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Republican Senator says more transit = better health

Last week, an offhand comment by Republican Senator John Ensign about the link between health and transportation policy didn’t make the headlines, but it did make an interesting connection.

Ensign was wrong in asserting that the United States has the highest life expectancy among developed countries when gun and automobile accidents are ignored. But he was on target when he mentioned America’s auto-dependent ways and how that negatively impacts our health.

Compared to Europe, “we’re just a much more mobile society,” he said. “We drive our cars a lot more, they do public transportation. So you have to compare health care system with health care system.”

While misunderstanding mobility as just traveling a high number of miles, Ensign correctly implies that driving more and walking less contributes to poor health and makes us more prone to death (in a car) than our European neighbors, which the data suggests to be true. The most obese cities in the United States — Miami, Oklahoma City and Ensign’s own constituents in Las Vegas — are known for their auto-oriented sprawl.

A recent study in the Journal of Physical Activity and Health confirms a correlation between the more active walking habits of Europeans and lower obesity rates, backing up American research from earlier this decade by Smart Growth America and others showing that residents of sprawling places are more likely to be obese.

If we want to boost mobility while bringing health costs down, we need our transportation policy to create more travel options for everyone and make it safer and easier to walk and bike.

Mobility isn’t an end of itself, nor is it just about going long distances on a regular basis. Mobility is about access to destinations and opportunity. We’re spending hours in the car not because ordinary Americans think that having high “mobility” is important — we’re doing it out of necessity just to get around our increasingly spread out cities.

No one would argue that our transportation priorities are the driving force — no pun intended — behind lower health outcomes. But there is enough evidence to suggest they should be a serious part of the discussion.

California Supreme Court hands victory to local transit riders and providers

A recent California Supreme Court decision could restore billions in funding for public transportation in the nation’s most populous state.

The Court’s ruling late last week upheld a lower court decision declaring the state’s $3.6 billion raid of public transit funds illegal and ordered that the money be returned to local transit providers.

Two months ago, Transportation for America released “Stranded at the Station: The Impact of the Financial Crisis in Public Transportation,” illustrating the painful cuts transit systems have sustained at the state and local level. The cuts plateaued as unemployment reached 10 percent and Americans were demanding more transportation options, not less.

It is no secret that California has fallen hard as a result of the recession, but the severity of the cuts to public transportation in California was vastly disproportionate to the rest of the country. The reason for this was no mystery: the State was raiding dedicated transit funds every year in order to alleviate other budgetary shortfalls since 2007.

More than two dozen transit providers throughout the state enacted some combination of fee hikes and service reductions, according to our map of transit cutbacks. BART in the San Francisco Bay Area increased its base fare by 17 percent, and many transit systems in Southern California raised fares as much as 20 percent. The County Connection in suburban Contra Costa reduced its bus lines by 23 percent, and rural areas were hit hard as well. The California Transit Association, or CTA, an affiliation of local transit providers, logged 38 agencies facing cuts of some kind in their own version of our transit cuts map.

Last week’s state Supreme Court’s decision helps explain how things got this bad.

Since 2007, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has successfully diverted $3.6 billion from the state’s transit fund to deficit reduction, prompting a lawsuit from the CTA to get the money back. The CTA argued that the raided funds came from gas tax revenues specifically designated for public transit. By refusing to review a lower-court decision in favor of the association, the high court effectively ruled Schwarzenegger’s raid illegal, ending the seizure of desperately-needed transit funds.

This is a huge victory and vindication for local transit providers. Randy Rentschler, director of the Bay Area Metropolitan Transportation Commission, told the San Francisco Chronicle, “everyone knows that the state’s in a budget crisis, but that crisis also exists in local governments in part because the state has taken transit money away from local entities.”

The case has broader implications for public transportation as well.

In tough budget years, Governor Schwarzenegger and the legislature are constantly looking for places to trim and local governments are an easy target. But money saved is not money earned, as local cuts tend to bite the state later through increased demand for social services and counties being unable to meet the basic needs of their citizens. The decision will hopefully lead to more caution.

Most importantly, California can no longer rob Peter to pay Paul.

But at this point, it remains unclear how much of the original $3.6 billion will be returned to the transit fund, and ultimately, to local providers to preserve vital service for riders. That money is desperately needed, not only because of the millions of Californians who rely on public transportation for their day-to-day mobility, but also because many communities are on the cusp of becoming success stories. Transportation for America’s “Stranded” report profiles how efforts in Sacramento, Orange and Contra Counties have already improved quality of life and relieved congestion, highlighting the need to keep up the support.

Seattle opens new light rail system, residents get a new “Link”

Seattle opened a new light rail system this weekend, and it was a smashing success by all accounts. Ridership from the inaugural weekend was over 90,000, and the system is settling into normal revenue service today. Read all about it from fellow Streetsblog Network member Seattle Transit Blog, and check out a huge batch of photos from opening weekend in their Flickr group pool.

Big crowd Originally uploaded by Mike Bjork

DSC_5700 Originally uploaded by Seattle Transit Blog

Videos from last week’s Portland Streetcar unveiling

Youtube user bobrpdx has some great videos of last week’s unveiling of the made in the USA streetcar in Portland, including interviews with Rep. Pete DeFazio and Rep. Earl Blumenauer. Check out the rest of his videos for more Portland transit goodness.

In this particular video, Rep. DeFazio talks about the streetcar made locally by Oregon Iron Works with great admiration and pride: “Here’s the product. It’s an improvement on the European design, something I believe that in a very short period of time we’ll be exporting back to Europe,” he said.

What does Oberstar’s proposal do for the New Starts transit program?

MetroRail, Preston Station, Downtown Houston Originally uploaded by euthman

Riders wait for the train at a stop on Houston’s new light rail line

Americans are taking the train (and the bus) like never before, and public transportation ridership reached its highest level in more than 50 years in 2008. More than 25 new light rail or streetcar systems have opened in the last 30 years, and communities across the country are looking to relieve congestion, spur urban development, and provide their residents with more options for getting around.

In the last two years, new light rail lines have opened in what might be considered the unlikely locales of Phoenix, Arizona, Houston, Texas, and Charlotte, North Carolina. According to numbers from Reconnecting America, the newly-opened Hiawatha Line in Minneapolis and the Red Line in Houston outperformed their ridership projections 15 years ahead of schedule.

What’s clear from these examples is that cities of all sizes are looking to meet the burgeoning demand for quality public transportation service. Of course, with Chairman James Oberstar’s 90-page proposal for the next transportation bill coming out this morning from the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, we are left with an important question — how would these current or future transit systems fare under his proposed program?

Getting approval for New and Small Starts — two federal programs that distribute funds for the construction of transit capital projects — has become a cumbersome process, taking an average of 10 years for transit projects to move through planning and design phases to receive a grant.

Under the previous administration, the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) began unduly weighting cost-effectiveness (CEI) — or how much travel time was saved per dollar spent — as the primary factor when considering which projects to fund. As Oberstar’s proposal states, this method has given “inadequate consideration to other important benefits that new transit projects bring to communities.” Benefits such as economic development spurred by new transit lines, increased access to jobs and housing, reduced emissions and energy consumption per capita and the efficient land use and walkable neighborhoods that often result from new transit investments have been swept aside in favor of this “cost effectiveness” metric.

Chairman Oberstar’s proposal for the transportation bill contains some proposed revisions to the New/Small Starts program that could speed up the approval process and make sure that all of the benefits of new public transportation service are considered.

Oberstar’s proposal contains two key reforms: The first would streamline the program application and approval process by eliminating overly burdensome steps and paperwork. (p.43) And perhaps more importantly, his second proposal “equalizes the treatment of proposed transit projects and elevates the importance of the benefits that will occur in the community once the project is built.” This essentially means that the other positive benefits from transit would be considered when deciding what projects to fund.

Underneath that recommendation in the proposal is a list of some new requirements that could even the playing field and broaden the range of grants given out to new transit projects. Here are three notable ones:

Require the FTA to consider all benefits of proposed projects in relation to the proposed Federal investment level.
Eliminate the requirement that projects be rated based on “cost-effectiveness,” which considers time savings to users as the only benefit of projects.
Require FTA to weigh all benefits comparably, including economic development, energy savings, increased mobility and access, and congestion relief.

Hopefully, these two reforms would streamline the New & Small Starts process and ensure that the federal governments considers more of the benefits that transit brings to communities when deciding which projects to fund. But the details in the full bill will be key. The outline lacks some concrete information on how much focus will be placed on creating transit-oriented development and affordable housing — both of which can help boost ridership numbers and cost-effectiveness. If we want to accurately account for all potential benefits of transit investments, T4 America believes that we need to link development, housing and public transportation to reflect the deep connection between these issues.

Good Magazine visualizes the United States of Transit Cutbacks

Good Magazine published their “transportation issue” last week, covering some of the current debates over where, why, and how to spend money on transportation. You might have caught the superb graphic of what makes a livable street that they produced for the issue in collaboration with our friends at Streetsblog.

Today, they posted this terrific visualization of our map of transit cuts. As you know, driving is down and ridership of public transportation is at record highs. Yet transit agencies across the country are facing layoffs, service cuts and fare hikes at a time when people need their services more than ever.

Click the graphic to see the full-size version from Good Magazine.

Transportation numbers emerge on the stimulus

UPDATE (2:00 p.m., 02/12/09): Talking Points Memo has acquired a summary of the new bill, which includes a comparison of each spending item to the House and Senate legislation. It looks like the final number for highways is $27.5 billion. The bill to come out of conference also includes $1.3 billion for Amtrak.

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We now have what appear to be the final numbers for transportation infrastructure in the stimulus. While the totals for transit and highway spending were both in the same ballpark as what they were in the original House and Senate bills, the sum for high-speed has drastically increased from the numbers in the first two versions. Here’s a rundown:

$27.5 billion for highways and bridges
$8.4 billion for transit
$8 billion for high-speed rail
$1.3 billion for Amtrak

Although it’s too early to know exactly how things played out behind the scenes, the Associated Press reports that President Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid helped push up the funding for high-speed rail.

Schumer amendment in Senate could boost transit funding

Take Action! Write your Senator!

UPDATED: Sen. Schumer has the release posted on his web site now. Copy updated to reflect that below. Coverage of the Grand Central press conference today from Bloomberg News

Sen. Chuck Schumer and fellow New York Congressman Rep. Jerrold Nadler released a statement today detailing Sen. Schumer’s amendment to increase funding for transit in that chamber’s version of the economic recovery package. (Rep. Nadler authored the amendment that passed the House last week.)

Sen. Schumer’s amendment would boost transit funding from $8.4 billion up to $14.9 billion, with additions to the vital program (New Starts) that would provide funding for new, ready-to-go transit projects across the country. Currently, the House version has $2.5 billion for New Starts, where the Senate version has zero. This amendment would correct this imbalance, while also boosting the overall amount for transit.

You can read the full release here. An excerpt:

“Last week, we scored a major victory in Washington, as the House of Representatives approved my amendment to increase transit funds in the stimulus bill by $3 billion, bringing the total amount of transit dollars in the package from 9 billion to 12 billion. This additional funding would mean hundreds of millions more in transit money for New York, creating thousands of local jobs, protecting our environment through green projects, and improving public transportation across the region. These funds would go a tremendous distance toward stemming the advance of our deepening economic recession. And now, with the support of Senator Schumer in the Senate, we have taken one great step closer to realizing this essential goal.”

Schumer’s amendment would boost funding in the Senate version of the stimulus package by $6.5 billion, from $8.4 billion currently in the bill to $14.9 billion. Specifically, Schumer’s amendment would increase funding in the transit capital pot from $8.4 billion to 10.4 billion, add $2 billion for rail modifications, and $2.5 billion for New Starts. The last two funding increases would match funding in the House bill.

Contact your Senator today to send a message. Tell them to support increased transit funding — and Sen. Schumer’s amendment — in the Senate package.

Let them know that this is exactly the kind of spending you want to see in the stimulus package — spending that can boost the economy while investing in long-lasting infrastructure that will help us meet our national goals of improved infrastructure, less oil dependence, and lower emissions.

You can check back here or with Streetsblog NYC for more breaking news on the Schumer amendment and transit funding in the Senate bill.