transit funding Archives - Page 5 of 5 - Transportation For America

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.

Detailed administration budget proposal to be released this week

Tomorrow (Tuesday, May 23), the Trump administration is expected to release their full budget proposal for all government programs in fiscal year (FY) 2018, which begins on October 1 of this year, and we wanted to provide our members an early update with what to expect.

Last week a spreadsheet that contained some details about funding levels leaked and was widely circulated in Washington. Overall, the numbers in this leaked budget proposal align with the topline numbers in the initial “skinny” budget proposal released back in March.

We expect this week’s full budget proposal to significantly cut funding for the transit Capital Improvements Grant (CIG) program and long-distance Amtrak service:

$1.232 billion is allocated for the CIG program, about half of the $2.4 billion the program received in FY 2017. These cuts seem to align with the Administration’s proposal in the skinny budget to only fund projects with existing full funding grant agreements.
$525 million is allocated to Amtrak National Network, less than half of the FAST Act authorized amount of $1.1 billion and less than half of the FY 2017 appropriation. The Northeast Corridor would receive $235 million, which is also a cut from the $328 million allocated in FY 2017.

The leaked budget is clearly a draft, as some line items are repeated, or missing altogether. Programs such as REG or TIFIA that are not listed or appear to be zeroed out may be a reflection on the incomplete nature of the draft.

However, as we’ve believed all along, significant cuts to Amtrak’s national network and the program for all new transit construction are likely to appear in the final version of the administration’s 2018 budget proposal. T4America will provide members with a detailed summary of the final budget once it is released. We’ll send you a copy but logged-in members will also be able to see it within our public blog post that goes up either Tuesday or Wednesday at https://t4america.org/news-and-blog

Please stay tuned for additional information.

Avoiding a government shutdown, Congress moves to preserve TIGER and transit funding — for now

In a budget deal to fund the government through the end of September, Congress partially accommodated the President’s requests for more defense and security spending, but ignored his requests to eliminate funding for TIGER, new transit construction, and other programs vital for building strong local communities.

Congress agreed on a budget to fund the government through the rest of the current fiscal year, but they did so by increasing spending nearly across the board, avoiding any hard questions about what to cut to make room for the President’s desired defense increases (or tax cuts), performing some fiscal wizardry to keep the bill from scoring as if it won’t exceed the budget caps previously agreed to by Congress several years ago.

Though the President had urged Congress to make deep cuts to crucial transportation programs immediately this year, Congress responded to what they heard from state and local leaders of all stripes (and many of you!) and did not eliminate the competitive TIGER grant program or the funding that’s paired with local or state dollars to build or expand new public transit service.

“We applaud the appropriators in Congress for listening to the business leaders, local elected officials and advocates from across the country and protecting funding for these programs that are vital to the health and prosperity of their communities,” said T4America Interim Director Beth Osborne. “But we also know that this budget deal was underway before last November’s election and there will be real pressure in the coming months to make these same cuts when Congress considers the 2018 budget later this year.”

[member_content]T4America members, you can read our full summary of the 2017 appropriations bill, which includes the list of transit projects Congress recommends to FTA for funding this year.

USDOT 2017 Appropriations bill summary[/member_content]

Overall, transportation programs are mostly funded at levels consistent with what’s in the FAST Act, though Congress actually appropriated more ($2.4b) for transit capital construction than was proposed by the FAST Act for this year ($2.3b). They allocated the full $500 million for a ninth round of TIGER grants, though it’s unclear if USDOT will be able to move the process along fast enough to make grant awards this calendar year.

Despite the President’s previous request to completely halt the pipeline of transit construction projects immediately, the bill urges the Federal Transit Administration to keep it moving forward by writing checks for the transit projects that already have grant agreements, and — most importantly — to set aside funding this year for the scores of projects expected to sign grant agreements this year, like planned bus rapid transit projects in Albuquerque, Indianapolis, Everett (WA), and Kansas City, among many others.

This does not mean that the pipeline of transit projects is safe and back to normal — far from it. For the projects without signed grant agreements, they must still obtain them before any funds can be received, and there have been rumors that the Trump Administration would simply stop signing them — whether Congress allocates money for them or not.

Secondly, this budget only covers the rest of the year through September 30. President Trump’s blueprint for the 2018 budget is what made all the headlines a few weeks ago, in which he proposed zeroing out these vital programs. Congress largely avoided the tough questions by making Trump’s requested defense increases but not making other equivalent cuts to pair with them. How will Congress respond during negotiations on the 2018 budget?

We’ll call on you again to hold their feet to the fire then, but for now, we urge you to send all of your representatives a message of thanks for rallying on a bipartisan agreement to protect the transportation funding that local communities depend on.

Congress is expected to pass the bill before the current continuing budget resolution (CR) expires on Friday (May 5.)

Trump admin moving to end transit construction program and TIGER immediately

New documents released this week by the Trump administration make it clear that 2018 won’t be soon enough to eliminate funding for future transit construction and TIGER competitive grants — they want them gone now, in 2017.

After months of promises to invest a trillion dollars in infrastructure, President Trump’s 2018 budget request proposed eliminating the popular TIGER competitive grant program and ending the support for helping cities of all sizes build new transit lines, among other cuts.

This week, it’s become clear that the 2018 fiscal year (which begins this October) isn’t soon enough for the administration — they are now asking Congress to make most of the same cuts and changes in (the rest of) this year’s budget for 2017.

“The Administration proposes to suspend additional projects from entering the [transit capital grants] program, and believes localities should fund these localized projects.”

That’s what the Office of Management and Budget is requesting for the federal transit capital construction program, according to Jeff Davis’ Eno Transportation Weekly. That’s paired with a request to cut funding for transit construction by about $400 million for the rest of this fiscal year. Unlike the President’s recent proposal for the next fiscal year (2018), these cuts are proposed for the budget that Congress is negotiating now to keep the government operating through October.

You can help save these vital programs
We’re looking for national, state and local organizations to demonstrate their support for fully funded TIGER and transit Capital Investment Programs. Sign onto T4America’s nationwide support letter by Friday, March 31st.

Budget background: The government is operating under a continuing budget resolution (CR) because Congress failed to pass individual spending bills in late 2016 for this fiscal year. They instead passed a single bill to keep the government functioning at 2016 funding levels for most programs. Congress must produce budgetary legislation of some kind before the current CR expires on April 28, or run the risk of once again shutting down the government.

What does this mean for transit?

For one, it means $400 million less available this year to distribute to the ready-to-go transit projects that the federal government has already promised to fund by signing a full-funding grant agreement (FFGA). That means some unknown number of transit projects that were initially recommended to receive funding from FTA this year would be left out.

Secondly, suspending the pipeline means that transit projects in cities like Indianapolis, Tempe, Albuquerque, Ft. Lauderdale and dozens of others would be at the front of a line that would not move again under President Trump. Some of these cities expected to move ahead this year and were even recommended for funding by the Federal Transit Administration. Many have already pledged millions of their own dollars or have started development, engineering or construction work on projects that are on the cusp of receiving a federal grant to help complete it. And despite the administration’s belief that “localities should fund these localized projects,” the federal government funds interstate interchanges, highway widenings and road construction projects that are inherently local in nature almost every single day. There’s nothing more “local” about a transit project at all.

The administration is not satisfied to see the pipeline of transit projects shut down in 2018 — they want it shut down as soon as possible, in whatever budget Congress produces to carry us through the rest of this year.

What’s the news for TIGER?

It could mean the end of TIGER grants this year, with no grants awarded in 2017 at all.

CQ Roll Call reports that congressional housing/transportation appropriators are being asked to cut $2.7 billion from their budget for the rest of this year and eliminate $500 million from the TIGER program for this year — the entirety of this year’s funding. In years past, spring had been the time of year when USDOT would typically open the application period for this year’s batch of awards, with the aim to award TIGER grants sometime this fall. Though TIGER is technically funded for this year, with no certainty about a budget for the second half of the year from April to October, USDOT won’t make funding available that could be rescinded by Congress. And this is exactly why.

If you represent an organization of some kind, sign onto T4America’s nationwide support letter for these programs by Friday, March 31st.

Seven things to know about President Trump’s budget proposal

There is no good news for transportation in President Trump’s first budget request to Congress. We take a look beyond the headlines and unpack seven things you need to know about this first salvo in the annual budget-making process.

[member_content]T4A MEMBERS: You can read and download your full members-only analysis of the budget here.[/member_content]

The short version is that President Trump’s first budget request for Congress is a direct assault on smart infrastructure investment that will do damage to cities and towns of all sizes. After months of promises to invest a trillion dollars in infrastructure, the first official action taken by the Trump administration on the issue is a proposal to eliminate the popular TIGER competitive grant program, cut the funding that helps cities of all sizes build new transit lines, and terminate funding for the long-distance passenger rail lines that rural areas depend on.

Tell your representatives that this proposal is a non-starter and appropriators in Congress should start from scratch.

TAKE ACTION

That’s the short version. Here’s a longer one with seven things worth knowing more about:

1) It ends the program for building new transit lines or service, putting the screws to local communities that have raised their own dollars to build vital projects.

Indianapolis would be facing the loss of more than $70 million in anticipated federal grants for their Red Line bus rapid transit project under this budget. Graphic courtesy of Indy Connect

This budget eliminates future funding for building new public transportation lines and service, threatening the ability of local communities of all sizes to satisfy the booming demand for well-connected locations served by transit. While the handful of projects with full federal funding grant agreements (FFGAs) already in hand would (theoretically) be allowed to proceed, all other future transit projects would be out of luck. The budget proposes to phase out future funding for what’s called the transit capital investment grants program — more informally referred to as New Starts, Small Starts and Core Capacity grants. As we said in our statement, it’s a “slap in face to the millions of local residents who have raised their own taxes, with the full expectation that [their funds] would be combined with the limited pool of federal grants, to complete their priority transportation projects.”

For example, here’s a list of eight transit projects we quickly identified that have already raised or set aside a share of the local dollars required and were recommended by the Federal Transit Administration for funding in 2017 — though they were just short of the last step of receiving a federal grant agreement.

Sacramento, CA — Streetcar extension
Expecting $74.9 million Small Starts grant to match $65 million in various city and county funding.
Kansas City, MO — Bus rapid transit
Expecting $30 million Small Starts grant to match to match $12 million in city and $3 million in regional sales tax funds.
Tempe, AZ — Streetcar
Expecting $74.9 million Small Starts grant in FY17 which would match $76 million in local sales tax funds approved by Maricopa voters in 2004. (Local voters have been paying local sales tax for 13 years in expectation of federal funding to build this project.)
Ft. Lauderdale, FL — Streetcar extension
Expecting $61 million Small Starts grant in FY17. Would match $48 million in combined city and county financing, including local gas tax, special district property assessment, and county general funds.
Indianapolis, IN — Red Line bus rapid transit project
Expecting $74.9 million Small Starts grant to pair with the income tax increase that voters just approved in November 2016 at the ballot box
Minneapolis, MN — SW Light Rail Line
Expecting $887 million New Starts grant in FY17 to cover 50 percent of the project. The other 50 percent would be covered locally. Local and regional entities (Counties Transit Improvement Board and Met Council) already stepped up in September 2016 and increased their commitment after the state backed out of their funding commitment to the project.
Albuquerque, NM — Bus rapid transit
Expecting $69 million Small Starts grant to match $25 million in various local (city and county) funds
Lynwood, WA — Sound Transit light rail extension
Expecting $1.172 billion New Starts grant, matched by the same amount of voter-approved, local sales and motor vehicle taxes. Local funds were approved by the Sound Transit 2 referendum in Nov 2008; voters just expressed their continued commitment by approving additional transit funding in the successful Sound Transit 3 referendum in Nov 2016.

Aside from these eight, there are at least 40 other transit projects in other various stages of development — engineering, planning, etc. — that will be left completely on their own with no future federal dollars for transit construction. (Yonah Freemark has a good list of them in this post from The Transport Politic.)

Practically speaking, it’s unclear how the administration would even go about phasing out the program. It would require several years of keeping spending level just to honor the federal government’s current obligations. Right now, there’s about $6 billion committed to the projects that have federal grant agreements. With over $2 billion budgeted annually for this program over the last few years, it would take almost three years of continuing current funding for the program just to clear those projects and end the program.

2) It eliminates the TIGER program, and then recommends unsuitable alternatives to fund those sorts of local projects

The proposal completely eliminates the fiercely competitive TIGER program, which is one of the few ways that local communities of almost any size can directly receive federal dollars for their priority transportation projects and one of the most fiscally responsible transportation programs administered by USDOT.

View our interactive map of winners through all rounds of TIGER

The federal government has found a smart way to use a small amount of money to incentivize the best projects possible through TIGER, as well as encourage local investment —TIGER projects brought 3.5 other dollars to the table for each federal dollar awarded through the first five rounds. And the competition for funds is in stark contrast to the majority of all federal transportation dollars that are awarded via formulas to ensure that all states or metro areas get a share, regardless of how they’re going to spend those dollars. Unlike the old system of congressional earmarks, the projects vying for funding compete against each other on their merits to ensure that each dollar is spent in the most effective way possible.

In response to the elimination of the TIGER program, the administration blithely suggested in their proposal that local communities instead turn to other programs…that are explicitly designed not to meet same needs as TIGER. “DOT’s Nationally Significant Freight and Highway Projects grant program, authorized by the FAST Act of 2015, supports larger highway and multimodal freight projects with demonstrable national or regional benefits. This grant program is authorized at an annual average of $900 million through 2020.”

Well, sure, but only $100 million of that $900 million in any year can be used on projects that aren’t on the national freight highway network, so if your project is multimodal or otherwise not on a key national highway, you’re probably out of luck. And the FASTLANE competitive grant program is wholly limited to freight projects.

There’s a reason that TIGER remains so popular with local communities even though around 95 percent of applicants lose out on funding — it’s one of the only ways to fund the multimodal projects that are difficult to fund through conventional, narrowly-focused federal programs. The replacements suggested by the administration aren’t appropriate and don’t come close to funding the same sort of projects or meeting the needs as TIGER.

3) It terminates the funding for long-distance passenger rail that keeps rural communities connected.

While preserving funds for the northeast rail corridor, it ‘terminates’ funding for long-distance passenger rail service. One of the things we were nervous about in the FAST Act was the way it started to separate out the northeast passenger rail corridor from the rest of the system. Bifurcating the funding for our rail network starts to chip away at the idea of a national system and will hit rural communities especially hard.

It’s jarring to read in the administration proposal that the intent of reducing Amtrak funding is to “focus resources on the parts of the passenger rail system that provide meaningful transportation options within regions,” especially when you consider that “providing meaningful transportation options” is precisely what the Gulf Coast communities trying to restore passenger rail service wiped out by Hurricane Katrina are trying to do.

Combined with the proposal to end the Essential Air Service program, rural communities could be more disconnected than ever before.

During last year’s Gulf Coast Inspection Train, hundreds of Gulfport, MS residents came out to voice their support for bringing passenger rail service back to the coast to provide them with “meaningful transportation options.”

4) This budget indicates that the much-discussed infrastructure package — if it ever even materializes — would be hostile to the approach taken by the above programs.

Are you one of the people who are still optimistic that a big infrastructure package from the President would provide robust funding for the types of projects that were just slashed in the budget? Let Mick Mulvaney, director of the Office of Management and Budget, disabuse you of that notion. When asked about the transportation programs that were cut or eliminated, Mulvaney said, “we believe those programs to be less effective than the package we’re currently working on.”

I.e., they don’t think that the approach taken by TIGER, New Starts, etc. is an effective one, and they’re going to go in a different direction in any big infrastructure package, and these cuts reflect the transportation priorities of the administration.

5) It suggests a performance-based approach while delaying the rules on new performance measures

This is a smaller point, but the administration’s rhetoric on better-performing federal agencies doesn’t sync up with their actions thus far. From the proposal:

The Administration will take an evidence-based approach to improving programs and services—using real, hard data to identify poorly performing organizations and programs. We will hold program managers accountable for improving performance and delivering high-quality and timely services to the American people and businesses.

Meanwhile, new performance measures (like the new congestion rule) that could actually improve the effectiveness of federal transportation spending were put on hold as the new administration took office, to say nothing of the fact that competitive programs like TIGER are far more performance-driven than the simple formula grants that are handed out like blank checks to states regardless of how they’ve spent that money in the past.

6) It cuts scores of other programs that help support strong local economies.

As our parent org Smart Growth America said last week, the transportation-related cuts are just one aspect of a budget that is “a broadside against the things that make communities work.” It takes the axe to HUD’s Community Development Block Grants (CDBG), stormwater grant programs, USDA’s Rural Development Program, and scores of other programs that support redevelopment and strong local economies.

7) It’s important, but this is only the starting point for the budget process

Presidents make their request, but appropriators in Congress determine the budget and House appropriators will soon go to work on producing their own. From a Capitol Hill transportation reporter:

General Congressional GOP reaction to Trump’s budget: Thanks big guy but we’ll take it from here. Congress makes the budget.

— Tanya Snyder (@TSnyderDC) March 16, 2017

That said, appropriators in the House or Senate could propose some of the same cuts. After all, it was Congress in 2012 that tried to eliminate all federal mass transit funding, so it’s crucial to let them know what your priorities are.

Our nation’s infrastructure serves as the backbone for economic growth and prosperity, and we need a budget that prioritizes investment in the local communities that are the basic building block of the national economy.

Stand up and send that message loud and clear to Congress.

TAKE ACTION

Trump’s budget will hurt local communities

President Trump’s first budget request for Congress is a direct assault on smart infrastructure investment that will do damage to cities and towns of all sizes — from the biggest coastal cities down to small rural towns.

After months of promises to invest a trillion dollars in infrastructure, the first official action taken by the Trump administration on the issue is a proposal to eliminate the popular TIGER competitive grant program, cut the funding that helps cities of all sizes build new transit lines, and terminate funding for the long-distance passenger rail lines that rural areas depend on.

Tell your representatives that this proposal is a non-starter and appropriators in Congress should start from scratch.

The competitive TIGER grant program is one of the only ways that local communities of all sizes can directly access federal funds. And unlike the old outdated practice of earmarking, to win this funding, project sponsors have to bring significant local funding to the table and provide evidence of how their project will accomplish numerous goals. The TIGER grant program has brought more than three non-federal dollars to the table for each federal dollar awarded.

Eliminating the funding to support the construction of new public transportation lines and service is a slap in face of the millions of local residents who have raised their own taxes to pay their share. Like the voters in Tempe, AZ, who approved a sales tax 13 years ago that’s been set aside to pair with a future federal grant to build a streetcar. Or the voters last November in Indianapolis, IN, who approved an income tax increase to pay their share of a new bus rapid transit project, and in Atlanta, GA, who approved a sales tax increase in part to add transit to their one-of-a-kind Beltline project.

These local communities and scores of others who are generating their own funds to invest in transit will be left high and dry by this proposal, threatening their ability to satisfy the booming demand from residents and employers alike for well-connected locations served by transit.

Terminating funding for long-distance passenger rail service will hit rural communities especially hard, like the communities along the Gulf Coast who are even now demonstrating their commitment to restoring service wiped out by Hurricane Katrina by stepping up and pledging their own dollars to match or exceed any federal dollars to make it happen.

Our nation’s infrastructure serves as the backbone for economic growth and prosperity. The Administration’s proposed budget falls short of prioritizing investment in the local communities that are the basic building block of the national economy, and we need you to help stand up and send that message loud and clear to Congress.

President Trump’s budget request severely undercuts stated commitment to investing in infrastructure

Earlier today, President Trump released his budget proposal for FY 2018 that cuts the U.S. Department of Transportation’s discretionary budget by 13 percent, ends the popular TIGER competitive grant program, eliminates the New & Small Starts transit construction program, and terminates funding for long-distance passenger rail funding, among other notable cuts.

In response, T4America Interim Director Beth Osborne offered this statement:

“This budget proposal severely undercuts the President’s stated commitment to infrastructure, and would leave behind many of the rural communities that supported him in November. After months of promises to invest $1 trillion in infrastructure, the first concrete action taken by the Trump administration on this issue is to propose drastic cuts to transportation programs that bring notable economic benefits to communities across the country, from small towns to large cities.

“Combined with the proposed elimination of the Community Development Block Grant program, this will put even more pressure on already overstretched local governments. This is a slap in face to the millions of local residents who have raised their own taxes — with the full expectation they would be combined with the limited pool of federal grants — to complete their priority transportation projects.

“The proposal completely eliminates the popular TIGER competitive grant program that has funded more than 400 transformational projects spanning all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The program leverages billions to accelerate key projects that drive local, regional and state economic development. Through the first five rounds of funding, TIGER projects brought 3.5 other dollars to the table for each federal dollar awarded. Despite the budget proposal’s recommendation for these communities to apply for funding from other freight programs, these programs are either not multimodal at all or have caps on the funding for non-highway projects.

“This budget also entirely eliminates funding for building new public transportation lines and service. While it will theoretically allow the small number of new transit construction projects with federal funding agreements already in hand to proceed, ending this program threatens the ability of local communities of all sizes to satisfy the booming demand for well-connected locations served by transit. Tempe, AZ, has set aside money from a voter-approved sales tax for 13 years to pair with a future federal grant to build a streetcar. In November, voters in Indianapolis, IN, approved an income tax increase in November to pay their share of a new bus rapid transit project and voters in Atlanta, GA, approved a sales tax increase to add transit to their one-of-a-kind Beltline project. These local communities and scores of others generating their own funds to invest in transit will be left high and dry by this proposal.”

“While preserving funds for the northeast rail corridor, it ‘terminates’ funding for long-distance passenger rail service. This will hit rural communities especially hard, like the Gulf Coast communities that have been working to restore passenger rail service between New Orleans and Orlando wiped out by Hurricane Katrina. These smaller communities are demonstrating their commitment to realizing the economic development that restored service will bring by stepping up and pledging their own dollars to match or exceed any federal dollars. Combined with the proposal to end the Essential Air Service program, rural communities could be more disconnected than ever before.

“Our nation’s infrastructure serves as the backbone for economic growth and prosperity. The Administration’s proposed budget falls short of prioritizing investment in the local communities that are the basic building block of the national economy. We urge leaders to uphold their promise to the American people and reinvest in our nation’s communities.

House leadership making unprecedented assault on public transit

A key House Committee is threatening to kill three decades of successful investments in mass transit — originally started under President Ronald Reagan — by ending the guarantee for dedicated funding for public transportation, leaving millions of riders already faced with service cuts and fare increases out in the cold.

In a stunning development late last night, House leadership and the Ways and Means committee made a shocking attack on transit that would have huge impacts for the millions of people who depend on public transportation each day.

They proposed putting every public transportation system in immediate peril by eliminating guaranteed funding for the Mass Transit Account and forcing transit to go begging before Congress for general funds each year — all while highway spending continues to be guaranteed with protected funds for half a decade at a time.

~~Get involved. Can you take just a moment and tell your representative that this short-sighted idea is intolerable for their voters?~~

This incredible move would roll back 30+ years of bipartisan federal transportation policy and reverse a decision made by President Reagan in the 1980’s to fund our nation’s transit system out of a small share of gas tax revenues. This change would mean no more guarantee of funding each year and no long-term stability for public transportation. States, cities, communities and their transit systems could lose billions.

We released a statement earlier today decrying this unprecedented attack on transit.

“We are deeply concerned that if this measure passes, Americans who use public transportation, or who would like that option in the future, will be thrown under the bus,” said James Corless, director of Transportation for America. “This couldn’t come at a worse time for people who need an affordable, reliable way to get to work, or for employers who need workers.” Corless noted the demand for transit has been rising as the economy slowly recovers and people are using public transportation to get to jobs and to avoid volatile gas prices. Over the course of the five-year transportation program, America’s population will continue to age rapidly, and a growing number of seniors will be looking to transit services maintain their independence.

It’s not just us, though. Even the association of state DOT heads submitted a letter to the committee urging them to reconsider their ill-advised plan.

The Mass Transit Account has been in existence since 1982 and AASHTO has continuously supported this account as a critical component of the Highway Trust Fund. AASHTO has long supported the principle that 20 percent of the gas tax revenues that have been put in place since 1982 be allocated to a dedicated mass transit account. We believe that the two complementary accounts need to be maintained in order to support a well-funded, multimodal transportation system.

We respectfully request that the current Highway Trust Fund structure with its two accounts and respective revenue allocations be retained.

Transit is unquestionably a critical component of our nation’s transportation system, and one that millions of people (or voters, if you’re reading, committee members) depend on each day to get around. More people on transit means less congestion, less pollution, and fewer cars on the road.

~~Tell your representative that this unprecedented attack on transit won’t stand.~~