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Tag: TIGER

Cities and towns could lose one of their best options for funding smart local projects

The Senate Commerce Committee is marking up a version of a long-term transportation funding bill Wednesday morning with no authorization for the popular TIGER program, thus limiting the money available to local communities.

Let me tell you a short story.

In central Illinois, there’s a classic medium-sized American town that desperately wanted to revitalize their downtown, fan the flames of the community’s civic pride, and provide a new lynchpin to encourage development in a part of town that had been neglected for far too long.

The elected leaders, business leaders and citizens in Normal, Illinois had an ambitious vision for their city’s core to become a powerful asset; helping them compete and prosper economically and creating a new framework for creating value for decades to come.

save-tiger-featuredSince 2009, the federal TIGER program has made projects like Normal’s downtown transportation hub and civic centerpiece a reality, directing a relatively tiny $4 billion into smart, ready-to-go homegrown transportation projects that bring a high return on investment.

Unfortunately, in the just-released proposal for a new long-term transportation bill, the Senate Commerce Committee has decided to entirely scrap the oversubscribed and woefully underfunded TIGER program that awards competitive, merit-based grants.

Can you send a message right now to your Senators and urge them to preserve TIGER? 

The Senate Commerce Committee is marking up the bill on Wednesday morning (7/15), so there’s not a moment to lose!

The committee is creating a very smart competitive multimodal grant program explicitly for freight projects, but that shouldn’t happen at the expense of TIGER. We need more transportation dollars, not fewer, awarded competitively on the merits to the best projects.

When we choose projects on the merits, we can get a greater bang for the buck. In Normal, where the new transportation hub opened in 2012, a total public investment of $80 million has catalyzed $165 million in private development surrounding the station, with another $40-50 million in the works.

These TIGER grants have been rewarding communities all across the country that are thinking outside the box to cut congestion, improve safety, promote economic development, or improve access to jobs and opportunities through smarter transportation investments.

It’s time to take a stand for TIGER. Can you send a message today?

Congress kicks into high gear on transportation — let’s summarize the action

During an extremely busy week in Congress in several key committees, a long-term transportation bill and a multi-year passenger rail authorization were introduced and passed committees, along with hearings on possible ways to keep our nation’s transportation fund afloat, rural transportation issues, rail safety, and autonomous vehicles.

For those of you who don’t regularly follow Congress, this is often how things go: nothing seems to happen for a long time, and then there’s an explosion of activity all at once. That’s certainly what took place this week in the Senate, with some important ramifications for the future of transportation funding and policy. We hope that Congress shows the same focus when they return from their weeklong July 4th recess.

Four of the five Senate committees with jurisdiction over either transportation policy or funding were active this week. Two notable transportation policy bills (and one yearly spending bill) were advanced out of committees this week, and the Senate made the first big move toward passing a long-term transportation reauthorization ahead of the July 31 expiration of MAP-21, the current law. So what happened, and what should we be expecting next?

Here’s our brief rundown of what you need to know.

First up, in news we haven’t covered here yet, the Senate Appropriations Committee this morning marked up and passed their version of the yearly transportation and housing spending bill that was passed out of the House several weeks ago — a bill that cut TIGER, passenger rail, and transit construction. Unfortunately, the news out of the Senate today was only marginally better. On the plus side, TIGER funding is maintained at this year’s level: $500 million again for competitive grants this upcoming year. But the Senate actually makes deeper cuts to New and Small Starts transit construction than the House did — $520 million in cuts over last year, and $320 million more than the House passed a few weeks ago. Passenger rail funding gets a marginal increase over last year’s level.

While we were hopeful that the Senate could possibly restore some of these cuts made by the House — as had happened in several years past — the consensus by House and Senate Republicans to stick to 2011 budget sequestration-level discretionary funding amounts for all of their FY2016 spending bills result in cuts across the board to discretionary programs like these. All Democrats on the Appropriations Committee opposed this bill.

Smart Growth America offered up this statement on the THUD bill today. T4America is a program of Smart Growth America.

The United States is in the middle of an affordable housing crisis. Rents are rising, the homeownership rate is declining, and federal housing programs are already failing to meet the need for affordable homes. Gutting the HOME program at a time like this is the wrong response. If Congress’s budget caps force this outcome, the budget caps need to be changed.

Logged-in T4America members can read our full THUD summary below:

[member_content]June 24, 2015 — The Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies (Transportation-HUD) marked up and reported its FY2016 appropriation bill to the full committee on June 23 without amendment. This is T4America’s short members-only summary of the THUD bill as reported to the full committee. Read the full memo.[/member_content]

Second up was the release and the subsequent committee markup of the Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee’s six-year transportation bill known as the DRIVE Act. The EPW Committee is responsible for the largest portion of the full bill known as the “highway title” — more on the other portions below. In case you missed any of our posts about the EPW bill over the last few days, you can catch up with those below. Long story short? EPW released a bill with some modest improvements that represents a good starting point for debate, they approved it unanimously in committee while making a few small improvements, and important amendments that could ensure our investments best maintain and improve our transportation system are still outstanding and will hopefully be considered by the full Senate.

Statement on the release of the Senate’s long-term transportation reauthorization proposal

While this bill provides a positive starting point, there are other areas where Congress can and should do better.

Senate’s new transportation bill is a good start, but more should be done for local communities

The EPW committee marked up and approved this bill unanimously on June 24th without considering amendments (other than a package of amendments in a manager’s mark.) The amendments mentioned below were discussed or offered and withdrawn, and will hopefully be debated on the floor of the Senate. So keep any letters of support coming — this action is still ongoing!

Senate Committee rolls forward with speedy markup of six-year transportation bill

In a committee markup where the phrase “doing the Lord’s work” was invoked by numerous members on both sides of the aisle, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee sped through a markup of their draft six-year transportation bill in less than an hour this morning, approving it by a unanimous vote with no amendments, save for a manager’s package of amendments agreed to in advance.

While the Senate Appropriations Committee marked up the transportation & housing spending bill this morning, the Senate Commerce Committee — the committee with jurisdiction over rail policy in the Senate — considered the Railroad Reform, Enhancement, and Efficiency Act — a bill to govern all passenger rail policy and authorize funding for the next several years. The RREEA bill is a good step forward, supported by T4America wholeheartedly:

Statement in response to introduction of the Railroad Reform, Enhancement and Efficiency Act

Senators Wicker and Booker are doing the nation a great service in crafting a bill that ensures Americans will see continued and improving passenger rail service in the years to come. Passenger rail service is vital and growing in popularity, and keeping the system working and safe requires investment. The Wicker-Booker bill embraces both those ideas. It authorizes necessary funding to start to return the system to a state of good repair and make targeted investments to improve service.

The committee markup of the bill known as RREEA was mostly uneventful, and it passed by a unanimous vote with mostly minor amendments and issues raised — some of which were safety-related and expected in the wake of the recent derailment in Philadelphia. The Commerce Committee is also responsible for freight and rail policy for the long-term bill, and we’ve heard that they could be releasing their draft long-term bill shortly after the July 4th recess.

Lastly, both House and Senate committees tasked with finding the funding to pay for the next long-term transportation bill (or finding the money to extend MAP-21 past July 31) held hearings this week to continue their work along those lines. In the case of the House, they were specifically discussing repatriation of corporate earnings as a possible revenue source.

Repatriation is the process by which companies can bring offshore earnings back to the U.S. at a reduced tax rate, and then all or a share of those tax revenues would be directed to the trust fund, providing revenues for a long-term transportation bill. It’s an idea that’s gotten some traction in the Senate — Senators Barbara Boxer and Rand Paul have introduced a proposal — but it’s still a one-time fix that’s still not a fee paid by the users of the transportation system.

A House Ways and Means subcommittee held a hearing today to discuss repatriation, and the overall takeaway from the hearing seemed to be that while repatriation may be the most feasible option after a gas tax increase was ruled out by Ways and Means Chairman Paul Ryan, there’s still little consensus in the House, and many representatives want to tie it to more thorny issues like corporate tax reform, reducing the chances that it could pass quickly or easily.

In the Senate, the Finance Committee held a hearing today as well to discuss the use of public-private partnerships — a growing trend in many states as they look to up-front cash from the private sector to help fund longer-term projects where the private party defers their payment or profits. Despite the way P3s, as they’re known, are frequently invoked as a possible funding solution, almost all the panelists today noted that although having a greater range of financing options will certainly be a boost to many states and cities, P3s won’t be sufficient without also increasing overall revenues. They’re not a panacea.

Which leads us right back to the elephant in the room: finding and agreeing upon a new, stable revenue source that can keep the nation’s transportation fund solvent for years to come. It was indeed a busy week, and we hope that Congress will keep up the momentum when they return from their weeklong July 4th recess.

US House approves bill by a thin margin that makes cuts to TIGER, transit construction and passenger rail

Late Tuesday night, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to pass their yearly transportation spending bill with just six votes separating the bill from defeat. While the cuts to TIGER, Amtrak and New Starts transit capital programs were unfortunately approved by the House, it’s unlikely this bill will become law any time soon. That’s because of the Senate’s likely inability to pass any annual spending bills this summer due to the parties’ lack of agreement on overall funding for the government this year.

First, to the thousands of you who sent messages to your representatives in the last week, we thank you for getting engaged on this crucial issue. Though the final vote was disappointing, there’s still hope. We do know that our voices were heard, as many amendments were rejected by significant margins that would have made further cuts to these important programs — reflecting that these legislators are indeed hearing about what their constituents value.

The bad news is that the final bill approved by the House still cut $200 million for all new transit construction, slashed the TIGER competitive grant program by 80 percent, and cut Amtrak’s budget by $240 million. These programs targeted by the House for cuts are precisely the ones that cities, towns and metro regions of all sizes throughout the country are depending on to help them stay economically competitive and bring their ambitious transportation plans to fruition.

The good news is that several short-sighted amendments were roundly defeated, including some to make these above cuts worse.

Rep. Grotham (R-WI) proposed an amendment to make the New Starts cuts even deeper by stripping the bill of all transit capital construction funding ($1.9 billion), which was rejected by voice vote with strong bipartisan opposition. Rep. Emmers (R-MN) proposed an amendment to cut all of the funds used to make transit stations easier to access, boosting ridership and making the service easier and more convenient to use, like projects to improve bike and pedestrian access or support for dense, walkable development near the stops. Transit lines don’t exist in vacuums — successful lines and stations are most often surrounded by other supportive infrastructure that helps connect them to their riders. This amendment was very close, but all House Democrats were joined by 32 of their Republican colleagues to kill the amendment 212-214.

Rep. Brooks (R-AL) proposed two amendments last week to essentially strip all capital and operating funding from Amtrak, and both were defeated by more than 125 votes with strong bipartisan opposition. Rep. Session (R-TX) proposed similar amendments that were both defeated as well. These votes are another reminder of the fact that communities of all kinds — small, large, rural, urban — depend on the service provided by the nation’s passenger rail system. Their constituents certainly don’t see the existence of an affordable transportation option as a partisan issue, to say nothing of the tremendous value provided by making valuable economic connections between metro areas large and small and rural areas throughout the country.

The House’s bill now moves to the Senate Appropriations Committee, where members are currently drafting their Transportation-HUD spending bill. We’re cautiously optimistic that at least a few of the cuts made by the House’s annual spending bill could be undone — at least partially — in the Senate. However, the only way to ensure that all of these cuts are removed and certainly the only way to increase funding over last year’s bill is for Congress to remove the poorly planned and unwise spending caps put in place by the 2011 sequestration.

One thing is certain: we’ll need your help to make that happen, and we will keep you posted as the annual transportation spending bill continues onto the Senate.

Additional insight from our policy team can be found for our logged-in T4America members below, including a full list of amendments that were voted on during Tuesday night’s debate.

[member_content]This information below is pulled from our members-only wrap-up of the vote that went up yesterday. Read the full post here. And visit t4america.org/members regularly to see these updates.

This final vote count is a sign of things to come.

The U.S. House and Senate Republicans are sticking to sequestration-level discretionary funding amounts for all of their FY2016 spending bills, established in the Budget Control Act of 2011. These spending caps limit funding for the regular appropriation bills in FY2016 to $1.016 trillion, a funding increase of just 0.29% over last year. We expect the House to continue to face uphill challenges in passing their bills and over in the Senate, with near, if not all-out, opposition from the Democrats expected for all 12 annual spending bills.

This issue will not likely resolve itself until the fall. Just yesterday, Senate Majority Leader McConnell (R-KY) rejected a call from Senate Democrats to hold a “budget summit” this month to resolve the differences between the two parties on top-line annual appropriations levels. Until this larger issue is resolved, we don’t expect the House Transportation-HUD bill that narrowly passed last night to become law any time soon.

Amendments that were considered Tuesday prior to the bills passage include:

Rep. Denham (R-CA) – An amendment to prohibit funds from the bill to be used for high-speed rail in California or for the California High-Speed Rail Authority. A similar amendment passed last year in the House by a vote of 227-186, but this amendment and others to restrict funding to the California high-speed rail project were not included in the final FY2015 transportation spending bill due to lack of support in the Senate

AMENDMENT ADOPTED BY VOICE VOTE

Rep. Bass (D-CA) – An amendment to make it easier for state and local transportation agencies to use local hire criteria for FTA procurement selection processes. A similar amendment was included in the final FY2015 transportation spending bill, and USDOT is currently implementing this through a one-year pilot. Read our take on that original provision from earlier this year.

AMENDMENT ADOPTED BY VOICE VOTE

Rep Emmer (R-MN) – An amendment to prohibit the use of funds to carry out projects to improve bicycle and pedestrian access on any FTA New Start (transit) projects.

AMENDMENT REJECTED BY VOTE 212-214 (Zero Democrats voted for the amendment — see roll call vote here)

Rep Meehan (R-PA) – An amendment to prohibit Amtrak from spending capital funds on projects other than the Northeast Corridor until Amtrak spends an amount equal to this year’s Northeast Corridor profits on Northeast Corridor capital construction. Amtrak’s profits from that line in FY2015 were $290 million.

AMENDMENT REJECTED BY VOTE 199-227 (see roll call vote here)

Rep Posey #1 (R-FL) – An amendment to prohibit funds from being used to take any actions related to financing a new passenger rail project that runs from Orlando to Miami through Indian River County, Florida. This amendment and Rep. Posey’s other two below were targeted at stopping and/or stalling the development of the private Florida East Coast Railway high-speed rail project.

AMENDMENT REJECTED BY VOTE 163-260 (see roll call vote here)

Rep Posey #2 (R-FL) – An amendment to prohibit funds from being used to authorize exempt facility bonds to finance passenger rail projects that are not reasonably expected to attain a maximum speed in excess of 150 mph.

AMENDMENT REJECTED BY VOTE 148-275 (see roll call vote here)

Rep Posey #3 (R-FL) – An amendment to prohibit funds from being used to make a loan in an amount that exceeds $600 million under the Railroad Rehabilitation and Improvement Financing (RRIF) program.

AMENDMENT REJECTED BY VOTE 134-287 (see roll call vote here)

Rep Sessions #1 (R-TX) – An amendment to prohibit funds from being used by Amtrak to support the route with the highest loss, measured by contributions/(loss) per rider (would eliminate the “Sunset Limited” line from New Orleans to Los Angeles). Rep. Sessions has in the past made amendments similar to this and the following amendment.

AMENDMENT REJECTED BY VOTE 205-218 (see roll call vote here)

Rep Sessions #2 (R-TX) – An amendment to prohibit funds being used by Amtrak to operate any route whose operating costs exceed two times its revenues based on the National Railroad Passenger Corporation FY2014-2018 Five Year Plan from April 2014, targeting nearly all long-distance routes.

AMENDMENT REJECTED BY VOTE 186-237 (see roll call vote here)

Rep Blackburn (R-TN) – An amendment to reduce the overall appropriations for the Transportation-HUD bill by 1%.

AMENDMENT REJECTED BY VOTE 163-259 (see roll call vote here)

Rep Gosar (R-AZ) – An amendment to prohibit funds from being used to implement or enforce the rule entitled “Hazardous Materials for High-Hazard Flammable Trains”.

AMENDMENT REJECTED BY VOTE 136-286 (see roll call vote here)

Rep Lee (D-CA) – An amendment to strike provisions included in the spending bill that would prohibit USDOT from allowing flights or cruise ships to travel to Cuba.

AMENDMENT REJECTED BY VOTE 176-247 (see roll call vote here)

[/member_content]

US House Passes Transportation-HUD Appropriations on Razor-Thin Margin; 216-210

Late last night, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to pass their FY2016 Transportation-HUD with just 6 votes separating the bill from defeat. Just 3 Democrats voted for the bill’s passage — Rep. Ashford (D-NE), Rep. Cuellar (D-TX), and Rep. Graham (D-FL) — and 31 Republicans voted in opposition. The list of Republicans voting in opposition included centrists such as Rep. Dold (R-IL), Rep. King (R-NY), and Rep. Meehan (R-PA) and more conservative representatives such as Rep. Amash (R-MI), Ken McClintock (R-CO), and Rep. Massie (R-KY).  While the news is bad for TIGER, Amtrak and New Starts transit capital programs — which all received heavy cuts — we do not expect this bill in its current state to become law any time soon.

This final vote count is a sign of things to come.

The U.S. House and Senate Republicans are sticking to sequestration-level discretionary funding amounts for all of their FY2016 spending bills, established in the Budget Control Act of 2011. These spending caps limit funding for the regular appropriation bills in FY2016 to $1.016 trillion, a funding increase of just 0.29% over last year. We expect the House to continue to face uphill challenges in passing their bills and over in the Senate, with near, if not all-out opposition, from the Democrats expected for all 12 annual spending bills.

This issue will not likely resolve itself until the fall. Just yesterday, Senate Majority Leader McConnell (R-KY) rejected a call from Senate Democrats to hold a “budget summit” this month to resolve the differences between the two parties on top-line annual appropriations levels. Until this larger issue is resolved, we don’t expect the House Transportation-HUD bill that narrowly passed last night to become law any time soon.

Amendments that were considered last night prior to the bills passage include:

Rep. Denham (R-CA) – An amendment to prohibit funds from bill to be used for high-speed rail in California or for the California High-Speed Rail Authority. A similar amendment passed last year in the House by a vote of 227-186, but this amendment and others to restrict funding to the California high-speed rail project were not included in the final FY2015 transportation spending bill due to lack of support in the Senate

AMENDMENT ADOPTED BY VOICE VOTE

Rep. Bass (D-CA) – An amendment to make it easier for state and local transportation agencies to use local hire criteria for FTA procurement selection processes. A similar amendment was included in the final FY2015 transportation spending bill and USDOT is currently implementing this through a one-year pilot. Read our take on that original provision from earlier this year.

AMENDMENT ADOPTED BY VOICE VOTE

Rep Emmer (R-MN) – An amendment to prohibit the use of funds from being used to carry out projects to improve bicycle and pedestrian access on any FTA New Start (transit) projects.

AMENDMENT REJECTED BY VOTE 212-214 (Zero Democrats voted for the amendment — see roll call vote here)

Rep Meehan (R-PA) – An amendment to prohibit Amtrak from spending capital funds on projects other than the Northeast Corridor until Amtrak spends an amount equal to this year’s Northeast Corridor profits on Northeast Corridor capital construction. Amtrak’s profits from that line in FY2015 were $290 million.

AMENDMENT REJECTED BY VOTE 199-227 (see roll call vote here)

Rep Posey #1 (R-FL) – An amendment to prohibit funds from being used to take any actions related to financing a new passenger rail project that runs from Orlando to Miami through Indian River County, Florida. This amendment and Rep. Posey’s other two below were targeted at stopping and/or stalling the development of the private Florida East Coast Railway high-speed rail project.

AMENDMENT REJECTED BY VOTE 163-260 (see roll call vote here)

Rep Posey #2 (R-FL) – An amendment to prohibit funds from being used to authorize exempt facility bonds to finance passenger rail projects that are not reasonably expected to attain a maximum speed in excess of 150 mph.

AMENDMENT REJECTED BY VOTE 148-275 (see roll call vote here)

Rep Posey #3 (R-FL) – An amendment to prohibit funds from being used to make a loan in an amount that exceeds $600 million under the Railroad Rehabilitation and Improvement Financing (RRIF) program.

AMENDMENT REJECTED BY VOTE 134-287 (see roll call vote here)

Rep Sessions #1 (R-TX) – An amendment to prohibit funds from being used by Amtrak to support the route with the highest loss, measured by contributions/(loss) per rider (would eliminate the “Sunset Limited” line from New Orleans to Los Angeles). Rep. Sessions has in the past made amendments similar to this and the following amendment.

AMENDMENT REJECTED BY VOTE 205-218 (see roll call vote here)

Rep Sessions #2 (R-TX) – An amendment to prohibit funds being used by Amtrak to operate any route whose operating costs exceed two times its revenues based on the National Railroad Passenger Corporation FY2014-2018 Five Year Plan from April 2014, targeting nearly all long-distance routes.

AMENDMENT REJECTED BY VOTE 186-237 (see roll call vote here)

Rep Blackburn (R-TN) – An amendment to reduce the overall appropriations for the Transportation-HUD bill by 1%.

AMENDMENT REJECTED BY VOTE 163-259 (see roll call vote here)

Rep Gosar (R-AZ) – An amendment to prohibit funds from being used to implement or enforce the rule entitled “Hazardous Materials for High-Hazard Flammable Trains”.

AMENDMENT REJECTED BY VOTE 136-286 (see roll call vote here)

Rep Lee (D-CA) – An amendment to strike provisions included in the spending bill that would prohibit USDOT from allowing flights or cruise ships to travel to Cuba.

AMENDMENT REJECTED BY VOTE 176-247 (see roll call vote here)

UPDATE: The House is voting to slash transportation programs local communities are counting on

This evening, the House of Representatives is expected to begin debate and vote on their annual transportation funding bill. As it stands, the bill will make painful cuts to several important transportation programs that local communities depend on. With debate beginning Wednesday at 7 p.m. and continuing through the night, it’s crucial that we weigh in as soon as possible. 

Updated 2:15 p.m 6/4/15: The House delayed the final vote on the bill until Tuesday, June 9th. So keep those messages coming! Share the news with your friends and if you have already sent a letter, click through to the form again and you can find your rep’s phone number for making a quick call.

Updated 10:52 a.m 6/4/15: Debate on the bill continued well into the wee hours of Wednesday night into Thursday morning, and the House is expected to vote on the bill by noon (eastern time) on Thursday.

Can you send a message to your representative today in advance of this crucial vote?

The programs targeted by the House for cuts are precisely the ones that cities, towns and metro regions of all sizes throughout the country are depending on to help them stay economically competitive and bring their ambitious transportation plans to fruition.

Specifically, this bill would:

  • Cut $200 million for all new transit construction. This comes at a time when public transportation ridership is booming and cities of all sizes are looking to invest in new bus, rail transit, and bikeshare projects to help them stay economically competitive. This program is what Indianapolis is currently using to kick-start their ambitious bus rapid transit network, and scores of other communities are hoping to do the same.
  • Slash the TIGER competitive grant program by 80 percent from last year’s level down to just $100 million. We’re now six rounds into the popular TIGER program, and it’s clearly inadequate to fulfill the huge demand throughout the country. The program has funded innovative projects in communities of all sizes in all 50 states — and in districts both red and blue.
  • Cut Amtrak’s budget by $250 million just a few weeks after the tragic Amtrak derailment in Philadelphia, and at a time when ridership has never been higher.

This bill moves to the House floor this evening and will be debated well into the night. The final vote is most likely to come sometime tomorrow, so don’t stop calling and sending messages before the end of the day Thursday. (See updates on timing above.) 

So send a message to your representative as soon as you can today. And after you do, if you want to make an even bigger impact, pick up the phone, give them a call and urge them not to cut funding for New and Small Starts, TIGER grants and passenger rail.

May 31st transportation funding deadline looming over lawmakers

We’re only three weeks away from the expiration of MAP-21, the transportation law of the land, and Congress still does not have a solid plan for renewing or extending it — or for keeping the nation’s transportation fund solvent past the first days of summer.

Well, we’re here. Seems like just yesterday we were writing the news that Congress had finally passed a new transportation law. But that law, MAP-21, the Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act, was only two years in length instead of the customary six, and it will expire at the end of the month after its first short-term extension concludes. Congress is no closer to agreeing on a multi-year replacement than they were when they kicked the can down the road last summer. To complicate matters, the temporary funding patch that Congress passed in 2014 to keep the Highway Trust Fund solvent will run dry by mid-July, according to USDOT projections.

So far, Congress has not hatched a concrete plan to reauthorize MAP-21 and find a long-term stable funding source, but lawmakers do have some ideas.

In February, Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) introduced a bill that would nearly double the federal gas tax over the next three years to help fund a long-term transportation bill.

Last month, a bipartisan group of Representatives led by Reps. Renacci (R-OH) and Pascrell (D- NJ) introduced The Bridge to Sustainable Infrastructure Act, which seeks to raise the gas tax by indexing it to inflation by January 2016. The gas tax would then rise every three years unless Congress finds another funding source for the Highway Trust Fund, ultimately guaranteeing 10 years of funding for the transportation program. This bill is the only plan with any bipartisan support that proposes to raise user fees (i.e., the gas tax) in any way. It currently has 20 cosponsors: eight Republicans and 12 Democrats. 

Several lawmakers and the Obama Administration have proposed using a one-time repatriation of corporate profits as a source of funding. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Rand Paul (R-KY) introduced a bill that would encourage corporations holding profits overseas to return these profits to the US through voluntary “tax holiday” at a decreased tax rate of 6.5 percent. The Obama Administration’s plan would force companies to return their overseas money to the U.S. and pay a 14 percent tax rate on that money. Both repatriation proposals would transfer a portion of the earnings from the tax on returned corporate profits to the transportation trust fund.

Reps. John Delaney (D-MD) and Richard Hanna (R-NY) introduced a bill that would tax overseas profits by 8.75 percent, and would potentially raise $170 billion for the Highway Trust Fund.

What will happen before May 31?

Several lawmakers have sounded the alarm on finding a plan to reauthorize MAP-21 and keep the Highway Trust Fund solvent before the May 31st deadline passes.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx called the short-term extensions that several lawmakers have proposed an “outrage,” saying that a long-term plan was necessary so transportation planners could be sure that they’d have the funding needed to move forward with long-term plans.

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) is rallying fellow Democrats in the Senate to block a Republican-backed trade deal until the Senate deals with funding the Highway Trust Fund (and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act). Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), meanwhile, also cited the need to address MAP-21, calling it a “must-do” item that needs to be completed by Memorial Day.

Over in the House, Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) sent a memo to his fellow House Republicans that urged them to act to keep the Highway Trust Fund solvent, which is set to go broke by midsummer. He said that any proposals to increase the gas tax, however, would be dead on arrival this Congress.

Next year’s budget

Whether Congress reauthorizes MAP-21 and extends the Highway Trust Fund will affect funding for next year’s budget for all transportation and housing programs. The House’s Transportation, Housing and Urban Development subcommittee released a transportation budget that proposes heavy cuts to TIGER, New Starts and Amtrak capital funding while holding steady funding levels for highways and other programs. The full House is expected to consider the Committee’s transportation appropriation bill upon return from a weeklong recess. The Senate Appropriations Committee has yet to release their proposed fiscal year 2016 transportation budget. While slow on the uptick, we expect this Congress to be more active on transportation items over the coming summer months. Stay tuned.

House proposes cuts to TIGER and transit construction, stable funding for other programs for fiscal 2016

The House Appropriations Committee introduced a Transportation, Housing and Urban Development (T-HUD) bill for fiscal 2016 that, as in years past, features heavy cuts to TIGER, New Starts and Amtrak.

The bill, approved by the T-HUD subcommittee and headed back to the full Appropriations Committee for markup and a vote, maintains funding rates for federal highway and mass transit formula dollars, $40.3 billion and $8.6 billion respectively. Of course, these funding levels assume that Congress is going to act to find enough money to keep the Highway Trust Fund solvent past this June or July, and also move to either reauthorize or extend MAP-21 after its May 31st expiration. Without either action, there won’t be any money for transportation past that deadline, much less for the entire next fiscal year.

Meanwhile, other key programs are facing heavy cuts.

TIGER: The overwhelmingly popular TIGER program would shrink from $500 million to $100 million. In addition, the size of grants would be far smaller, within a range of $2-15 million, down from last year’s range of $10-200 million. This year’s T-HUD also reduces the share that the federal government will cover for TIGER projects, from 60 percent to 50 percent, requiring more local or state money to be brought to the table.

The silver lining in all this is that the House did not repeat last year’s attempt to limit eligibility to only road and port projects, a move that would have left out the wide range of multimodal projects that have benefited the most from this innovative program.

New Starts & Small Starts: These programs that fund new rail, rapid bus and streetcar construction would receive $1.92 billion in funding, down from last year’s $2.12 billion in the final budget. The new bill would also reduce the federal government’s share of New Starts projects from 60 percent to 50 percent.

Amtrak: Amtrak would have a budget of $1.1 billion. The bill actually adds $39 million to the rail service’s operational costs, but cuts $290 million from its capital budget.

The Senate has yet to release its own budget, but for the last few years, the Senate has prioritized funding for many of these important programs. However, with the change in leadership in the Senate in this Congress, it’s unclear if things could play out similarly this year compared to years past.

Members can read our full summary memo on the THUD bill below.

[member_content] Members, you can read our full members-only THUD summary here. (pdf)

And, have you been to the new portal for all members-only content? https://t4america.org/members [/member_content]

Join us for a discussion on the TIGER grant program and what you need to know before applying

T4America is hosting a webinar this Thursday at 3 p.m. to help municipalities and states interested in applying for this year’s $500 million in grants available in the latest round of TIGER grant funding.

Join us on Thursday, April 23, at 2 p.m. for a discussion with Beth Osborne, T4America’s Senior Policy Advisor, on the ins and outs of the federal TIGER grant program, examples of past winners, and how to best craft a winning application. Communities across the country have benefitted from over $4 billion in grants for innovative, multimodal projects over the last six rounds of funding dating back to February 2010, and you can see them all here on our TIGER map.

Before coming to T4America, Osborne was Deputy Assistant Secretary for Transportation Policy at USDOT, where she ran the TIGER program. Almost no one inside or outside of USDOT knows more about the program or how it works, and she will outline the basic information, show examples of previous winners and share tips you need to put together a smart application.

The 7th round of the TIGER competitive grant application period is currently open, which includes a pre-application deadline of May 4, 2015 and a final application deadline of June 5, 2015.

Register Today

Could a national TIGER program co-exist along with a version in each state? Yes, says U.S. DOT

As momentum builds for a proposal to give local communities of all sizes direct access to a share of federal transportation dollars via statewide competitive grant programs, a USDOT official affirmed that it would complement the existing national grant program and help meet more of the pressing needs in these communities.

Senator Wicker asks a question during this week's hearing.

Senator Wicker asks a question during this week’s hearing.

Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS) is a sponsor of the Innovation in Surface Transportation Act, which would create the state programs. During a Senate Commerce Committee hearing this week, he asked Peter Rogoff, under secretary for policy at USDOT, whether a statewide grant program similar to TIGER could work in tandem with it. As a prelude, he gave an example of the good that grants to local communities can do:

I want to give you an example. There were three small counties in Southwest Mississippi that came together in a project called Tri-Mississippi; Claiborne County, Jefferson, and Franklin County. They submitted a TIGER application in 2014 to fund the replacement of 22 failing bridges and the repair of 40 miles of roadway. This grant was awarded to Tri-Mississippi, and through this project we were able to create, we believe, 262 additional jobs in an area that was highly distressed economically.

The booming demand for the TIGER program underscores two points: There is far more demand for the grants than currently supplied, and locals are clamoring for more direct access to fund smart projects that are often neglected by their states. Sen. Wicker continues:

So, good news for these three small counties; bad news for the counties that submitted equally excellent applications and weren’t chosen. In this system we have learned that nationwide nearly 6,100 applications have been submitted and only 343 receive funds. This represents a project award rate of less than 6 percent. Last year’s competition alone had projects requesting funding 15 times the amount authorized in the [TIGER] program. As one of our witnesses mentioned the needs are out there, and we are simply not meeting the needs.

TIGER grants often go toward bigger projects and it can be a challenge for a small community to compete with big metro areas or joint projects from multiple states to win funding, as well as handling the complications of preparing an application for a small community with limited staff. Meanwhile, their state controls almost all of the federal formula funding that comes to their state, and locals have little control or say over where it gets spent. Sen. Wicker added:

That is why Senator Booker and I have developed a state-based competitive grant program that you might call state-based TIGER, or TIGER-esque program for states. We introduced it last year. We’ve reintroduced it again this year in the form of the Innovation and Surface Transportation Act. Discuss this concept of a certain portion of funds being set-aside for competitive, merit-based applications, so more of these local communities are able to utilize funds in a way where they could not possibly submit a match.”

Mr. Rogoff answered:

“I think there is certainly room for both, but I think there is value in a federal program where we can disseminate best practices, and if Mississippi also wants to mirror that with a competitive, innovative program that can go to local communities, more the better.”

The more the better, indeed.

The Innovation in Surface Transportation Act would give local communities more access to, and control over, a share of the federal transportation dollars that flow into their states. Just like TIGER, it would be competitive and projects would compete on the merits. But unlike TIGER, the selection panel would be made up of state and local representatives. Rather than compete against every community in the country, applicants would pursue funds along with their peers within the state.

Rallying support for this measure may be the best chance we have this year to get federal dollars closer to taxpayers’ communities.

Just this week, House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee chairman Bill Shuster (R-Pa.) indicated he believes the current system giving states all the control is sufficiently “local”, Congressional Quarterly reported. Rep. Shuster needs to hear from his fellow representatives that the status quo isn’t cutting it in their communities. Now is the time to remind them all that communities need more access to federal dollars, not less.

Send a message to your representative and senators and urge them to support this bill.

Innovation in Surface Transportation Act featured

Obama budget cues start of serious negotiations over transportation funding

With the release of his budget proposal yesterday, President Obama at last offered some specifics on his plan to use the repatriation of taxable corporate profits to fund transportation. In doing so, he staked out a starting point for real-world negotiations over a possible six-year transportation bill – the first time such a prospect has seemed remotely realistic in six years.

His gambit joins a burgeoning set of transportation funding proposals in Congress (more about these later in this post), another hopeful sign that lawmakers are taking the issue seriously.

The less good news, of course, is that those negotiations over tax reform and transportation funding – to say nothing of policy – are almost certain to last beyond the May 31 expiration of the current law, MAP-21. That means another extension and lingering uncertainty until this can be wrestled to the ground.

With the addition of revenues from taxing American profits parked overseas, the Obama budget looks to invest $94.7 billion in fiscal 2016, nearly double today’s level of just over $50 billion. Invested along the lines of his GROW America Act, this would represent a 25 percent increase for the highway program and more than 70 percent for transit, which today is wildly oversubscribed.

All told, the Obama plan would authorize $478 billion for a six-year program of investment, $176 billion over the levels of MAP-21, and $76 billion more than the four-year version of GROW America released last spring. About $240 billion of that is from expected gas tax revenue. Placing a mandatory 14 percent tax on roughly $2 trillion in earnings held abroad by U.S. multinationals would yield about $238 billion, the Administration estimates.

The plan would make the TIGER grant program a permanent feature, funded at $1.25 billion a year, and would continue funding planning grants for planning walkable neighborhoods around transit stops. It also would establish passenger rail and multimodal accounts within the former Highway Trust Fund (HTF), now reconstituted as the Transportation Trust Fund. It would create a multimodal freight program, funded at $1 billion in 2016, and continue to promote the accelerated, inter-agency reviews to get projects moving faster.

While Republicans criticized many features of the Administration budget, the notion of using corporate tax reform to fund transportation seems to have growing bipartisan support, as support for raising the gas tax struggles to take hold.

Last week, the unlikely pairing of Sens. Rand Paul (R-KY) and Barbara Boxer (D-CA) announced they would introduce the “Invest in Transportation Act”, a plan to offer an enticement tax rate of 6.5 percent on corporate earnings returned to the U.S. from abroad, with all proceeds going to the Highway Trust Fund. Because it is voluntary, the exact amount is uncertain, but the senators have said they hope it can make up for flat or declining gas tax revenues.

On the House side, Reps. John Delaney (D-MD) and Richard Hanna (R-NY) have introduced the Infrastructure 2.0 Act, (HR 625), under which existing overseas profits would be subject to a mandatory, one-time 8.75 percent tax. This is expected to yield $120 billion, sending enough of that to the Highway Trust Fund to cover the gap between anticipated gas tax in-take and spending at current levels plus modest growth.

The bill also directs $50 billion of the $120 billion to capitalize an infrastructure bank called the American Infrastructure Fund (AIF) that could provide financing to transportation, energy, communications, water and education projects. Rep. Delaney establishes an AIF in another bill submitted last year along with Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick (R-PA), who reintroduced their “Partnership to Build America Act” (HR 413) on Jan 20. State and local government entities, nonprofit infrastructure providers, private parties, and public-private partnerships all would be eligible to apply for AIF financing. Through bond sales, the fund would be leveraged at a 15:1 ratio to provide up to $750 billion in loans or guarantees.

Not everyone in Congress has given up on the bird-in-the-hand funding source – the gas tax. Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR), is set to reintroduce his UPDATE Act, which would hike the per-gallon tax by 15 cents, with 5 cent increases unfolding over the next three years, and index the overall tax to inflation. In the Senate, Senator Tom Carper (D-DE) is working with a bipartisan group to introduce a gas-tax bill, expected later this month.

Although more of an aspirational bill than a funding measure, Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) last week introduced his Rebuild America Act. Designed to illustrate the scale of investment the senator says we need, it calls for providing an additional $1 trillion in infrastructure investments over the next five years for roads, bridges and transit, passenger rail, airports, water infrastructure, marine ports and inland waterways, national parks infrastructure, and broadband and electrical grid upgrades.

It would add $735 billion to surface transportation investments over the next 8 years, with an additional $75 billion a year for the HTF. It also would capitalize a National Infrastructure Bank with $5 billion per year for fiscal 2015-19, estimated to stimulate more than $250 billion in investments. It provide for $2 billion more for TIFIA loans and $5 billion a year for TIGER.

And it makes all the other proposals look like skinflints in comparison.

At last, Congress and the White House appear to have moved transportation to a front-burner issue this year. With the Obama proposal as a strong starting place, here’s hoping negotiations proceed swiftly and in good faith so our communities can continue to plan, maintain and build for continued prosperity.

15 issues to watch in ’15, Part I: Capitol Hill developments

Already, 2015 feels like it could be a big year for transportation, at the federal, state and local levels alike. As the year began, we thought it would be fun to identify 15 people, places and trends that seemed to be worth keeping an eye on the next 12 months. In some years, 15 would be a stretch, but this year we had a tough time whittling the list to match the number of the year.

We will roll out the list in three posts, starting today with five issues to watch at the federal level. The next two posts will cover “places (states and cities)” and “people.” We plan to pay special attention to these 15, but we will by no means limit ourselves to them. So tell us what you think we missed, in your area or elsewhere.

START stacked T4 feature

1. The federal gas tax and Congress – will they or won’t they take it on as MAP-21 expires and we face the “fiscal cliff” in early 2015?

You won’t hear more about any single transportation-related issue this year than the erosion of the gas tax, the future of federal funding and the expiration of the current federal transportation law.

The gas tax continues to lose value through inflation, more efficient vehicles, and the ongoing trend of Americans driving less. Policy changes aside, there’s not enough money to even extend the current law (MAP-21) for a few more years. Last summer, Congress had to pull out every trick in the book just to keep the nation’s transportation funding solvent until close to the expiration of MAP-21 until May 31, when MAP-21 expires – just in time for construction season.

Suddenly, though, with gas prices plunging, some members from both parties have indicated at least a willingness to talk about a gas tax increase to make up the gap between needs and existing revenue. One thing is certain: Congress can’t extend the federal program at anything like the current level without finding money from somewhere. There are literally no other options. It’s encouraging that this Congress appears to be ready to give that conversation more attention than the last.

2. National passenger rail policy could be the first major issue up in 2015.

Even before Congress takes up how to fund a multi-year transportation bill or an extension of MAP-21 in May, members are likely to debate the reauthorization of our nation’s passenger rail policy (including funding for Amtrak). Rep. Bill Shuster (R-PA), chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure committee, has declared a high priority on adopting the measure early this year.

Last September, his committee passed a version of the Passenger Rail Reform and Investment Act (PRRIA) with a handful of positive changes, including stable funding for Amtrak. A key indicator to watch is whether consensus on those improvements persists when the bill is reintroduced in the new Congress, and whether action on this bill occurs in the Senate. After several years of House proposals that either made huge cuts to our country’s rail network or hearings that focused heavily on issues like privatization or the food vendors serving Amtrak, 2015 might just be the year we see a reasonable and responsible passenger rail law.

3. Implementing accountability: How will the U.S. DOT choose to measure congestion and safety?

Ok, yes, it’s a terribly wonky issue and will likely not take over the discussion around your water cooler at work, but this transition to a more performance-based system of transportation investment was one of the key reforms of MAP-21 and could represent a sea change in how funding decisions are made and our transportation system performs. This is the year when the new standards, and the requirements for meeting them, are expected to be set.

Signals have been mixed so far, though recent developments are encouraging. The first attempt at a safety standard was far too lax, and gave states and metros a potential pass on improving the safety of their transportation systems and survival rate of people on foot and bicycle. The feds heard the public protests and now propose more exacting performance to earn passing grades. The latest proposal on standards for keeping roads and bridges in reasonable condition is much better.

The real test will come this spring, when DOT officials unveil how they propose to measure improvements around the effects of roadway congestion (as well as some other measures.) Choose a method to measure congestion that only values free-flowing highway traffic at any time of day (even if the length of the trip is exceedingly long), and states could reward sprawling development patterns and longer commutes. Choose instead to consider how many people can enjoy a predictable commute to work and you’re likely to see investments in a range of cost-effective solutions. It might not seem sexy, but it is definitely one of the transportation issues that could have the greatest impact beyond 2015.

4. Will the much-loved TIGER grant program survive, and if so, in what form?

The TIGER program, designed to get funding to innovative projects that solve multiple issues but don’t fit into mode-specific funding categories, dates all the way back to the beginning of President Obama’s first days in office as part of the economic recovery package. Five rounds of grants have been handed out to date, totaling over $4 billion. The program was threatened in the last-minute budget dealmaking at the end of last Congress, but survived with $500 million for a sixth round of grants. Though funding drops by $100 million from 2014, it’s still $400 million better than what the House proposed for this year. The “cromnibus” budget compromise also dropped a House requirement to limit TIGER grants to highway, bridge and port projects. That means TIGER in 2015 will operate the same as the previous rounds, supporting innovative projects that take a multimodal approach and address needs as local communities define them, rather than Congress.

The big question for 2015 is whether the new Congress will include TIGER or something like it — a pot of money that is open to competition from local communities with innovative projects — in the next transportation law. As popular as it is — and it is extremely popular — TIGER’s future is unclear.

5. Local control and the Innovation in Surface Transportation Act.

We spent a lot of time in 2014 making the case for more transportation dollars, and control over those dollars, to be directed to the local level where a community’s leaders know their needs best and can make decisions accordingly. So it was a huge milestone when a bipartisan group of House and Senate members introduced a bill to do just that near the end of the last Congress. In a Congress where acts of bipartisanship were rare, it was encouraging to see representatives teaming up and responding directly to the pleas they’d heard from the mayors, business leaders, and citizens in their communities for more of a voice in the process of selecting and funding transportation projects in their communities. We expect to see both House and Senate bills re-introduced sometime early in the 114th Congress by Representatives Rodney Davis (R-IL) and Dina Titus (D-NV), and Senators Roger Wicker (R-MS) and Cory Booker (D-NJ), and we look forward to seeing the case for greater local control gain more momentum in 2015 and hopefully result in this provision’s incorporation into MAP-21’s replacement.

—

Up next in 15 for ’15: The states and places to watch for transportation developments this year.

Budget compromise keeps highways and transit steady, cuts TIGER

The $1.01 trillion spending agreement reached by House and Senate negotiators on Tuesday night freezes highway spending at $40 billion while avoiding the big cuts to transit projects in the House proposal.

Here’s a closer look at some other key provisions:

TIGER. Funding for TIGER will drop from $600 million in fiscal 2014 to $500 million – disappointing, but $400 million better than the original House version. More importantly, the compromise also drops a House requirement to limit TIGER grants to highway, bridge and port projects. That means TIGER can continue to support innovative projects that take a multimodal approach and address needs as local communities define them, rather than Congress.

TIGER Planning grants. While the Senate bill would have allocated $35 million for planning grants, the final measure will eliminate them for fiscal 2015. This is surely a case of being penny wise and pound foolish, because good planning can avoid costly errors while making the most of limited transportation dollars. (For evidence, see our Innovative MPO guide, released today.)

Transit. As with highways, formula dollars for transit are frozen at current levels, about $9 billion. Capital investment grants come in at $2.1 billion, the same as the Senate level, and about $456 million higher than the House bill. It supplies $172 million for “small starts”, such as streetcar and bus rapid transit projects.

Safety for people on foot or bicycle. FHWA is directed to establish separate, non-motorized safety performance measures for the highway safety improvement program, define performance measures for fatalities and serious injuries from pedestrian and bicycle crashes, and publish its final rule on safety performance measures no later than September 30, 2015. Transportation for America advocated for the inclusion of a non-motorized safety performance measure and will continue to lead the effort to ensure our transportation investments provide the largest return on taxpayer investment (More here).

FY15
Omnibus Appropriations		House FY15 THUD ProposalSenate FY15 THUD ProposalFY14 THUD Enacted AppropriatesDifference between FY15 THUD Omnibus and FY14 THUD
Federal-Aid Highways$40.26B$40.26B$40.26B$40.26B--
Transit Formula Grants$8.6B$8.6B$8.6B$8.6B--
Transit 'New Starts' & 'Small Starts'$2.147B$1.691B$2.163B$1.943B+$204M in Omnibus
TIGER$500M$100M$550M$600M-$100M in Omnibus
Amtrak Operating$250M$340M$350M$340M-$90M in Omnibus
Amtrak Capital$1.14B$850M$841B$1.05B+$90M in Omnibus
High Speed Rail$0$0$0$0--

Latest round of TIGER grants announced, track them on our interactive map

The latest (sixth, if you’re counting) round of TIGER grants has been released — $584 million worth going to 72 projects in every corner of the country. (Click on the map below to see them on our updated interactive map.)

Tiger Map

TIGER grants, you’ll recall, can go to any mode or combination thereof, and often go directly to local governments or transportation agencies – unlike most other federal dollars, which are targeted to specific modes and flow through the state department of transportation via funding formula. Given their flexibility and ability to support innovative proposals, TIGER dollars are intensely sought-after.

This year was no exception. The U.S. DOT says it received “797 eligible applications from 49 states … an increase from the 585 applications received in 2013.  Overall, applicants requested 15 times the $600 million available for the program, or $9 billion for needed transportation projects.”

One of the best features of TIGER is that it brings all kinds of other money to the table – local, state and even private. Each one of those TIGER dollars will leverage almost three dollars in matching funds from other sources. (*The matching funds can include other federal money in some cases).

The U.S. DOT identifies each project by primary mode. By that reckoning, 15 of the 72 (27 percent) were for primarily transit projects, while 26 were road projects, or 38 percent. But, of course, many of them address more than one mode – which makes them TIGER projects!

“The U.S. DOT has done an outstanding job of selecting a wide variety of innovative projects in communities small and large,” said James Corless, director of Transportation for America. “Because they arise out of local initiatives to meet local needs, these TIGER projects will save lives, improve commutes and access to jobs, reduce costs for goods shipment and add to the quality of life wherever they are completed.

“Once again, TIGER has illustrated the incredible demand for flexible dollars to help local communities do the projects that support the modern economy and solve multiple problems at once. Congress needs to build on this success by creating a larger pool of dedicated funding for competitive grants both at the national level and within each state.”

Here some highlights of the kinds of projects funded:

Connecting workers at all wage-levels to jobs. In Richmond, VA, a $24.9 million grant will go towards a 7.6 mile bus rapid transit line to “connect transit-dependent residents to jobs and retail centers as well as spur mixed use and transit-oriented development in a city with the highest poverty rate in Virginia,” according to the DOT summary. Omaha, NE, will receive $15 million for a new bus rapid transit spine to reduce travel time to major employment hubs in the city. “Roughly 16 percent of the households within a quarter of a mile of the proposed bus-rapid transit route do not currently have access to a vehicle.” Pittsburgh, PA, received $1.5 million toward design of a “cap” over Interstate I-579 that would connect lower income residents of to downtown jobs.

Making optimal use of road capacity. The Champaign-Urbana region and the University of Illinois won $15.7 million toward a $35 million project “to construct Complete Street corridors connecting the Cities of Champaign and Urbana to the University of Illinois and improve transit travel between the cities and the campus.” In Maryland, $10 million is going toward a $42 million “road-widening project that would upgrade MD 175 from an existing two-lane undivided arterial to a six-lane divided arterial, complete with a trail, sidewalks, and on-road bicycle facilities.”

Freight and ports. TIGER is one of very few avenues for support for freight in the entire federal surface transportation program. (We’ll be exploring that deficiency in this space soon. –Ed.) This round, $11 million goes to the South Carolina State Ports Authority to rehabilitate and improve connections and access, and $20 million to the Port of Seattle Terminal 46 project to rehabilitate port facilities; “construct a storm water system to treat terminal runoff; increase load capacity and extend crane rail at dock; construct new road to grade-separate truck traffic from rail yard; and provide public amenities to access 13.8 acres of habitat around the terminal site.” 

Safety for people on foot and bicycle. Among the largest awards, the City of New York’s Vision Zero safety effort won $25 million toward a $50 million, 3-part safety improvement program across the five boroughs including “safe pedestrian access to schools, safe pedestrian access to transit, and safe bicycle access to jobs via completion of a trail system connecting economically distressed communities to employment centers,” according to U.S. DOT.

Smart planning. $210,000 goes to North Central Texas Council of Governments for Land Use Transportation Connections to Sustainable Schools Project, creating a regional program and implementation plan to promote connections and coordination between transportation agencies, local governments, and schools within North Central Texas. In St. Paul, MN, $200,000 will fund a design study and master plan for reusing the Canadian Pacific Rail Spur as a multimodal corridor for bicycles, pedestrians, and possibly transit. The overall objective will be to develop a plan for how the bicycle, pedestrian and transit communities can use the rail line.

TIGER grants have now been around long enough that we’ve seen winning projects go from start to finish, like the Uptown Station project in Normal, Illinois — just one that shows how the targeted transportation investments in TIGER can help create jobs, boost local economic development efforts, connect people to jobs, improve freight movement and revitalize communities across the country.

Transportation funding: summer’s biggest blockbuster

Suddenly, transportation funding is the topic de jour.

Last night, the House debated the measure that will set transportation spending levels for the coming fiscal year, the Transportation, Housing and Urban Development bill. Among other controversial provisions, the bill would cut the popular TIGER grant program from $600 million today to $100 million. (You can read our full summary of the bill here.)

The TIGER cuts drew opposing statements from 13 Democrats and from the Obama Administration, which has called for an increase of TIGER funds to $1.25 billion. The Administration Monday declared its opposition to the THUD measure, citing in part a TIGER funding cut that “would reduce an already highly competitive grant program and its ability to support innovative projects across the United States.”

Meanwhile, both the House and the Senate are scrambling to find new ways to keep the highway trust fund solvent. With tax increases off the table in an election year as an expected shut-off of funding for new projects looms, both houses appear to be searching for short-term measures to plug the gap between lagging gas tax receipts and current spending levels.

As you may have heard, House Republicans have proposed to find the money by eliminating Saturday postal service and applying the savings (potentially up to $2 billion a year) to help fund the Highway Trust Fund. Interestingly, Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe, who has himself pushed to cut Saturday service, told interviewed by the Washington Post earlier this week that he was delighted by the idea.

However, this plan is not widely supported by either party. More than three-dozen House Republicans have signed a letter stating their opposition to five-day delivery service, and House Democrats do not see this as a viable fix for the funding gap.

In the Senate, Senator Harry Reid (D-NV) and Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) have created a bipartisan plan that includes a one-time tax “holiday” for multinational corporations to bring profits home from overseas with a lucrative tax deduction. Such a move would yield a windfall of $20 billion to $30 billion over the next two years, they estimate.

While that would be enough to cover the projected trust-fund shortfall for a year or two, it would not solve the longterm problem. It also has drawn opposition from other key leaders who fear a longterm hit to the treasury if the profit repatriation is not tied to comprehensive corporate tax reform – changes that are far too complex to work through before the looming deadline.

Stay tuned. It’s going to an interesting summer.

Cuts restored, progress possible in critical budget deal

Maine's application for a TIGER grant to replace the aging Penobscot River bridge has a benefit-cost ratio of 8.7

Maine’s application for a TIGER grant to replace the aging Penobscot River bridge has a benefit-cost ratio of 8.7

Updated 1/17/2014 at bottom. Positive news from Congress today! Yes, you heard right. Just months after budget sequestration and a government shutdown put transportation funding at risk, House leaders have agreed to a budget deal that would provide stable or increased funding for key programs that you’ve helped us defend over the last few years.

House leaders deserve recognition for this positive step for transportation funding. And they need to know that they’re on the right track.

It’s not over yet, but this is an important victory for T4America and all of you who think smart investments in transportation are key to economic prosperity.

The House and Senate reached a tentative agreement back in December and this new “omnibus” comprehensive budget bill to keep government functioning was drafted along that outline by House and Senate appropriators.

Most encouraging is that it wasn’t that long ago when serious proposals were floated in Congress for across-the-board transportation cuts of one-third, significant cuts to funding for Amtrak and new transit construction, as well as zeroing out the innovative TIGER grant program.

This budget deal includes $600 million for another round of grants for the TIGER program — a level not seen since 2010 — as well as an increase in the New Starts program that communities need to meet the demand for transit service. Amtrak also received what they need to continue operating their booming services while investing for the future.

 

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 Tell your House representative that you welcome this deal, thank them for their work to make it happen, and urge them to pass the measure when it comes to the floor.

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That means that commuters throughout the nation can breathe a sigh of relief that their transit route is less likely to be cut, rail cars and buses could be upgraded, and essential new service can begin the process of being added. With cuts to highway programs reversed, they also can know that their bridges and roads are more likely to be repaired and replaced. Riders who depend on Amtrak can breathe easy knowing that most service cuts are likely history.

So what’s next? A vote in the House perhaps as early as tomorrow (Wednesday) and then a subsequent vote in the Senate by this weekend.

After this important deal is approved, we hope Congress will turn its attention toward preventing the oncoming insolvency of our key transportation trust fund. For inspiration, they can look to our alliance’s proposal to raise enough revenues not only to avoid calamity, but to provide our communities the resources and latitude they need to reach their economic potential.

Our nation’s economy is only as strong as our local economies, and those depend on a reliable, safe, well-maintained transportation network.

Updated 1/17/2014 With a 359-67 vote in the House and a 72-26 vote in the Senate, the full $1.1 trillion budget for FY 2014 was approved by Congress and sent to the President for his signature. Here’s our statement on the final vote.

Budget deal avoids automatic cuts; focus shifts to appropriations committees

Barring a successful rebellion within one party or the other, it looks like Congress may have the first bipartisan budget agreement since 2010. That is good news for the economy, and it is especially welcome where transportation infrastructure is concerned.

Through a combination of fee increases, spending cuts, and other changes, the deal allocates nearly $63 billion to offset “sequestration” cuts – by half this year and about a quarter in fiscal 2015 – and to reduce the deficit by $23 billion. Most importantly for transportation, it provides the appropriations committees with the authority to adjust the funding levels within the new overall cap.

This flexibility opens the possibility of restoring cuts to transit construction projects under New Starts, to the oversubscribed program of competitive grants under TIGER and to Amtrak. Those programs faced cuts of at least 7 percent this year, on top of previous cuts.

Transportation cuts since 2010

The deal also includes a “reserve account” for infrastructure that gives Congress and authorizing committees permission to spend more on transportation and other infrastructure, provided they can pay for it either through cuts elsewhere or increased revenue – by, say, raising the gas tax.  This is good news, because, while it by no means guarantees positive action, the agreement at least indicates bipartisan acknowledgment that more investment in transportation may be warranted.

As we have explained in this space before, relying only on existing revenue from the federal gas tax would lead to massive cuts to highway and transit projects starting next fall.

That’s why we at Transportation for America are rallying local elected, business and civic leaders from around the country to a realistic proposal to raise and invest additional revenue. While one simple route would be to raise the federal gas tax to match inflation since the last increase in 1993, there are other, readily doable avenues available, as our proposal shows.

Raising an additional $30 billion per year – at roughly the cost per commuter of a doughnut and a coffee a week – would allow us to stabilize funding for the MAP-21 program Congress adopted last year and protect all modes of transportation – including New Starts, TIGER and Amtrak – from draconian budget cuts. At the same time, we could spur the innovation our economy needs to meet population growth and rising demand by funding competitive grants to local communities that come up with smart solutions.

The budget deal offers a glimmer of hope that members of both parties will understand what is at stake if transportation funding continues to be radically unstable. We hope that Congress can continue to work in a cooperative, bi-partisan fashion to address key needs like the impending insolvency of our federal transportation program.

Amendments offered to improve the already solid Senate yearly transportation funding bill

Already standing in sharp contrast to the House’s approach to funding transportation for the next fiscal year, leaders in the Senate are working to further improve the smart Senate transportation funding bill through a handful of amendments to the bill as it reaches the floor.

With the approval by the full Senate Appropriations committee, the Senate’s yearly transportation (and housing) funding bill is now being considered on the full Senate floor.

Which means amendments…lots of amendments.

Senator Schumer (along with Sens. Gillibrand, Menendez, and Cardin) proposed an amendment (No. 1763) that would allow rail and transit bridges to also be eligible for the $500 million in the Bridges in Critical Corridors program. Our most critical corridors aren’t always just highways, and this allows states and local communities to apply for flexible funding that can meet their greatest local need, whether that a bridge carries trains or cars.

There was another predictable attempt by Senator Rand Paul to take away the tiny slices of money that local mayors and communities often use to invest in popular trails and protected bikeways like Indianapolis’ downtown Cultural Trail or Washington, D.C.’s Capital Crescent trail that commuters depend on daily and spend those relative pennies on bridge repair. (Streetsblog covered this troubling amendment yesterday.)

We should do a better job of repairing our aging bridges. As noted before, the Senate bill contains a new $500 million grant program to do exactly that. But which bridges? Senator Rob Portman from Ohio succeeded in having an amendment included that would ensure that the money can only to to repair bridges that are structurally deficient or functionally obsolete. That’s a done deal.

Lastly on bridges, Senator Cardin and Senator Gillibrand also proposed an amendment (No. 1760) requiring FHWA to report on highway and bridge conditions in each state as well as the amount of funding states are spending on highway and bridge repair — something that states once had to do before MAP-21 eliminated the dedicated bridge repair program. This would restore a requirement for states to closely track the conditions of their bridges and most importantly, how much they spend to repair these bridges compared to spending on new construction, helping taxpayers and citizens hold state leaders accountable for making progress.

There are some other amendments detailed below, which we’ll report on in the coming days.

It’s not too late to write or call your Senator and urge them to pass the Senate transportation funding bill when it comes before the full Senate. There were crucial swing votes on the committee that will be imperative to preserve when the full vote happens.

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Other notable amendments we’re tracking:

  • Flake 1764 (and Flake 1796) – Prohibits use of funds to subsidize cost of food service and first class service on Amtrak
  • Flake 1765 (and Flake 1772) – Requires Amtrak to submit a report on losses in food service and first class service by route and line
  • Flake 1766 – Eliminates the $15M in funding provided for the public transit emergency relief program
  • Flake 1767 (w/ McCain) – Requires Secretary of Transportation to submit a report on programs carried out under chapter 2 of title 23 – which includes the Federal lands program and Transportation Alternatives
  • Inhofe 1771 – Requires that at lease 20% of the funding in the “Bridges in Critical Corridors” program be used in rural areas
  • Vitter 1775 – Requires the Secretary of Transportation to establish and publish selection criteria for TIGER including any required documentation. It also requires notification of awards within 3 days
  • Vitter 1776 – Allows any project awarded funds under the “Bridges in Critical Corridors” program to proceed with a categorical exclusion from NEPA requirements
  • Murphy 1783 (w/ Rockefeller and Blumenthal) – Requires that in any postings for Buy America waiver USDOT ‘assess the impact on domestic employment’ of the proposed waiver
  • Coons 1788 – Increases funding for Amtrak from 1.452 billion to $1.565 billion
  • Cochran 1794 (w/ Wicker) – Creates weight exemption for trucks on portions of Route 78 designated as an interstate after the effective date of the bill (this provision is similar to Wisconsin bill truck weight bill recently approved by the House)

As the House aims to slash, tell the Senate to protect money for rail, transit & TIGER in next week’s budget vote

The two chambers of Congress at the moment are looking at very different paths for funding transportation.

The House path — though stopping short of cutting all funding by a third as proposed in the past — slashes passenger rail funding by $400 million, eliminates money for the innovative TIGER grants, and reduces the funding communities depend on for new transit projects.

Meanwhile, a Senate committee has drafted a budget that increases funding for new transit construction, keeps and expands TIGER, provides support for Amtrak and passenger rail improvements, and funds a new grant program to jumpstart progress on repairing critical bridges.

Can you take a moment to write your two Senators and tell them to support this smart budget in the Senate? It’s likely to come up for a vote next week.

The House transportation budget is unabashedly bad, and the only way to counter it is with a strong Senate alternative.

The Senate proposal embraces the reality that communities everywhere are looking for smart ways to keep people and goods moving, promote prosperity and keep their infrastructure in good shape. The House would thwart them on every front.

The Senate budget acknowledges that Amtrak ridership is breaking records and that Americans deserve a convenient rail option. It acts to do something about the fact that we take 260 million trips each day over deficient bridges that urgently need repairs.

So let’s make sure that the Senate hears this message loud and clear: Face up to reality and pass a transportation budget that funds solutions to our problems, whether it’s fixing bridges or providing more viable ways to get around.

Take action today and tell your Senators to vote for this budget.

Key Senate committee recognizes the importance of passenger rail, TIGER, transit and repairing our nation’s bridges

Less than a week after the release of The Fix We’re In For — our report on the nation’s bridges showing that one in nine US bridges are structurally deficient — a key Senate committee passed a yearly funding bill that provides new money for repairing these deficient bridges across the country.

The Senate’s Transportation, Housing and Urban Development appropriations bill reported out of the Appropriations Committee this week specifically provides more money to invest in repairing bridges on key corridors.

The $500 million in the bill dedicated specifically to bridge repair is a step in the right direction toward prioritizing the repair of our more than 66,000 structurally deficient bridges.

Transportation for America commends Senator Patty Murray, Senator Susan Collins and the rest of the committee for recognizing the importance of investing in all of our bridges — not just a small segment of them. That’s a key difference between this $500 million and the policy created in last summer’s transportation bill (MAP-21.)

As we pointed out in last week’s report, 90 percent of the country’s structurally deficient bridges were left behind by MAP-21, which made tens of thousands of deficient bridges ineligible for receiving repair dollars from the largest highway program.

8 - Repair Program

For the $500 million for bridge repair in this appropriations bill, almost all highway bridges are eligible to receive dollars for repair, not just a small slice of our country’s bridges. The committee recognizes that the connections these other bridges make in our transportation network are often just as important as our biggest, busiest interstate bridges.

In addition, this money for bridge repair will be provided via a competitive grant program to ensure that it goes to the most vital needs on corridors that are crucial to moving goods and people, in urban and rural areas alike.

Yet new money for bridge repair is far from the only highlight in yesterday’s appropriations bill. There’s also $1.75 billion for rail programs, with $1.45 billion of that intended for Amtrak operations and capital investments – coming a year after Amtrak carried over 31 million passengers and grew their ridership more than 60 percent since 1998, according to the committee release, and another $100 million for passenger rail capital grants to improve service.

The competitive TIGER grant program also got another round of full funding to the tune of $550 million — grants for innovative transportation projects that often cross state lines and combine transit, freight, safety or other diverse uses, and are often hard to fund under older, rigid federal and state programs.

There is also almost $2 billion for investing in new or expanded public transportation across the country through the New Starts transit program.

This bill will head to the full Senate next, but there will be contentious negotiations ahead with the House, which has lower overall funding levels and drastically different ideas for some of these specific programs: No extra money for bridge repair, a significant cut for Amtrak, slightly less money for public transportation and zero dollars for the popular TIGER grant program.

Senate budget lays the groundwork for fairer, increased transportation funding

We’ve previously written about how Amtrak passenger rail, new public transit construction and the innovative TIGER program just had their budgets slashed in sequestration at a rate five times higher than traditional highway programs. That was due to the fact that those programs generally get their money from the general fund, and highways are funded through a protected trust fund. (Read that linked post for the details.)

There’s no way to prevent those cuts this year, but the Senate’s new budget for the next ten years — the first they’ve approved in years — lays the groundwork to create dedicated funding for transit, passenger rail and the innovative competitive TIGER projects, as well as generating new revenues for transportation.

Tucson Streetcar rendering
The Tucson, Arizona streetcar is being funded both by a TIGER grant and New Starts money

Can you take a minute to thank the Senate for recognizing the importance of 21st century transportation investments and urge Congress to build on this budget and find new revenues for transportation while protecting these important programs?

At a time when transportation funds aren’t keeping pace with what we need to maintain AND build, the Senate’s bold plan could very well become the foundation to raise new money for transportation and create dedicated revenues for programs that help give us new options for how to get around.

Sequestration disproportionately cut the very programs that do the most to provide all of us with more ways to get around — new streetcars or bus rapid transit lines, competitive TIGER grants for innovative projects all over the country, and passenger rail that’s continuing to break ridership records.

The Senate’s plan could be the beginning of a new unified trust fund or a tax reform plan that raises new money for transportation — which could help protect these programs from these kinds of disproportionate cuts they just received.

So let’s make sure that the Senate and the House know that we need to both increase investments in transportation and protect the money that gives us more options for how to get around.

Take action today.