capital of the New South has made tremendous progress. It’s a terrific city loaded with momentum and possibility, within a region that is making huge strides to invest in transportation and capitalize on their numerous walkable downtowns. All of this is occurring inside a state that has done a complete about-face on the importance of transit for their economic future.

We wrapped up the conference with two concurrent tours, one of a selection of TOD sites in the city with representatives from MARTA, and the second of the ongoing BeltLine project of trails and transit around the city with representatives from Atlanta BeltLine and the Rails-To-Trails Conservancy. To close things out, here’s a short thread from the BeltLine tour collected in a Twitter moment:

#T4CapIdeas BeltLine tour

Participants: Have a story to share? Learn something new? Reach out to us at info@t4america.org. All photos by Stephen Lee Davis, T4America director of communications.

Our sincere thanks to our sponsors and host committee for making Capital Ideas possible. And to our many participants from around the country who came to Atlanta and hopefully took some helpful information—and inspiration—back home with them.

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Go big or go home: Massachusetts leaders get inspired in Seattle

Last week, a delegation of elected officials, business and civic leaders, funders, and transportation advocates from Massachusetts traveled to Seattle to see firsthand the specific ways that Seattle is investing in transportation to build strong local communities, thriving neighborhoods, and growing businesses.

Sound Transit’s LINK light rail on the Seattle-SeaTac line. LINK is in the process of being expanded by a combination of local funds approved by voters and federal funds.

Supported by the Barr Foundation and in partnership with Transportation for Massachusetts, last week T4America led a delegation of local & elected leaders from Massachusetts to Seattle for a transportation study tour. And we saw an incredible range of things: from the huge new tunnel under the city, to dockless bikeshare, to a growing light rail system, and everything in between, these Massachusetts leaders were inspired and received practical advice for making ambitious investments in transportation.

Seattle City Traffic Engineer Dongho Chang shows the MA leaders some of the particulars about the design of new separated bike lanes in downtown Seattle.

The group took a tour of the new SR-99 tunnel under Seattle, being built to replace an earthquake-damaged viaduct that is a barrier between downtown and the Puget Sound waterfront.

From the SR-99 tunnel tour to Seattle’s growing experiments with dockless bikeshare, study tour participants spent as much time interacting with transportation projects as they did taking in practical lessons from Roger Millar (Secretary of Transportation, Washington), Josh Brown (Executive Director, Puget Sound Regional Council), Shefali Ranganathan (Executive Director, Transportation Choices Coalition), and Peter Rogoff (Chief Executive Officer, Sound Transit).

Roger Millar from WSDOT walks the participants through the state’s multimodal approach to transportation.

Woven in the various presentations on a range of topics was a common thread: how to be intentional to ensure that the transportation network is about putting people first and providing access to economic opportunity, education, and key services.

As we’ve profiled here before, there’s a long history of partnership and cooperation between agencies at various levels that makes Seattle’s success possible. Participants were wowed to hear the details of how the Washington State Department of Transportation, King County, Sound Transit, Seattle Department of Transportation, and the Puget Sound Regional Council all work together to ensure transportation investments reap economic dividends in one of the fastest growing regions in the country.

As participants rode the ferry, light rail, bus service, and used their phones to unlock the new dockless bikes, we heard the participants focusing their discussion on the policies and programs that currently don’t exist in Massachusetts — and what they’d like to replicate. Transportation ballot measures, dynamic pricing, tolling to manage congestion, HOT lanes, dockless bike-shares, commuter ferries, and dedicated transportation equity managers were all discussed as promising ideas to take back to Massachusetts.

Transportation for America looks forward to supporting these local leaders in Massachusetts for years to come.

Our thanks to the Barr Foundation and T4Mass for their support and leadership of the study tour.

Passing Oregon’s transportation package was just the beginning of the hard work

Governor Kate Brown is conducting signing ceremonies in communities throughout Oregon this week to celebrate the passage of Oregon’s transportation package. While the governor, legislature, and stakeholders are enjoying this victory lap on a big legislative effort, the hard work of implementing the bill is yet to come.

“The transportation package is truly a roadmap to Oregon’s future. Let’s keep Oregon moving forward.” Gov. Kate Brown speaking at a signing ceremony earlier this week.

HB 2017 represents a big investment in transportation for Oregon – $5.3 billion over 10 years, with over $1 billion in state dollars dedicated to transit. But there are many questions remaining about how that funding will be spent.

Over the 10-year timeframe the package dedicates almost $800 million for a variety of earmarks; however, most earmarks are not cost-specific, shifting numerous critical decisions to later dates. Instead, each region receives a determined amount of funding for multiple projects.

This lack of specificity could be a curse or a blessing. Oregon’s DOT and the Oregon Transportation Commission (OTC) could interpret the lack of specificity as flexibility to spend designated dollars more effectively, like scoping projects to maximize return on investment. But to do so, they’ll need to apply “practical solutions” effectively.

The bill more than triples state funding for public transit. This will require the OTC to develop and finalize rules in less than a year for rationally distributing over $100 million each year in new funding to a wide variety of transit agencies — urban and rural, large and small. How will the OTC and local transit agencies quickly develop a process to demonstrate accountability and transparency in distributing and using that funding effectively?

A big challenge for implementers of this bill is that it’s not big enough to address everything. While the bill includes substantial new funding for repair, many roads and bridges in the state will continue to deteriorate. The freeway bottlenecks addressed in the bill are only a small subset of those in the Portland region, and may become clogged again due to induced demand in a few years. Will the public understand the limits of the package the legislature passed, even as they see their taxes increase?

The bill requires study and possible implementation of congestion pricing on major freeways in Portland. ODOT is already hiring for new positions to tackle this challenge. Congestion pricing (also called value pricing) has the potential to address many of Oregon’s congestion challenges in a fundamental way, but that doesn’t necessarily make it any easier. While shown to be highly effective in several cases, value pricing is politically difficult and a new technical challenge for Oregon.

Passing the bill was a huge success, but that was just part of what’s needed.

If Oregon’s leaders don’t construct a strong framework for accountability and measuring performance, it’ll be like making a great pass but then kicking the ball back into their own goal. Oregon’s work on this transportation bill is far from done, and those involved in passing the bill have much work to do to deliver on its promise to Oregonians.

Oregon’s legislature just approved a transportation package that goes big for transit

The Oregon Legislature just passed a transportation package that makes historic investments in transit while also advancing congestion pricing and putting funding toward safe routes to school infrastructure, electric vehicle purchase incentives and fixing roads and bridges.

As local stakeholders, the governor, and legislators worked over the last year and a half to develop legislation to invest in Oregon’s transportation system, a common refrain emerged: “Go big, or go home!” The idea being that if legislators were going to take a tough vote to increase taxes, they might was well make it a significant enough increase to make a substantial difference for the state’s commuters, traveling public and shippers. The Oregon House passed HB 2017 yesterday (Wednesday), and the Senate approved the legislation late today, which the governor is expected to sign. If Governor Kate Brown signs the bill, Oregon will become the sixth state to raise new transportation funds in 2017, and the 30^th since 2012.

Oregon puts some skin in the transit operations game

Now virtually at the finish line, the overall package isn’t as big as initially proposed, but it has gone big for transit. The legislation introduces a new statewide transit-dedicated 0.1% employee payroll tax expected to generate $103 million annually. This represents over a 200 percent increase in state funding for transit — truly a game-changer that will increase transit service in rural and urban areas across the state.

Change from 2014 state funding per capita for transit, compared to potential funding with new transit funding. Via bettertransitoregon.org

A committee created by the legislative leadership to develop the initial funding package toured the state last year and heard about the importance of transit from every community they visited, large and small, rural and urban. However, like many other states, Oregon has a very strict constitutional restriction on motor-vehicle user-fees like gas taxes, registration fees and title fees. Funds from these sources can only go to infrastructure within the road right-of-way, and definitely not to transit operations.

This wasn’t Oregon’s first recent attempt to raise new funds for transportation. An employee payroll tax to fund transit had originally been proposed in the failed 2015 “Gang-of-8” package. While there were concerns about the regressiveness of this funding source, and a more progressive income tax was floated as an alternative, ultimately, the payroll tax stuck. To mitigate the regressive payroll tax, transit agencies will be required to submit public transportation improvement plans explaining how they will improve service and/or reduce fares for low-income riders.

As part of the effort to win this component of the package, the Oregon Transit Association compiled stories about the value of transit and how additional funding could effectively be spent to improve the lives of Oregonians. The Better Transit Oregon website outlines, for example, improvements like seven new bus lines and increased service on 20 other transit lines in the Portland region, and enhancing service that Kayak Public Transit provides between Pendleton, Hermiston, La Grande and Walla Walla in eastern Oregon. Overall, the funding could provide a 37 percent increase in service hours statewide.

Many ways to skin a cat

The joint legislative committee tasked with producing the package recognized from the start that this package had to be multimodal. While there was a focus on freeway projects that would address three bottlenecks in the Portland region, many committee members quickly recognized that these freeway projects were certainly not silver bullets and possibly wouldn’t help much at all in the long term.

Senator Brian Boquist from a rural part of the Willamette Valley regularly told his colleagues and the media that, “We cannot build our way out of congestion,” and “We cannot tax our way out of congestion,” to advance tolling and congestion pricing as critical strategies to address Oregon’s congestion challenges. The legislation directs ODOT to study, and, if feasible, implement congestion pricing on the two major north-south freeways in the Portland region, I-5 and I-205.

Ironically, as the size of the package shrank due to pressure from trucking and automotive stakeholders, the funding available for the freeway projects shrank, but congestion pricing stayed in the bill along with smaller investments like $10-15 million annually for safe routes to school infrastructure, a $12 million annual program for electric vehicle purchase incentives and the aforementioned transit funding. Overall the package shrank from $8 billion over 10 years to $5.3 billion.

Recognizing the need for accountability and transparency – but coming up short

Legislators recognized the need for improved transparency and accountability but lacked the political will to fully address the issue in any meaningful way.

While the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) is known for its emphasis on state of repair, and certain data-driven programs like All Roads Transportation Safety and Connect Oregon, it has stumbled significantly, particularly with more expensive projects like the failed Columbia River Crossing and the over-budget Pioneer Mountain Eddyville highway project.

A working group was specifically charged with developing policies to address accountability and transparency. T4A had worked with Representative Reardon to put forward HB 2532 modeled on Virginia’s “Smart Scale” concept as way to identify projects that maximize return on investment. It proposed to do this by giving each project a return-on-investment (ROI) score and only selecting for funding those that scored the best. In the end, the workgroup opted for “the Nevada model” which involves cost-benefit analysis of projects, a different tool aimed at the same task of evaluating project ROI.

Unfortunately, the committee didn’t make a strong commitment to this new approach, exempting all the earmarked projects in the bill, and only including modernization projects that cost more than $15 million. To put this in perspective, the draft 2018-22 State Transportation Improvement Plan (STIP) includes no projects that that clearly would be subject to the new analysis.

This means Oregon won’t be able to use this system to meaningfully compare proposed projects — including nearly $800 million in earmarks in the package — to report on, let alone prioritize, those that maximize return on investment. To make matters worse, the Connect Oregon program — renowned for its data-driven merit-based project selection process similar to the federal TIGER program — is now completely consumed by earmarks for the next two biennia.

The bill does give the governor-appointed and legislatively-confirmed members of the Oregon Transportation Commission (OTC) greater capacity and authority to oversee ODOT. OTC will be granted independent staff and the power to hire and fire the ODOT director in consultation with the governor. These changes create the some hope for administrative change to improve ODOT’s accountability, transparency and ability to make data-driven decisions that maximize return on investment toward achieving Oregon’s goals.

Oregon’s attempt to raise new state funding for transportation is coming down to the wire

The Oregon legislature has just two weeks left to vote on a transportation package that — in addition to funding highway maintenance and expansion — takes steps to significantly fund transit, safe routes to school and implements forward thinking strategies like congestion pricing and active transportation management.

Flickr photo by Oregon DOT. https://www.flickr.com/photos/oregondot/15035881385

Update: 7/6/17: A deal was struck by legislators and approved in the Oregon House and Senate this week. More details here in this newer post.

The Co-Chairs and Co-Vice Chairs of Oregon’s Joint Committee on Transportation Preservation and Modernization Committee (JTPM) have been negotiating the details of HB 2017 while a constitutionally mandated end-of-session ‘sine die’ on July 10 looms. This committee was formed last year to develop a transportation package for the 2017 legislative session, and has conducted a tour of state to gather input and convened many meetings to develop and flesh out the details of the package over the course of this past year.

The package has too many moving parts to describe in this post, but here are five notable elements to Oregon’s proposal:

1) Five diverse sources of revenue

To raise new transportation funds, the proposal includes traditional mechanisms like gas tax and registration fee increases, and not-so-traditional ones like an excise tax on bicycle sales, employee payroll taxes and congestion pricing. These sources are so diverse in part because of a strong interest from legislators in seeing different user groups have ‘skin in the game,’ and because Oregon’s constitution prohibits any motor vehicle-related user fees from being used on transit, off-road paths, or non-highway freight infrastructure. Add in new tolls and there are actually six sources of revenue contained in the legislation.

2) It includes significant funding for transit operations

The state of Oregon pays only about 3 percent of the cost of operating the numerous transit systems in the state while nationally, states cover about 24 percent of transit operations. A new 0.1 percent statewide payroll tax on employees would significantly change that, dedicating 85 percent of the projected $107 million it would raise toward transit operations annually. This would bolster transit service in small towns and large cities across the state, improving access to jobs and other services, and making the state a valuable partner in running the multimodal transportation networks that are vital to the state’s prosperity.

3) Freeway widening is not the only congestion solution offered

Like other recent state transportation funding packages, Oregon’s includes funding for freeway expansion — including freeway projects intended to address three specific bottlenecks in the Portland region. But an earlier presentation outlining the proposal also acknowledges the limitations of this approach, noting that we “cannot tax our way out of congestion” and “cannot build our way out of congestion relief.” The bill calls upon the Oregon Transportation Commission (OTC) to implement — where possible — pre-construction tolling, congestion pricing, “zip lanes” (we take this to mean high occupancy toll (HOT) lanes) and active traffic management. While the benefits of freeway widening are often lost to induced demand, congestion pricing can more effectively address congestion if coupled with investments in other traffic-reducing travel options like transit.

4) A “Regional Increment”

The biggest congestion challenges in Oregon are in the Portland metropolitan region. While business interests around the state are concerned about congestion in Portland since they move their goods through this port city and economic hub, it’s still a tough sell for the rest of the state to pay for big freeway projects in Portland. To solve this politically and financially, the package levies an additional “regional increment” on the Portland region with higher gas taxes, registration fees and title fees, and dedicates that funding to projects in the Portland region. This helps Portland fund its big projects and holds together political support from rural, more tax-averse parts of the state.

5) Significant discussion on accountability

We’ve written before about Oregon Department of Transportation’s (ODOT) effort to regain public trust.

“While the agency is respected for innovative programs like ConnectOregon’s competitive grants and a strong commitment to fix-it-first principles, it has stumbled occasionally as well, including the failure to win support for the problematic Columbia River Crossing mega-project, massive cost overruns on a rural highway project in the landslide-prone coastal mountains, and ill-timed miscalculation of carbon emissions estimates related to failed 2015 transportation investment legislation.”

Legislators are anxious to show the public that they can improve transparency and accountability in this bill. The proposal calls for giving the Oregon Transportation Commission greater power and capacity to oversee the Oregon Department of Transportation. It also calls for cost/benefit analysis of future projects and communicating construction progress on an improved website.

We expect new amendments to be released this week as the legislature races to complete its work before the deadline.

South Carolina legislature overrides governor’s veto to increase state gas tax

Last week the South Carolina legislature voted to override a veto from the governor to successfully raise the state’s gas tax and other fees to increase funding for state highway projects. South Carolina is the 29^th state to raise new transportation revenues since 2012.

To view details on the all of the states that have new revenue since 2012, please see this page, along with the rest of our resources on state funding & policy.

South Carolina’s new law (H. 3516) will raise fuel tax rates by a total of 12 cents per gallon by increasing the rate by 2 cents each year until 2022. When fully implemented, the 12-cent tax increase will generate an estimated $486 million annually.

The funding bill adds a new five percent tax on vehicle sales, netting $73 million annually. It also increases registration fees by $16 (netting $26 million annually) and adds a new $120 biennial fee on electric vehicles and a $60 biennial fee on hybrid vehicles (for $1.5 million annually).

New funding will be directed to maintenance and new construction on the state’s transportation system and to the state infrastructure bank to finance new projects. The law does not make major changes to the state’s transportation priorities

To offset the impact of tax and fee increases, the law creates a refundable tax credit in the amount of either the increased fuel tax cost or the amount paid on vehicle maintenance (whichever is less). This credit expires in 2022.

The House voted 95-18 and the Senate voted 32-12 on May 10 to override the veto. The passage came after several years of debate over new road funding. The state chamber of commerce and local chambers from Charleston, Greenville, and Lexington counties campaigned for the tax hike, including by sending mailers urging constituents to call their legislators to show support for the funding bill.

South Carolina is the fifth state to take action to raise new revenues in 2017, joining California, Indiana, Tennessee and Montana.

Two more states successfully raise taxes & fees to invest new dollars in transportation

With action taken by Indiana and Tennessee in the last week, we’ve passed the tipping point — more than half of all states have successfully raised new transportation revenue since 2012.

Because of the same declining revenue sources that required the federal government to beg, borrow and deficit spend to fund the FAST Act in 2015 through 2020, states are increasingly coming up with their own plans for raising additional transportation revenue, while hoping the federal government continues their historic role as a strong partner in their efforts. But unlike the federal government, states can’t deficit spend, requiring them to find actual dollars to invest and fill gaps in declining revenue sources.

In the last week, two more states successfully passed legislation to raise new transportation revenue, and though both bills raise new funds only for road projects, one state included a provision to allow their largest metro area to raise their own new dollars for transit.

In Indiana, the legislature passed a bill to provide new highway funding. HB 1002 will boost road funding by $1.2 billion per year when fully implemented by increasing the gas tax and other fees to raise new revenue and dedicating existing revenue to highway projects.

The legislation will raise the fuel tax 10 cents per gallon (to 28 cents per gallon), add a $15 annual vehicle registration fee and add a new $150 annual fee for electric vehicles and $50 fee for hybrids. Over the next eight years, revenue from the sales tax on fuel that’s directed to the general fund today will be redirected into the highway account. Additionally, the bill will allow Indiana DOT to pursue new tolls on interstate highways.

The final bill passed the Senate 37-12 and the House 69-29. The House and Senate passed competing versions of the bill earlier this year before reaching a compromise last week. Gov. Holcomb (R) has already voiced support for the bill.

All of the new funding will be used for road and bridge projects, with no money dedicated to transit. $340 million annually will be directed to local projects and the remainder will be for state highway projects.

By redirecting sales tax revenue to highway projects the bill will cut approximately $350 million in revenue out of the state’s general fund each year. An earlier version of the bill had included a new cigarette tax to offset this cut. The final version dropped the cigarette tax and instead phases the revenue shift over the next eight years.

The Tennessee legislature has also approved new revenue for road and highway projects, capping off a notable push by Governor Bill Haslam (R) over the last two years to build public support for raising new revenue.

Most notably, this bill (HB 0534) allows new local option revenue for transit projects, a provision cheered by Nashville Mayor Megan Barry. “This is a momentous day in Tennessee, as the General Assembly has voted to move our state forward on building the transportation infrastructure we need to remain competitive economically and improve the quality of life of our residents,” Mayor Barry said.

The local option provision allows the state’s four largest cities and the twelve counties that contain large cities to increase local sales tax, business tax, car rental tax, hotel/motel tax, residential development tax or wheel tax, with approval through a voter referendum. A local government must approve a detailed transit improvement plan before levying a local transit tax.

The bill raises the gas tax by 6 cents per gallon to 27.4 cents per gallon and raises the diesel rate 10 cents to 28.4 cents per gallon, increases registration fees, and adds a new fee for owners of electric vehicles, bringing in $350 million per year for road projects. From the new revenue, $250 million will go to state highway projects and $100 million will be directed to cities and counties for local road projects. The measure also cuts the sales tax rate on groceries from 5 to 4 percent, and cuts the franchise and excise tax on manufacturers, reducing general fund revenue by $400 million per year.

The bill passed the House 60-37 and passed the Senate 25-6.

California prioritizing repair, transit investments, and walking & biking with new gas tax increase

California could be the next state to raise new revenues to invest in transportation, and unlike most states doing so since 2012, CA lawmakers are prioritizing repair and pledging billions toward transit, safe streets for walking and biking, and an overall multimodal approach to solving the state’s transportation challenges.

Updated (4/7/16): The Senate voted 27-11 and the Assembly voted 54-26 to approve the measure on Thursday night. It is expected to be signed soon by Gov. Brown.

A bill (SB 1) currently before the California legislature would raise $52 billion in new transportation revenue by raising the gasoline tax — unchanged in 23 years — by 12 cents (to 30 cents per gallon), increasing diesel taxes by 20 cents (to 36 cents per gallon) and creating a new annual fee on almost all vehicles based on value. The bill has the strong backing of Gov. Jerry Brown (D). It is being considered by the Senate on Thursday and could be approved in a matter of days. The bill requires a two-thirds supermajority to pass and, though Republicans have uniformly opposed the bill, Democrats hold this majority in both chambers, but only barely.

The bill is projected to raise $52 billion in total over the next decade, directing $7.5 billion to transit capital and operations, putting $1 billion into the state’s Active Transportation Fund and reserving $4 billion expressly for bridge repair. (Interesting fact: if you sort a list of the entire country’s 60,000-plus deficient bridges by traffic volume carried, California claims more than the first 100 spots.)

The multimodal approach to solving the state’s mobility challenges, a heavy focus on prioritizing repair and maintenance, the commitment to supporting public transit and local priority projects, and dedicating about two percent of all new revenues to making it safer and more convenient to walk or bike set California’s approach apart from other states that have advanced legislative packages over the last few years.

It’s worth noting that numerous environmental groups are opposing the bill because of a provision, added late in the process with little debate, which would make it difficult for air quality regulators to create stiffer rules down the road to require cleaner trucks. Others support the overall package while urgently pressing legislators to remove this truck-related provision. (This Streetsblog CA piece fleshes out more of the details about the opposition.)

On the flip side of this equation, part of the tax increase on diesel trucks would be directed into a multimodal freight program, creating a mechanism to tax a negative externality (diesel emissions) and steer a portion of those revenues into cleaner, multimodal projects to move freight.

The bill is currently before the state Senate, and could be considered by the full Assembly in the days ahead. Read about other states that have raised new transportation revenues in the past few years, and find out more about our network for state advocates and elected leaders interested in doing the same.

Recapping our discussion about states making transportation a key driver of their economic development agendas [video]

States are changing how they select transportation projects in order to save money and boost economic development. Catch up on our webinar explaining how states are attempting to focus state funds on more cost-effective investments in transportation.

We’d like to offer a hearty thanks to our two featured speakers, Kate Fichter, Assistant Secretary for Policy Coordination for the Massachusetts Department of Transportation and Charles Knutson, Executive Policy Advisor for Transportation and Economic Development to Washington Governor Jay Inslee.

Kate and Charles shared how each of their states have reformed how transportation projects are selected and built to ensure every state investment delivers the greatest bang for the buck and to reduce to overall cost of megaprojects. In the Q&A in the second half of the program, we talked about balancing local and state priorities, balancing needs across different regions of diverse states, as well as how each state is preparing for new automated vehicle technology.

Catch up with the full recording above.

Briefing book for governors

This webinar follows our recent guidebook for governors and their administrations explaining how a fresh approach to transportation is fundamental to creating quality jobs and shared prosperity while running an efficient government that gets the greatest benefit from every taxpayer dollar.

Download it today.

State policy network

State legislatures around the country are beginning new sessions as we speak, and this means a renewed focus on raising new state funding for transportation and also reforming the policies for spending those dollars. As legislators take a hard look at transportation programs, the policies and strategies in this new guidebook above — and in our previous resources — show how states can save money, improve projects, and make a stronger case to transportation spending through smart policy reforms. These resources are part of our State Transportation Advocacy, Research, & Training network. We provide policy information and connect a diverse group of state policy makers and advocates through this network.

Will Oregon’s DOT change how they do business?

Buttressed by public opinion, a new oversight effort and legislative action, momentum is building in Oregon for increasing transparency and accountability in how the state’s transportation agency does its business.

I-5 over the Columbia River in Oregon. Flickr photo by Doug Kerr. httpswww.flickr.com/photos/dougtone/7459949082

Governor Kate Brown and the Oregon legislature have been working for well over a year to restart efforts to raise new state revenues for transportation after a failed attempt in 2015. Two separate special committees have toured the state for listening sessions, and have developed or are in the process of developing proposals for a transportation investment package.

These efforts to raise new funding have put a spotlight on the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT). A growing number of legislators, local leaders and members of the public are asking whether or not ODOT’s investment choices are maximizing return on investment, and whether those decisions are made with adequate accountability and transparency.

While the agency is respected for innovative programs like ConnectOregon’s competitive grants and a strong commitment to fix-it-first principles, it has stumbled occasionally as well, including the failure to win support for the problematic Columbia River Crossing mega-project, massive cost overruns on a rural highway project in the landslide-prone coastal mountains, and ill-timed miscalculation of carbon emissions estimates related to failed 2015 transportation investment legislation.

In late 2015 members of the legislature demanded, and the governor commissioned, an audit of ODOT to review the agency’s management structure and oversight.

Just this last week, the Oregon Transportation Commission (OTC), a body of five volunteers appointed by the governor to oversee ODOT, has jumped into the fray. OTC Chair Tammy Baney took the unusual step of sending a formal letter to Governor Brown requesting dedicated independent staff and participation in the agency director’s performance review — to help the OTC fulfill its oversight duties.

This latest move by the OTC coincides with similar efforts in the legislature.

Representative Jeff Reardon (D) has introduced a bill (HB 2532) directing the “Oregon Transportation Commission to adopt rules establishing quantitative system for scoring and ranking transportation projects that are being considered by commission for inclusion in Statewide Transportation Improvement Program.”

Transportation for America has assisted in developing this bill, which draws on programs in Virginia, Massachusetts, Washington State, and others. The legislative session starts this week, and the bill already enjoys support from five other legislators, including top Senate transportation committee Republican Brian Boquist.

With all these efforts to reform ODOT now in motion, this Thursday’s meeting of the new oversight group should be lively. OTC members and meeting attendees will learn about the draft findings from the ODOT audit for the first time — a topic that will almost certainly touch on the accountability and transparency of ODOT’s business decisions.

Maryland’s governor is fighting a more objective process for choosing transportation projects

While other states and regions across the country are using new tools to evaluate potential transportation projects and pick the ones that offer the best return for taxpayer money, Maryland Governor Hogan and his administration are staunchly opposing similar new policies that add accountability and transparency to that process.

Many Americans find the byzantine nature of transportation decisions confusing, making them less willing to hand over more of their hard-earned tax dollars to increase investments in transportation — but who can blame them?

The public wants to know the answers to questions like: “Will these dollars give us better, safe, reliable, affordable access to necessities like jobs, education, health care, and groceries?” Measuring what transportation dollars are buying, in a clear way that matters to the public, is critical for restoring this trust — as well as for getting the most bang for the buck.

This was why Maryland legislators in 2016 crafted a new law to measure and score transportation projects based on state goals, helping to program (i.e. spend) scarce transportation dollars more objectively. The legislation in question requires the state department of transportation to objectively evaluate potential projects based on their impacts in categories like economic development, safety, community vitality, and accessibility.

The Governor vetoed the bill, but the legislature overrode that veto and passed it in 2016. And now, as Maryland starts their 2017 legislative session, Governor Larry Hogan (R) has declared his number one legislative priority to be the repeal of this legislation. Last week a repeal bill was introduced.

Marylanders: Tell your state reps to defend transparency and accountability in transportation projects.

The governor is demanding a repeal of the law that created this new objective scoring system so he can preserve the opaque, politically driven process where projects are picked based on horse trades and political influence, not on need or expected benefits.

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In attacking what he calls the “road kill bill” and warning of “catastrophic” consequences, Gov. Hogan has exaggerated and incorrectly stated the provisions of the law. While the Governor said the law would “absolutely be responsible for the elimination of nearly all of the most important transportation priorities in every single jurisdiction all across the state,” the law explicitly gives the administration the power to fund any necessary project.

Del. Brooke Lierman (D-Baltimore, pictured below), who championed the project scoring legislation last year, was astonished by the Governor’s sweeping opposition.“It’s just a score, and that shows to us, the taxpayers, how we’re spending our money in a transparent way,” she told the Baltimore Sun. “I don’t know why the governor is so opposed to transparency in transportation funding.”

Delegate Brooke Lierman, right, one of the sponsors of the original legislation, explaining the mechanics of the bill to others at our Capital Ideas conference.

In recent years, several other states under Democrat or Republican control alike, have adopted similar scoring systems to clearly evaluate projects and communicate to taxpayers that the state is making sound investments. For example, in the past year Virginia and Massachusetts have each employed new project scores to build their state transportation plans.

Yet rather than follow these well-functioning models, the administration released a clumsy set of measures to implement the legislation.

Virginia’s DOT went all-in on the new process their legislature created, producing a new website and a 90-page step-by step guide to their process. In contrast, the Maryland DOT’s regulations run just a page and a half and offer no explanation for the basis for scores and weights. While Gov. Hogan has erroneously claimed that the new law would require that state to cancel dozens of planned projects, under the law the scoring process is only advisory — it just provides a new way for lawmakers and citizens alike to see which projects are being advanced and compare the relative merits of each.

Maryland’s taxpayers deserve transparent and objective scores that would let them understand state spending and need. Instead they have gotten a cynical, straw man argument, in which the governor has painted a sensible, good-governance reform as the “road kill bill.”

The Maryland General Assembly should not repeal this important new policy and the administration should use the flexibility in the law to develop a scoring process that matches the state’s need. We’ll be keeping our eyes on the developments down the road in Annapolis.

How are states making transportation a key driver of their economic development agendas? [Webinar]

Join us in two weeks as we explore how two states have made transportation a key piece of their economic development agendas and have focused state funds on cost-effective investments in transportation.

Updated 2/2/17: Watch the full recording below.

This session is tied to the guide we recently produced for governors and their administrations which shows how a fresh approach to transportation is fundamental to creating quality jobs and shared prosperity while running an efficient government that gets the greatest benefit from every taxpayer dollar.

On a webinar Friday, January 27th at 3:00 EST, learn how two administrations – under Gov. Charlie Baker (R) in Massachusetts and Gov. Jay Inslee (D) in Washington – have utilized transportation as a tool that helps them accomplish their economic goals. The webinar will feature:

Charles Knutson, Senior Policy Advisor for Transportation and Economic Development to Gov. Inslee.
Kate Fichter, Assistant Secretary for Policy Coordination for the Massachusetts Department of Transportation.

State legislatures around the country are beginning new sessions as we speak, and this means a renewed focus on raising new state funding for transportation and also reforming the policies for spending those dollars. As legislators take a hard look at transportation programs, the policies and strategies in this new guidebook above — and in our previous resources — show how states can save money, improve projects, and make a stronger case to transportation spending through smart policy reforms. Download it today, and join us on January 27th for a terrific discussion.

If you want to get up to date on the legislative discussions we’re keeping a close eye on, or if you’re someone who is engaged at the state level on funding or policy, join our START network today.

How one state is using transportation to boost their economy — a story of success from Massachusetts

Massachusetts’ recent economic development success is attributable in part to the leadership of the past two gubernatorial administrations — one Democratic, one Republican — and their efforts to focus state investments on improving public transit, repairing critical infrastructure and doubling down on supporting and creating the walkable communities that are in high demand.

This short story is adapted from Transportation Innovations That Save States Money and Attract Talent, our new short policy guide for governors. It shows how a fresh approach transportation is fundamental to creating quality jobs and shared prosperity while running an efficient government that gets the greatest benefit from every taxpayer dollar. – Ed.

Flickr photo by Massachusetts Office of Travel. https://www.flickr.com/photos/masstravel/29675157103/

Massachusetts won a major endorsement for their strategy when, in 2016, General Electric announced it would relocate its corporate headquarters from suburban Fairfield, CT, to the Seaport neighborhood in Boston. GE reportedly turned down sizable tax-incentive offers from other states and chose, instead, to locate in a walkable and transit-served location where the company could draw educated younger workers. GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt said that in Boston, GE found “an ecosystem that shares our aspirations.”

GE was just one of dozens of companies that have located to town or city centers in Massachusetts in recent years, as chronicled by Smart Growth America’s Core Values research. Boston and adjacent cities like Cambridge and Somerville are booming and are magnets for educated, young workers.

Over the past two gubernatorial administrations the state has invested in these walkable communities that anchor a talented workforce and foster economic development.

Former Governor Deval Patrick’s (D) administration championed new funding for transportation projects and inked an agreement that combined funding from the state, the federal government, and a private real estate developer to finance a new subway stop at Assembly Square. The station opened in 2014 and anchors a major mixed-use development that has transformed a former industrial site. The Patrick administration also advanced plans for an extension of the Green Line light rail service to more Somerville neighborhoods.

Though Governor Charlie Baker (R) won while running against future automatic increases to the state gas tax, he clearly understands that improving transit and investing in these walkable places was critical to the state’s prosperity.

MassDOT Secretary Stephanie Pollack presenting at T4America’s Transportation Leadership Academy focused on performance measures.

To achieve this vision, he appointed Stephanie Pollack, a transportation expert and transit advocate, to run MassDOT, the state’s department of transportation. While some in the state were surprised by his pick of a notable transit advocate to run MassDOT, Governor Baker and Secretary Pollack have a shared interest in reforming the state’s transportation programs to ensure that transportation investments are connected to economic development goals. They’re intent on measuring the results that are important for voters and taxpayers and holding the agency accountable for meeting them.

“Transportation is not important for what it is, it’s important for what it does,” Pollack frequently says — as she did at the last gathering of our Transportation Leadership Academy.

The Baker administration considered abandoning the Green Line project when faced with escalating costs. But the benefits of the project were too significant for the state to walk away.

As Pollack has said, “The return on investment in transportation, whether it’s the Green Line extension or another [project], is not just measured in how many people physically use it. It’s also measured in improvements to the economy, decreases in people’s commuting time, creation of new jobs and reduction in greenhouse gases.”

Instead, the state’s largest transit agency, the MBTA, found ways to lower the expected costs by redesigning stations and is contracting new management for the project. While focusing intently on reforming MBTA, Baker sought workable plans in order to maintain the commitments that the commonwealth, under previous administrations, had made to communities.

In order to achieve clear outcomes with transportation dollars, MassDOT began to implement a new, performance-based process to help select projects in which to invest. Evaluating the expected outcomes from every possible project helped the agency put together a capital plan that balances repair of critical infrastructure and further improvements to transit.

In addition to funding transit, MassDOT has also targeted funding specifically at making local streets better for walking and biking through an incentive-based complete streets program. A small investment of state funds leverages local funds to plan and build projects to make streets better for people traveling by foot and by bicycle.

Massachusetts is enjoying economic returns from administrations that understood how tailored transportation investments could support walkable communities. The leadership and reform efforts under both Democratic and Republican administrations is paying off with a state that is attracting talented workers, drawing relocating businesses, and creating quality jobs.

Read our full guide for Governors, which covers how state transportation policy too often fails to accomplish these types of goals, and offers recommended, proven solutions with a track record of success in other states.

Helping governors save money and attract talent through a fresh approach to transportation

A new guide released today by Transportation for America shows governors and their administration how a fresh approach to transportation is fundamental to creating quality jobs and shared prosperity while running an efficient government that gets the greatest benefit from every taxpayer dollar.

With new governors set to take office in the new year and scores of incumbents returning and setting their agendas for 2017, it’s crucial that they consider how transportation can be a valuable tool for achieving their policy goals — whether producing savings in the budget, attracting and creating jobs, giving taxpayers greater benefit for each dollar, or building healthy and safe communities.

Transportation failures — whether excessive time that people or freight are stuck in traffic, decreasing air quality, flawed implementation of mega-projects, or the perceived and real inefficiencies of government bureaucracy — are a drag on the economy and quality of life for residents.

Many state departments of transportation just aren’t well calibrated to solve today’s challenges. Planning is isolated from development and other infrastructure decisions, state programs have a narrow focus on building highways to the exclusion of building unified, holistic systems, and the most efficient solutions are often overlooked in favor of overbuilt or ill-conceived mega-projects.

And above all, the recipe for successful local and regional economic development has changed significantly.

In the past, economic development was focused on recruiting and luring large employers and expecting new workers to follow the jobs. But younger workers are choosing where to live and then looking for jobs. Economic development now depends on building great places that draw and anchor talent. Quality of life, vibrant communities, and transportation choices are no longer simply nice add-ons, they are essential to economic growth and prosperity in communities large and small. And employers are making the same shift to stay competitive, seeking communities with these features precisely because they attract talented workers.

Yet the transportation policies and bureaucratic practices in so many states often fail to provide the infrastructure that helps build these kinds of places that businesses are now flocking too. Instead, many state agencies are continuing to offer transportation strategies more suited to solving yesterday’s problems. State policymakers need to change the focus of transportation spending in order to realize the full potential from these investments.

This new guide offers best practices to help state leaders achieve greater benefits and avoid costly pitfalls in their transportation programs, including several examples of states solving problems by instituting reforms within their transportation programs.

Virginia developed a new system to pick projects based on benefits and better communicate the benefits of each state investment.
Tennessee saved millions of dollars by right-sizing and reconsidering projects that had long been in their pipeline. One $65 million project became a $340,000 project, with nearly the same benefits.
Colorado built a new, multimodal corridor with tolled lanes and bus rapid transit to provide commute options.
California has launched a new, all-electric car share program in disadvantaged neighborhoods.

As new governors begin their terms and new legislatures are seated, it is a critical time to evaluate state transportation spending and how we can get greater benefits from these programs. The examples in this guide from around the country show how governors, administrations, and state DOTs have solved problems by reforming policies and practices. Download it today.

We can help states achieve these changes through tailored technical assistance and through START network policy support. Find out more and join this network today.

Revisit our post-election livestream panel discussion

Two days after the election, we streamed a live post-election panel discussion on how the 2016 elections will impact transportation policy at the federal, state and local levels. If you missed it, catch up here.

View the archive video on Youtube here.

How will this year’s elections impact transportation? How will any congressional shakeup affect the committees with jurisdiction over transportation? What happened with the more than $200 billion in ballot measures decided in critical races across the country? With the help of a few national experts, we had a discussion about what the new presidential administration means for transportation, and how congress, key state races, and ballot measures will impact your community.

Recorded from a Facebook live stream during the first meeting of our Smart Cities Collaborative in Minneapolis, MN.

The state legislature behind the curtain

What state legislators can and should do

The bottom line

Transit spending

State restrictions on gas tax revenue

The bottom line

Check in early and often

Find the linchpins

Look for common ground

The bottom line

Know how federal and state policy will affect your work

Learn new approaches

Engage the public and get them on board

Win transportation funding to implement your priorities

Conclusion

1) States that innovate, try new things, and take chances, get rewarded

2) “Transit access is the #1 factor in upward economic mobility”

3) We are swimming in data, but very little of it has anything to do with the people who use the system.

4) We don’t always agree with one another, but we have to keep working together

5) You have to be ready and willing to listen

6) People are hungry to exchange information and learn from one another

7) Atlanta is a wonderful city with lots of momentum (including on the soccer front!)

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Oregon puts some skin in the transit operations game

Many ways to skin a cat

Recognizing the need for accountability and transparency – but coming up short

Briefing book for governors

State policy network

Marylanders: Tell your state reps to defend transparency and accountability in transportation projects.