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2.8 million essential workers use transit to get to their jobs

A new report from TransitCenter finds that 2.8 million transit riders are considered “essential workers” during the COVID-19 emergency, underscoring just how essential it is to keep transit running. Under normal circumstances, they account for more than a third of total transit commuters in the country. 

Transit is part of the public health response to COVID-19. Transit agencies across the country transport millions of essential personnel—including hospital staff, grocery store workers, and pharmacists—to and from jobs everyday. It’s essential to keep transit running frequently and reliably to get these workers where they need to go as millions of others are forced to forgo their usual transit trips to abide by “shelter in place” mandates.

The latest report from TransitCenter finds that nationwide over 600,000 transit commuters work at hospitals, in doctor’s offices, or as home health providers; 165,000 people take transit to jobs in grocery stores or pharmacies; and 150,000 workers in social services commute on transit. On a normal day before this crisis, essential workers accounted for 38 percent of transit commuters in New York City, 33 percent in Seattle, and 36 percent in Miami.

Now that transit agencies across the country have started to reduce service frequency and cut routes due to financial shortfalls and lost fare revenue, many of these essential workers can’t easily get to work. With less frequent service, buses and subways are more likely to be crowded and therefore unsafe due to the inability to adequately keep a safe distance from others. 

If service stays frequent, TransitCenter writes, “at stops, stations, and on vehicles, commuters will have space to distance themselves from each other, protecting themselves and others from potential virus spread.” Maintaining frequent transit service will help these workers stay safe and healthy. 

According to a previous report put out earlier this week, transit agencies could see an annual shortfall of $26-$38 billion. It’s welcome news that Congress has struck a deal to provide $25 billion in emergency aid for transit, but we’ll need sustained help from Congress to keep service running during this pandemic and keep millions of essential workers working. And we’ll need transit to be able to return to full strength in the aftermath of this crisis and help fuel our recovery by carrying millions of people back to work. 

Lessons from the last Recession 

What would it look like if transit service is unable to survive through the pandemic and bounce back with reliable service to help fuel our economic recovery? We don’t have to guess—we can look back at what happened during the Great Recession a decade ago. Because of declining sales tax revenues, agencies were being forced to cut service, raise fares, and lay off employees—even as transit ridership was actually on the upswing back then. At T4America, we chronicled the impact on riders, and gathered hundreds of stories from real people who were affected: 

I work closing shift at a restaurant in downtown Sacramento and take the bus to and from work five days a week. I get off work at 10:40 and the last bus is at 10:50 so I have to run to make it. Sometimes I need to stay late to finish closing the restaurant after a busy night and don’t get a bus. The taxi fare is $40 to get home. Now the bus schedule might change with reduced hours. I don’t want to get a car because it is expensive, dangerous, and I don’t have a license to drive. Driving without a license will be my only option with the new hours.  Pablo – Sacramento, CA

I live in North San Diego county and because of transit routes being canceled I have been unable to take better paying jobs and it has cut down on recreational activities. It takes longer to go to the grocery store, I have to walk farther after I get off the bus and times have been changed so I end up missing appointments. Leah – Encinitas, CA

The cuts in the bus service occurred a few years ago. The one that has been difficult to adjust to, is [the route] by the hospital where I have doctor’s appointments. The service was cut from one hour to every half-hour. If I don’t want to wait too long, I can walk a few blocks to another stop, but it is a more difficult walk for me as I am blind, and the crossing of one of the streets is somewhat more dangerous. I prefer to take the bus instead of using the ADA paratransit service when I can. Janet – Hartford, CT

That’s just a small slice of what we heard 10 years ago when transit agencies were struggling in the face of a recession. Transit service is vital today and Congress’ plan to provide transit agencies with $25 billion in emergency assistance will provide a lifeline—for now. But we don’t know how long this crisis will continue. And we’ll never be able to get our economy back on its feet without robust transit service in cities large and small that collectively move millions of people.

Congress heard you: deal struck with $25 billion in emergency funding for transit

Members of Congress never hear thank you enough for a job well done. Let’s change that. Please send a thank you to your members of Congress today—and remind them to continue prioritizing transit in the months ahead.

Early yesterday morning, congressional leaders and the White House agreed to a $2 trillion COVID-19 economic stabilization plan that includes $25 billion emergency direct assistance to transit agencies, at a time when agencies’ revenue is plummeting, as well as more than $1 billion for passenger rail. This is a huge victory, and it wouldn’t have been possible without your thousands of messages and calls to Congress and our letter to House and Senate leadership. But there’s still more work to do. 

A Chicago “L” platform. Photo by Paul Sableman on Flickr’s Creative Commons.

When the Senate first released a draft of its COVID-19 economic package, airlines got emergency funding. But public transportation—the bedrock of our transportation infrastructure that connects millions of Americans to jobs, schools, services and opportunities every single day—got nothing. But it didn’t stay that way for long. Thanks to an outpouring of advocacy, early yesterday morning Congress agreed to a deal that includes $25 billion in direct, emergency assistance to transit agencies. 

Without this infusion of emergency funding, transit would be unlikely to survive through the pandemic. We can’t afford for transit to stop running—especially now, as transit plays a huge role in connecting millions of people to their jobs in healthcare, grocery stores, and other essential businesses. In fact, 36 percent of transit riders are workers in essential industries, such as nurses and medical technicians. And any long-term economic recovery will be nearly impossible without transit service to help people get back to work after this unprecedented crisis subsides.

This critical emergency funding would never have been included without your voices saying that “transit is essential.” Many of you were part of sending thousands of messages and calls to Congress through our action. Our letter to House and Senate leadership with the Union of Concerned Scientists was signed by 248 elected officials, local governments and organizations in less than 24 hours. 

The $25 billion will be given to transit agencies based on the existing formulas that are used to give out annual capital funds. The bill clarifies that these funds are intended specifically for operating expenses related to the coronavirus public health emergency beginning on January 20, 2020, and should be used for operating costs to maintain service, lost revenue due to the coronavirus emergency, as well as the purchase of personal protective equipment, and paying for the administrative leave of operations personnel due to loss of service. The $25 billion includes $13.9 billion for urban areas and $1.8 billion that will go to transit in rural areas, with additional funds for state of good repair and high density cities, largely in the northeast. Some have estimated the amounts potentially going to each city based on recent allocations, though stay tuned for concrete details. This post from Jeff Davis at Eno is a helpful breakdown of all transportation funding in the package. 

But we’re not done yet, and more will be needed. A new report from TransitCenter estimates that transit agencies will experience losses this year anywhere between $26-$38 billion—potentially much higher than the emergency funding in this deal. Transit agencies will need more operating funds to guarantee that they can run enough trains and buses to avoid overcrowding and maintain social distancing. We can’t put America’s frontline workers at increased risk. 

Congress is already considering another bill to stimulate the economy. We will continue to work hard to ensure that public transportation receives more operating support in this bill. 

We’ll have more information soon on how you can help guarantee that public transportation receives the funding it needs to connect Americans to jobs, services and opportunities now and when this pandemic is over. Keep in touch with us: Subscribe to our email list and follow us on Twitter.

Release: Senate deal provides vital $25 billion lifeline to ensure essential public transportation service can continue

WASHINGTON, DC — After news of the Senate’s tentative agreement on a $2 trillion stabilization package that included $25 billion in emergency operating assistance for transit, Beth Osborne, director of Transportation for America, released this statement:

“Public transit provides essential service for millions of Americans each day. When this deal is finalized, Congress will have provided a major lifeline for this vital public service to weather the most immediate impacts of a massive loss of ridership. After starting with zero dollars for transit in initial negotiations, we especially praise Senate leadership for negotiating the deal to ensure that transit can continue moving millions of essential workers during this crisis. Workers classified as essential during the COVID-19 emergency account for 36 percent of total transit commuters in the United States, according to research released just this week by TransitCenter. We applaud the White House, Senators Mitch McConnell and Chuck Schumer, and Representatives Nancy Pelosi and Kevin McCarthy for their work to reach this agreement. 

“Thanks to this deal, essential transit service has a better chance to survive until this unprecedented public health crisis subsides and we will need to depend on transit service to move millions of people and get the economy moving once again. 

“Transit riders, advocates, business leaders, elected leaders and the other thousands of people who wrote or called their Senators sent a clear message to Congress: transit is essential.

“Transit agencies will still face massive deficits and more will need to be done. Impacts from COVID-19 will cost U.S. transit agencies $26-$38 billion annually, according to other research also published by TransitCenter, depending on how long the crisis continues and the extent of the measures the nation undertakes to try and avoid the worst potential impacts.

“We are grateful to Congress for prioritizing the millions of people who rely on transit every day with this deal. And we are eager to continue bringing their voices to Congress as they consider further action to stabilize the economy and build a foundation for a long-term recovery.”

COVID-19 will cost transit agencies $26-$38 billion, TransitCenter estimates

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

In a new report, TransitCenter estimates the gargantuan funding shortfalls that U.S. transit agencies will experience due to impacts from the COVID-19 pandemic. Unprecedented drops in ridership, reduced economic activity, and increased costs to keep personnel and essential riders (including healthcare workers) safe are driving a funding gap that is only projected to grow. 

Transit agencies are doing a lot to slow the spread of COVID-19: They’re connecting healthcare workers to their jobs, urging non-essential workers to stay home, and cancelling fare collection in order to keep operators safe. And they’re bleeding money doing so. 

In a new report, public transportation foundation TransitCenter estimates that impacts from COVID-19 will cost U.S. transit agencies $26-$38 billion annually. This huge shortfall is being caused by rapidly decreasing revenue (a combination of low ridership and reduced sales tax receipts from an economy quickly coming to a standstill) and increased costs to combat the virus. 

TransitCenter calculated low-end and high-end estimates of what COVID-19 means for agencies’ budgets. The low-end estimate anticipates 75 percent decline in fare revenue; and high-end, 100 percent. 

The reality for many American transit agencies will be somewhere in the middle of these two estimates. Ridership on Washington, DC’s Metro dropped 85 percent, and the agency projects an unprecedented loss of $52 million a month. Chicago’s transit system saw rail ridership down 75 percent and bus use down 59 percent. BART in San Francisco says a sustained ridership loss of 85 percent and a 50 percent reduction of economic activity could reduce BART’s monthly revenues by $55 million. And New York City’s MTA is requesting $4 billion to stay afloat. (Trip-planning app Transit is documenting the unprecedented drops in ridership all over the world.) 

But service cuts won’t cut it, especially as transit agencies “must operate enough service so that riders are not subject to crowded vehicles,” according to the report. 

This means one thing: Congress cannot hesitate and must provide transit agencies with immediate emergency funding. Without emergency funding, transit agencies will be unable to get back to work once this crisis is over. That means millions of Americans will be stuck in place, even when we no longer have to stay at home, making it even harder for our economy to recover.

TAKE ACTION NOW

The time to rescue transit is now. The economic impacts will be far worse if we stand by and let it burn to the ground first and try to rebuild it tomorrow.

Voters want and need more transportation options

New polling conducted by YouGov on behalf of T4America and our partners finds that Americans support expanding public transit by a 77-15 margin—even as many transit agencies face a growing generational funding crisis brought on by COVID-19.

Americans want a better transportation system that provides them meaningful options. This week, we released new polling results alongside our partners at TransitCenter, Data for Progress, the Ian L. McHarg Center for Urbanism and Ecology, and the Socio-Spatial Climate Collaborative. It helps us answer a crucial question: what do voters really want out of our transportation system?

Unsurprisingly, voters want more transportation options and to see tangible outcomes from their investments in the system. 

The data reinforces many of the same results we’ve seen in our polling over the years: voters are prepared to spend more on public transit and want to orient government spending toward improving existing infrastructure. While many rely on cars, a majority said they want to have other options to get around each day. Democrats and Republicans agree that the government should be prioritizing fixing our roads and helping with congestion in our cities.

For too many, driving is the only option

Car use is prevalent among voters in the United States, but that doesn’t mean that everyone wants to drive everywhere, all the time, for every single trip. Far from it. By and large, voters feel they have insufficient alternatives to driving and have no choice but to use their cars as much as they do. 

Among those who reported a car was their primary mode of transportation, about 80 percent agreed that they have “no choice” but to drive as much as they do. Just over half of car users report wishing they had more options, and about the same share of car owners said that public transit was not convenient for their needs.

Surprisingly, voters on net support a policy to reduce the number of personal automobiles on the road. By a 47-38 margin voters agree that the government should aim to reduce the number of vehicles in the U.S. over the next few years. This includes a clear 68-12 net support among Democrats and 43-38 net positive support among Independents as well. About 23 percent of Republicans somewhat or strongly agreed with the statement.

Voters want more options, but are they willing to pay for transit? The answer is a resounding “yes!”

Voters support transit

Even though many Americans don’t have access to a convenient transit network, they still believe transit has enormous benefits. The polling shows that 66 percent of voters believe their own communities would benefit from expanding public transit while about 77 percent of voters believe the US overall would benefit from expanding public transit. This support includes near unanimity among Democrats, 90 percent of whom agree. 

Overall, Americans clearly support having better public transportation systems. This basic conclusion is robust across a variety of political, demographic, and geographic factors. 

To have better public transit, people are willing to pay for it. Nearly four times as many voters support increasing public transportation funding as support reducing it. There’s even no appetite for cuts to investments in public transportation, even accounting for party identification and geography. Less than 1 in 5 Republicans support cutting transportation spending. As recent historical data has borne out, when voters go to the ballot to raise taxes to invest in transit, those measures pass at around a 70 percent clip.

Across the political spectrum, voters support increasing funding by a 77-15 margin. When asked how much should be spent on public transportation, the average response was $0.33 of every federal transportation dollar; current public transportation spending is only about $0.20 per dollar. Americans are clearly ready to shift transportation dollars toward transit. 

Broad agreement on fix it first

Most popular of all, and what we’ve been saying for years, is that fixing our existing infrastructure before building something new is enormously popular across the political divide. The polling indicates that not only do voters support additional spending on maintaining existing roads and bridges, they want new policies that would obligate local governments to do so. 

Fully 79 percent of voters agreed that the government should fix existing roads before building new ones. About 73 percent support a new set of obligations on state governments to justify any new roads, and 61 percent support an outright moratorium on new roads for ten years as a means of reorienting local governments toward repairing infrastructure.

There is bipartisan agreement in the electorate that we should be prioritizing maintenance, but Congress is ignoring what their constituents want. 

Give people options, but also give them EVs

We found that in addition to wanting more and better transit across the country, voters also want to be able to afford an electric vehicle. Subsidies that would increase the availability of electric vehicles were widely popular.

We also found support for “generous rebates” for electric vehicles that specifically help those living in areas where a stronger transit network is less feasible. About 69 percent of Democrats supported while Republicans only narrowly opposed rebates, by a 37-47 margin.

What voters want

American voters want a national transportation system that provides more options, that frees them from total dependence on cars, and that fixes our existing infrastructure. Unfortunately, current policy is designed to achieve precisely none of that: we underfund transit, over invest in roads, and favor new construction over maintenance. It’s clear that voters want to build a better transportation system—and they support the policies that would make that possible. Now it’s time for Congress to act. In our new report released today—A Green New Deal for City and Suburban Transportation—we show how Congress could fundamentally restructure federal transportation policy to achieve the basic outcomes that Americans support, while also protecting our environment, health, and pocketbooks. 

Coronavirus will have huge impacts on transit systems—here’s how Congress should help

Fired up? Please take action and tell your member of Congress to support emergency assistance for transit agencies.

Congress and the president are considering ways to provide much-needed boosts to the economy due to the impacts of the novel coronavirus. But simply pouring money into the existing transportation program as a whole will fail to help the people who rely on transit to access the health care system and will have impacts on transit service that will last for years to come. Here are some ways Congress could provide targeted assistance to transit and the people that rely on it in the weeks and months ahead.

MTA New York City Transit sanitizes stations and subway cars. (Marc A. Hermann / MTA New York City Transit)

As local and state tax revenues cratered during the recession of 2008-2009, transit agencies were forced to make enormous cuts to service and lay off thousands of employees, which had devastating impacts on riders and communities. T4America covered the massive impacts across the country as millions of people were left stranded in the wake of these massive cuts. As just one example, MARTA in Atlanta eliminated somewhere around half of their bus service and train headways grew to 30 minutes at certain times of day. Even after the crisis, MARTA spent the better part of the decade recovering and slowly adding that lost service back, with little assistance from the federal government—as did hundreds or thousands of other transit agencies.

Heeding public health officials’ advice, including “social distancing,” is critical to slowing the spread of COVID-19 cases. But these essential practices also will bring unfortunate side effects: cancelled events, new work from home policies, and other ways of practicing social distancing will result in millions of transit trips not taken and profoundly affect transit agencies’ viability. Revenue from riders makes up a huge piece of transit agencies’ budgets, and transit ridership will drop across the country. At the same time, transit agencies are investing in extra cleaning supplies and increased cleaning protocols, leading to increased costs which exacerbate the budgetary pressure from reduced ridership and revenue. 

The novel coronavirus will undoubtedly bring massive economic impacts on transit. If what happened in 2009 and 2010 repeats itself and Congress fails to take proper action, we will leave millions stranded without access to healthcare and other essential services, and not just in the short-term. Public transit service is and will continue to be vital and Congress must take strong action to support transit service—and ensure that transit will be robust and ready when this crisis is over.

We understand that this is a challenging time for all, and many sectors of our economy are in need of support. But we must ensure that investments made in transportation are targeted to the most impacted and most critical sectors, including public transportation. This will better address our needs today, and prepare our system for when this public health crisis subsides.  Policymakers should consider these principles when developing transportation policy as economic stimulus. 

1. Target funding to hardest hit transit agencies. 

This is not a spread-the-peanut-butter exercise. Regions are going to be impacted in different ways, with some losing ridership to a much greater extent than others.  Assistance should be appropriately targeted to the various needs of transit agencies. Sending more money to all transit agencies through the existing program is not targeted in this way and is not sufficient to address this problem.

2. Support transit agencies with operational assistance to avert service cuts or fare increases. 

In the last recovery act in 2009, additional transit funding was given for capital investment. During this crisis, it will be necessary to invest in public transit operations to ensure agencies are able to continue providing their essential services, especially to those who rely on it to reach medical services, and health care workers who rely on it to get to work. It won’t do any good to keep giving transit agencies money to buy new buses or railcars if they can’t afford to run them each day from A to B. Transit agencies will need money to preserve service.

Agencies receive money each year from the highway trust fund, dictated by federal formulas. But those funds are for capital spending, not operating. Current law (49 USC 5307) prohibits the use of these dollars for operational expenses in communities over 200,000 in population and therefore cannot address the loss of funds at the farebox used to fund transit operations in our larger metro areas where transit provides the greatest number of rides.

3. Prioritize investments which address equity and access. 

While loss of transit service is always an inconvenience, to those who depend on transit with no other option it can be particularly dangerous at this time. Those who rely on transit to reach medical care need to know that service will be there. And getting everyone who needs medical care to it early is essential to prevent a greater spread of this virus. In addition, there are scores of healthcare workers who will continue to need reliable transit service to get to their jobs caring for the sick.

While we encourage policymakers to consider these principles, we recommend the following specific policies to support public transit agencies and riders: 

Responding to the immediate crisis:

  • Provide targeted funding for transit operating expenses. This should address revenue shortfalls as a result of lost ridership, as well as increased expenses due to more cleaning. Funding should be targeted to those agencies with the most demonstrated need.  
  • Provide additional funding for purchasing personal protective equipment (PPE) (including gloves, antibacterial sanitizer, soap, etc). 
  • Provide funding necessary to cover costs for employees who must be quarantined, and any overtime necessary to make up for reduced numbers of employees. 

Sustaining essential service beyond the crisis: 

Traditional funding formulas are based on previous year ridership. If ridership were to go down this year, that could not only impact current budgets, but it would reduce what agencies receive through their formulas for next year. 

  • To protect impacted agencies from future cuts, Congress should create a hold harmless provision, or direct the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) to use ridership numbers from a year previous to the crisis.

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

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

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

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

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

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

1. Provide adequate resources for transit maintenance

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

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

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

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

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

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

4. Provide operating support for public transit

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

5. Fund transit and roads equally

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why this matters

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

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

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

Crookston, MN: Where investment in public transit and hard-working Americans “help buses come alive”

Last week Transportation for America traveled to one of New Flyer of America’s transit bus manufacturing facilities in northern Minnesota to meet with state and local leaders like State Representative Deb Kiel, and get a close look at the economic impact of public transportation dollars on Minnesota manufacturing jobs.

State and local leaders get an inside look at New Flyer of America’s transit bus production line in Crookston, MN. New Flyer proudly flies both the US and Canadian flag as part of NFI Group Inc., a multinational company and North America’s largest bus manufacturer with 31 facilities across the U.S. and Canada.

When Americans think about transit, the first thing that comes to mind might be a bus or train moving people in a coastal, bustling urban area. But the work of manufacturing that bus or railcar—as well as its thousands of component parts— is made possible by the billions in state, local, and federal funds invested in transit each year. And those dollars have effects that ripple out to communities of nearly all sizes across the country.

Last week, we convened state and local leaders like State Representative Deb Kiel, Crookston Mayor Wayne Melbye, staff from U.S. Representative Colin Peterson’s office, and others at New Flyer of America’s transit bus manufacturing facility in Crookston, MN for a discussion about how federal, state, and local money invested in public transportation supports and creates jobs in Minnesota and across the country.


(Left) Jennifer McNeill, New Flyer Vice President of Sales and Marketing talks with Craig Hoiseth, Executive Director at Crookston Housing & Economic Development Authority. (Right) Second from right, Rep. Deb Kiel, and other local leaders hear from New Flyer about the inner workings of the Crookston facility.

Crookston, located in the far northwest corner of the Minnesota, is home to one of New Flyer of America’s four transit bus manufacturing facilities in the U.S. New Flyer of America serves all 25 of the largest transit agencies in North America, and is responsible for about half of the transit buses we see on our roads today.

Each week at the Crookston facility alone, they produce about 20 buses that end up serving communities across the U.S. On the tour we saw technicians in this small, rural community in Minnesota hard at work to build buses destined for cities like Phoenix and San Francisco, painting a compelling picture of just how the supply chain for transit ripples from coast to coast.

New Flyer employs over 1,200 people between its two manufacturing facilities in Minnesota. Like many manufacturers, New Flyer needs a trained and consistent workforce to succeed; both time and money are wasted if you have to retrain a workforce every few years. As Jennifer McNeill, New Flyer Vice President of Sales and Marketing, noted, these are skilled manufacturing jobs, not jobs that can be switched on and off as needed.


(Left) New Flyer employees building out the inside of a bus. (Right) Chairman of Transportation for America, John Robert Smith, speaks to the economic impact of public transportation dollars on manufacturing jobs.

70 percent of New Flyer’s buses are purchased with public dollars, and it’s clear that these Minnesota manufacturing jobs—and others in Alabama, Indiana, Kentucky, New York, Washington, and Wisconsin—are directly reliant on the federal government continuing to make smart investments in transit.

Unfortunately, ongoing transit funding isn’t entirely certain today. The U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) has been slow to award grants from the major federal program that helps communities make new investments in high-quality transit service. But the issue goes beyond discretionary grant programs. Congress has had difficulty passing multi-year transportation funding bills and finding dedicated funding sources for transportation. Before passing the FAST Act in December 2015 (which funds federal transportation investments through 2020), Congress passed 35 short-term extensions, which creates the kind of uncertainty that threatens manufacturing jobs that depend on a stable pipeline of orders and projects.

Federal money invested in public transportation each year leverages local and state funding and supports thousands of high paying manufacturing jobs in communities like Crookston, and in nearly every state across the country. Our recent report on the public transportation supply chain found that 91 percent [396 of 435] of congressional districts host at least one manufacturer.

Without predictable and stable federal and state funding, we may see transit agencies cut projects and be pressured to cancel bus and railcar orders from manufacturers across the country like New Flyer.

Federal investments in transit go far beyond building buses and trains for big cities. The transit supply chain supports high quality, valuable, and sustainable jobs in communities like Crookston all across the country. As members of Congress are considering federal appropriations and future long-term transportation funding bills, they should remember the hard working Americans in communities of all sizes that depend on transit funding.  

Photo courtesy of New Flyer

Cities eager to receive transit dollars from USDOT are receiving letters instead

Instead of approving projects and providing the money cities have applied for, USDOT is “allowing” cities to move ahead with construction on transit capital projects and incur costs that might one day be reimbursed by USDOT.

A few weeks ago, Streetsblog LA reported that Metro in Los Angeles had received a letter from USDOT that allows them to proceed with construction on their Purple Line subway westward toward the beach. (Bold type ours):

At this morning’s Metro Construction Committee, CEO Phil Washington announced that Metro had received a federal letter of no prejudice (LONP) for construction to proceed on the third phase of the Westside Purple Line. Washington aptly described this as a “big deal,” as this was the first major transit project that this administration has approved to proceed to the federal New Starts engineering phase. The federal letter of no prejudice covers an initial $491 million, nearly all for tunnel construction. The LONP guarantees that the feds will reimburse the local expenditures under a forthcoming full-funding grant agreement (FFGA).

Guarantees? Not quite. Los Angeles is right to treat this as a positive development, but these types of letters do not guarantee any federal money for transit projects.

Here’s what Obama’s USDOT said about these types of letters in a batch of policy guidance from early 2017, just before the transition:

Pre-award authority is not a legal or implied commitment that the subject project will be approved for FTA assistance or that FTA will obligate Federal funds. Furthermore, it is not a legal or implied commitment that all items undertaken by the applicant will be eligible for inclusion in the project. …Federal funding…is not implied or guaranteed by an [Letter of No Prejudice.] (pp 20, 22.)

By starting construction on this project without the full guarantee of funding, LA Metro is taking a risk, but they are still making a pretty rational decision. Just like the other cities with transit projects in the pipeline, Los Angeles is fully expecting that USDOT will do their job as required by law—something they’ve always done—and approve projects in a timely matter in order to obligate the $2.3 billion Congress provided in 2017 and 2018.

LA has a project with expiring construction bids due to USDOT’s delays up to this point, is on a tight timeline to have service running in time for the 2028 Olympics, and has already raised billions in local funds to pay their share.

Under previous administrations, whenever a city received one of these letters, their project was typically approved. So why should anyone be skeptical when this USDOT provides these letters? Here are two reasons:

  • This particular administration at USDOT has no established track record of advancing multi-year transit projects. If they were sending out these letters at the same time as they were routinely signing other grant agreements and obligating dollars to other multi-year transit projects, there would certainly be a level of trust established, as has been the case with previous administrations.
  • This administration has gone on the record multiple times asking Congress to provide them with zero dollars for multi-year transit projects that don’t yet have signed funding agreements — projects just like those in Los Angeles and Minneapolis, a region that is also awaiting final approval.

Cities are only in this difficult position because USDOT has failed to advance transit projects through the process in a clear, transparent, and timely manner.

While USDOT will hopefully approve LA’s project and award them funding, possibly before the end of this year, what about the other cities who are a little further behind in the process?

On the one hand, you can get a letter from USDOT that says you’re free to proceed and spend your own dollars on a big-ticket transit project, and that they won’t “prejudice” the eventual review of your application with the fact that you started building a project that wasn’t yet fully approved.

On the other hand, this administration at FTA and USDOT has twice asked Congress to eliminate all transit capital dollars, save for the money they’re already on the hook to provide for the projects that have pre-existing funding agreements.

Los Angeles is in a position where they can spend their own money to get started, counting on USDOT to (eventually) follow the law and award the money Congress appropriated. But other smaller cities or cities with more tenuous local funding might not be able to spend millions with the non-binding promise that they’ll eventually be reimbursed.

USDOT is creating an unnecessarily risky situation for cities. If you are one of the cities that’s ready or nearly ready but awaiting funding from USDOT, why trust a non-binding letter from an administration that’s already asked Congress to appropriate zero dollars for your project in the budget?

We’re eager to give credit to FTA when it’s due and they get these projects moving, but that time hasn’t yet arrived.

Cities left in the dark by an agency that once partnered with them to build new transit

Many local transit project sponsors are in the dark about the status of their applications for federal transit funds, left to wonder why the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) has not granted funding to their projects. But these cities have remained publicly quiet about it for fear of harming their chances of eventually receiving funding, taking the pressure off the administration to fund and support transit projects.

As we have previously identified, the Trump administration is sitting on almost $1.8 billion to build and expand new public transit projects. What was once a collaborative process with clear communication and milestones between FTA and project sponsors has become opaque, murky, and unclear.

For this reason, over the last few months, we at T4America have spent some time interviewing the majority of these communities. While each community’s story is unique and none wanted to go on the record, several common themes emerged:

  1. A lack of transparency
  2. Unexplained delays from FTA over processing final paperwork, most often connected to political offices within USDOT
  3. FTA’s poor communication and slowed-down process is leading to potential delays and cost increases for local taxpayers
  4. Not all projects have faced delays

1) A lack of transparency

Both of President Trump’s budget proposals so far have asked Congress to provide zero dollars for new transit projects. FTA has cited these budget requests (twice rejected by Congress) as a rationale for breaking with precedent and no longer providing Congress (and the public) with annual reports clearly detailing which new projects would receive funding that year, if Congress appropriates the dollars (which Congress has done.) This lack of transparency has eliminated local project sponsors’ ability to point to their project in these annual reports and, therefore, hold FTA accountable for keeping to their timeline.

In addition, FTA has privately told some project sponsors that the failure of the Wave Streetcar project in Ft. Lauderdale, FL, required them to delay other projects, ostensibly to evaluate the risk of cost increases. According to a number of communities, FTA staff communicated that they would not sign new grant agreements for a period of months after the Wave Streetcar failure. But FTA has done nothing to explain (to the public or sponsors) precisely how the failure of a single project in Florida has any bearing on other projects in other states that have been advancing through the pipeline. Further, while the Wave Streetcar is certainly a failure in that it is not being built, the federal government never lost a dime on the project—a win for the process from their standpoint.

2) Unexplained delays from FTA over processing final paperwork, most often connected to political offices within USDOT

Several local project sponsors we spoke to described many months of bizarre hurdles and unexplained delays. In virtually all instances, project sponsors described helpful and productive conversations with the career FTA staff, which were subsequently undermined by kafkaesque levels of bureaucracy within the offices of the Secretary and Deputy Secretary at USDOT. One community described regional FTA career staff informing them that they just didn’t know why their project was delayed. Ultimately, it took personal inquiries from their House and Senate delegations before FTA provided information and ultimately advanced the project.  

Another community described productive conversations with regional career staff until the project was elevated to the USDOT Secretary’s office, at which point communication stalled, and the project was inexplicably delayed for months. Again, personal involvement by their House and Senate delegation was required to get the project moving again.

Ultimately, it appears that high-level political influence is the only surefire method for finally advancing a project, as happened with the Caltrain electrification project approved early last year, where members of the California congressional delegation wrote to Sec. Elaine Chao, and/or set up meetings with her or her staff.

Still other sponsors described situations where FTA staff who would highlight flaws in an application without providing instructions or a timeline for addressing them. Imagine taking your car to the mechanic and being told only that the car is broken, leaving you on your own to guess what’s wrong with it. This has resulted in countless wasted hours attempting to understand the flaw, guessing at what FTA would consider an acceptable solution, and having multiple conversations with FTA staff to present updated applications. Under previous administrations, the FTA was a partner, cooperating with cities to both put together the best possible projects and help actively shepherd them through the process toward receiving funding and getting built.

That is clearly no longer the case.

3) FTA’s poor communication and slowed-down process is leading to potential delays and cost increases for local taxpayers

The two major construction bids for the SW light rail project in Minneapolis expired at the end of September while the agency waited for word from USDOT & FTA.

For many localities, the delays described above have affected project sponsors’ contracting schedule, either jeopardizing their ability to pay contractors or delaying their ability to award contracts (leading to cost increases). In Los Angeles, some construction bids were set to expire in early October. In Minneapolis, where they were hoping to begin construction this fall on the SW light rail extension before the weather gets harsh, their biggest construction bids expired at the end of September as they awaited word from FTA. (One bidder has given an extension, the other has not.) Both cities are still waiting for approval from FTA to fund their projects.

Several localities described cost increases associated with these delays. And one community described a prime contractor that was turning away work because it was committed to working on their project, yet the locality was unable to pay the contractor because its grant was delayed.

To address this issue, some localities have requested something called letters of no prejudice which allows them to begin spending their own money on a project and later receive reimbursement from FTA (if they are awarded a grant). But these letters are really a formality, providing zero guarantees from FTA that their projects will ever be approved. In this scenario, these communities are spending more local money up front for aspects of a project that should have been funded by a federal grant. By delaying and refusing to sign grant agreements, FTA is putting the onus on locals to spend more money to keep these projects alive while waiting for FTA. This is occuring all while FTA is often unable to articulate what is standing in the way of their approval.

4) Not all projects have faced delays

Finally, in the interest of fairness, we note that not all projects have been delayed. A small number of localities we spoke to have described a consistently productive relationship with FTA, and this is indeed good news. Unfortunately, the overwhelming majority of communities are either waiting or are unclear about the status of their projects.

And this is also true: USDOT has yet to approve a major multi-year full-funding grant agreement for a larger rail transit project, after signing two early in 2017 that were largely processed by the previous administration. All of the other approvals thus far have been small or single-year projects that don’t come with future fiscal obligations for FTA — an important distinction considering the fact that they’re likely to (once again) only ask Congress for enough money to fund the in-progress projects for which FTA is legally required to continue funding.

And the numbers do not lie. FTA is sitting on almost $1.8 billion dollars. How much longer must communities wait?

Alex Beckmann and Stephen Lee Davis contributed to this post.

With the 2018 fiscal year over, how much money has USDOT obligated to transit projects?

The 2018 fiscal year closed yesterday, wrapping up a year in which USDOT received more than $1.4 billion from Congress to invest in new transit construction and improvement projects across the country. With another infusion of cash for FY 2019 coming (eventually), it’s time for a look at how much USDOT still has on hand from 2018—as well as the unspent funds from FY 2017.

With fiscal 2018 now in the books and 2017 more than a year behind us, USDOT still has nearly $1.8 billion in unspent funds at their disposal from these two years for new transit. They’ve obligated a total of $532 million in 2017-2018 dollars to just eight transit projects, with just $100 million of that from FY 2018.

Perhaps one reason why USDOT has awarded so little of the funding from this year is because they still have almost half of the $925 million that Congress gave them back in May 2017. That fiscal year now closed more than a year ago.

USDOT’s bank account is actually about to get even bigger.

While the 2019 budget is still awaiting final action by Congress, the relevant committees from both chambers have already approved their 2019 budgets for transportation (and housing) programs. And as it stands now, both the House and Senate would infuse the transit capital program with more than $2.5 billion. While about half of that money would be for advancing ongoing multi-year transit projects that USDOT already approved, approximately $1.5 billion would be intended to advance new projects in the pipeline that are expecting to sign agreements with USDOT sometime in 2019 or beyond.

Before the end of the calendar year, without advancing any big-ticket transit projects, USDOT could have more than $3 billion on hand to obligate to transit projects.

If this budget is approved by Congress, it will mark the third straight time that they’ve rejected USDOT’s preference to receive zero dollars to advance new transit projects. Remember, this was their request for the 2019 budget (emphasis ours):

The FY 2019 [budget] proposal limits funding for the CIG Program to projects with existing full funding grant agreements. For the remaining projects in the CIG program, FTA is not requesting or recommending funding. Future investments in new transit projects would be funded by the localities that use and benefit from these localized projects.

To hear FTA tell it, they’re wondering what the big fuss is all about. Last week the FTA’s Acting Administrator Jane Williams spoke to the American Public Transportation Association at their annual conference. During her remarks, she expressed surprise at all the hand-wringing about FTA’s signature transit program:

Unfortunately, the administration’s efforts to support our nation’s infrastructure are many times overlooked by the focus on the Capital Investment Grants (CIG) Program. I know a lot of you in the room have very strong opinions about this administration’s approach toward the CIG program. Even though this program represents less than 20 percent of FTA’s budget, it seems to occupy 80 percent of the attention.

A huge share of FTA’s funds are distributed via formulas—FTA has no discretion to turn off that faucet even if they wanted to. So yes, the public is very interested in the single biggest available federal funding stream to pair with billions raised by local taxpayers to advance new transit projects across the country. Leaders in places like Atlanta might understandably be wondering about the future of their ambitious $2.5 billion transit plan that hinges on receiving funding from a program that USDOT would prefer Congress wind down.

Further on in her remarks, Acting Administrator Williams claims credit for projects that they actually haven’t funded yet:

In fact, in just the last six weeks…

  • Allocated $100 million in funding toward our planned multi-year FFGA for the Seattle Lynnwood Link Extension light rail line, and
  • Allocated $99 million in funding toward our planned FFGA for the Santa Ana, California streetcar project.

USDOT has not yet signed funding agreements nor obligated any funds to the Lynnwood (WA) Link light rail project and the Orange County (CA) Streetcar. Claiming credit for “allocating” funding to them is like telling your kids that they need to write thank-you notes for the presents they might get for Christmas, if they’re good.

Congress isn’t likely to act on the 2019 budget before the November elections—the president signed a continuing resolution to fund the federal government through December 7—but when they do, they’ll be filling up the USDOT purse with yet more funding for transit. Stay tuned.

Burlington, North Carolina embraces transit in a growing community

Residents in Burlington, NC have greater access to jobs today thanks to a new transit system, which launched in 2016. A far cry from a large, transit-rich city, Burlington is showing how important public transportation can be for smaller communities. Many residents are already pushing for service extensions and longer hours for the fledgling system.

Link Transit’s current route map. (Image: Link Transit)

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Burlington, NC is located roughly halfway between Greensboro and Durham/Chapel Hill just north of Interstate 85 with a population of approximately 52,000. (For comparison, places like Allen, TX and Greeley, CO are home to about twice as many people as Burlington.) But up until 2016 this growing area had only a countywide, on-demand shuttle service operated by Alamance County Transit Authority (ACTA). Reliable, fixed-route transit was nonexistent.

Burlington sits at roughly the center of Alamance County, NC. The county is shaded red. (Image: Google Maps)

As the town and region grew, increasing transportation options to provide better access to jobs and opportunity became more important. “Our citizens are starting to expect it as an option, whether they use it once a week or everyday,” said Mike Nunn, Burlington’s Transportation Director. “We need this as an option in our community.”

“We had a lot of folks who had never been from one side of the community to the other. They hadn’t been to the new retail development because they didn’t have transportation—nor could they get a job in that area because they didn’t have transportation,” Nunn said on a recent T4America’s webinar.

The Burlington-Graham Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO), which encompasses all of Alamance County, actually began planning a fixed route service all the way back in 2008. Nunn emphasized that an important piece of the planning effort included educating the public and local elected officials because the community was unfamiliar with the benefits of a fixed-route transit system.

The Burlington Amtrak station. (Image: Ildar Sagdejev, Wikimedia)

In June 2016, LinkTransit began serving Burlington and other nearby cities. The service consists of five color-coded routes connecting in the center of Burlington and extending to neighboring Graham and Gibsonville. LinkTransit connects to intercity express bus service that goes east to Chapel Hill and west to Greensboro, as well as Amtrak service.

LinkTransit links employers to employees

Nicole, a Burlington resident, told local Fox 8 how important the new transit service was for her. She said she couldn’t afford a car and finding reliable transportation to her job at Best Buy was a challenge: “It’s been really tough getting back and forth to work because you never know if someone’s going to pick you up or drop you off,” she said. “So at least now I know I’ve got a concrete way to get to work.”

Though the service currently only operates from 5:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m., Monday to Friday, residents are already requesting greater frequency, new stops, and expanded hours to meet non-traditional commute schedules.

“Everyone would like it to run seven days a week already,” said Nunn. “We are sixteen months in, and that is the first thing we hear. And also, for employment, to go to 7:30 or 8:30 at night. That’s a funding issue. That just takes dollars.”

Businesses are also responding. Nunn added that employers are frequently advertising their jobs as “on the green route” or “on the purple route.” LinkTransit already extended a main commuter route, the Orange Line, adding two additional stops near three hotels, a truck stop, and industrial suppliers like Delta Gypsum and Ferguson. Before the route extension, riders would get off at the end of the line and walk more than a half mile and under a highway overpass to reach jobs at these businesses.

Alamance Crossing, Burlington’s second and newest (outdoor) shopping mall, is served by the red route. The Holly Hill Mall is served by the red and blue routes. (Image: A_Moffa, LocalWiki)

The new bus service was a major factor in the decision of PRA Group to open a 500-job call center at Burlington’s Holly Hill Mall in 2017. The debt-buying company, which has more than 5,000 employees in offices in twelve countries, cited public transit access as a major factor in their selection of the mall site, which is strategically located at the transfer stop for the red and blue bus lines.

“Access to a skilled workforce is the number one consideration of companies looking for a new location,” said Peter Bishop, City of Burlington Economic Development Director. “LinkTransit provides a critical piece of infrastructure in our efforts to compete with other communities for new jobs and investment.”

Do you work for an operator of a rural transit system? Are you someone who rides it frequently? We want to hear from you.

Share your rural or small city transit story here

Gov. Accountability Office: The FTA “runs the risk of violating federal law”

With the release last week of Stuck in the Station, we detailed how the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) has been delaying the distribution of $1.4 billion to help build and expand transit systems across the country. 153 days (and counting) after Congress handed billions to USDOT and the FTA, they finally spoke up last week.

After the release of Stuck in the Station last week, FTA responded through a spokesperson, disputing our claim that any of the 17 projects on the list are “ready-to-go,” stating that “none of the projects listed have met the requirements in law for receipt of Capital Investment Grants funding.”

Putting aside the obvious point that FTA’s reason for existence is to help shepherd communities through the process and meet the requirements, it’s incredibly unclear—even to the locals trying to build these projects, in many cases—where these projects stand in the process.

“The public and project sponsors have had very little information about what additional steps are required by USDOT to move their projects forward,” said T4America senior policy advisor Beth Osborne, in response to FTA’s comments. “FTA saying only ‘we are reviewing these projects’ does virtually nothing to illuminate their procedure. In the past, the administration would provide information in the budgetary process about which projects are expected to move forward. In a break with that common practice, this administration hasn’t done that, so we pulled from the information available on FTA’s website. If that information is not sufficient to understand where projects stand, it further demonstrates how opaque this process has become.”

To this point, we’ve already heard that several project sponsors are in the dark about the status of their projects or exactly what FTA is waiting to receive from them to move forward.

FTA suggested in their response to reporters that ten projects have received “new” full funding grant agreements (FFGAs) since 2017. But only two of those are actual big ticket New Starts or Core Capacity transit projects: The CalTrain electrification project and the Maryland Purple Line project were both holdovers from the Obama administration that moved forward because of intense political pressure or the resolution of a pending legal dispute, respectively. The other eight projects FTA shared with one reporter were all Small Starts projects, but only one of those received any funding from FY18. All of the rest were funded through money still unobligated from one of the last two fiscal years (FY16-17).

Why isn’t there a clear list published by USDOT with the dates these agreements were signed? And how much money from the previous year (FY17) has USDOT still not obligated at this point? Why is it so hard to find this information?

FTA suggests in their statement that they’re working to advance the rest of these transit projects in the pipeline, but their true position is in fact the opposite, which they’ve made crystal clear elsewhere: transit is not a federal priority and only projects with current grant agreements should receive federal dollars.

Here’s what FTA says in their FY19 Annual Report of Funding Recommendations: (emphasis ours; CIG stands for the transit Capital Investment Grant program.)

The FY 2019 [budget] proposal limits funding for the CIG Program to projects with existing full funding grant agreements. For the remaining projects in the CIG program, FTA is not requesting or recommending funding. Future investments in new transit projects would be funded by the localities that use and benefit from these localized projects.

There it is in black and white: USDOT and FTA’s position for next year’s budget is that the pipeline of transit projects should grind to a halt completely, leaving cities and communities on their own to raise yet more local funding than they already have to complete their projects.

In sad attempt at a fig leaf, the FTA also tossed this red herring into their response:

In addition, FTA has made available almost $10 billion in FY18 formula funding and $534 million in funding for other competitive programs.

That’s nice, but those funds have nothing to do with the transit program they are tasked with administering. They are formula dollars, which are awarded by Congress automatically from the Highway Trust Fund. USDOT is merely a pass-through for those funds with some oversight responsibilities.

Lastly, Congress is also concerned that USDOT is slowing down the pipeline and dragging their heels on advancing projects. Two things Congress has done recently suggest this.

1) There’s language in this year’s final approved omnibus budget that says that FTA has to obligate 85 percent of the transit capital program funds by the end of 2019. No one at T4America can remember any language like this from Congress to FTA, probably because FTA has never slow-rolled the process down like this before. And 2) for next year’s funding, in the Senate FY19 transportation and housing bill, the Senate also expressed their concerns about unnecessary delays from FTA with this report language on page 74:

“Project Pipeline.–The (Appropriations) Committee is concerned with unnecessary delays for projects seeking advancement into engineering or a grant agreement. These delays are costly for local project sponsors and create uncertainty for transit planners and providers across the country. The Committee directs the Secretary to continue to advance eligible projects into project development and engineering in the capital investment grant evaluation, rating, and approval process pursuant to 49 U.S.C. 5309 and section 3005(b) of the FAST Act in all cases when projects meet the statutory criteria.”

As that same Senate report says later on, FTA is trying to use the President’s budget request (which has no legal authority and is largely a statement of principles and priorities) to keep from doing what Congress has already mandated that they do — move the pipeline of new projects forward and tell the public what projects will receive funding:

The Committee is particularly concerned that FTA has no immediate plans to address outstanding statutory provisions because the Administration’s budget request does not include any new CIG projects. The Committee is dismayed that FTA is ignoring statutory mandates in order to reflect a budget request that has been consistently rejected by Congress and directs the Department to implement the GAO recommendations within 60 days of the date of enactment of this act.

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) report (pdf) referenced by the Senate committee in the last sentence above is a flaming arrow directed at FTA. (Laura Bliss at CityLab also covered this report today in this superb piece.)

Commissioned by Congress, this report from May reaches some damning conclusions about FTA’s process with the pipeline of transit projects, and intimates that they’re coming dangerously close to failing to follow the law. Most shockingly, the FTA has told the GAO directly that they aren’t planning to do what Congress has directed them to do because the president is trying (and repeatedly failing) to end all transit funding anyway, so why bother. That’s not how the law works, however:

However, as also mentioned earlier, in March 2018 the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2018, provided the [transit capital] program with more than $2.6 billion, and also directed FTA to continue to administer the Capital Investment Grants program in accordance with the program’s procedural and substantive requirements. Following the enactment of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2018, FTA officials told us that they are reviewing the law and determining next steps. However, they did not indicate that they have any immediate plans to address those provisions. Moving forward, if FTA does not take steps to address the outstanding provisions, FTA runs the risk of violating federal law.

An administration that has been so publicly focused on speeding up project delivery, cutting red tape, and moving transportation projects along as fast as humanly possible has become the biggest obstacle for the timely delivery of transit projects that scores of local communities are depending on.

Every day that they delay, materials get more expensive, workers and equipment sit idle, and local taxpayers will end up having to pay more than they should have.

It seems that everyone other than our country’s Federal Transit Administration is interested in moving these transit projects forward in a way that’s clear, transparent, and expeditious.

What’s wrong with this picture?

The Paris Metro in small-town Texas

While many people think of public transit as a big city service, transit also serves scores of residents in small towns and rural areas across the country. New transit service in the small city of Paris, TX (pop.  25,000) offers the first reliable public transportation option that residents can use to travel to work, classes, and job training.

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The Ark-Tex Council of Governments Rural Transit District (TRAX) serves a 10-county area in the northeast corner of Texas, including one county in Arkansas, along the border with Oklahoma (about 100 miles northeast of Dallas). Given the vast area TRAX serves, their regional transit service is operated on-demand, with reservations made 24 hours in advance.

Paris, TX—marked with the maroon pin—is in the rural, northeast corner of Texas.

Although this on-demand service provides a vital lifeline for residents making critical trips to reach health care or reach a grocery store, the advance notice required, the limited availability of rides, and small fleet presents some very real limitations on the service’s ability to meet daily and emerging transportation needs.

According to former Paris, TX Councilman Edwin Pickle, city leaders realized that the region’s meager transit options were a barrier for residents, and that they needed to help find a solution.

“We started realizing transportation was a bigger problem because people couldn’t get to their medical needs, couldn’t get to their grocery stores, they couldn’t get anywhere,” Pickle said on T4America’s webinar.

With support from the city and several local partners, TRAX launched new fixed-route bus service running on a regular schedule in 2016. The service consists of four routes in Paris, TX known as the Paris Metro. Buses run hourly between 6:30 a.m. and 6:00 p.m., Monday through Friday.

The Paris Metro logo, which appears on the side of their buses.

The “Paris Metro”

According to TRAX transportation manager Nancy Hoehn, the new routes “have gone a long way towards meeting the community’s needs for jobs access.”

“We have heard from a lot of the social service agencies in Paris that work with a target population of lower-income and transit-dependent people. When they would go to interview in the past and were asked if they had reliable transportation, the answer was no. Well, now the answer can be yes. Just that, in itself, has been huge for the community at large.”

Hoehn credits community involvement during the research and planning stages with developing a bus service that supports all members of the community. Community organizations like New Hope Center of Paris, which works with individuals and families experiencing homelessness, helped the agency identify crucial points of origin and destinations for riders. Now, the Paris Metro stops on the corner directly outside the New Hope facility, giving residents access to medical treatment, social services, and education.

Procuring funding for the new service depended on a combination of public and private partners. Local sponsors include the Paris Regional Medical Center, United Way of Lamar County, Paris Junior College, the City of Paris, The Results Company, Texas Oncology, and local private foundations.

Along with local funding partners, federal funds were critical for launching the service.

“We would not exist if it were not for the federal funds that come through TxDOT,” said Hoehn. “In the local counties we serve, the income levels are low and the counties are strapped just to fund the things they are responsible for. That’s why we’ve tried to be creative with our match money to come from other sources.”

Serving all residents and engaging the community

The Paris Metro was tailored to meet the specific transportation needs of each sponsoring partner.

For example, the Paris Regional Medical Center, the largest employer in the city, is located outside the city center and was previously inaccessible by transit. While dependable transportation was important for employees getting to work, hospital management knew that lack of reliable transportation was also a major impediment to quality health care. Patients discharged from the hospital were often unable to reach necessary follow-up care, like physical therapy, and were winding up back in the hospital as a result. Now, the Paris Metro allows residents to reach scheduled appointments rather than coming in through the emergency room.

Map of the four Paris Metro routes.

The medical center not only made financial contributions to launch the new Paris Metro fixed route service, but also donated office space to manage it. The exterior of this donated space has become a new bus station for the city and is now served by Greyhound and rural transit, as well as the Metro.

Similar adjustments in service were made for other sponsoring partners. Texas Oncology’s patients need door-to-door service, so the route loops through the clinic’s parking lot. The clinic installed a signal light on the street to alert bus drivers when there are riders to pick up. Paris Junior College has students with disabilities who had trouble reaching classes because they lacked reliable transportation to school. To help their students reach classes and other daily needs, TRAX and the college created a discounted semester pass for students subsidized by Pell grant funds. Reliable, affordable transit allows students to enroll.

Fulfilling an unmet need

The new fixed route Paris Metro service has been a success, providing 50,000 rides in its first year. The Texas Transit Association recognized it with an award for “Innovative Project of the Year,” and TRAX is adding larger buses to accommodate the demand for rides.

Greg Wilson, member of the Executive Board of the Lamar County Chamber of Commerce and President of Lamar National Bank, which has branches in Paris, said that the bus service fulfills what was once an unmet need. “The impact of our bus system has exceeded all expectations when it comes to the impact on the local business community. I see people getting off the bus downtown to shop, visit our bank branches, and access medical care.”

For many households the new transit service provides freedom and flexibility, allowing parents to reach a job and giving young adults access to get to summer jobs, after school activities, or other programs. For these households, transit means added stability.

As the Metro enters its third year in operation, the city is looking forward to expanding the service in order to better serve the needs of the community.

Do you work for an operator of a rural transit system? Are you someone who rides it frequently? We want to hear from you.

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ICYMI Member Webinar: New round of BUILD Transportation Discretionary Grants now open

The U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) released the FY 2018 Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) for the program formerly known as Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER). The NOFO declares that USDOT has rebranded TIGER as the Better Utilizing Investments to Leverage Development or “BUILD” program. The criteria for funding under BUILD and TIGER are essentially the same—with one big caveat. Under BUILD, USDOT will now require applicants to provide evidence that they have secured and committed new, non-federal revenue for projects requesting funding. Read more here.

Listen to the exclusive preview of how to make your application stand out here. Our senior policy and transportation expert Beth Osborne, and Robert A. Mariner Deputy Director from the Office of Infrastructure Finance and Innovation at USDOT, went over the timeline, deadlines, and the new requirements of this round of applications.

Also, remember that we are here to help with your application. As a T4America member you get one-on-one time with our experts to discuss your application. Contact me at alicia.orosco@t4america.org to set up your meeting today!

Investing in transit fuels local economies across the country

Last week, we traveled to Indiana to bring Republican Rep. Jackie Walorski together with one of the 60 companies in her working-class district who build components for public transportation systems across the country, demonstrating how the public dollars devoted to transit support thousands of manufacturing jobs in communities all across the country.

Rep. Walorski, second from right, touring the floor at Kiel with Don Makarius, assistant chief operating officer for Kiel NA, second from left, and other Kiel managers. Photos courtesy of Rep. Walorski’s office.

At Transportation for America, we talk a lot about the nexus between federal investments in transit and economic prosperity. We do it because whenever federal transit dollars are leveraged with state and local funding to buy new buses, railcars or any component used by a public transit system, economies everywhere benefit, including in smaller towns and rural areas. And that means more jobs, more local tax revenue and more opportunity for communities—even those that may be the least served by public transit.

Last week, we brought Kiel North America together with their Congresswoman, U.S. Representative Jackie Walorski, to talk about the seats they produce in Elkhart, IN for interstate coaches, rail systems like BART in the Bay Area, and their growing business line for commuter buses that operate in larger metropolitan areas across the country.

Business is good in the ten counties that make up Indiana’s 2nd congressional district. Today, according to the Wall Street Journal, Elkhart city and the surrounding communities are experiencing labor shortages, rising home values and increased wages.

The local economy in Elkhart is dominated by RV (recreational vehicles) manufacturing, but Indiana’s 2nd district is also home to the highest concentration in the country of transit manufacturers and suppliers—at least 60—who produce everything from tracks, to seats, windows, communications equipment, wheels and everything else in between.

When large transit properties, like BART and others, are ready to buy, chances are good that Northwest Indiana is on the shopping list.

Nationwide, there are more than 2,700 transit manufacturers and suppliers, located in 49 states, employing more than 15,000 people. Last fall, Transportation for America examined the recent capital expenditures of four transit properties in San Francisco, Chicago, Denver and Portland and found that the capital outlays from just these four transit properties alone benefited communities in 21 states—communities like Elkhart.

View that full report here.

Continuing to make regular, predictable federal investments in transit will buttress local economies all across the country. The pipeline of transit projects in various stages of development awaiting federal grants for construction includes approximately 50 projects in 19 states. This pipeline means reliable business for the transit supply chain and allows companies to open specialized manufacturing facilities, keep workers employed, and have some measure of confidence that their business has the potential for more work in the future.

Kiel has about two-dozen employees today, but they believe they can triple the size of their workforce, given the opportunities already present in public transit marketplace. The pipeline of transit projects is a big deal to their future—the same pipeline that the Trump administration wants to pause indefinitely and eventually cancel entirely.

Thankfully, Congresswoman Walorski has become a champion for federally funded public transit investments. She led efforts in the House to fully fund the sole source of federal support for communities of any size that are expanding or improving public transportation service—new stations, new lines or improved capacity for rail or even bus rapid transit projects.

Her work, and that of her like-minded colleagues is finally paying off. Last month, Congress adopted and the president signed, the federal government’s FY18 spending plan that included $13.5 billion for public transit investments, including $2.6 billion for the transit Capital Investment Grant (CIG) program and $1.5 billion for the TIGER program, both important sources of funding for transit agencies that spend money in places like Elkhart.

All of this is very good news indeed, but the future is far from certain.

Last year, the Trump administration sought to severely reduce and phase out the transit capital program and to eliminate the TIGER program completely. The president’s FY19 budget recommendation seeks the same again. And there’s even a movement afoot by the president and some leadership in the House to potentially rescind portions of that budget deal, which could put transit funding back under the guillotine.

Without continued federal support, transit projects underway could stall, new or planned projects would be postponed or canceled, and transit agencies would scale back or cancel orders of new railcars or buses. The factories and suppliers—like Kiel—that produce or manufacture components for transit systems would have to downsize or shutter without a steady pipeline of projects.

Congress does not have to accept that future for Elkhart or any other community. We urge Congress to follow the lead of their colleague Rep. Walorski and others like her, by continuing to invest in the transit capital and TIGER programs. Maintain and expand funding for public transit investment so the Elkharts of America and thrive and grow.

Photo courtesy of Rep. Walorski’s office.

Catch up with the launch discussion of our new guide for improving & expanding transit

Catch up with yesterday’s launch webinar for T4America’s new guidebook, Fight for Your Ride: An advocate’s guide for expanding and improving transit, which offers tangible ways to improve transit in your city and region.

Quality transit service is increasingly becoming a “must-have” for economic development. Amazon’s HQ2 search is only the most public example of major businesses choosing locations with quality transit to expand. Quality transit is also vital to improving access to jobs and opportunity and creating pathways to prosperity for residents in your region. But how can business leaders, local elected leaders, or transportation advocates improve their local transit service?

T4America’s new guidebook, Fight for Your Ride: An advocate’s guide for expanding and improving transit, offers tangible ways you can make these needed improvements to transit in your city and region.

On a webinar to release the guide earlier this week, two local transit leaders—Karen Rindge, Executive Director of WakeUp Wake County in the Raleigh, NC area, and Christof Spieler, board member for Houston METRO—presented lessons from their successful transit initiatives. View the full webinar here:

Fight for Your Ride includes tactical guidance on how to build your coalition, how to hone your message, and how to advocate to your federal representatives. On the launch webinar, Karen Rindge shared her firsthand lessons from organizing a coalition and successful campaign in Wake County.

Rindge explained that the most important asset that helped power Wake County’s transit referendum campaign was a broad and diverse coalition. WakeUp didn’t wait until a referendum was on the ballot to build this coalition, but began nearly ten years ago engaging key partners in the effort to develop a regional transit plan and build up community support for new investments in transit. Having partners who could talk directly to different constituencies—like seniors, environmentalists, and African-American communities—allowed the campaign to cut through the crowded campaign news cycle and directly inform key voters about the referendum.

Fight for Your Ride also helps to diagnose transportation challenges in your region and offers examples of how other regions have made improvements to transit. The guide illustrates more than a dozen different approaches. Some, like building new transit lines, carry a large price tag and will take years to complete. But many of the solutions offered in the guide are smaller and can be implemented much more quickly. These include adding late night transit service, speeding buses through congested chokepoints, reducing fares for low-income youth riders, adding shuttle service to reach job sites, and realigning transit service.

On the webinar, Christof Spieler offered an example of this last tactic, presenting the story of how Houston Metro reimagined their bus system map to provide better service for riders without more funding.

Speiler explained that for METRO to change its service map, it first had to acknowledge that it was not providing useful service to all potential riders across the region.

It wasn’t that Houstonians wouldn’t ride the bus—data showed that on commuter corridors with quality bus service, more that a third of commuters were already choosing transit. But many dense corridors outside of downtown lacked frequent service, or were served by meandering routes that were too confusing for anyone except daily riders to understand. Spieler described the effort he and METRO’s leadership led to reroute all of Houston’s bus routes, all at once, to offer quality, frequent service across the city. He spoke about the obstacles they faced and how political support was critical for moving the new plan forward.

As he closed, Christof reminded us that improving transit is about more than just the right techniques or strategies — we have to be storytellers too.

“We need to talk about transit,” he said. “The more we tell the story of what transit does well, the more we tell the story of how to make transit effective, and the more we keep this on the front of people’s minds, the more success we’ll have in getting things done.”

We hope you will use Fight for Your Ride to plan efforts to improve transit in your community. We can help by leading workshops or leadership academies in your region to bring together diverse leaders and organize a transit improvement or turnaround plan.

Read the guide.

Fight for your ride: An advocate’s guide for expanding and improving transit

In their search for a second HQ site, Amazon’s essential requirement for high-quality transit was, in the words of Laura Bliss at The Atlantic, “a come to Jesus moment for cities where high-quality service has long been an afterthought.” In many regions, the public transportation service just isn’t up to the task, offering infrequent, slow service and poor access to job centers or critical destinations—turning away potential riders and punishing those who must rely on transit.

But long before Amazon’s kick in the pants last year, scores of community leaders, business leaders, local elected officials, and grassroots advocates have been looking for ways to change the status quo. Many are eager to improve their local transit systems to speed up commutes, expand access to jobs and opportunities, attract and retain businesses and talent, and grow their economies.

This Transportation for America guidebook, Fight For Your Ride: An advocate’s guide for improving & expanding transit, offers local advocates and transit champions practical advice for making real improvements to public transit. Drawing examples from successful campaigns and reform efforts in small, medium, and large cities across the country, the guide illuminates effective ways to speed up transit, expand its reach, and improve service for riders. It offers tactical lessons on building a coalition, developing an effective message, and organizing a campaign for better transit in your community.

Download your copy now >>

Introducing a new monthly podcast all about transit and development

Pittsburgh north shore skyline. (Photo Credit: Nick Amoscato via Flickr)

Last week, our colleagues at Smart Growth America launched Building Better Communities with Transit, a new podcast series at TODresources.org about transit-oriented development and how it improves communities across America.

There’s a deep well of expertise when it comes to undertaking or encouraging development around transit stations or along transit corridors. This new monthly podcast taps into that expertise to share the experiences of communities across the country, large and small, when it comes to development near transit of all shapes and sizes—heavy rail, bus and everything in between.

Transit-oriented development is not a one-size-fits-all solution and it’s vital that projects are tailored to each community’s specific needs. Yet, the principles are the same. Beginning this month, host Jeff Wood will invite experts for short conversations about how communities can catalyze smarter growth by encouraging new development around transit stations. Jeff and his guests will discuss the finer points of developing local policies to encourage TOD, engaging the public, securing sources for funding, and how certain communities are experiencing success, among other topics.

All of this is intended to support communities and local leaders who are working to catalyze new development around transit, give more people access to public transportation, increase access to opportunity, and build robust local economies.

Listen to the inaugural episode: Taming Pittsburgh’s Hostile Streets

For this first episode, Jeff Wood speaks with Breen Masciotra, transit-oriented development manager for the Port Authority of Allegheny County, PA, and Karina Ricks, director of the Department of Mobility and Infrastructure for the City of Pittsburgh. We discuss the challenges they face in Pittsburgh, including topography, new technologies, and hostile streets. You’ll also hear about how they’re making a more walkable and multi-modal city through new bus rapid transit projects, transit-oriented development initiatives, and “eco innovation districts.”

Recent Federal Activity Summary – Week of November 17th

As a valued member, Transportation for America is dedicated to providing you the latest information and developments around federal policy.

Tax Reform

House: On Thursday November 16th, the House of Representatives passed H.R. 1, the “Tax Cuts and Jobs Act,” also known as the Republican’s tax reform package. The bill passed by a vote of 227-205; 227 Republicans voted for the legislation, and 192 Democrats and 13 Republicans voted against the legislation.

What Does this Bill Mean for Transportation?

The bill proposes changes to commuter tax benefits for parking, van pooling, and riding transit and terminates private activity bonds (PAB’s). Employers will no longer be able to deduct or “write off” the subsidy they provide for fringe benefits, including commuting benefits. The bill maintains the ability for employers to provide either a pre-tax benefit or a subsidy. In the case of a subsidy, while the employer can no longer write off this expense, they will not have to pay payroll taxes on the fringe benefit. There is no change to the benefits associated with providing the pre-tax benefit.

Private activity bonds are tax-exempt bonds used to fund a whole range of infrastructure projects that have a “private” use of at least 10%. PAB’s have been used to finance a wide range of infrastructure projects around the country, including roads, highways, housing, hospitals and airports. Recently, PAB’s have been used to fund a lot of transportation projects that are using private public partnerships for financing, including the Purple line in Maryland and the Rapid Bridge Replacement Project in Pennsylvania.

The House’s elimination of PAB’s will greatly harm the ability for state and local governments and private entities to obtain financing and build infrastructure projects that use financing tools, such as toll roads and transit and rail stations. This step is directly at odds with President Donald Trump’s proposal to expand the use of PAB’s to help fulfill his promise to rebuild America’s infrastructure.

Senate: The Senate Finance Committee approved the Senate version of the tax reform package on Thursday November 16th by a party line vote of 14-12. All Republicans voted in favor and all Democrats were opposed. The Senate bill keeps both the commuter benefits and private activity bonds intact, but does eliminate the $20 a month benefit for people who bike to and from work. The House bill also eliminates the bike benefit. T4America is joint signatory of a letter to members of Congress urging them to preserve the bike benefit because it promotes physical activity, reduces traffic congestion and air pollution and promotes walkable communities.

The Senate is scheduled to consider the Senate Republican tax bill when they get back from Thanksgiving recess. Congressional Republicans and the White House hope to have a tax bill on President Trump’s desk by Christmas. It is still unclear whether the Republicans have the votes to pass the tax bill in the Senate. All the Democrats are opposed to the bill so Republicans can only lose two votes and still pass their bill. Right now, Senator Ron Johnson (WI) says he is opposed to the bill in its current form and other senators like Susan Collins (ME), Lisa Murkowski (AK), Bob Corker (TN) and Jeff Flake (AZ) continue to be undecided on if they will support the bill.

One final possible hiccup for the Republican tax reform bill is a congressional budget provision known as the “Pay As You Go” (paygo) rule”. Paygo requires immediate, across-the-board spending reductions to many mandatory programs like Medicare and Medicaid for any bill that reduces taxes and doesn’t fully offset them with revenue increases elsewhere. The GOP tax cut plan would add $1.5 trillion to the debt over the next decade. Under paygo rules, the government would have to make $150 billion in mandatory spending cuts every year for the next 10 years, unless that provision is waived with 60 votes in the Senate, which would require Democratic support. If the Paygo rule is not waived, not only will mandatory spending programs like Medicare take an automatic 4% spending cut, Congress will have to cut a lot of discretionary spending elsewhere to comply with the Paygo rules. Cuts to defense spending are a non political starter right now, so Congress would likely cut from the non-defense discretionary spending accounts. This fact means that funding for popular programs like TIGER, Capital Investment Grants and Amtrak are at risk to be severely cut back or even eliminated entirely if this tax reform bill passes.

The bottom line is that the Republican tax reform bill, especially the House version, will make it harder for state and local governments to make much needed infrastructure investments by stripping away financing tools that governments and private entities rely on. Additionally, the tax bill will potentially lead to devastating discretionary spending cuts that could eliminate programs like TIGER that we fight to fund every year because they are vital to our communities and economies. These two outcomes break the promises made by both the President and Congress to invest more in our infrastructure, not less.

U.S. Department of Transportation (U.S. DOT) Nominations Confirmed

During the week of November 13th, the U.S. Senate confirmed two U.S. DOT nominations. Derek Khan was confirmed to be Undersecretary of Transportation for Policy and Steven Bradbury was confirmed to be General Counsel for U.S. DOT. Mr. Kan’s nomination hearing was held in June and he had bipartisan support, but his nomination was held up by New York and New Jersey Senators concerned over the Trump’s administration’s withdrawal from a non-binding commitment with New York and New Jersey to fund half of the Gateway project. Mr. Kan was confirmed by a vote of 90-7.

Mr. Bradbury was confirmed by vote of 50-47. His nomination was more controversial because of his work at the Office of Legal Counsel in the Department of Justice under President George W. Bush. All Democratic Senators and Republican Senators John McCain (AZ) and Rand Paul (KY) opposed Mr. Bradbury’s nomination.

Nomination of Lynn Westmoreland

Additionally, the Senate Commerce and Transportation Committee on November 8th, reported favorably via voice vote the nomination of former Congressman Lynn Westmoreland to the Amtrak Board of Directors. There is no timeline right now for when the full Senate may consider his nomination.

Westmoreland served in Congress for twelve years, including a six-year stint on the Railroads Subcommittee of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. During Westmoreland’s tenure in Congress he voted twice to cut Amtrak’s funding, including a vote for a failed bill in 2009 that would have eliminated all federal funding for the passenger railroad.

At a confirmation hearing in the Senate Commerce Committee on October 31, Westmoreland said he does support Amtrak funding, but that “the Board should look at the long-distance routes” and “should shutter these ‘unprofitable’ routes.” In his response to written questions from Senator Roger Wicker (R-MS), a member of the committee, about his votes to cut funding for Amtrak’s long distance routes, Westmoreland deflected and said his vote for the 2015 FAST Act demonstrates his support for Amtrak because it “reauthorized funding for Amtrak.”

Amtrak will only survive politically if it is a robust national system that serves as many states and communities as possible. Mr. Westmoreland has not adequately justified his prior votes to cut Amtrak funding and considering his Senate Commerce Committee testimony; we remain extremely concerned about Mr. Westmoreland’s commitment to funding long distance train routes. Given the vital importance of long distance Amtrak routes and Mr. Westmoreland’s record in opposition to those routes, we don’t think he is a good fit for the Amtrak board.

Sign-on letter to support transit capital funding

Reps. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) and Jackie Walorski (R-IN) are leading a sign-on letter calling for funding for the transit Capital Investment Grant program in the FY2018 federal funding bill. These champions are collecting signatures on this important letter, which they will then send the to senior appropriators and leadership. Please let your Representatives know how important transit funding is to your region and encourage them to sign on to this letter. We will keep you updated on the timing of the appropriations process and negotiations.